Jan. 8, 2007 at 2:44pm

Let me know you care

One of my biggest soapboxes is the communication soapbox. Everyone has had times when communication broke down, and something went horribly wrong as a result. I don't mind saying I've had more than a few, but each time I took the effort to figure out why the breakdown occurrred so that I can fix it in the future.

One of the biggest, most beneficial means of communication is meeting with people face to face. There is mountains of data, information, and communication that goes on with facial gestures alone, and body language and tone of voice are equally important. Unfortunately working in a consulting agency, I don't get to meet many of the people that I'm building software for.

As a result, I have to fall back on more technical, yet less personal means of communication such as phone calls, email, and instant messaging. Here's some tips I've compiled about effectively communicating with out seeing the person you're talking to.
Phone

Smile - I learned this one from doing phone interviews and planning gigs with my old band. Always smile when you're on the phone. It gives the person you're talking to a sense that you're a friendly person. Nearly everyone I've ever met is more comfortable working with friendly people than not.

Be Confident - This one comes from talking with a few of my best friends. I really like them, but every phone conversation I've ever had with them has been akward, and I don't know why. My only guess is that we don't really know what to say, and that creates akward moments. So, know what you want to talk about before you make the call. Know what you need to ask for, determine, or confirm. Then get off the phone. 90% of my phone conversations last less than two minutes because I know what I need to do and I get it done.

On the other hand, if the purpose of the conversation is to just chat have a couple things ready to talk about, to get things rolling. But I really prefer to do that kind of communication face to face.

Introduce yourself - Years ago my dad taught me how to cold call people (Thanks, Dad!). Even if the person you're calling knows who they are talking to, it helps to introduce yourself to set the tone of the conversation and allow the other person to recall any previous details they need.

Email

Don't joke around - Unless you know the person you are emailing, don't joke around in emails. It's nearly impossible to understand sarcasm, wit, irony or any other linguistic device without tone of voice or facial gestures. Often, failed jokes lead to arguements and destroy otherwise perfect lines of communication. It's happened to me a couple of times, and each time the personal relationship has been affected negatively.

Keep it short - When emailing someone, don't write a short story. I get bored and gloss over the rest of it, and usually miss something important. Please just get to the point.

Return emails quickly - This goes for phone calls as well. When I'm done with a part of a project, I let the client know. I do this because I want to keep them informed of what's going on in the process, but I also want to get their approval before I continue on with the rest of the project. When clients don't return my emails for days or weeks, it makes me think they don't care enough about their own project, and then that makes me not care about it as well. This is a bad situation. Just to be clear, no one that I've worked with at SiteCrafting is like this, but it has happened in a number of other jobs I've held.

IM

Instant Messaging is probably the least beneficial method of communication out of the lot. Don't believe me? Go over to the person next to you, and start writing on little slips of paper back and forth. It doesn't work. About the only thing that IM really works for is, "Hey, what do you want for lunch?"

Keep it short. Real short. - It's nearly impossible to communicate complex ideas over IM, and forget about using diagrams or illustrations of any kind to explain yourself. Instead, stick to what IM is good at: short and pointed questions or comments.

Stay on topic - Instant Messaging is also terrible for keeping on topic. At least with phone conversations you can always keep in the back of your mind where the conversation is going, but IM demands total focus on the immediate comment. It's too easy to get sidetracked and forget what was going on.

Pay attention to what other people say - It's also too easy to ignore what other people are saying when using IM. Have you ever seen the McLaughlin Group on TV? The show where all the big-wig political types end up talking over one another to get their point across? Well, IM is like that, except worse. At least on that show, the guests have to listen to each other, but when messaging you only have to pay attention when you feel like it. Imagine what that show would be like if everyone just kept talking regardless of what the other guests said. Scary, that's what.

And in general, it's always best to not take things too personally and always be straightforward when talking to someone over the phone, email, or chatting. I know that most web professionals don't like to have meetings but they are much more valuable than other kinds of communication. Meetings are just easier to point out and say 'waste of time'.

Posted in Deep Thoughts by Dave Poole

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