Effective Business Writing and Communications

Archive for December, 2009

Business Communication is known as Communications encompasses a variety of topics, including Marketing, Branding, Customer relations, Consumer behavior, Advertising, Public relations, Corporate communication, Community engagement, Research & Measurement, Reputation management, Interpersonal communication, Employee engagement, Online communication, and Event management.

There are several methods of business communication, including:

• Web-based communication – for better and improved communication, anytime anywhere …
• e-mails, which provide an instantaneous medium of written communication worldwide.
• Reports – important in documenting the activities of any department.
• Presentations – very popular method of communication in all types of organizations, usually involving audiovisual material, like copies of reports, or material prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint or Adobe Flash.
• telephoned meetings, which allow for long distance speech.
• forum boards, which allow people to instantly post information at a centralized location; and
• face to face meetings, which are personal and should be succeeded by a written followup.

Organization and order are very important parts of writing. Without organization and order an author’s sentences appear to be haphazardly thrown together. A writer’s work should be created in a way that each sentence or paragraph flows in a smooth fashion from one to the next throughout the document from start to finish.

Another important part is access. A writer should provide easy access to different sections in order to find information on just the topic desired. A writer can accomplish this feat by including a Table of Contents (TOC), the use of headings, and numbering or bulleting certain topics and sub-topics throughout the document.

The use of variety is important in writing so a reader does not feel overwhelmed by all of the text. Variety adds interesting touches to the document. Not only by the use of headings and bullets but, incorporating the use of color (keep in mind the cultural differences), graphics, use of white space, and the use of different font sizes, resulting in a better looking more efficient document.

One of the most important, if not the most important factor in determining the chances of success in any business or professional activities is the ability to behave properly with people. Even in the early 1930s Dale Carnegie observed that the success of a man in his financial affairs, even in the technical field or engineering are fifteen percent dependent on his professional knowledge and eighty-five percent on his ability to communicate with people. In this context it is easy to explain the attempts of many researchers to formulate and justify the basic principles of ethical business communication or, as they are often called, the commandments of personal public relation or “business etiquette”.

Business etiquette or the process of survival and succeeding in the business world could be explained in the following six basic principles:

1. Punctuality (do everything on time). Delays affect the work and are a sign that a person cannot be relied upon. The principle to do everything on time applies to all service tasks. Experts studying the organization and distribution of working time recommend adding extra 25 percent to the time period that is required to perform the assigned task.

2. Privacy (do not reveal too much). In any institutions, corporations, or particular deals there are secrets that should be kept as carefully as the ones of a personal nature. There is also no need to recount anyone heard from a colleague, supervisor or subordinate about his or her performance or personal life.

3. Courtesy, friendliness and affability. In any situation it is necessary to behave politely, kindly and benevolent with customers, clients, customers and co-workers. This, however, does not require being friends with everyone whom you communicate in a work setting.

4. Attention to people (think of others, and not only of yourself). Attention to the people surrounding you should be extended to colleagues, superiors and subordinates. Respect the opinions of others; try to understand why they have formed a particular point of view. Always listen to criticism and advice of colleagues, superiors and subordinates. When someone questions the quality of your work, show that you value the views and experiences of other people. Confidence should not prevent you to be modest.

5. Appearance (dress as expected). The main approach is to fit in your environment at work, and within that environment – in your level of contingent workers. You should look the best way, which is to dress with taste, choosing matching colors.  Carefully choosing accessories is important.

6. Literacy (speak and write good language). Internal documents or letters to outside agencies should be composed paying attention to the proper language used, and all proper names transferred without errors. Do not use abusive words. Even if you only quote the words of another person around, they will be perceived as part of your own vocabulary.

One of the basic principles of modern life is the maintenance of good relations between people and the desire to avoid conflict. In turn, you can win the respect and attention only if being courteous and self-disciplined. Therefore, nothing can be more valued by people around us as courtesy and compassion. But in life we often find ourselves confronted with rudeness, harshness, and disrespect against a person. The reason here is that we underestimate the culture of human behavior and its manners.

Manners constitute a way to behave, the external form of behavior, treat people, used in speech, expression, tone, intonation, body language, gestures and even facial expressions.

In a society good manners are considered modesty and self-discipline, the ability to control oneself and carefully and tactfully communicate with other people. Bad manners are considered to be the habit of speaking aloud, without shame in terms of familiarity gestures and behavior, carelessness in dress, rudeness, revealed in a frank malevolence of others, in disregard of other people’s interests and needs, to shamelessly impose on other people’s will and desires, in the inability to control anger with the intention of insulting the dignity of people around, lack of tact, foul language, use of derogatory nicknames.

Manners are related to the culture of human behavior and are regulated by etiquette. Etiquette implies sympathy and respect to all people, regardless of their positions and social status. It includes the courteous treatment of women, respect for elders, forms of address to the elderly, forms of address and greetings, rules of conversation, table manners. In general, etiquette in a civilized society coincides with the general requirements of courtesy, which are based on the principles of humanism.

Compassion is an obligatory condition of communication. Delicacy should not be excessive or turned into flattery that could lead to unwarranted praise for anything seen or heard. There is no need to strenuously deny that it is the first time you see something, listen, eat, and fear because otherwise, you will be seen as an ignoramus.

Communication is the process of interaction between social factors, social groups, communities or individuals, in which is a performance of the exchange of information, experience and abilities. Specifics of business communication are due to the fact that it occurs based on a certain kind of activity related to any product or business impact. Like any form of communication, business communication is historical in nature; it manifests itself at different levels of social systems and in various forms. Its distinctive feature is that it doesn’t have a self-owned destination, isn’t self-targeted, but a means to achieve any other goals. In market relations communication’s goal is primarily to gain maximum profit.

Ethics of business communication should be considered in its various manifestations: in the relationship between the enterprise and the social environment, between enterprises or within a single enterprise. There are different specifics between the parties of each form of business communication. The challenge is to formulate such principles of business communication, which not only fits each type of business communication, but also don’t go against the general moral principles of human behavior. Moreover, these principles should be a reliable tool to coordinate the activities of people involved in business communication.

Regarding business communication, the basic ethical principles can be formulated as follows: in business communication when deciding what values should be preferred in a particular situation, act so to the maximum of your power is compatible with the moral values of others involved in communication, and allows coordination of interests of all parties.

Thus, coordination should be a basis for the ethics of business communication as well as harmonization of interests, of course, if it is carried out by ethical means, and in the name of morally justified goals. Therefore, business communication should always be checked by ethical reflection as the reasons justifying the entry into it. At the same time it’s not always easy to make the correct ethical choices and to take an individual decision. Market relations provides freedom of choice, but at the same time increases the number of options, gives rise to complex moral dilemmas that business people encounter at every step in the process of their activities and communication.

The communication process constitutes the exchange of information between two or more people.The main purpose of the communication process is to provide an understanding of information, which is the subject of exchange through messages. But the fact that information is exchanged does not guarantee the effectiveness of communication. Of course, everyone has encountered cases of ineffective exchange of information with friends, family, employees etc. For better understanding the process of sharing information and what factors make the communication effective, one should be aware of the stages of the communication process. Information exchange could be divided into four basic elements.

1. The sender-a person who generates ideas, or collects information and re-authorizes it.
2. The report-the actual information encoded using symbols.
3. Channel-a means of information transfer.
4. Recipient-the person to whom the information is interpreted.

During information exchange, the sender and recipient go through several interrelated stages. Their task is to elaborate the message and use the channel for transmission in such a way that both parties understood and shared the original idea. It is difficult, because each stage is also the point at which meaning can be distorted or completely lost.Information exchange begins with the formulation of ideas or the selection of information. The sender decides which meaningful idea or message should be the subject of exchange. Unfortunately, many attempts to exchange information are cut off at this first stage because the sender has not spent enough time to think about ideas.

To effectively implement the exchange, a set of factors must be taken into account. For example, a manager who wants to share information on the evaluation of the work must clearly understand that the idea is to communicate to subordinates specific information about their strengths and weaknesses and how their performance could be improved. The idea may be the general praise or criticism of the subordinates’ behavior.

A professional technical writer is supposed to judge four bodies of technical communication in order to design a proper document and to protect his company from a law infringement. Copyright, trademark, contract, and liability law are four laws a writer should consider when composing a product document.

The following information is a legal part consideration of a software application user manual.

Copyright Law

There is no copyright infringement through the instruction manual. The author expresses the information clearly, not extended to any ideas; there are no factual information conveyed in the instruction manual. The guidelines for the process service are explicitly provided; there are also other services included such as: the accepted request for examination of the product, contact information, etc.

Trademark Law

A trademark is used in to protect the mark in order the product to be distinguished in the course of trade and because it unique appearance. Therefore, there is no trademark law broken through the document.

Contract Law

The software instruction manual respects contract law. The contract represents an express warranty since the instruction of installation and feature the software performs, are explicitly conveyed throughout the manual (Alstyne, 2005).

Liability Law

The information in the manual is enough complete and accurate. The company does not limit the liability for the software giving a warning about the risk of using since there is no danger of misusing the product. For each section of the document there are included graphics by using line drawings. It is a good way to focus the readers’ attention on important information.

When a large corporation established the 800 number system to provide information agencies daily updated information on the status of the company, it turned out that the majority of the calls came from the company’s own managers that worked in different parts of the world. They wanted to know what happened and what was said in the main office of the company. This situation has forced senior management to ask how well the company responds to the information needs of their employees.

Internal contact is created by messages sent or received within the organization that can be formal or informal. Messages related to formal communications are sent through the channels established by management. However, many communications in any organization have passed official channels. These informal communications consist of exchange of news among people, which, if not formally linked, communicate by phone, at meetings or casual meetings and even during a round of golf.

Substantially, most of the organization’s communications are carried out with individuals or groups outside. External communications can affect any of the many different segments of society, which interacts with the organization. Most organizations have the largest number of social contacts through advertising, which is a highly structured form of external communication. For example, the television commercials, printed advertisements and brochures sent by the company to a predefined address list. Most of the external communication is less formal in nature. For example, management may informally notify the local community about how the company contributes to the local economy. Annual reports, reviews of news and public speeches by leaders – these are another examples of external communication.