How Important Can this Be?

One of the challenges in all our busy lives is the huge amounts of information we receive daily - in fact at times is can be quite overwhelming.

However, the risk in dealing with this overload is to ignore it, think it won’t be important, or think that you’ll get to it later.  One of the great skills I learnt from our Leaders Conference in Adelaide in 2019 (doesn’t that feel so long ago) was how to manage my email inbox.  Interestingly, at the time this was the second time I had undergone the ‘Email ninja’ course, but it was the one that made the difference.  Tim and Daniel taught all those in the room just how to overcome that swamping of information, and how not to miss the stuff that is important. (Interestingly they are offering the Email Ninja course to all ABSA members for free at present - send us an email if you are interested). However, it is not the course that I am promoting here, it is the fact that so many people just don’t read things properly any more, if at all.

As many of you know we produce a weekly eNEWS which highlights a few critical bits of information relevant to that week - and in tracking the opening rates we are continually distressed that our average ‘open’ rate is just over 30%, and the open rate by Heads of Boarding is still under 50%. It makes us wonder how people know what is going on if the emails aren’t even opened.

Another observation is the number of people who call to ask a simple question - one which was actually answered in the email we had sent them which prompted the call, but they hadn’t read the whole email.

Anyway - enough whinging - we are keen to hear more about how we can make our communications better - don’t be frightened - let us know!

Richard Stokes

Chief Executive Officer

Australian Boarding Schools Association