Beyond Messaging

Some Rules of Thumb for Business Communication

Remember:  The best rule of thumb is to communicate with proper grammar whenever possible. Yes, there are unique circumstances where Internet shorthand is acceptable (like tweeting), but overall your communication style reflects on your professionalism. People tend to remember the little things, bad grammar included.

via www.openforum.com

This is a good article about business communication. As employees become more used to internet shortcuts used in texting, tweeting, and other informal communications, it becomes crucial to show professionalism by writing in plain English.

One important item that the author does not mention is to spell out a technical term instead of using an acronym, at least the first time you introduce the term into a conversation. You should not assume that everyone knows or remembers what the acronym stands for. People will not usually ask for clarification in fear of seeming ignorant. It doesn't take many more characters or syllables to spell out the whole term, at least once, and this can go a long way towards more effective communication. Technology does not have to be a club with a secret handshake. Spell it out, and make more sense!

Here is my famous Tweet on the subject:

I find it a worthwhile challenge to see how well I can write a "tweet," full of content and meaning, without having to resort to "IM speak."

Woman Fired For All Caps Emails

A New Zealand accountant was fired for "confrontational" emails with words in red, in bold and in capital letters."  Boy, if confrontational emails were a firing offense, I think a lot of people I have worked with would be in deep trouble.

Yahoo Tech Blog Article

All kidding aside, the woman, Vicki Walker, of Auckland NZ, sued and received money for unlawful termination.  I would imagine that if your email style is a problem, your manager should tell you before instantly sacking you.

The truth is that our educational system has not done a great job training people how to write business communication.  I have seen emails with all sorts of writing flaws from all lower case, all uppercase, full of misspelling, all the way to those that are to completely nonsensical.

Gmail Tips and Tricks

Gmail now has functionality to import old email from another program into an existing Gmail account. 

From Mashable.com here are 5 Ways to Spice up your Gmail signature. 

Here's a tip for never again forgetting the attachment you meant to send.  From the gmail tips page:

Turn on the Forgotten Attachment Detector in Labs, and you'll get an alert if you mentioned attaching a file but forgot to do so.

Try it out in Labs »

And did you know you can send an SMS right from gmail?

1. Send SMS text messages right from Gmail.

   How often do you try to chat with somebody and they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer? You can keep the conversations going with a Labs feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail. Enable it in Labs under Settings, and then typing a phone number in the chat box search window. We'll even save your friends' numbers in your Contacts, so you can just type names into the chat box and select Send SMS.

   Turn it on in Labs »

   

Email 2.0

I just read an interesting article on examiner.com entitled Email 2.0 A New Recipe for an Old Service.  The author, Adam Kochanowicz, has some good suggestions on features that would be great added to email such as real time messaging, inportability, and improved multimedia.  I have a few more suggestions on features email needs to have to get to the next level.

1.  Easy encryption and sender verification signing.  SSL for email is too complex for many day to day users.  We need a cross platform system that is truly built into major email clients and mobile devices that will allow us to encrypt important data and verify that a sender is who they say they are.  I always like to say that email is more like a postcard than a letter.  With identity theft and phishing so widespread encryption and sender verification is important, it's just not easy.

2.  Server side SPAM controls built into a new SMTP protocol. Sender verification needs to be improved.  Traditional SMTP does not have any sender verification.  Today most organizations use SPAM control appliances and things like DNS SPF records to help block SPAM, but its still managed outside of the SMTP protocol.  Something's missing, hardly surprising since the SMTP RFC 281 was originally written in 1982.

3.  A control panel with the ability to link and unlink accounts and inboxes.   Users need to have multiple accounts for email as well as all sorts of social media accounts.  Work email and personal email should not be mixed together, to keep users privacy, and corporate ownership of company data.  However, wouldn't it be nice to have one control panel where you can see a feed of emails accounts(s), instant messages, Twitter Tweets, Facebook updates, and whatever else data you can't live without a constant stream thereof?  Well - nice for those who love to be constantly plugged in and in touch.  I would like that control panel to be easy to customize and turn off when you need to unplug as well.