IABC Employee Communication Commons

Please forgive the “21st Century” cliche, and consider it shorthand for all of the changes we’ve seen in employee communications over the past 10 years or so. I mention this because I teach business writing to college students, and although the very expensive textbooks are blinged up with lots of color and sidebars and references to social media, the kernel of the course still focuses on letter writing, brief reports, and the resume.

After grading the umpteenth bad-news letter, I started to wonder if this was really what modern business communication is all about. How many form letters does one company need? The only letters I seem to get from businesses have one thing in common: they want me to use their credit card. Do non-banking businesses still write letters? How much business communication today is external, and how much is internal?

I suspect that from 9-5, most of us communicate internally, to our colleagues, and that we use e-mail and face-to-face meetings to do it. Although I hear about companies that use blogs and wikis and podcasts, I am guessing most of us don’t work at places like that (look at how s-l-o-w the traffic is at these blogs, for instance). All of which leads to my question:

What should I be teaching in a business writing class? What are the essential communication skills and channels that my students need when they graduate? I sure don’t want to waste my students’ time–or mine.

And I promise to blog more regularly (my goal is monthly), which I will be able to do now that I’ve found the instructions again!

Pat

A new dilemma for employees–what to do when their boss invites them to become a “friend” on a social networking site like Facebook?

As an article in today’s Wall Street Journal describes the dilemma: “You’re caught between the career-limiting rejection of virtual friendship or career-limiting access to photos of yourself glassy-eyed at a party.”

And if an employee does accept the invitation, some strategies he could use to protect his dignity are also problematic. Employing privacy features could be perceived as a snub. And sanitizing the profile could be interpreted as hiding something.

As the article says, it used to be that employees were expected to keep their personal lives and their professional lives separate. When bosses ask their employees to become online friends, they are mixing up the two.

Is that a good idea?

So, I got my ears pierced last October. (Yes, this relates to communication, eventually. Be patient.)

Most young women I know get this done around age 11; I waited considerably longer, being a total wuss when it comes to needles. Although painful, the event itself wasn’t so bad–I was distracted by the red shag carpet on the ceiling of the tattoo/piercing salon–and the acute pain faded within minutes, although I didn’t get a good night’s sleep for the next six weeks. I almost passed out the evening I took out the captive bead rings and put in my own brand new, titanium studs for the first time. (Blomdahl. I recommend them highly.)

A side effect of having this done is that I really notice other people’s piercings now; instead of turning away in disgust, I am interested to see what they’re wearing. I have almost gotten used to the baristas at my local Brew-ha-ha, young women with hair dyed interesting colors and assorted multiple lip, eyebrow, ear, tongue and nose piercings. Having been pierced once, though, and in a relatively benign area, I cannot fathom going through it again on more tender facial parts (and let’s not take the concept any farther south). But I see more and more people–and not just those under age 30–with a lot of bling sticking out of their faces, and arms fully tattooed.

All of which brings me to the communication issue. I’m an avid reader of Ned Lundquist’s Job of the Week newsletter, and the other day while following up on one of its leads I ran across the web site of a company that not only posted a job description and qualifications, but also its dress-code rules that female employees could have no more than two piercings per ear lobe, that male employees could not wear even one earring, and that no one was allowed to show any tattoos while in the office.

I have been wondering about the impression such highly decorated people make on a job interview, so tell me, how do you react to studded and be-dragoned interviewees? Is body art a legit form of communication? If so, what does it say about the one wearing it and to the one observing it? Does it have a place in a modern office environment besides the art department? Are ultra-conservative companies overreacting?

Time to shop for more earrings…

Pat