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?

Allan Jenkins and Donna Papacosta, two seasoned IABC communicators, recently agreed to be interviewed as part of a series of interviews I’m conducting for PR undergraduates at Deakin University here in Australia.

You can hear and download Allan’s and Donna’s interviews over on theMediaPod.net site.

Thank you to those of who who have agreed to be interviewed by me shortly - I look forward to it!

My motto for interviews: “no stone unturned, no laundry unwashed, no pizza uneaten.”