Practical Internet Groupware

Effective Packaging of Messages and Threads

When we create and use scoped discussion zones, we’re dealing with the information architecture of the conferencing environment as a whole. Now let’s switch lenses and focus more narrowly on information architecture as it relates to individual messages and threads. This may strike you as odd, but if you think in engineering terms, a message is really a kind of object that stores some data and presents an interface that gives users access to that data. Many of us are comfortable with the idea that software objects should properly package their data. But we rarely stop to think that message objects should too.

The techniques for packaging messages aren’t difficult, but neither are they automatic. Our messaging tools don’t force us to write effective titles, compartmentalize messages, choose appropriate scopes, or layer the information we present. Why should you develop these habits, then? Again I invoke the principle of enlightened self-interest. Quite often a document that I mail or post is also intended for my own future reference. It’s to my own advantage to package it in a way that will aid retrieval. Of course, the document is also an effort of communication, invested in hope of some kind of return—a useful reply, a request honored, or simply good will. You can regard good packaging as nothing more, and nothing less, than a calculated bid to maximize your return on an investment of communication effort. Here are some guidelines for ...