Miss Communications

Resolve Not to Abuse Social Media this Year

By any measure, 2009 was a huge year for social media. The phrase gained traction on magazine covers, Web pages and conference brochures, and as all the big “SocMed” sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn grew at breakneck speed, the prevailing advice was that every one of us needed to turn on and tune in – or risk dropping out of sight.

But just like those who turned on in the ’60s and can’t remember what happened next, a lot of impressionable people are using social media as today’s drug of choice. The effect, of course, can be overwhelming: Too many stimuli creating a bizarre alternate reality – and scrambled brainwaves in the end.

Social media is clearly here to stay, but it’ll take a bit of wisdom and good judgment to avoid turning it into an attention-thieving overdose of junk. Perhaps a few clear-headed resolutions for 2010 could help. Let’s start with three.

Resolve not to update your business contacts on the boring minutiae of your day.
If you’ve got a personal Facebook account, you’ve got carte blanche to tell friends and family that cold weather sucks or how much you love pudding. But if you’re building a conversation with partners, customers, potential clients and other hard-working folk, don’t waste their time with the tiny stuff.

Promise yourself that, before posting any comment, video or write-up, you’ll take a long, hard look at whether it truly adds anything to your fans’ and followers’ lives. “Lunch at LoDo Café is always delicious” might be interesting to food-seekers and helpful to the restaurant itself, but “I love tuna sammies!” brings enlightenment to few.

Resolve not to approach social media simply as free ad space.
It’s intriguing to think you could post a few quick notes about how marvelous you are and what useful services you provide, and the world would beat a path to your door. But nobody wants to read a lot of ads, and the more you burden your social network with commercials that are all about you, the less attention people will pay.

Make it your goal to give people information they’ll want, not self-serving shout-outs that interrupt the search for deeper truth. A post on the year’s new tax laws could be interesting and helpful to thousands, but a write-up on why people should trust you to handle their money is noise.

Resolve to look smart.
The quick-and-easy nature of the Internet has contaminated many a social-media post, from comments filled with inscrutable spelling to blog entries that seem to have been written by squirrels on crack. But when the goal is to attract people to your business or cause, looking stupid is not your best approach.

Challenge yourself to communicate clearly and intelligently whenever you’re writing for public consumption. A collection of wise and thoughtful posts will help people develop a positive impression of you and your work, and it’ll help us all keep the addictive world of social media from turning into another bad trip.

The Holiday Office Party: Ho Ho or No No?

Working in an office has its drawbacks: The noise, the thermostat wars, the scent of cat-food-like leftovers wafting from the break-room at lunch. And at this time of year, most American offices provide yet another opportunity for torment: The official holiday party.

If you love dressing in sparkles and Santa-themed neckware while throwing back a few brewskis, the office party could be the highlight of your year. But if you have a tendency to feel embarrassed – or you’d simply rather do time with anyone but your office-mates – enforced merriment is a big pain.

Those of us who are party-lovers generally know what to do: Watch out for the open bar, be polite to the spouses and stay away from embarrassing conversations such as “Weren’t you in love with your assistant for a while?” and “Remember that dirty joke you e-mailed to the boss?”

But for those who wish they didn’t have to go, there’s a lot of advice to be found on surviving this party in style. Everyone from psychologists and etiquette experts to your in-house HR team is ready to offer tips and tactics on keeping things sane.

Many of the suggestions are drab. Several experts, for example, suggest coming up with some small-talk topics ahead of time, such as the lame “What’s your favorite thing about the holidays?” or the tedious “How does this time of year affect your work?”

These safe-chat subjects are supposed to come in handy if you find yourself talking to a stranger or an introvert – and if you have any doubts about your ability to pull them off, the truly dull suggest practicing in front of the mirror.

You: How do you like the weather we’ve been having?
Mirror: You’ve got toothpaste on your tie.

Other tips are entirely practical: Fill up with a pre-party meal to help absorb any alcohol coming your way; and don’t bring a date you hardly know, because both your date and your co-workers could find themselves in a bit of a mess.

Co-worker: So, how long have you been dating Kelly?
Your date: Who’s Kelly?

There’s advice that’s politically correct (wish co-workers a “happy holiday” rather than naming any ethnicity-centric event); advice that’s business oriented (do a little casual networking with that top-level exec who wouldn’t otherwise know your name); and a whole lot of advice that’s geared toward that inner person-of-ill-repute who’s presumably dying to get out (follow an appropriate dress code, watch your language, and make “no sexual contact” your rule).

Co-worker: Oh, look! We’re under the mistletoe!
You: How nice. You may shake my hand.

If you’re often uncomfortable at parties and you don’t how to relax, hold a pleasant conversation or keep your clothes on in the presence of an open bar, then by all means, do your office-mates a favor and perform a Google or YouTube search on “holiday party survival,” and take the advice to heart.

But if you’re generally calm, conversational and fully dressed wherever you are, then go forth, mingle and have a festive – if cautious – time.

Wanted: Stupid E-Mails

When's the last time someone asked you for a stupid e-mail?

In real life, I speak on creating smarter e-mails, and true stories are always the funniest and most memorable part. For example, people love the graphic designer who mistakenly wrote to her client, "Could we please whine a little more?" They adore the manager who meant to sign off "Regards," but called his team "Retards," instead.

Some of the stories are embarrassing. Some of the stories are shocking. And some of the stories are pee-in-your-pants funny. But a lot of the stories are too naughty to repeat in a crowd. Yes, mistakenly replying-to-all with a joke about oral sex is hilarious. But it doesn't play on stage.

So I'm on the hunt for more genuine stories about people who have made terrible gaffes in e-mail - stories that can be told in a roomful of professionals. Maybe you have a co-worker who typed something so badly, his or her phrasing couldn't be understood. Maybe your manager buried an important request in a boring diatribe that nobody could be expected to read. Or maybe you've embarrassed yourself in front of all the wrong people because you forgot to pause and think before you hit Send. 

Please add your story in the comments below and hide any details (names, companies, etc.) that you don't want revealed. If I use your tale, I'll send you an autographed copy of my upcoming book, "Smart People, Stupid E-Mails" when it hits the stands.

We all know there are a lot of stupid e-mails out there, and from my point of view, the more, the merrier. So please feel free to launch this request out into the e-mailsphere. And thanks, in advance, for the stupid e-mails.

What Makes a Tweet Retweet?

 

Recently Dan Zarella, who calls himself "The Social Media & Viral Marketing Scientist," studied millions of entries on Twitter to determine what makes a tweet retweetable. The results comprise a 22-page report, but a compelling and graphically enhanced version from Dan Macsai, an assistant editor at Fast Company, covers a lot of fascinating points.

What retweets and what doesn't? To a great extent, idle chat, including words such as "watching," "game," "bored," "gonna" and "sleep" scored low on the retweet scale; but standard social media fare, such as "check out," "blog post," "free," "social," "media" and "please retweet" scored high.

Most of the positive retweet dynamics, we're happy to report, include some mark of intelligence: For example, using actual punctuation improves retweetability (but stay away from the stodgy old semicolon), and retweeted material tends to have more syllables per word (which puts it slightly higher than random tweets on readability grade-level scales).

The report also covers URL shorteners, timing of tweets, parts of speech, original versus non-original content, and more. Read the Fast Company article here, and happy intelligent tweeting.

How to Complain

If you’ve never read “the world’s funniest complaint letter” – a pointed and lengthy bashing of one airline passenger’s on-board dining experience – you should immediately go there, work your way through the ghastly photos and hilarious text, and then come back here so we can discuss how to write a complaint letter of your own.

The Virgin Atlantic letter, which surfaced in January of this year, was written by Oliver Beale, an advertising executive who, while flying to London from Mumbai, found himself on the receiving end of a decidedly unpleasant meal. Beale took pictures of the various dishes, typed out his many disappointments, and sent his missive directly to Virgin CEO Richard Branson ("Sir Richard" to the Brits).

In his letter Beale bemoaned the “yellow shafts of sponge” he’d been served along with “green paste” and “a sour gel,” and he called up the hopes and disappointments of a child on Christmas – one who expected a wonderful gift but has found his own dead hamster wrapped in a box. “That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this,” Beale wrote, referencing yet another photo of yellow glop. 

The letter actually had an effect. Branson reportedly read it, called Beale to thank him for the tongue-in-cheek input and even invited him to participate in future taste tests for the airline.

Of course, most letters of complaint don’t work nearly that well, and it’s worth looking into what made this one a success – and what you can do to get some attention when you’ve got a complaint of your own.
 
First, Beale started on a positive note, writing that he loves the Virgin brand. That type of flattery may seem unnecessary in the average discussion of what’s gone wrong, but if you truly want to attract someone’s attention, first tell them something nice.

Second, Beale was specific. He didn’t vaguely suggest the food was beneath his standards or that it didn’t taste very good; he gave a precise account of each yucky course. If you’re trying to rectify a bad situation or let someone know where improvement is due, tell them exactly what you've witnessed, received or experienced and where your disappointment lies.

Third, Beale didn’t lay blame. Even with his amusing “No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato” and “How can you live like this?” Beale didn’t actually attack anyone for causing his discontent. While it’s often tempting to assail someone’s nasty behavior or inability to perform, you’ll get a better hearing if you avoid personal insults and stick to the facts.

Fourth, Beale wrote well. He wasn't perfect, and his Briticisms might throw some of us off (for one thing, we Americans would use a lot more commas), but altogether the writing was clear and generally correct. He didn’t leave his audience assuming these might be the rantings of a fool, and he didn’t give them reason to deride his comments.

Of course, the best thing about Beale’s letter was that it was an absolute hoot. The lesson? Write something people will actually want to read.

When Not to E-Mail

There’s an old saying that tells us when the only tool we have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the modern office, that tool seems to be e-mail. But the truth is, e-mail sometimes causes more harm than help.

Here’s a quick look at the top 10 situations when e-mail just won’t work.

#10 – You want to send a heartfelt thanks – or apology. If you want to show genuine gratitude, taking 10 seconds to tap out your appreciation won’t do. Go out of your way by thanking someone publicly, buying lunch, or sending a handwritten note. If you owe an apology, give it in person.

#9 – You haven’t spoken in a long time. Business relationships thrive on personal contact, but e-mail can be a barrier to real communication. Pick up the phone once in a while, or walk down the hall and say Hello.

#8 – Your request isn’t crucial to them. When you e-mail busy people with a request, don’t be surprised if they ignore you. If you really want to ask a favor, start a personal conversation, instead.

#7 – You have enormous files to attach. E-mail seems like a handy way to send huge files, but you could clog your recipient’s system, and spam filters can turn you away. Check with your correspondent to see about file-size limits, and post large items on Web sites or shared drives.

#6 – You want to keep it confidential. It takes only a couple of keystrokes to turn a private conversation into a public tumult. Remember: E-mail might feel hush-hush, but thousands of red-faced people have found that it’s not.

#5 – You need an immediate reply. Some people arrange every moment around what just popped into the inbox, but plenty of people don’t. If you need an answer quickly, chat, call, text or IM.

#4 – You’re trying to convey “This is important.” For many recipients, your e-mail is likely to be one of dozens that come in every day – or every hour. Unless your name or your subject line is the most important thing on someone’s list, it’s easy to get lost in the clutter.

#3 – Your subject is complicated. Trying to explain a million details can get lengthy and difficult in text. When you’re staring at the screen wondering how to start – or re-explaining the thing you thought you had covered before – switch over to talk mode to get immediate feedback on what’s not clear.

#2 – Things could get tense. Emotion is one of e-mail’s biggest weak spots, and it’s easy to read attitude into the simplest of statements. If the topic of your e-mail is painful – or if you suspect hard feelings could occur – call a meeting so that all parties can use voice, expression and body language instead of just text.

#1 – E-mail caused the problem in the first place. Most hammers have a claw that helps you pull out badly driven nails, but e-mail doesn’t work like that. Once you’ve delivered a bad pounding in e-mail – an insensitive message, an embarrassing statement to the wrong mailing list – you need to deliver your mea culpa in some other way.

Political Correctness versus Common Sense

Of all the buzzwords and jargon that plague us at work – from the awkward, such as “disintermediation” (taking out the middleman), to the wicked, such as “leveraging knowledge capital” (stealing someone else’s ideas) – perhaps the most broadly used and widely despised is “politically correct.” 

It’s a smug little phrase that’s applied to everything from cultural sensitivity to downright lies. But no matter what it refers to, the term “political correctness” makes people cringe, and those who talk about it are judged ironic at best and moronic at worst.

The history of political correctness has decidedly authoritarian undertones (it reportedly has roots in Marxism, Maoism and the British Ministry of Information) which helps explain its darker, double-speak side. More recently, of course, the PC movement has incorporated a fuzzy overhaul of the language, and now we’re left with a bunch of terms that leave some of us laughing, some of us crying and too few of us making sense.

What did we gain, for example, from the change from “disabled” to “differently abled” or the semi-serious proposal that some people should be known as “vertically challenged”?

The general idea behind politically correct language is that we take a word or phrase that might be considered limiting or offensive, remove the negative part and replace it with something no one could find fault with. That’s how “old people” (let’s not label them with one age-related aspect) becomes “seniors,” and that’s how “chairman” (let’s not assume it’s always a man) becomes “chair.”

But the ridiculous side of PC is that all this re-jiggering of words often leads to a bunch of phrases that don’t mean much. If you’re vertically challenged, for example, are you too short? Too tall? Perhaps you’re afraid of heights?

Plenty of terms have been touched with the PC wand just for fun: A list at Bored.com, for example, includes “bovine control officer” for “cowboy,” “unaffiliated applicant for private-sector funding” for “panhandler” and “differently logical” for “wrong.” If you’re referring to dishonest people, you might call them “ethically challenged”; and if you’re thinking of accusing someone of plagiarism, you might simply note that they’re working with “previously owned prose.”

But the humor behind PC terms is in the eye of the beholder. In the workplace, where political correctness is supposed to make everyone feel valued and heard, it often gets in the way, instead. Not only are people confused about which terms to use and what people are trying not to say; they’re also afraid they’ll get in trouble if they speak up – and slip.

The solution to all this madness, of course – the absurd and meaningless phrases, the constant fear of the PC police – is simple common sense. Say what you mean, politely. Don’t put undue focus on other people’s differences, drawbacks or flaws. Don’t jump down anybody’s throat for using an unpopular phrase.

And don’t forget to laugh. After all, you wouldn’t want to be accused of being “amusement avoidant” or a “humor non-participant.” Or a PC stick in the mud.

Job Searching? You Are What You Write

Sometimes you are what you write.

In a connected world, we’re constantly writing things down and sending them out – in e-mail, text messages, blogs and more. In fact, our written words are often the only things people know about us, so the better we write, the better we characterize ourselves as smart, thinking professionals in a big, competitive world.

Take job searching, for example.

With most job openings these days, the searching starts online. Applicants are asked to submit their cover letters, their resumes and often the answers to essay questions in electronic form.

Employers want to “level the playing field,” as they say in business-jargon school, and they hope to make an objective comparison. So they do their best to consider work histories and education without being thrown off by the various tricks of the résumé trade.

But for the job candidate, that leveled field makes it difficult to stand out. You can’t make your first impression by choosing a great paper, a strong font and a professional-looking layout. Instead, your masterpiece gets sent downstream in plain vanilla text and unpredictable format, and it gets printed on cheap 20-pound bond with the rest of the rank-and-file.

So with nothing but your writing to represent you, that writing had better be good. And in a job search that means several things.

First, you need to be different. Almost every cover letter that comes across the hiring manager’s desk starts with a boring “I’m applying for such-and-such job.” Then it drones on with predictable claims such as “I have this much experience,” “I have these skills” and “I’m excited about this opportunity.”

But applying a little creativity, instead, can jolt the reader out of the looking-at-yet-another-candidate rut. Avoid the every-sentence-starts-with-me trap, don’t forget to talk about the employer’s needs, and be sure to explain why you’re excited rather than simply saying you are.

Second, good writing means saying and describing things clearly. A lot of writers make vague statements and fuzzy declarations but never fully explain their ideas. And many use plodding, unimaginative language that leaves the reader bored and ready to move on.

On the other hand, crafting lively, thorough statements – phrases that show why a certain experience is significant or how a particular skill is rare – helps bring those ideas to life in the reader’s mind. Eliminate inexact and hazy terms, and use words, phrases and sentences that are specific, meaningful and direct.

And third, good writing means being correct. Whenever you’re representing yourself through your words, any misspellings, grammatical errors or other mistakes will quickly make you look like a slob. It’s like showing up at an interview with lunch stains on your shirt.

So be sure to proofread and correct your work carefully, and let your written words represent a smart and careful you.

It’s easy to think that mediocre writing skills are “standard” and “good enough” these days and that only the literary need to craft their prose carefully and well. But think twice about the impression you want to make, and remember: When you are what you write, you want to write right.

Haiku Goes to Work

Ah, the charm of haiku. A poetry form with its roots deep in Japanese culture, haiku has found its way into many of our modern, Western hearts and minds. Some present-day poets are serious about their haiku, reflecting the pure form of the old masters; others are just goofing around, setting their thoughts, complaints and grocery lists to a 5-7-5 syllable form, just for grins.

Goofy haiku has a rich history in the techie world, getting its start, perhaps, with a 1998 error-message contest held by online magazine Salon. Tech haiku tend to be witty rather than serious, and they often have a think-twice twist, such as this one from ’98 contest winner David Dixon:

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

On Twitter – that hot-and-trendy site with the 140-character message limit – haiku is all part of the I-feel-like-posting-my-words-where-someone-can-see-them atmosphere. Budding poets and bored office-workers share three-liners on everything from love and romance to beer and pizza. Here’s a sample from a Tweep named @elemsee:

How I love new shoes.
All the places we can go –
Then come the blisters.

Of course, real poets cringe at the idea of so many abject amateurs tossing out lines that have everything to do with showing off and nothing to do with art. But there’s something fun and addictive about writing haiku for haiku’s sake. It’s easy to get caught up in the madness, absent-mindedly counting out the syllables of every silly idea you want to express just so you can spend at least part of the workday in a creative, inventive pursuit.

In at least one Northern Colorado office, workaday haiku has become a shared art form as workers make a game of volleying company news back and forth. This witticism, for example came in response to a doughnut-run request from HR: 

Those who eat donuts
Need to find it in their hearts
Help make Friday sweet

Of course, sticklers of all types might insist that office haiku is nothing more than a productivity sink, but clearly, creative souls are indulging in it anyway. They exercise their creative muscles while commenting on lunch, bemoaning the aesthetic state of their cubicles or reminding colleagues to keep the noise down.

In fact, maybe that’s one of the best things about writing haiku at work: Amusing verse can take the edge off a message that might otherwise seem tough or unpleasant.

Layoffs are coming
401(k) tumbling down
Haiku saves the day

E-mail Gets Smarter with a Sobriety Check

It’s late on a weekend night and you’ve written one of those e-mails that seems terribly important at the time – maybe an aggravated swipe at the boss or a swooning declaration of love. The problem is, you might be a little inebriated, and this could be an e-mail that should be stopped in its tipsy tracks.

That’s where Google’s Mail Goggles come in.

Yes, the fun folks in Mountain View, Calif., have put together a handy little program that lets Gmail users take their sobriety into account before sending out a potentially embarrassing e-mail.

The name is a play on “beer goggles,” the vision-altering effect of too much brew, which makes members of the opposite sex look dangerously more attractive than they actually are. With Mail Goggles, however, you don’t need your best friend to step in and check your intentions; you simply have to answer a few math questions. If you get them right – quickly – you’re free to send your missive on its way.

Sober enough for arithmetic, Google figures, is sober enough for e-mail.

Mail Goggles seems like a great idea, and it could save a lot of people from sending out messages they never should have typed. Take, for example, the college kid who ill-advisedly wrote to an English professor, “Can’t see through your retardness” along with “Do you live in a conformist vacuum of retards?” Kudos to him for a consistent approach, but it’s easy to imagine he would never have gotten to “Send” if he’d had to answer “What’s 42 divided by 7?” first.

Of course, you don’t have to be a hot-headed student to write an idiotic message; you could be a hot-headed television personality. Recently Pat O’Brien of celebrity news show “The Insider” sent his bosses an e-mail touting his own reputation – and noting that viewers “wanted to vomit” over some of his colleagues’ work. Speculation went out immediately over whether O’Brien was drunk when he wrote it, and perhaps a quick “What’s 497 minus 362?” could have saved his job.

For sheer stupidity, however, it seems that politicos and appointed officials might be the most desperately in need a “Wait – don’t send it!” e-mail check. There was the chief of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, who got caught forwarding e-mails containing porn and racism; the congressman who sent lewd messages to a number of congressional pages; and the city councilor who mistakenly sent “Give him all the rope he needs to hang himself” to – oops – the guy he wanted hanged. Quick, fellahs – how many times does 11 go into 121? And what the heck do you think you’re doing?

Yes, stopping to think before you hit “Send” is always a good idea, and a little sobriety-checking math might be just what we need. So the next time you’re imbibing and writing, raise a glass to the Mail Goggles guys at Google.

Way to go Mr. Late-Night E-Mail Wingman. This Bud – and this sobriety-checked missive – is for you.

This classic Miss Communications column was originally published October 17, 2008.