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Back to Work

Episode 137: Alice Two Arrows Bob

Back to Work

5by5

Business, Society & Culture, Barriers, Dan Benjamin, Careers, Communication, Merlin Mann, Creativity, Work, Productivity, Constraints, Technology

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2013

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

TOPIC: Etiquette, Intros, and Endorsements

This week, Dan and Merlin talk about the surprisingly complicated topic of email introductions.

Who emails whom? Who gets cc'd and for how long? How much homework are we making (or accepting)? And, thorniest of all, how do you ““introduce”” someone you'd reeeeeeally rather not introduce?

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Here's the thing, Dan. Today, let's just see that it's a different world, the way that

0:04.9

we interact with each other. It's changed so much. And yet, and yet, oh, hey, how's it going,

0:11.3

Dan? Everything feels good. You want to, you want to target? I had to get one of these,

0:18.3

one of these TSA locks. And did you do any research or I think you'd said offline that you were

0:26.6

kind of just stuck with whatever target I am? I am. I am really stuck with it. And it, it sucks

0:31.2

because this is the kind of thing you want to research. This are good couple months. You know,

0:35.9

you feel like you're going in there like, uh, loose cannon if you don't, but I just could write

0:40.4

an iBook about it. Oh my God. And that'd be great. He'd have to compare 10, 15 of these different

0:46.3

ones. And mostly what he'd talk about, I think, would be the feel of the, the combo dial.

0:51.7

You know, one, one, one, one, one in a combo, combo dial. Yeah. One's a little,

0:57.0

this one sticks a little bit, which I like, but it sticks too much. It's like when you change

1:01.5

the radio station on a BMW, you know, you should really, oh, you know, you should feel good.

1:06.4

You hit the turn signal and you know, it's dust left driving should be an experience. You

1:10.6

shouldn't just get there safely. That's true. It should be something you experience. I want to,

1:15.6

I want to feel something when I, um, drop my, I wish I could feel anything down. Literally,

1:21.1

just everything's gone. You know what? Uh, yesterday, uh, two days ago, I was having lunch with

1:25.2

someone and they were asking me in complete seriousness. Uh, they were asking me two people,

1:33.6

whatever happened with your pinched nerve. Uh, and I said, I don't, I don't know. We never really

1:38.7

went into detail. I said, maybe he doesn't want to go in a detail. So I know, well, you know, I,

1:43.9

I don't know. I, uh, I'm never sure what it's appropriate to talk about. Oh, yeah.

1:48.5

And at the time, I have to be honest with you, Dan, I know if you could tell at the time,

1:51.0

I was in a lot of pain because of that pinched nerve. It was, it was bad. I know. Yeah. I've had it

...

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