Chapter 14

Overview

Technology is ubiquitous in business communication today. As you progress through your career, you'll become familiar with new and always-emerging tools to help you complete work. Your ability to be flexible and patient as you trial new tools will help establish yourself as a competent professional in an ever-changing environment. As you navigate new technology, professional netiquette and presentation of self will be of the utmost importance. We'll discuss some best practices for using technology in business communication and provide additional resources for popular tools you may want to be familiar with. 

Netiquette

Text messaging, emailing, and posting on social media in a professional context requires that you be familiar with “netiquette,” or proper etiquette for using the internet. We have all heard news stories about people who have been fired and companies that have been boycotted for making offensive or inappropriate social media posts. People have even gone to prison for the illegal use of private messaging.  The digital world may seem like a free-for-all, “wild wild west” with no clear rules or regulations; however, this is clearly a dangerous perspective for a professional to take, as the consequences of breaking tacit rules, expectations, and guidelines for professional communications can be very costly.

The way that you represent yourself in writing carries significant weight. Writing in an online environment requires tact, skill, and an awareness that what you write may be there for a very long time and may be seen by people you never considered as your intended audience. From text messages to memos to letters, from business proposals to press releases, your written business communication represents you and your company:  your goal is to make it clear, concise, constructive, and professional.

We create personal pages, post messages, and interact via online technologies as a normal part of our careers, but how we conduct ourselves can leave a lasting image, literally. The photograph you posted on your Instagram page may have been seen by your potential employer, or that insensitive remark in a Facebook post may come back to haunt you later. Below you'll find several guidelines for online postings, as detailed below, can help you avoid embarrassment later.

Guidelines for Communicating Online 

• Know your context

  • Avoid assumptions about your readers; remember that culture influences communication style and practices.

  • Familiarize yourself with policies on Acceptable Use of IT Resources at your organization.

• Remember the human

  • Remember, there is a person behind the words; ask for clarification before making a judgment.

  • Check your tone before you publish; avoid jokes, sarcasm, and irony as these can often be misinterpreted and get “lost in translation” in the online environment.

  • Respond to people using their names.

  • Remember that culture, age, and gender can play a part in how people communicate.

  • Remain authentic and expect the same of others.

  • Remember that people may not reply immediately. People participate in different ways, some just by reading the communication rather than jumping into it.

• Recognize that text is permanent

  • Be judicious and diplomatic; what you say online may be difficult or even impossible to retract later.

  • Consider your responsibility to the group and to the working environment.

  • Agree on ground rules for text communication (formal or informal; seek clarification whenever needed) if you are working collaboratively.

• Avoid flaming: research before you react

  • Accept and forgive mistakes.

  • Consider your responsibility to the group and to the working environment.

  • Seek clarification before reacting; what you heard is not always what was said.

  • Ask your supervisor for guidance.*

• Respect privacy and original ideas

  • Quote the original author if you are responding with a specific point made by someone else.

  • Ask the author for permission before forwarding the communication via email.

*Sometimes, online behavior can appear so disrespectful and even hostile that it requires attention and follow-up. In this case, let your supervisor know right away so that the right resources can be called upon to help.

Attributions: 

Information for this section was adapted from 

Technical Writing Essentials Copyright © 2019 by Suzan Last is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. 

References:

Bova, D. (Ed.). (2017, May 30). The 7 biggest social media fails of 2017. Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/the-7-biggest-social-media-fails-of-2017/294925