Message Not Received : Why Business Communication Is Broken and How to Fix It.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (267 pages)
Intro -- Message Not Received -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface -- Part I Worlds Are Colliding -- Introduction: The Intersection of Business, Language, Communication, and Technology -- Subject: The Other Scourge of Business Communication -- Technology and the Cardinal Importance of Business Communication -- What's the Big Whoop? -- From Pencils to WhatsApp: A Little History Lesson -- Book Overview and Outline -- Central Premise of Book -- Disclaimers -- Who Should Read This Book? -- A Holistic Methodology -- Fusing Data with Stories -- No Man Is an Island: Looking Outward -- Plan of Attack -- My Communication Bona Fides -- Next -- 1 Technology Is Eating the World: The Dizzying Nature of Today's Existence -- Whoops -- Accelerating Technological Change -- The Rise of the Machines -- Trailing the Goldfish: Our Declining Attention Spans -- A Communications Revolution -- The Age of the Entrepreneur -- Disruption Is Cool -- SEO, and the Really Long Tail -- The Sliding Scale of Search -- Google and the Never-Ending Jargon Train -- Marketing Madness -- Mobile Mania -- BYOD -- The Rise of the Tech Celebrity -- A New Body Politic -- Other Trends -- Next -- Notes -- 2 The Increasingly Overwhelmed Employee: Is This Becoming the New Normal? -- Mad Men No More -- Abundant Leisure: Keynes Was Wrong -- Drowning in Data -- Demonizing the Tech Companies -- The Limits of Technology's Tentacles -- A Different Kind of Workplace -- The Erosion of the Social Compact -- Layoffs and the Employee Psyche -- Is Being Overwhelmed Even a Choice Anymore? -- What's Holding Us Back? -- Humblebrags, Vanity, and the Cult of Busy -- Pervasive Communication and Self-Actualization -- Next -- Notes -- Part II Didn't You Get That Memo?: Why We Don't Communicate Good at Work -- 3 What We Say: Examining Words at Work -- Jargon: The Cause of So Much Noise. Why We Obfuscate -- The Growing Use of Business Jargon -- The Rise of Numeracy -- Beyond Jargon: Other Communication and Language Atrocities -- Speaking Fouls -- What We Don't Say -- Next -- Notes -- Appendix to Chapter 3 -- Note -- 4 How We Say It: E-Mail Is Dead. Long Live E-Mail! -- A Communications Dynasty: Explaining E-Mail's Impressive Reign -- E-Mail Fulfills a Legitimate Communications Need -- Lack of Legitimate Communications Alternatives -- Ease of Use -- Speed -- Reliability, Security, and Privacy -- The Largely Asynchronous Nature of E-Mail -- Portability -- Network Effects and Metcalfe's Law -- Techie Stuff: Ubiquity, Interoperability, and Common Protocols -- Legitimacy -- Failure to Invest in New Technologies -- Employee Laziness and Inertia -- E-Mail Nation -- How We're Working Isn't Working -- E-Mail's Cross-Purposes -- E-Mail Often Lacks Nuance and Emotional Depth -- E-Mail Is Often Wholly Inefficient -- Our E-Mail Obsession Makes Us Dumber -- E-Mail's Largely Unknown Legal Issues -- E-Mail Fosters Unhealthy Internal Competition -- E-Mail Is (Too) Private -- E-Mail Search Can Be Lacking -- Timing and the Folly of the Urgent E-Mail -- E-Mail Easily Overwhelms Us -- E-Mail Is Often an Inappropriate Medium -- Much Better Collaboration and Communication Tools Exist -- Next -- Notes -- 5 Why Bad Communication Is Bad Business: The Unintended Consequences of Mixed and Missed Messages -- One Size Does Not Misfit All -- Message Not Received -- Decreased Clarity, Credibility, and Trust -- Lost Sales -- Severed Relationships and Burnt Bridges -- Poor Execution and Strategic Blunders -- Lower Productivity -- Inefficiency, Waste, and Severed Relationships -- Increased Risk of Project Failure -- Other Long-Term Employee Issues -- Net Effect: A Vicious Cycle -- Next -- Notes -- Part III Message Received. 6 Don't Call It a Paradigm: Guidelines for Effective Business Communication -- Language -- E-Mail -- Frequency, Quantity, and Use -- Timing -- Selecting a Communications Medium -- Handling the Fallout -- Next -- Notes -- 7 Words and Context: Building a Solid Communication Foundation -- A Trip Down Memory Lane -- The World of Words -- The Perils of the Single Sentence -- Get Active: Minimize the Passive Voice -- Short and Simple: Nail the Opening -- Synonyms: The Sexy Syllable Savers -- KISS as Often as Possible -- Mind Your Acronyms -- Embrace the Power of Questions -- Be Precise -- Keep Verbing and Nominalizations to a Minimum -- Communication Context, Awareness, and Technique -- Unless You're Absolutely Sure, Assume Nothing -- Recognize That One Size Does Not Fit All -- Know When To Be Specific-Really Specific -- Get Visual, But Not Too Visual -- Silence: The Art of the Pause -- Other Tips -- Next -- Notes -- 8 Life Beyond E-Mail: How Progressive Organizations Are Using New Tools to Enable More Effective Collaboration and Communication -- Communication and Collaboration Circa 2004 -- The Benefits of Old Tools -- E-Mail Detox -- If Not E-Mail, Then What? -- True Communication and Collaboration in Action -- Slaying the E-Mail Dragon: Klick Health -- Impetus -- How Genome Improves the Work Experience -- Finder -- Weekly and Project 360s -- Teachable Moments and Klick Academy -- Chatter -- News -- Dynamic Dashboards -- Lessons and Next Steps -- Results -- Keep Calm and Jive On -- Impetus for Change -- Deployment -- Continuous Development -- Lessons, Results, and Next Steps -- The Internal Social Network -- Company Background -- Communication Issues and the Move to Yammer -- Building on Early Successes -- Results and the Future -- Lessons and Next Steps -- New Tools: No Guarantees -- Next -- Notes -- Part IV What Now? -- Coda: Was This Message Received?. Acknowledgments -- Thank You -- Selected Bibliography -- About the Author -- Index -- EULA.
9781119048121
Business communication -- Technological innovations.