If you think thank-you notes aren't effective, let me tell you a story.
First, let me set the stage. In the earliest days of CNN, the newsroom was housed in the basement of a former country club. There were a couple of satellite dishes, huge satellite dishes, and the "network" consisted of Atlanta, Washington, San Francisco and New York.
All of us worked ridiculous hours and took bets on whether or not we would be paid at the end of the week. It was terrific fun and very exciting.
CNN was known as the Chicken Noodle Network and "serious" journalists thought that those of us who joined forces with Ted Turner just didn't get it. The hard newsmakers put us last in the list of news outlets they considered for interviews.
During the first two years of CNN's existence, Katie Couric and I learned journalism side by side as part of a six-person team that produced a live two-hour news program five days a week.
I was a lowly assistant to the real pros who anchored the show. While the anchor team had a fine reputation as serious journalists, trying to book interviews with the heavyweights on that show was no easy task.
We did, however, finally convince Henry Kissinger to grant us an interview. Once the interview was over, I was eager to set the anchors and CNN apart. So I wrote a thank-you note, signed by the anchors thanking the secretary of state for taking the time to be interviewed.
The response was immediate. Kissinger sent word back to us that it was the first time anyone from the press had thanked him for an interview. To say it "set us apart" doesn't quite capture the effect that note had.
You may think the time for handwritten notes has passed. But now more than ever, in an e-mail world where everyone succumbs to the temptation to quickly write an electronic thank you to someone for his time or efforts, notes can make a big difference.
Keep it short, spell the names and write the address correctly (even if it means a phone call or two to double check) and always make it handwritten.
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