If this were a Friends episode — which is becoming a recurring premise in these show notes — this would be "The Other One About Writing." Guest Grace Aldridge Foster shares her passion for that most essential element of email, writing!

How would it feel to face a room full of Green Berets and tell them their writing needs some work? Grace sheds quite a bit of light on that, as she's done it repeatedly! Even top-notch soldiers, according to Grace, often need to work on their writing skills — including email. BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front — doesn't always do the job.

This conversation wanders as much or more as the average email thread, but at heart it's a couple of people who value and care about the power of language comparing notes on the challenges of using language effectively and well in now-mostly-digital channels. Are reverse-threaded email messages just DUMB? Why do we still do that? If you use the right emoji, did you just make a faux pas that tells everyone you're out of date? How the heck would you know?

Fair warning — if you listen to this conversation, which you should, you'll probably end up thinking "My company should hire BoldType to help everyone write just a LITTLE bit better. That would pay for itself 100x in a month."

Super-fun, super-smart, super-interesting guest. Don't miss this one.