At work today, a colleague emailed our team asking for feedback on how to refresh a caching system that we have in place for one of our products. Typically, one of us responds with an email containing detailed directions. This leads to an issue…
When you create an email with detailed directions on completing a task, that email will make its way to the recipient or group of recipients on the mailing list. You could argue that the email can be forwarded or archived for future retrieval and potentially forwarded along to a new group.
But, this raises a few problems:
The next time you need to send information in email, think first if anyone else could benefit from that information in the future who may not have asked for it at the current time. If there is, document that information on a web page.
If it is a personal project you are sharing with friends that does not require privacy, information on an open source project, or maybe just a food recipe, find any easy location on the internet to create a blog and document that information within a blog. A blog can easily be created, and for free.
If it is work information, create a document on the company intranet, your company has one of those, right? If they don’t take it upon yourself to set up a wiki internally or ask your IT department to help set one up.
The next time you reach for email as your tool to share information, ask yourself, ‘Would documenting this on a web page, be a better choice?’ Usually, the answer will be yes and you’ll indirectly move towards internet fame.
Static Blog Site - for the engineers who might want to host on Github
When writing blog posts describing how to accomplish a task to other users, screenshots often work best in describing workflow actions. Two of the best tools that I have found in capturing and adding colored circles, arrows, or annonated text are listed below.