Communications, Week 4, 21st August

Lecture week 4

Communications

communication has changed a lot compared to twenty years ago.

communication between:

• individuals
• organizations
• business

it takes place within networks, chains, circles, wheel, all-channel network

types of communication

synchronous asynchronous

place dependent same time diff time same place diff place place independent same time diff time diff place same place ICT mobile video ipod palm pilot e-mail myspace e-mail Microsoft outlook

• most wide spread internet client
• popular products
• prone to security risks

netscape

• very good security

INSTANT MESSENGER CLIENTS

MSN meesenger

• allows file transfer
• only one interface

Trillian

allows use of ICQ,MSN,AOL. on one interface.

DISSCUSSION BOARDS

• usually topic related
• exist for alomst every concievable interest
• comment, ask questions, opinions

INTERNET RELAY CHAT

• live chat room
• unsafe
• channels are dedicated to specific topic

PODCASTS

• download and listen to thme on personal computers or mibile devices. e.g IPOD
• pod lounge, SBS, Mix94.5

BLOGS

• online journal
• frequently updated
• intende for public view
• photo and video blogs
• blogger.com

WIKI

• simalar to blogs
• allow several users to collaborate informing a website
• peanutbutterwiki, wikispaces

Netiquette and e-mail

• do not use email to confront/ complain
• difficult to convey feelings
• wrong siganl
• considered to many to be informal
• easily forwarded
• easily intercepted
• do not forward without origianl writer's permission (now illegal)
• protect fellow e-mail users from spame

workshop Task 1 log into email account and create files for each of your units. 2this allows you to keep track of relevant emails. 3click on folders and name them e.g UPC0004 and drag all emails from this unit into that folder. READINGS READING1 Email Do's and Don'ts Anyone who regularly uses email to communicate with coworkers or other professional contacts has probably noticed that, despite its many positives, email can also be incredibly inefficient. The good news is that you can get back to a state of efficiency without giving up email altogether; you just have to get rid of some bad email habits — and convince your coworkers to do the same. When You're the Sender 1. Make sure that email is the right communication tool for the job. Although email can sometimes feel like the ultimate replacement for all other forms of communication, it's actually more limited than you might initially think. First of all, email is not synchronous like telephone calls or in-person conversations; in other words, sending a message does not guarantee an immediate response. Also, it can sometimes take more time to write an email than it would to speak to someone directly. Finally, email doesn't make it easy to convey quick sketches or notes that are nonlinear. If you need an immediate response, think you'll have a lot of follow-up questions, or need to convey a complex topic using visual aids, email is probably not the best tool for the job. 2. Get to the point right away. Whenever possible, ask your question — or provide your response — within the first few sentences of your message; you can always give details and explanations later. Tackling the major points up front decreases the chances that you'll lose your reader's attention, confuse him, or irritate him by forcing him to spend extra time looking for your point. 3. When asking a question, be sure to ask the question. If you need information or have a request, phrase it as a question to ensure that your recipient knows you need a response. Simply making a statement and assuming people will respond is a good way to get ignored. 4. Specify who should respond. If you send an email to a list or a group of people, you may not receive a response unless you specify who in that group is responsible for following up. Group emails make it easier for all recipients to assume someone else on the list will handle the request. 5. Be clear about when you need a response. If you want the recipient to get back to you by the end of the day, save yourself the frustration of playing the waiting game by setting a deadline for a response. Otherwise, your coworkers might put your message on their to-do list and get back to you whenever it's convenient for them. Additionally, you may want to bring extra attention to time-sensitive messages by flagging them as high-importance items or noting the deadline in the email's subject line. 6. Provide context to frame your message. If you're emailing someone out of the blue, don't just assume he or she will know what you're talking about — even if you were just talking about it in person a few minutes ago. People don't always check their email right away, so they may not recall what you were discussing. Also, some people may want a record of the email thread to look back on days or weeks later. 7. Don't forget the rules of grammar and punctuation. You might think that you're being hip by forgoing all capitalization and paragraph breaks in your messages, or you might just be trying to save yourself time by never proofreading your outgoing messages. Either way, you're increasing the chances that your message will be misunderstood, and you're definitely wasting the recipient's time by forcing her to decode your cryptic note. Of course, some variations on style are fine, but remember that grammar and punctuation were invented for a reason. Checking your outgoing messages for spelling, grammar, and punctuation not only helps make your organization's internal communications more efficient, it will also make you appear more professional to the outside world. 8. One message, one topic. Don't mix a bunch of unrelated questions or responses into one message. Not only does this increase the chances that some of your questions or responses may get overlooked, but it prevents the recipient from filing messages about different subjects into different folders. Of course, some email conversations will naturally spawn tangential conversations. In those cases, it's helpful to change the subject line of your email message to better describe the new topic. This not only lets the recipient know the topic has changed, but also makes it easier to find the message when you're searching for it later. 9. Provide a summary when you forward an "FYI" email. Don't just forward a message or a whole conversation thread and assume that the recipient will take the time to read it all and figure out what's going on or that they'll do so without any misunderstandings. Since you already have a reason for forwarding the message, you can save your recipient time and confusion by jotting down a quick summary of the entire thread. (And if you don't have a reason in mind or haven't even taken the time to digest the information you're about to forward, you probably shouldn't even send it.) When You're the Recipient 1. Don't make any assumptions about the sender's emotional state. Unless the sender actually spells out the fact that he or she is angry with you, don't assume that the person intended to send a rude response — you just don't know for sure. 2. Don't escalate a conflict by sending an emotionally charged response. If you do decide that the sender intended to send you a rude email, don't make the problem worse by sending an equally charged response. Doing so may start a vicious cycle of nasty emails. 3. Ask for clarification. If you receive an email that doesn't quite make sense — with confusing grammar or no punctuation, for example — ask the sender to clarify. It's a whole lot faster to ask for clarification than it is to re-read a message four times, ask everyone for their opinions on what it means, and send back a response that doesn't address the sender's point. While you can ask for more information by replying to the email, getting clarification over the phone or in person might be an even quicker way to get answers to your questions. 4. Use your email software's built-in tools to help organize messages. Some email clients — including Microsoft Outlook — allow you to set up rules that help organize incoming messages, making it easier to quickly locate particular messages and keep your inbox from becoming needlessly bloated. 5. Remember: You don't have to respond to every message right away. Unless you are being paid solely to send and receive emails, it's a pretty good bet that you have other, more pressing tasks to devote your attention to. As a final piece of advice, don't forget to give yourself permission to periodically turn away from your inbox so you can take some time to finish other activities. READING2 Essential Email Etiquette Learning proper email etiquette can help you be persuasive and inoffensive. You can increase your chances of writing winning email messages by sticking to these basic rules. Think of an Appropriate Subject Select a title for your email that reflects its content. If you want to convey important information, make your subject as detailed and specific as possible. Never leave your subject line empty. It's the first thing your recipient sees even before he or she reads the body of your message. If you leave it blank, it will appear as "(none)" or "(no subject)" in some email programs. This leaves a poor impression. Address Recipients Properly Dale Carnegie, author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People," said that "a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest sound in any language." That's why when you're writing email messages to people for the first time, it's best to address them by their names instead of using a generic "Dear Sir/Madam" -- If you're sending a message to people you don't know, make an effort to look for your recipients' full names in the "Contact" or "About" sections of their Web sites. If at first you don't succeed, surf through more of the site to see if their names are featured somewhere else. Spell their names correctly. Be careful when handling foreign names, especially those with accents on certain letters. Don't be too casual during the first contact. Use the honorific + surname formula when addressing people for the first time, (that is to say, address Laura Glover as "Ms. Glover"). Wait for your recipients to use your first name before addressing them by their first names. If it's not obvious from the name whether your recipient is male or female, don't guess. Just use the first and last name without an honorific. Of course, make sure your message isn't spam. You can find a definition at this anti-spam site . When you're sending a message to a group of people, particularly if they don't know each other, enter their addresses in the " BCC" line to protect everyone's privacy. You can enter your own address in the "To" line. If you are sending the message to a large number of people (more than a dozen) perform a mail merge that results in one message per person. Microsoft Word 2000 and later is capable of this technique; it can save your message from being mistaken for spam by filtering software that blocks messages with many addresses in the BCC field. Select an Appropriate Tone The tone of voice you use in your e-mail depends on the level of formality you deem necessary. It's advisable to be a little more formal during the first contact. You can adopt a more casual tone in subsequent messages. Use smileys, such as ":)", ":D" and ":P", judiciously to reduce the level of formality and express a lighter tone. However, smileys should be avoided if you seek to convey a professional image. In any case, don't overuse them in any messages, as they can make you look like you never grew out of junior high school. Don't fill your messages with acronyms like " OTOH," (on the other hand) " ROTFL," (rolling on the floor laughing) and " FWIW" (for what it's worth). If you're too busy to spell out anything in your message, consider sending it when you have more time. Messages that look like "Carol, LTNS. AFAIK, the report is due EOD. HTH. BFN," ("Carol, long time no see. As far as I know, the report is due at the end of the day. Hope that helps. Bye for now.") are difficult to read and best left to text-messaging teenagers. Pick your fonts and colours carefully. Messages with overly large fonts can be annoying. Making every word in your message a different colour is a bad idea. Writing a message in yellow may get you shot. And for recipients with clients that don't handle styled text, your message may come through completely garbled. Also avoid the use of repeated exclamation marks! Nobody is that excited!! Don't use all-caps in your message text unless you really mean it. When you use them, it comes across as if you were screaming. SO DON'T DO IT! Avoid Irony and Sarcasm. READING 4 Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE), commonly known as email spam, is a unique form of advertising which has no incremental cost to the sender, imposes real and measurable costs on the recipients, and has the potential to destroy the value of electronic mail. Advertising that has no incremental cost to the sender - how attractive would an average business find that idea? This is the one feature of UBE which leads to all the consequences which make UBE uniquely destructive to the medium is uses - electronic mail. It must be stressed that while there are numerous problems associated with UBE, any one of them has the potential to impact the value of electronic mail to the point of destruction. UBE is not like any other form of advertising. No cost to the sender means unlimited UBE. UBE costs the recipient money. UBE costs the recipient time. UBE destroys the value of email. UBE denies you the choice of how your electronic mailbox can be used. UBE stifles other communications.