An etiquette guide to the virtual introduction

The virtual introduction - that is, the ability to introduce people to each other without everyone having to be in the same physical location - is a fairly recent phenomenon brought on by the invention of email and the growing demand for everyone to build their personal brand through networking.

In the olden days when I started my career, if I wanted to introduce two of my acquaintances, I would need to see them both at a conference or similar business event and the introduction would usually arise from the common courtesy in play when two people are chatting and another comes along who knows one of the people, but not the other.  Outside of this setting, if I felt compelled to put two people together, I would have had to call each of them on a land line and, once I received confirmation that they were both interested in an introduction, I would set up a mutually agreeable time for them to meet and then gently remove myself from the situation.

As you can imagine, this took time but the upshot was that I only ever did it if I really believed that both parties had something to gain from the meeting.  Today, when introducing one friend to another is as simple as typing a couple of sentences and hitting Send, there are a lot more of these kinds of transactions flying around but that's not necessarily a good thing.

I'm finding that I am frequently included in virtual introductions and requests for information interviews and meetings now, only the person I am being introduced to is also cc'd on the message, making it awkward for me to politely decline the opportunity to meet someone for any number of valid reasons. While the format for introducing people has changed, the need for etiquette has not.  Here is a five-step guide for managing the virtual introduction in a polite way:

Step 1 - Friend A would like to meet Friend B, an acquaintance of yours.   Friend A asks if you would be willing to introduce them via email, LinkedIn, etc.

Step 2 - You email Friend B (without cc-ing Friend A), let her know that Friend A has expressed a desire to meet her and provide some context on why that might be a good idea and a productive use of everyone's time.

Step 3 - If Friend B declines, for any reason, you respect that and politely inform Friend A that the introduction will not be taking place.  If Friend B accepts, you let her know that you will be sending an email to introduce both parties shortly.

Step 4 - Inform Friend A that Friend B has agreed to be introduced and that you will be sending an email to introduce them.

Step 5 - Send the email of introduction cc-ing both parties and explaining a little about each person and why you think an introduction would be mutually beneficial.  Close the email by extricating yourself from the equation and any future follow-up emails.

In today's rapid-fire world, this may seem antiquated and cumbersome but from an etiquette point of view, it is the only acceptable way to handle a virtual introduction, and also prevents you from making another etiquette faux pas covered in an earlier post - sharing someone's e-mail address without their permission.

In closing, I would like to suggest that if you have requested and been granted a virtual introduction, a follow-up thank you email is also in order.

Why We Need An Undo-Send Button

I'm old enough to remember when there was no e-mail and I have no doubt that it has revolutionized the way we do business and coupled with smart phones, it enables us to work from any place at any time. This is good if you'd rather handle correspondence from your Muskoka dock, but bad if you're expected to respond to e-mails during your daughter's dance recital.

But e-mail's greatest benefit - quick and easy communication - is also its biggest downfall because it doesn't account for the limitations of the human brain. While some of us can manage multiple tasks at once, research has shown that none of us do it well, and with the same kind of attention to detail we would apply to single tasks. And with many people juggling multiple email accounts, Twitter handles, Facebook pages and Blackberry messenger contacts, it's inevitable that eventually, a mistake will be made and the wrong message will be sent to the wrong person. If you have done this, you know that it creates an extremely uncomfortable situation, for both the sender and the recipient.

I had my own e-mail mishap several years ago. A situation had been annoying me for a while and rather than dealing with it in a mature and forthright way, I chose to kvetch to someone else by e-mail, only I accidentally sent it to the subject of my aggravation. While the message was more factual than gossippy it was still derogatory and was the kind of content that belonged in a private conversation, not an electronic missive. I realized my gaffe about a nanosecond after I hit Send and the ensuing physical reaction was quite remarkable. Within two minutes, my heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty, a hive-like crimson flush was breaking out across my face and an unprintable string of profanity was coming out of my mouth. I believe it was the modern-day equivalent of the fight or flight response our neanderthal ancestors experienced when confronted by a hungry sabre-tooth tiger. Our bodies send out a shot of adrenaline to help us deal with a perceived danger but while the caveman used the adrenaline to hurl a spear at the tiger or high-tail it out of there, my adrenaline just collected and pooled in the pit of my stomach until I felt quite sick.

In my panic, I immediately sent a quickly-crafted apology email which acknowledged my guilt but didn't do anything to repair the damage or address the underlying issues. At the time, I had just finished reading The FourAgreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. If you haven't read this book, I recommend it. It's a quick, light read and helps you put life's ups and downs in perspective. In short, the four agreements are 1. Be impeccable with your word, 2. Don't take anything personally, 3. Don't make assumptions and 4. Always do your best.

Since the text was fresh in my mind, I decided to apply it to the matter at hand. Obviously I had failed miserably at Agreement #1 as I had used my words carelessly but I was determined to rectify the situation in a more appropriate way. Ruiz spends almost an entire chapter on apologies and the fact that humans are the only species who relive a mistake over and over. His advice, (which is infinitely easier said than done) is to apologize quickly and sincerely and then let it go. The rest is up to the other person. So, tail between my legs, I went to see the recipient of my misfired e-mail and apologized, in person. While she accepted my apology with grace, it took a while for us to rebuild our relationship and it actually took a similar mistake on her part for it to return to normal, our mutual errors having cancelled each other out to the point that neither existed anymore and the air was finally cleared.

There are many lessons here - address issues before they get out of hand, don't use e-mail to deliver sensitive information, always double-check the To and CC boxes before you send but in my experience, most people only make a mistake like this once. The experience is too traumatic to be repeated.

Do you need to go on an information diet?

Do you use your smart phone as an alarm clock and then immediately start checking e-mails?

If so, you might want to think about embarking on an information diet. Clay Johnson, the man behind Barack Obama’s social media strategy, shared highlights from his book, The Information Diet, at this year’s MESH conference

According to Johnson, when we search on the Internet, we are often looking for validation of our existing opinions rather than information that will help us become informed. We already have our biases and so if we want the details of a specific news story, we tend to search the websites of the media outlets which most conform to our own point of view, whether that’s TMZ, Fox News or the Toronto Star. If we are annoyed with our spouse, worried about our kids or concerned about our appearance, we search for others who are experiencing the same things and who react the same way, rather than seeking out different opinions.

Johnson believes many North Americans are over-consuming useless information because it’s readily available. To prove his point, he asked the audience to name Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband. Many people yelled out the answer. He then asked if anyone knew the child poverty rate in Toronto and the room went silent.

In his book, The Information Diet, Johnson recommends we take the following steps to trim our information waistline:

1. Become a conscious consumer of information – Every time you visit a website, ask yourself if it’s vital to what you are trying to achieve in life. Rather than mindlessly consuming information all day, schedule time for different types of Internet use.

2. Seek whole news – Johnson says the life cycle of an event starts as actual truth, becomes reworded truth, turns into processed truth, is reported in the media and ends up on TV, where it’s furthest from the truth. While it’s not always possible to find out the truth, get information from multiple news sources and points of view.

3. Be a producer more than a consumer – If you check emails and news sites before breakfast, you’re starting your day as a consumer of other people’s thoughts and opinions. Try to start your day as a producer of your own content, through your blog, Twitter stream or website. Johnson recommends writing 500 words before 8 a.m.

4. Subtract junk from your daily intake – Remember that your clicks have consequences and, because the Internet stores information about you, your reading patterns affect everyone in your demographic. Remember that the next time you stop by Perez Hilton.

5. Content is not a commodity – Until we are comfortable with the concept of paying for filtered, fact-checked, responsible content, we will continue to be spoon-fed a steady diet of misinformation.

6,000 people have already taken the pledge to go on an information diet. To learn more, visitwww.informationdiet.com

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Friends don't let friends get spammed

According to the authors of SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It Better, 100 billion unsolicited commercial e-mail messages are sent everyday and the average North American white collar worker gets 50,000 to 100,000 e-mails per year. It's easy to point the finger at faceless spammers and naive do-gooders who pass on warnings about lurking viruses or poorly-written missives that we must "immediately share with ten friends in order for something good to happen".

But what about people we know? Friends, family members, colleagues and acquaintances who share our e-mail addresses without our permission or include us in the To list of their group vacation updates so everyone else can see our personal or professional e-mail. I'm sure many of them don't mean to be rude, perhaps they don't even think about it but the fact is, it's not okay to share someone's e-mail address with another person without their permission, especially if, in doing so, you expose them to unsolicited, unwanted e-mails. Even worse, "friends" who share your e-mail address with people who have something to sell without your permission: "Hi Ann, I thought you'd like to meet my friend Steve. His company makes the most amazing widgets. Steve, feel free to e-mail your catalogue to Ann. "

I found myself in this situation recently. At a networking event, I met someone who expressed interest in partnering with a current client of mine. I took his card and when I returned to the office, I called the client and asked if he would be interested in an e-mail introduction. He said "yes" so I called the gentleman I had met, confirmed his interest and asked if it would be okay to include his contact information in an introductory e-mail. He also said "yes" and so I composed an e-mail to introduce them to each other and they've now set up a meeting. Time consuming? Yes but proper e-mail etiquette.

There are occasions where it's acceptable to share e-mail addresses but only if a relationship - professional or personal - has already been established. For example, I could include the e-mail address of a coworker in a welcome message to a new client. Or, if I am a board member of a professional organization, I wouldn't be surprised to find my e-mail address, along with those of the other board members, in the To line. We have a prior, established relationship with a clear objective and an understood code of professionalism.

However, if one of those board members decided to include the addresses of the others in an e-mail to an outsider about a separate fundraising event, without their prior permission, it would no longer qualify as appropriate netiquette.

Rule of thumb: if you apologize anywhere in your e-mail for the way in which you're handling the communication (e.g. "sorry for the mass e-mail, I don't usually do this"), you might want to rethink it.