An e-mail group or "mailing list" as its often known is an easy way to send e-mail to specific group of people without adding their addresses to the CC or BCC fields by hand every time. An e-mail group also makes it easy for your recipients to reply to everyone rather than just the sender (a common problem for less sophisticated users).

An e-mail group also ensures that everyone involved in a project receives all correspondence since the group emails are delivered to everyone.

An e-mail group is useful for everything from inter-office memos to even short term projects, especially those projects which involve small teams made up of people in multiple locations. Rather than daily phone conferences or time-consuming face-to-face meetings. While e-mail might not entirely replace human meetings, a list that includes all the projects members can significantly smooth your workflow


==Setting up a group e-mail==

The first step is to create a new group on your e-mail server. During the setup your software will ask you to add the name and e-mail addresses of everyone in your group. Once you've added everyone that needs to be part of the group, you're ready to go.

Some e-mail software enables your members to chose between individual messages or group digests. Typically individual messages will work just fine, but some members may want to receive once a day digests. Digests simply collect up all the e-mails sent to the group -- including any replies to older messages -- and deliver them as a single e-mail.

If you'd like to allow group members to select the digest option make sure you enable it when you set up your e-mail group.

Once you group is set up, the first step is to send out a welcome address to all your group members with some basic instructions on how to use the group -- how to reply, how to behave and how to unsubscribe. Make sure you include your e-mail or the mailing lists technical administrator so if any of your group members have problems they know where to get help.


==Mailing List Rules and Etiquette==

Unless you run your office like Michael Scott (Steve Carrell in the Office) you'll probably want to set up some ground rules for group e-mail etiquette.

It's a good idea to periodically send out a boiler plate e-mail going over the ground rules and gently reminding your members that the success of the list depends on their behavior.

Some thing to suggest:


#   Stick to the topic. Off topic e-mails should be taken off the list. If you list members want to discuss where to get lunch, they should do so without disturbing the rest of the list.

#   No personal attacks or "flaming." Flame wars, where list members go back and forth with personal attacks should be avoided at all cost.

#   Refrain from sending out unnecessary responses to the entire group, for instance, "Me too!", "Cool!", "Thank you" and other single word replies. When those are warranted, email the individual privately.

#   Never forward correspondence or attachments to others outside of the group without permission

#   When beginning a new thread, change the subject line of your email rather than using the auto-reply function from a previous topic.