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Showing posts from February, 2010

To:, Cc: and Bcc:

Occasionally, I get an e-mail that makes me think people are confused by these 3 features of e-mail. For example, someone will send out an e-mail that clearly meant for a single person but they'll put everybody in the To: field. How do I know the e-mail is meant for that person...because the opening salutation ends in the person's name (for example: "Hello Kevin" or "hey John", or simply "Jack"). If the e-mail is meant solely for Kevin, why include everyone in the To field (unless you are trying to rat out the recipient)? To be clear, this is how you use these fields: To: Include the primary recipient(s) Cc: Include the secondary recipient(s). There's no expectation that these guys will respond. It's just a courtesy notification. Say you want to applaud a team member by writing an e-mail to his/her boss. You Cc him/her so he/she is aware but is not expected to respond. Bcc: This should be obvious. If you are in the Bcc, you should never