Email Lessons from Napoleon

https://thesweetsetup.com/email-lessons-from-napoleon/

by hecubus • 6 years ago

44 20 6 years ago

Clever, though it's worth noting that ping times circa 1812 tended to be measured in weeks or months. Mail was likely already three weeks old when delivered, urgency generally low.

That said, reading two-week-old (or older!) news often has a similar effect --- much of the urgency or uncertainty has been resolved.

sandworm1012• 6 years ago

> that ping times circa 1812 tended to be measured in weeks or months.

Nope. At least, not in France. Their ping times were measured in minutes and hours.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22909590

"Napoleonic semaphore was the world's first telegraph network, carrying messages across 19h-Century France faster than ever before.[...] At its most extensive, it comprised 534 stations covering more than 5,000km (3,106 miles). Messages sent from Paris could reach the outer fringes of the country in a matter of three or four hours. Before, it had taken despatch riders on horseback a similar number of days."

"Credit for the first successful optical telegraph goes to the French engineer Claude Chappe and his brothers in 1792, who succeeded in covering France with a network of 556 stations stretching a total distance of 4,800 kilometres (3,000 mi). Le système Chappe was used for military and national communications until the 1850s."

"A symbol sent from Paris took 2 minutes to reach Lille through 22 stations and 9 minutes to reach Lyon through 50 stations."

touisteur• 6 years ago

The original clacks! Terry Pratchett always finds ways to jump up when interesting factoids surface.

Thanks for this tech history lesson, it might explain something about 19th century France that I didn't learn in (French) school.

dredmorbius3• 6 years ago

Yes, the Chappe optical telegraph existed, but it had limitations:

- Use was all but entirely limited to France. On campaign, mesages would revert to horseback.

- It was stopped by inclement weather.

- Net throughput was low, though I don't have a source on message traffic.

- Messages would have been brief ... one might say telegraphic. Little detail could be conveyed.

- Access was limited to government business. At least some of Napoleon's correspondents were likely denied access.

As counsel to others, Napoleon's mail-handling protocol would be subject to the long transits I describe.

thinkingemote• 6 years ago

by the nineteenth century in the UK most mail across the country would be delivered the next day. (im not sure of the history, it could be that in 1812, things were kind of slow, but it quickly sped up!)

A decade or so later into the Victorian age, mail sent in the same city was to be delivered within a couple of hours. In London there there twelve deliveries a day and in smaller cities up to about 6 times a day. People were able to reply and get responses in one day.

reidjs• 6 years ago

His stance towards email reminds me of the book “Deep Work” that many HN threads talk about. I liked the idea of triaging your emails into 3 categories

Emails that will have a positive outcome regardless of when they are processed.

Emails that will have a negative outcome regardless of when they are processed.

Emails for which a timely response will make a difference.

lmilcin• 6 years ago

Very frequently you are not a person that people won't mind you don't respond to them.

I need to read every non-spam email I receive and give a response if only to keep people in my network.

sa46• 6 years ago

Your first sentence is quite tricky to parse due to the triple negative. I parsed it as:

Most people that email you will care if you ignore them.

mulmen• 6 years ago

Is that a... triple negative?

I think you mean senders expect a response?

forgotmypw17• 6 years ago

Do you triage your spam?

What is the false positive ratio, do you think?

baby• 6 years ago

Let’s play a game, here’s how I would rephrase your first sentence:

You are often not the kind of person who can afford ignoring emails.

latexr• 6 years ago

The term “triage” is frequently thrown around when dealing with email, but did you know it actually originated as a medical term during the Napoleonic wars?

The author is making it sound like it’s an outdated term. It’s still in wide use today for medical emergencies, and I’d wager more people are familiar with the word in that context than as a way to sort email.

derefr• 6 years ago

The charitable reading of that statement is that the fact that it's a medical term is presumed-known, while the fact that the term originated during the Napoleonic wars is presumed-novel.

simias• 6 years ago

But then that seems a bit strange doesn't it? Triage just means "sorting" in French, to this day as far as I know it doesn't have the specific meaning it has in English (or if it does, it's more to do with trains that sick people).

Does it mean that it was borrowed into English during the Napoleonic wars? I'd think that those perfidious Englishfolks would have been loathe to borrow French terms specifically during that period...

sgt101• 6 years ago

Working in a very big corporate I discovered the "it'll sort itself out" thing independently. If I didn't know for certain how to respond and resolve instantly I'd just leave it - and 99% of the time it would be fixed without me in 24hrs.

Email Lessons from Napoleon

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