Social networks are wonderful things. I have been able to keep up with my cousin’s who are spread across the country, reconnect with old high school and college friends, but they also generate a lot of noise. Being a joiner, I know that I am partly to blame for the amount of noise I get, but still the systems generate a ton of messages that I don’t care about. Noise lives somewhere between spam, bacn and messages I want to get. Just like I try and reduce the amount of email I have, I would ideally like less noise.

Example

Here is the problem with the “news” I am getting. Most of the “news” items, I do not care for: What applications are added, who becomes friends with whom, profile changes. Frankly, I don’t care. Facebook offers privacy features that control how my information is distributed, but not the information that is incoming. Some people I am passing acquaintances with, I don’t care who they become friends with, isn’t there a way I can rank them a “Friend -1″ or “Friend +1″? The other issue I have with Facebook is the way people “invite” me to use applications. This is spamming, out and out. If I already have the application, then great, I want to know people whom I have classified as “friends” who also have the application. Otherwise, don’t show me “invites,” I’ll add whatever applications I want, not the other way around. You may be thinking: Jered turn off notifications, you don’t have to get these messages. I have. I am running silent. The way I get notification is when I login. So, if you are a “friend” on a social network, please do not “invite” me to an application. I won’t invite you, because even if you are an acquaintance, I respect you a little more than that.

About a 3 weeks ago, I followed Tim Ferriss’ advice and setup an auto responder on my email. It said that I had a full workload and was checking my emails twice a day, but in the event of an emergency or something urgent, give me a call. The exact wording is below:

Dear Colleague, Due to high workload, I check email twice daily at 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM EST. I respond to urgent email at those times and endeavor to respond to all other email once a week, on Fridays at 9:00 AM EST. If you require urgent assistance (please ensure that it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 9:00 AM or 4:00 PM, please contact me via phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better. Sincerely, Jered

The only problem with auto responders is that they respond to everyone. I know that is the point of an auto response, but my place of work is run by people who have a fundamental misunderstanding of both email and productivity. I was told to remove my auto-responder. A auto generated message was sent by the president, who passed it on to a VP, then to a associate VP, to a director and finally to me. The message was presented to me as “the president says you need to remove your auto responder”. My auto responder was probably seen as lacking in customer service, instead of, what a friend coined: “Oh, that’s just an autoresponse email. Definitely not meant to suggest anything other than here’s an employee who is really trying to focus on getting things done for the University. I think Jered is taking a proactive stand on his work, and wouldn’t it be great if more people were as focused and dedicated as him?” Like the title says, a fundamental misunderstanding.