Today I got a nice email from Scott Meyer, President & CEO of About.com. The headline read "Great post on 5 years with About", and was thanking me for the post I wrote earlier this week to commemorate my 5th anniversary as an About.com Guide, 5 Things I’ve Learned in 5 Years at About.com. It was a brief note, but had enough specifics in it to show that he had actually read it. It also had the familiar tell-tale signs that he had probably gotten the notification via Google Alerts. I’m guessing he has an alert set on "About.com" and scans those headlines daily.

This got me thinking about a couple of things.

First of all, just think about the tremendous networking power rolled up in that one simple practice. He stays up-to-date on what people are saying about his company, and prompted by the alert, in a matter of just a couple of minutes, he was able to reach out to me in a meaningful way, show his appreciation, and just make me aware that yes, he really does care and pay attention to what us 700+ Guides are doing.

Think of the power of that in your business. Rather than getting caught up in the incestuous fishbowls that some online discussion groups can turn into, what would happen if you spent some of that time looking for new conversations going on about your business, your industry or perhaps a cause you support?

It also made me wonder… how many other CEOs do the same thing, using these freely available tools to keep up with the buzz about their company? I’m thinking probably not nearly enough.

Great quote from Tom Hanks on Oprah:

I found that I will not be able to overtake the world and bend it to my will unless I have a MySpace page.

Here’s Tom Hanks’ MySpace page.

Of course, leave it to Julia Roberts to express the naivete of the general public upon finding out Tom has a MySpace page:

What? Are you 17?

I saw a lot of cool new tools for blogging this past week at BlogWorld. One of the ones that really impressed me was Windows Live Writer from Microsoft, which apparently just came out of beta.

If you were at the show and you blinked, you missed it. The Microsoft guys were in an understated little 10×10 both — I don’t even think they were wearing Microsoft shirts. I think Microsoft kind of missed the boat on the event… may have been hedging their bets.

But as Chris Keating wrote about his experience setting up the booth:

The common response:  "WOW".

In a nutshell, what WLW does is make full WYSIWYG offline editing available to bloggers without knowing a lick of HTML. As anyone who’s ever worked with the visual editor in WordPress will tell you, it has some significant shortcomings, such as:

• The CSS styles in the editor don’t match your final output.
• Floating images flush on the right or left side while leaving a proper margin to the text.
• Referencing a CSS style.
• Embedding Flash, Javascript, etc. - things like pasted code not behaving correctly because line breaks are inserted.
• Losing your work because you wrote online and the connection went down just before you hit Save.
• Wanting to work offline in a WYSIWYG environment, but having a better publishing method than copy/pasting your HTML from Dreamweaver or something.

Windows Live Writer solves all that. It’s a full-fledged WYSIWYG interface, but some really smart thinking went into the design of it. I found it fairly easy to configure it for my four WordPress-based blogs (I’m writing this post using it), although the part where it prompts you for the RPC URL is a bit daunting if you have no idea what they’re talking about.

I’m not going to do a lengthy review — really, the best thing to do is just try it yourself (it’s free). If you find the WordPress visual editor clumsy and highly restrictive, and either don’t know how to do the HTML or don’t like being forced to in order to get a decent-looking post, then you’ll really appreciate Windows Live Writer.

A constant complaint we hear around the office is that emails we receive (and sometimes send) are poorly written or unclear.  According to “How to Write a Perfect Email”, when writing an email that warrants a reply, there are four key components to get a quick and valid response:

1. Brevity- Keep it short.

2. Context- How do you know me/where did we meet (Give information that would make a person remember you) and put it in the subject line.

3. Something to Act On- Make the request clear and ask closed ended questions.

4. Set a Deadline- Set a date when you need the information, give one follow-up email and then pick up the phone.

My colleague Michelle Reicher observed that the guidelines set in this blog are a good standard to follow, but, “I disagree with the blanket advice to ask closed ended questions. Keep the request and question clear and concise, but allow the responder to give as much information as is necessary to move forward. When one sends an email with questions, the goal is to solicit a response, but it is important to have a complete, comprehensive, and useful response not just a yes/no answer. Yes/No responses answer the immediate question, but do not allow farther explanation that may answer future questions or give farther insight into the matter at hand.”

In The Cranking Widgets Blog: “How to Construct the Perfect Email Subject Line”, the blogger observes that a good subject line is imperative for a successful email:

“There are 3 simple tips that, if implemented properly, will make your email subject (and, subsequently, your email) much easier to read.

1.      Use Keywords [to identify the purpose of your email.] All email messages fall into one or more of 4 possible categories:

o        Questions (or messages that elicit a response from the reader)

o        Responses (messages that are in response to questions or other inquiring messages)

o        Informational (or FYI - messages that are meant to inform but don’t require a response)

o        Spam (jokes, pictures of your nephew’s baseball game, etc. - as well as actual spam)

2.      Briefly describe the subject - This is best done before you start writing your message. Finding the right balance between vague and overly-specific can be tough. Personally, I think it’s like anything else - you get better at it with time.

3.      For Pete’s sake, never leave the subject blank - This is something I’ve mentioned before, and it bears repeating.”

The body of the email will never be read if the context of the subject line does not act as an icebreaker or a contextual reminder. If the subject line merely says, “Hi” then it is synonymous to a cold call, but if the subject line identifies the business or how you know this person it becomes analogous to a warm call or a referral, which are generally more fruitful and productive than an unsolicited call.