Miss Communications

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.

Complaining? What Not to Say

One fact of American culture is that we usually don’t talk on a personal level about how much money we have. Communicating our relative wealth highlights disparities and can bring equality into question – and as we all know from the songs, the speeches and the fourth-grade textbooks, equality is what we’re all about.

But sometimes – even in America – the gap between the haves and the have-nots goes public. For example, in the past several months we’ve seen a lot of stories about CEOs suffering through pay freezes and millionaires who can’t afford to fly their private jets. The stories are interesting in a you-still-don’t-really-get-it kind of way, and they leave us wondering about the difference between wisdom and wealth.

If there’s anything the well-to-do can learn from the latest economic downturn, it’s when to think twice about complaining.

Years ago I worked at a publishing company that was owned by a wealthy man. He was a self-starter and a pretty nice guy, but he seemed to have lost touch with his roots. When he occasionally visited the home office – sometimes driving up in his Land Rover, other times in his BMW – he occupied an expansive office that uselessly took up space the other 360 days of the year.

The problem was not, of course, that the boss was living a life of privilege. The problem was that he had no sensitivity when it came to talking about his lifestyle and wealth. In company meetings he would tell personal anecdotes that were supposed to relate to us on a human level, but instead they left us shaking our heads in disbelief.

Once there was a story about customer service. The boss’s family had recently vacationed in Hawaii, where they found their somewhat-grand hotel wasn’t quite up to snuff. They moved upscale, paid a larger chunk of cash, and discovered that "good help" is willing to fawn and fuss.

Another time there was a tale of economic woe. With a downturn in business we were all facing a pay freeze, but the boss let us know that he was feeling the pinch: With no increase in income, he wasn’t getting a new BMW that year.

Surprise! A lot of us weren’t getting new BMWs that year! One of my co-workers, however, was getting a new house – one she could afford only through the magic of Habitat for Humanity and their low-income help.

Did the boss know how some of his staff were struggling? And if he knew, did he care? His quips and communications seemed to indicate that he didn’t have a clue.

In our latest set of fiscal setbacks, where some folks are foregoing million-dollar bonuses while others are in dire need of low-income – or no-income – help, it’s more important than ever to remember that economic pain is relative, and it’s tough to sound down-to-earth when you’re not.

So if you’re thinking about complaining, remember an important rule of communication that always applies: Think about your audience first.

What's in a Name?

Would you hire someone who calls himself a “Perficient Analyst”? Well, a lot of people would. It turns out that Perficient is the name of a technology consulting firm, and its analysts get that moniker whether they’re proficient – and whether they’ve got a funny Southern accent – or not. Surely the folks who named the business must have felt it was a clever cross between “performance” and “efficient.” But still, you have to wonder: Did they really think it through?

Lately a number of organizations have been in the news for creating new names without really thinking things through. For example, a joint venture between the Nigerian government and Russian energy company Gazprom is presumably being named Nigaz. The word – which is probably meant to be pronounced NY-gaaz, though that’s not obvious at a glance – has taken a lot of heat for looking like a racial slur.

In addition, the 16-year-old network formerly known as the Sci Fi Channel changed its name this week to the simpler – but sillier – Syfy. Supposedly Syfy gets away from sci fi’s nerdy roots, but there’s been a lot of negative feedback so far. Is it “more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly,” as company President Dave Howe says? Or is it clumsy and puzzling and reminiscent of a certain sexually transmitted disease, as its detractors suggest?

In a highly suspicious move, the branding company that worked with Syfy seems to have distanced itself from the new name altogether: Landor Executive Director Ken Runkel says in a blog post that, “While we’d love to take credit,” the name was “pre-tested at the channel before our involvement.” That’s a disclaimer that many interpret as “Don’t blame us.”

Bloggers and branding consultants are having a heyday with the flakey new names on the scene, nicknaming Syfy “Siphy” and calling Nigaz a “blunder” and a “branding fail.”

Dick Bruso, the founder of Heard Above The Noise, a branding consultancy based in Parker, Colo., says unflattering associations are among the first things to watch out for when devising a new name or identity.

“When people hear the name, what’s the first thing they think of?” Bruso asks. “If it looks like it could be negative or offensive, you don’t want to use it.”

Bruso’s mantra is that a company or brand name should be repeatable, compelling and memorable – but not, of course, in a bad way. If people are compelled to remember and repeat your new name just to shake their heads in disbelief or share a laugh, your branding still needs work.

Of course, even if your new name has been chosen with all the caution, testing and memorability you can muster, you never know what some folks will do with the words. Just ask Microsoft, who recently announced their new search engine would be called Bing. The word is meant to represent that happy sound of a successful PC moment, but bloggers and quipsters everywhere have decided Bing stands for “But It’s Not Google.”

Repeatable, compelling and memorable indeed – But It’s Not Good.

E-Mail: Informal? Yes. Sloppy? No.

E-mail is informal, and for many people that’s a great relief. It means there’s no wondering about the exact format, no fretting over the proper salutation and very little worrying about whether everything is precisely right.

But formality can mean different things to different people, and just as “business casual” can be interpreted in many ways, one man’s informal is another man’s mess.

One thing informal doesn’t mean is sloppy writing – such as “Well leverate last years deign” when you mean “We’ll leverage last year’s design.” Slapdash spelling and slipshod grammar are unprofessional – and not just because the word nerds say so. They slow your readers’ progress and make things difficult – and sometimes impossible – to understand.

Informal writing also doesn’t mean typing as if you’re sending a txt msg 2 yr BFF. Yes, according to your age and aptitude, that may be the way you’re used to communicating. But unless you run a texting-centric business, have full authority over how the company’s image should be managed and are certain that everyone in your potential audience will understand, it doesn’t look good. In fact, sending text shorthand in e-mail is broadly considered lazy and immature.

Still, there are at least a couple of excellent reasons for keeping your e-mails casual. One is that informal language is usually much easier to read – and therefore more efficient and productive to use – than a stiff or academic approach. Words and phrasing that sound natural make immediate sense to us, and we usually don’t have to struggle over what they mean.

Another good reason for informal writing in e-mail is that it signals a softer stance than formal language does. With e-mail’s natural ability to be misunderstood, people often infer aggravation that the writer never meant. Maintaining a sense of relaxation throughout the conversation is always a welcome move.

The basic approach to ensuring your e-mails are informal – so they’re easy to read and free of brittle overtones – is to use words and phrases that tend toward the simpler, shorter and easier to understand.

In most e-mails, for example, you can write “get” instead of “obtain,” “smart” instead of “intelligent,” “sure” instead of “certain” and so on. You can also cut down long, unwieldy constructions, as in “I do not think, upon further consideration, and with significant input from the executive team,” to shorter and friendlier versions, such as “We’ve all decided,” which will be clearer as well as less off-putting and stiff.

And one of the easiest ways to include easier, breezier phrasing in e-mail is to simply use contractions, such as “I’m” and “don’t,” instead of the longer “I am,” “do not” and so on. They’re natural and comfortable to read, and they don’t leave the writer sounding like a third-grader with a book report.

Is it true that if you will endeavor to write in a more casual manner you will find your electronic messages to be more effortless to read and more amicable all around?

Yeah – so lighten up. You’ll make more sense and seem less uptight.

Modern Manners: Hosting, Equal Rights, and Those Damned Cell Phones

No matter how modern the business world gets – information moving at the speed of light; new gadgets being released every day – we still engage in a few good-old-fashioned rituals. Among them is sharing a meal or a drink while getting a little work or networking done.

Last week I wrote about dining etiquette and discussed the polite wisdom of Marie Hornback, director of HMS Protocol & Etiquette Training, whose approach is to engender more confidence through better business manners. This week let’s look at a few more details that help businesspeople navigate the tricky world of meeting and dining politely.

Whenever you’re in an unfamiliar social setting, the recommendation, Hornback says, is to watch and follow your host. But in business, who’s the host? And if it’s you, what should you do?
 
In business, as in personal events, the host is the person who extended the invitation. In an interview setting, for example, it’s the company doing the wining and dining. Specifically, the host is probably the ranking member present – although hosts don’t necessarily have higher business status. If you invite your boss to lunch to discuss a new idea, for example, you’re effectively hosting the meal.

It’s possible, too, to have an un-hosted meal; for example, if it’s less of a formal, I’d-like-to-take-you-to-lunch affair and more of a casual, let’s-get-together thing.

The host’s job is to make his or her guests feel comfortable, which means graciously allowing guests to walk ahead (as when making your way to the table) and take a seat, and having them order drinks and meals first (a simple nod toward your guest when the waiter asks for orders makes it all very natural and smooth). In most circumstances, being the host also means picking up the check – or at least offering to.

What about old-fashioned chivalry? For many people, manners have long meant that gentlemen should defer to ladies in all sorts of decorous ways. But Hornback notes that “In the U.S., gender is neutral in business,” which means door-opening and chair-holding are entirely unnecessary. Still, her recommendation to women who don’t appreciate the masculine approach is to be gracious and accepting – and not to call attention to the “mistake.”

Of course, no contemporary briefing on etiquette would be complete without a look at that modern enemy of propriety, the public cell phone call. Should you take one during a business lunch – or during any meeting at all?

Hornback notes that, whenever you answer the phone or turn to your PDA, “It immediately tells your companions, ‘You’re not as important as this call.’” If you’re expecting an important interruption, she advises telling your cohorts ahead of time, then politely excusing yourself if the call, text or e-mail comes through.

Altogether, etiquette is about common sense and comfort. Yes, there are rules and conventions that seem mysterious to the uninformed. But with a little training and information, we can all be a little more relaxed and at ease – and a lot more focused on the business at hand.