I surveyed my monthly Communique’ readers earlier this year, asking them this question: “What annoys you most about the way people communicate online?” The responses fell neatly into these three categories: Mistakes and Misspelling, Misunderstanding, Meanness. I’ve summarized the responses below almost word-for-word as received. I’ve also included duplicate responses in order to emphasize how annoying some online communication habits…
“Please and Thank you, they’re called the magic words. If you want nice things to happen, they’re the words that should be heard.” These are lyrics from a song sung by Barney the Dinosaur and his sidekick kids in a children’s show my daughter and I watched faithfully when she was growing up. And, I think there’s a lesson in…
On a Monday morning one of my colleagues ditched email and actually called a client. He had been wringing his hands and stressing all weekend after receiving an email from the client on Friday that led him to believe he had somehow unintentionally offended her. On the phone call, he was relieved when his client clarified that her message “I…
I had the unique opportunity to read a REAL-LIFE “angry” email that a colleague had composed in response to a difficult workplace situation. The first list of words below was taken directly from that email. Thankfully, the email that was actually sent included the second set of words below. Positive, tactful yet still clearly conveyed the concerns. Perhaps this wrong…
Are you Rude or Respectful? In a poll of my monthly email Communique’ (eNewsletter) readers last month, I received the following responses to the question: “What cell phone bad behavior annoys you the most?” I’ve cut and paste the actual responses below. Read on and see if—yikes!—you recognize yourself in any of these rude cell phone scenarios…or are you more…
Tech Talk “If you can’t say something nice…post it on Facebook” seems to be the new misguided mantra for way too many people. While it’s great that there are cool tech tools to help us connect, we can’t totally abandon the rules of real communication. And, we must make sure not to use technology to replace real relationships. Preparing for…