Communicado: Business Communications Blog

Should you mind your manners in business writing?

When I was a child my mother always used to tell me to “mind my P’s and Q’s”. I’m still not entirely sure what she meant, but I think it was along the lines of “don’t forget to say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ or you’ll get a clip round the ear”. Certainly, I found out that if I didn’t remember to write a thank you letter to relatives after a birthday, the prospects for a present the following year were severely jeopardised.

Things don’t seem to be quite so straightforward in business writing and sometimes we have quite lengthy discussions about whether it is good practice to say ‘Please’.

Some people are adamant: they never say please in an email or memo, as it simply gets in the way and dilutes the message. Others find this too abrupt; rude, even. These latter folk are the natural people pleasers, who argue that no harm can be done by simple manners. And good manners help to oil the works, don’t they? This can be a tricky debate to resolve, and of course there is no single right answer. Sometimes, it's simply be a matter of personal preference. At other times the company culture dictates your style of writing.

For my money, there is a rule of thumb that might help. I call it the ‘birthday present rule’. Let me explain. Business writing is all about getting your message across clearly and simply. Everybody is busy, and people appreciate receiving communications that are short and to the point. Business writing is not about being nice, it is about being – well, business-like. So I don’t think ‘please’ is essential for everyday communications between colleagues. They already know that you are a nice person – they see or speak to you most days. They will thank you more for being accurate and brief.

However – and here I hope my birthday present analogy will help! – if somebody has gone out of their way to help you, or if you specifically need to maintain good relations with an occasional work associate, then yes, saying please and thank you will undoubtedly help.

Ultimately it's a matter of judgment based on your audience and your message. But I do think that in a business context, clarity is more important than being nice: “P’s and Q’s” can often afford to be the exception rather than the rule. Just don’t tell my mum I said so.

A new dawn for blended learning?

The term blended learning seems to have been around for ever. It's one of those concepts that appears highly attractive and it's something that various  people and organisations have flirted with on and off for a long time, but to me, it never really seems to have taken hold. (By the way, I'd love to be proved wrong on this one - so if you are a person or organisation seriously using blended learning, I'd love to hear about it).

Also, I suspect it's one of those terms  that means different things to different people. For what it's worth, I've always thought of it as a way of bringing together e-learning and classroom training.

Perhaps part of the problem with my version of blended learning is that it aims to bring together two very different approaches to learning. Maybe it's too much to expect people with a definite preference for either e-learning or classroom training to suddenly be okay with learning from both approaches.

The blended learning experience

This is certainly borne out by our own experience of running blended learning programmes. Typically, we would give delegates an e-learning module as the first stage of the programme, followed by a classroom workshop. It would not be unusual to find that 75% of delegates attending the workshop hadn't even glanced at the e-learning module, despite repeated reminders and prods. No need to comment on the frustration felt by the trainer and the 25% who had taken the trouble to work through the module in advance!

So is blended learning a lost cause, confined to the instructional design text books with no real hope of becoming a serious contender?

If you'd asked me that 12 months ago, I would almost certainly have said yes. Today, I'm much more positive. I think blended learning has been granted a new lease of life.

Web conferencing to the rescue?

Why? I think it's all down to web conferencing. While this has been around for a while, a combination of recession, a desire to cut down on carbon footprint and an increasing number of people actually experiencing web conferencing makes it a technology that's suddenly taking off.

So what is it about web conferencing that gives me cause for hope? I think it's a winning combination of the positives of the virtual world and the familiarity of the real world . More specifically, no need for the expense of travel, accommodation classrooms or big chunks of time out of the office, while still maintaining the familiarity of fixed learning times and the comfort of other live human beings to share with you as you learn.

Clearly, there are adjustments for participants to make, but blending formal learning sessions over the web with time in the classroom makes much more sense to me than throwing together two very disparate approaches like self-paced e-learning and classroom workshops.

Savings to be made

For the 'bottom liners' in the audience, there's good news too. There are some serious cost savings to be made whether you are using this kind of approach yourselves or asking a supplier to deliver in this mode.

This is a hot topic right now, so we have just written a white paper on the subject. If you would like to download and read more on new-look blended learning, you can do so here:

http://info.pacificblue.co.uk/blended-learning-white-paper

Business communications: a trainer writes...

One of the many nice things about being a trainer is you get to meet people from different walks of life and different businesses. I see people from across the spectrum  – banks, pharmaceutical and construction companies; from the police and public services; from insurance and technical companies, plus many more besides. Every delegate has a different tale to tell about how they came to be in the room.

Introducing yourself

It's just as well we do introductions at the start of the day, for one time it turned out a delegate was not only in the wrong room, but the wrong building. We had a bizarre conversation, talking at cross-purposes until the penny dropped. I tried to persuade him to stay for my “Effective Business Communications” course, but his financial planning meeting with a completely different company just wouldn’t wait. I still wonder if his PowerPoint graphics were effective in showing the figures he had to present – and more importantly, effective in getting his argument across – but I will never know….

 

Different backgrounds, common issues

Anyway, one thing always strikes me when we start to talk about improving our business communications: how similar the underlying problems are. We may come from different business backgrounds and departments, but the issues we face are fundamentally the same. Sometimes very general (“what am I trying to say and how can I say it effectively?”) and sometimes very specific (“how can I present my financial figures to a non-financial audience?”).

 

Looking ahead

So, at the risk of sounding like the Private Eye column “A Doctor Writes”, in my next few posts I thought I’d review some of the main questions and recurring themes and share ways in which you might tackle them. And, like Private Eye, my posts do come with a health warning: in the space available, I can only introduce topics and ideas, not fully unpack or resolve them. But if you’d like to see how these main themes play out time and again, then stay tuned.

Your challenge

For now, I’ll leave you with a challenge: get your editing pen out and cut down your word count. When it comes to business communications, less is almost always more. Why? Because fewer words force you to be more careful and exact about what you are saying, making your message sharper and more focused. (Ever felt the need to keep on explaining, and to keep on writing?  It seems the less we understand our subject matter, the more explaining we try to do.) And of course, fewer words help our readers too.

So be ruthless: say it well once, rather than several times poorly. And I’ll write another prescription soon. In the meantime, make sure you repeat this one daily until the symptoms go away. But ok, I promise to drop the medical speak from now on.

Where do I start? How Information Mapping helps report writers

As one of the trainers for Pacific Blue, I thought I’d add a few thoughts to the mix. And as this is my first post, I thought I’d say a few words about the question that bothers report writers everywhere, ‘Where do I start?’

In any writing context there is always that first, slightly alarming, confrontation with the blank page. Sometimes I have no idea what to write, and at other times I have so many competing thoughts that it seems impossible to make sense of them.

And I’m not just talking about report writing in a business context here. A few weeks ago I had the misfortune to have a rather expensive prang in a hire car. Not my fault, I hasten to add, but I have yet to get my deposit back! Anyway, I had to compose a letter to the insurance people. But I had so many confusing thoughts about what had happened, so much detail that I wanted to include – plus plenty of thoughts about who’s fault it was, along with frustration at the whole incident. For a moment I was completely unable to begin.

Using 'Maps' or topics
And that is where my Information Mapping training kicked in. Because one of the really effective concepts that Information Mapping teaches is the idea of a ‘Map’ or topic of information. Break down all your ideas into discrete topics, and life suddenly becomes so much simpler. So, I was able to start with a straightforward, factual ‘Map’ explaining exactly what happened, in objective and neutral terms. That allows me to agree the common facts of the case with the other party.

My next topic was ‘The cause of the accident’. I went on to explain the reasons why the accident happened, and put forward my case. Here I can say why I felt it was not my fault, and build up a logical argument for this point of view. I can do this without having to worry about establishing the facts of the case.

Finally, I had a topic about ‘What happens next’ – including the details about the amount of the claim and what I thought would be a fair outcome.

A letter that wrote itself
So in a very few minutes, the letter had just about written itself. Using a logical structure based around topics of information made a potentially very stressful activity into really quite a straightforward one. And, of course, this can be applied to your business writing as well.

I’ll let you know how the claim goes, though I have been advised it may be some months before it all gets resolved…

PowerPoint Presentations on the Web: Top survival techniques

I don't know about anyone else, but doing presentations over the web is not something I always look forward to.  Of course, I love the benefits, like not having to travel; not having to worry if the room will be right; and, not having to worry about that tea stain I got on my nice white shirt at lunch. But I really hate not seeing the audience, not being able to make eye contact and not getting all the usual visual clues about how the audience is responding.

Clearly, web presentations and teleconferences are here to stay, so here are some ideas to help you prosper in this new virtual environment.

1. Quick up-front interaction
If you are presenting to a small group (say, maximum 6-8), rather than starting with the typical introduction of yourself, make time to talk ever so briefly with each participant. Ask them what they do and what they hope to get out of the presentation.

2. Personalise relevant points
As you get into the presentation, you can use this personal connection to focus relevant points in the direction of particular participants.
Example: "So Al and Ruth, at the beginning you both said you were here to learn more about the timescales. Let's take a moment to go through those".

It's really easy for individual listeners to zone out or get distracted during a web presentation - this is a simple and really effective way of keeping them engaged.

3. Encourage limited interaction
With real-world presentations, once we get started, we typically expect to complete the presentation uninterrupted and then take questions at the end.

With a web presentation to a small group, consider actively encouraging interaction at appropriate points. You've already established one-to-one communication, so why not throw out personalised, directed questions to keep people engaged.
Example: "Al and Ruth, now we've covered the timescales, can you see those working or do you have concerns?"

If the answer is in the negative, you don't need to answer right there and then. Simply indicate that their concerns are noted and promise to come back to that vital point once you're done.

4. Insert mini-summaries as you go
The old, "Tell them what you're going tell them (overview), tell them (main body) and tell them what you've just told them (summary)" is just as applicable to web presentations - but with a twist.  When you are breaking the main body of your presentation into smaller sub-sections, plan to include mini-summaries at the end of each sub-section as well.

5. Give your audience time to process and respond
When we are presenting face-to-face, we pause quite a lot. More than we probably realise. When we can't see the people we are presenting to we have a tendency to just keep talking in order to fill the void. Don't be tempted. Pause frequently. This allows your virtual audience time to process what they've just heard. If you are encouraging your audience to interact more than usual, pauses also allow time for people to respond.

Tweeted out? Tips for sane social media engagement for business

Well, the Roman Catholic Church has declared it could be bad for your children. London, apparently, is the tweeting capital of the world and the founder of Twitter has been given airtime on BBC’s Newsnight. Social media has very definitely arrived.

With all the brouhaha, it’s easy for businesses and business communicators not already involved in this brave new world to feel the need to jump in the deep end and get socialising.

A couple of questions in discussion forums in the last few days illustrate the point. “What’s the cost of a one-hour crash course in social media?” cries one. “Anyone know how many businesses use social media? Where can I find out?” panics another.

The first question is almost hilarious in its inappropriateness (the approach to and learning about social media being a gradual, organic process of engagement).

In response to the second question all I can say is,  “who cares?”. If you try using social media and it brings the results you want for your business, surely that’s all that matters.

So in case you are tempted to take that crash course, are spending sleepless nights counting all the businesses using social media or worse still you have jumped in the deep end and are wondering what all the fuss is about, here are some tips to keep you sane.

Tip 1: Remember the true business purpose of social media
For businesses and business communicators, all the hype makes it easy to lose sight of social media’s true business purpose. Funny really, because it’s simple - to network and build links.

In essence, this is no different to the networking you would do in the real world. Just like in the real world, it’s all about meeting contacts and establishing relationships built on trust. Over time in both the real and virtual worlds, you hope that these contacts will become customers, suppliers, business partners, mentors and even employees.

Tip 2: It’s the what?
My second tip brings to mind Bill Clinton’s constant reminder to himself during his presidential campaign. My social media version of Bill’s reminder would be, “It’s the content, stupid”.  

At that real world networking event, you need something useful and interesting to say. In the virtual networking world, providing quality content to your target audience groups is the key. If you do this consistently, over time you will get noticed and you will build your and your business’s reputation.

Tip 3: It’s a two-way process
At the real-world networking event, no-one is going to love you if you babble on endlessly and don’t really listen to what other people are saying. It’s no different with social media. In the previous tip, I emphasised quality but let’s not forget about listening to your audience’s needs and responding with content that is top quality and totally relevant.

If you take the view that social media is just about throwing yourself out there as much as possible and engaging regardless, you’ll surely end up with the virtual equivalent of, "Excuse me, but I need to go get another drink”.

So avoid the hype, avoid the panic and build your social media networks slowly but surely. Listen carefully to what people have to say and always respond with quality, relevant content.

The parallels between email writing and report writing

I was interested to read the results of a recent survey carried out by GMX into the use of email in the UK workplace.

The headline conclusion was depressingly familiar: over a third of workers have been offended or upset after misinterpreting the tone or language used in emails received from colleagues.

The medium and the message don't match
And it’s depressingly familiar because the cause is so common: the mismatch between the delivery medium and the communication’s purpose. In such cases, it’s inevitable some people will get inappropriately written messages and become offended.

What do I mean exactly by this mismatch? In my view, email was intended for (and should really only be used for) quick messages and updates. In reality, it’s now used for almost every kind of business communication. Are we going to turn the clock back and encourage billions of users to only use email ‘correctly’? Hardly likely.

Not all emails should be treated equal
Is there a solution? Potentially, yes. If you are using email for anything other than short, basic communications, you need to treat it with the seriousness you give to report writing.

Just like report writing, you need to have a clear view of your audience and the information they need to know. Just like report writing you need to have a clear outline structure before your fingers hit the keyboard. Just like report writing, you need to pay a great deal of care and attention to the language and vocabulary you are using.

Audiences should apply caution, too
But there is another aspect the GMX  survey revealed: one in ten workers said they expected a response to their email on the same day, while a third claimed they get offended if they haven't received a reply with 48 hours.

So it’s not just writers who need to be mindful of the medium and the message – which brings us back to some interesting comparisons with reports. Audiences wanting speedy responses have a tendency to skim read email content and make instant judgments. Before you know it, they are firing off a reply that causes offence and bad feeling. So the cycle continues.

Reports and emails: contratsing approaches
By contrast, if you receive a report (long or short) you’ll probably do more than skim read it. You’ll probably give it some thought. Any response you make is likely to be considered and measured. Similar content delivered in an email, however, is likely be read in haste. You’ll probably be bashing the keyboard within minutes of receipt.

The basic problem: we have fallen in love with a technology and we are using it in ways it was never intended to be used. This is highly unlikely to change. What can change, though, is the ability of both readers and writers to treat some emails differently from others. If it’s short instant content that’s ideal for email – go ahead, speed away. If it’s anything else, both readers and writers should give it the time and consideration they would give to a report or a more complex piece of content.

Information Mapping: structure in a hectic world

I should start by saying that if you are a person who fights against any kind of structure and planning – a person who delights in the freedom of going with the flow above all else, then Information Mapping may not be for you.

If, however, you are person who needs to communicate with all manner of people in a variety of different ways and you sometimes struggle with organising your ideas and expressing them with clarity and conciseness (most of us, I think!) then the structure that Information Mapping provides could well be for you.

Staying on track
One of the things I love about a structured approach is that it keeps you on track. When you’ve been distracted, discouraged and otherwise befuddled by the task in hand (or other unrelated tasks going on around you), a plan or a structure can quickly and easily get you back on track.

Keeping a focus on the audience
One of the easiest things that can happen when communicating is that you lose sight of your intended audience or audiences. You start to include stuff that might interest you, but is entirely irrelevant to them. A structured approach means you clearly define your audience groups up front and can keep referring back to your definitions at any point in the communication process.

Reminding you of your purpose
Apart from ‘because my boss told me to’, it’s easy to be unclear about why you are communicating. Once again, a structured approach enables you to define your purpose (or purposes) clearly and relate those to each of the audience groups previously defined.

Helping you stay relevant
Worse still, without clearly defined audiences and purposes, how on earth can you be sure of what they need to know. (I feel a brain dump coming on!) And this really is the nightmare scenario. You in full flow writing what interests you, completely oblivious to the information needs of your audience.
 
Who liked it?
Imagine your surprise at the end of all of this. Not only was your boss over the moon, but the really important people (your audience) were well informed and had all the information they needed. Imagine everyone going away satisfied. Imagine, no more endless ringing of phones or emails filling your inbox with your audience asking for clarification.

Top tips for choosing elearning software

Looking for elearning software or elearning authoring tools can be a pretty time-consuming process. There are many tools out there and nowadays most of them are pretty sophisticated.

Apart from the obvious criteria of budget, it can be hard to know how to choose. Focusing relentlessly on feature comparison of selected tools is not necessarily going to get you anything other than a headache! Let’s be clear, understanding the features and capabilities of the authoring tool you ultimately choose is a very important part of the selection process; but it’s not the only part.

Here are my top 3 tips for avoiding ‘featuritis’. They apply to both businesses and individuals and are particularly pertinent to anyone looking at using elearning software for the first time.

1. Know your developers
I’ve already mentioned that most elearning authoring tools are pretty sophisticated and many offer a very similar feature set. But not all are created equal when it comes to user interface and general ease-of-use.

You could pretty much take any two or three pieces of authoring software with more or less the same features. Yet the experience of  using each of them is likely to be very different.

Why is this important? If your developers are hard-core techies who work out how to use whatever you throw at them, user interface and ease-of-use isn’t a particular issue (although in my experience even hard-core techies appreciate a good user interface). But if you will be using less technically adept developers, a poorly designed piece of development software could dramatically slow development, de-motivate the developers and cost you a good deal of extra time and money in remedial coaching and training.


2. Know your instructional design capabilities
Everyone in the e-learning and training world claims to be an expert in instructional design. Yet if this were true, we’d only ever attend fantastically useful training courses or take brilliantly developed e-learning modules.

The reality is very different. We’ve all been on (or taken) far too many mediocre courses and e-learning modules. So honestly, how good are your instructional design skills? Are you truly original, creative and forward-thinking and, therefore, looking for software that will enable you to push the envelope? Or are you a little unsure of what e-learning development requires and, therefore, need software that can really guide you through the development process with a minimum of fuss?

3. Know your audience
You might laugh when you see this one on the list – isn’t it obvious, I hear you groan. But do you really know them? When it comes to e-learning you can get some pretty weird and unpredictable reactions from audiences.

My tip here is about knowing what your audience will actually respond to. We all talk about making e-learning engaging and interactive. Yet some of the most successful (ie, well-liked and well-used) e-learning modules we’ve created for clients have been really simple and straightforward.

In other words, choosing an authoring tool on the basis of its ability to create whizzy interactivity might be exactly what you don’t need if it doesn’t float your audience’s boat.

Finally, if you’d like a more comprehensive look at some of our other 'featuritis'-free tips, take a look at our downloadable e-book:

http://info.pacificblue.co.uk/e-learning-authoring-software

If you’re pushed for time, why not check out our free, independent advice service using the same link as above.

Report writing: 5 advantages of modular writing

If you buy into the idea of writing reports in a more modular way  – and I hope you will, there are many, many advantages to be gained from this approach. Here are just a few:

Increased readability
In a previous post, I mentioned how your readers will thank you if you start writing in shorter sentences. The same is true for writing reports in modular units or paragraphs. These shorter, better focused units are a pleasure for your audiences. You are only asking them to think about and process one idea at a time.

Going back a few years, Jakob Nielsen did some tests around this. He discovered that overall it was possible to increase readers’ ability to quickly skim read and comprehend a piece of text by a staggering 125%!

Increased ‘finadability’
I use ‘findability’ because if I use the word ‘accessibility’, people think I’m referring to issues for readers with some kind of disability. Increasing accessibility for such an audience is, of course,  a no brainer. However, we seem to forget that making it easier for everyone to find a small piece of text within a bigger whole is also a no brainer.

How often have you spent ages wading through a long report trying to find a vital paragraph buried somewhere in the middle of  page 176! As I suggested previously, dramatically increasing your use of meaningful headings reduces this kind of audience frustration to a minimum.

Keeps you on track
The biggest danger for any writer of pretty much anything is that they will lose the plot part way through; or get carried away and provide too much detail; or get bored and not provide enough detail for their intended  audience.

There’s no better way to keep your report writing on track and avoid all the dangers just listed by writing short modular units. If you are thinking (and planning) modular the whole way through the writing process, it’s much harder  to screw up.

Structuring and organising content is easier
If you are creating an outline structure using modular units of content, it makes the overall planning and structuring much easier.  It also makes experimentation with and revision of that structure much easier, too.  

This might sound counter-intuitive. After all, most writing processes teach a top-down approach. But if you start with a bunch of smaller units (identified through good audience analysis) it’s actually easier to build these smaller units into bigger wholes rather than the other way around. You’ll almost certainly get a more audience-focused result, too. Top-down structures are much more likely to be writer-focused.

Writing with colleagues is easier to manage
You may be one of the many people working with colleagues in a professional report writing capacity. If so, you are probably producing relatively long, complex pieces of content. This can often be a frustrating process for all parties concerned. How do you pull together the different bits of content that each person has written?

First of all, planning and writing in modular units makes it much easier to assign specific, targeted content to specific people.  Second, pulling together those units into a meaningful sequence is also much easier . Finally, this approach provides more flexibility to experiment with alternative structures.