Unofficial NUS Guide To Getting Your Message To All NUS Students

So you have a job vacancy. Or a survey. Or a lab experiment. Or a seminar that needs seats filled up. What are you going to do? How are you going to get the 'manpower' to fill the slots?

How? How? Can even Einstein figure this out? (Image Stolen)

Let's see... You are a Staff, a NUS employee. That gives you many rights. Cool!

Next... you have at your disposal, access to a complete database of e-mail addresses. 100% guaranteed, verified and certified NUS [under]graduates. Where else can you get such trusted lists? It should be a no brainer. Just need to ask your superior and you'll get a immediate nod to send an e-mail to the whole list.

So how does it go? Here are the steps

1. Step One. Compose the mail. Make it attractive. Treat it as a newsletter rather than a plain text e-mail. Put lots of colors and images.
   
   
2. Step Two. Images. How can we integrate them into the e-mail?
   
   
   1. Put images on a NUS web server so that anyone who opens the mail downloads the images from the server. (about 33% do this)
      
      
   2. Just dump the images into the e-mail. Don't worry if the e-mail comes to 3MB of size (or 5MB - 'IS Department Newsletter' - where a whole 4MB of pdf was attached and sent to all SOC students), NUS students have '1GB' of e-mail space anyway... (about 33% do this)
      
      
   3. Be more caring and reduce the use of images to only include important ones. Throw away images that consist of only words and transcribe them in HTML. (about 33% do this)
      
      
3. So there's a career opening at Ubisoft and you have 2MB of documents. Great opportunity for NUS Students! So how do you forward this mail?
   
   
   1. Put the documents on a NUS web server so that anyone who opens the mail can download the documents if they want.
      
      
   2. Just forward everything into the e-mail. Don't worry about the e-mail size, NUS students have '1GB' of e-mail space anyway...
      
   
   
4. Now send the e-mail to ALL NUS students. If you feel nice, send specifically only to students who fit into the requirements of the event (e.g. job applications only for final year students). Otherwise, just mass send. It's NUS mail, and NUS students have '1GB' of e-mail space anyway...
   
   
5. If any of the below conditions are met:
   
   
   1. Good relationship with the IVLE department
      
      
   2. Your superior is a Big Shot.
      
   
   Then you are in luck. Ask to place your announcement in IVLE Important Messages:
   

   
   You may be able to get a spot here if your connections are good!

6. About a week before the deadline, send a reminder, again to the whole NUS student mailing list, as in Step Three
   
   

   
   Reminder! Don't miss out! Prizes!

7. Don't follow a standard Opt-Out scheme such as NUS Groups. Opt-Out rather than Opt-In
   
   Yea, we are a important organization/group that NUS students cannot opt out of! So there is no unsubscribe link at the bottom.
   
   I'm not sure why, but I suddenly find that I am receiving NUS Museum e-mails. And the best part is, they just assumed all NUS students are die hard historians, adding all of them to the mailing list at one go.
   
   Fortunately, there is a unsubscribe link which appears at the bottom for SOME of the mails.
   
   And the mails are not small, with one coming up to 1.2MB. That's about 4% of my mailbox space! That's all right.. NUS students have '1GB' of e-mail space anyway...
   
   
8. 'Extend' the dateline
   
   So the response was not good? Well perhaps they forgot about it due to exams and projects. How do you send the mailer again to avoid being caught with spamming?
   

   
   Extend the Closing Date!

   Create some event and use that opportunity to send a 'reminder' out.
   
   
9. Send a Reminder Before The Closing Date
   
   

   
   Reminder! Those who have not taken the survey!

   Self explanatory.
   

The above step by step guide is of course, all fabricated.

So what's the point of all these?

I tend to send big files to my friends. Powerpoint presentations, Word documents. BIG files. Although IVLE communities exist, sometimes, e-mail is just more convenient. Every KB of that 30000KB e-mail space counts. And then these mailers come in between to take up theprecious space.

And then the most scary e-mail comes.. from the 'System Administrator'.. 'Your mailbox is over its size limit'! It threatens to clear now or else! And I will LOSE new incoming mails! Won't even be notified of any mail lost. Announcements, CORS, Modules, Ballot results - nothing will be received! All rejected and I will be lost wondering what important mail I have lost.

Fortunately, Outlook Web Access allows sorting of mails by the amount of disk space taken, making cleaning tasks easier.

No more space to put more mail!

In actual fact, NUS students DO NOT have '1GB' of e-mail space. More on that on another post... but some of you know should know what I am talking about

So to NUS Staff and Mass E-Mail senders, don't send large attachments/e-mails. If you need to, just send a summary with a LINK or join me in petitioning NUS IT to upgrade NUS Students to a real 1GB e-mail box. Then you can start sending the MBs of stuff.