Big Ideas about Communication
I’ve been working on big ideas — how blogging and online communication relates to how enterprises and entrepreneurs communicate in the 3-D world. How might thinking about one help us to be better at the other? What I know from my experience and research is this.
-
Humans aren’t great communicators, even folks who work in communication don’t practice what we preach.
In the act of communication, listening and reading are often undervalued, speaking and writing are often underperformed.
Execution of any process or plan, and success of any business, is entirely dependent upon clear, quick, and complete communication.
Many folks hold other people accountable for making sure communication happens.
Few people actually think about the differences in forms of communication or which is the best in a given situation.
I’ve also figured out one more thing.
If you have a blog, there’s a good chance that you may have brought blogging habits back with you into the business world. That’s not a good idea. Really.
Blogging is bad business writing. Come look.
The Elephant on the Net
If you read the business blogs, like I do, you’ll learn a lot about how to write online. I’ve learned plenty since I started blogging — enough to tell when a web page writer is still writing for print.
Lately, however, I’ve been paying attention to how I change my writing when I write for business and how I change back when I blog.
Business writing and business blogging are almost completely opposite. Business communication is even more. Yet no one seems to mention much about it — that’s the Elephant on the Net. Take a look at this pachyderm from the point of what I’ll call
The Traits of Business Communication.
-
1. Most business communication is prepared for a small audience that is familiar to the writer. Most blogging is for a larger audience, many of whom the writer never meets.
2. The ideas of business communcations are tailored to the goals of the enterprise. As in blogging they need to be strong, effective, and memorable, but the context is usually focused within the brick and mortar of the organization in question. In business blogging ideas are purposefully more global in order to establish the blogger as a thought leader in an industry.
3. The organization of business ideas can be formal or informal, and it changes depending on the context and the people with whom the ideas will be shared. Often ideas are presented in a fashion that meets the culture of the enterprise, the needs of a department, or the values of the person in charge. Ideas presented in blogging usually are presented within the context of the blog.
4. The voice and word choice in business communication changes frequently depending on the audience, the subject, and the context. It can be formal, informal, or anywhere between. A blogger’s voice is usually consistent and relatively conversational.
5. The conventions of business communication are drawn from tradition, the style and culture of the enterprise, and the type of communication that is being used. The conventions of blogging are drawn from the tradition of early programming, the style and culture of online communities, and the type of blog that is offered.
6. The presentation of business communications is based on the readability of print on paper, PowerPoint, and voice in a room. The presentation of blogging is based on print on screen, streaming video, linkage, and VoiP.
This is a cursory comparison. However, this elephant can make more than a cursory difference, if we don’t notice him in the room.
Whether we work inside a brick and mortar building, or simply want to reach someone who does, blogging our message or proposal could have a disastrous effect. Even business readers who read blogs have different expectations of business documents. In a business setting, we need to communicate specific needs-based and targeted ideas in a businesslike manner to be heard.
We know how to write for readers, and so we talk business when we mean business and blog when we want to blog.
It’s a powerful difference — powerful enough that people listen.
The elephant has left this part of the Internet.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think Liz can help with a problem you’re having with your business writing, check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
Related articles
Canââ¬â¢t Write? Improve Your Skill Set to Improve Your Job Security
6+1 Traits of Effective Blog Writing
“Business writing and business blogging are almost completely opposite. Business communication is even more.”
In style and language, this is true. But, as a writer, the basic skills of knowing the audience and writing for them, speaking their language, responding to their concerns or interests — these things are still critical.
Most of us don’t work in jobs that would accept a blogger’s voice for offical documents. But, if we focus on the skills, not just the voice or style, of what we’re learning, the lessons are totally transferrable. I think that the more you write the easier it is to write. And that once the words are written, they can be edited for style of voice to fit the audience.
(there’s a quote about it somewhere — but I can’t find it. Was it something Emily Dickinson said?)
Hi Katie,
Yeah, I agree with what you’re saying, but I have to tell you that many people don’t consider the audience when they write. They write the same email to the person in the next cubicle as they do the CEO.
Some folks just think writing is writng is writing. Those are the folks, I’m trying to wake up at the start here. 🙂
“They write the same email to the person in the next cubicle as they do the CEO.”
Wow. People like that probably shouldn’t be writing to CEOs in the first place! 🙂
Even worse, they were editors I was training.
{delicately shuddering}
No, really — you do have that wrong. You should have said (don’t you love that phrase?) — “Luckily they had me to train them out of that habit”
What I like about your blog and you is the depth of your experience. And your ability to bring your experiences from a wide variety of writing/editing/training assignments into the conversations here. Oh, and the fact that they are actually conversations, not just lectures.
(I shouldn’t have said (way up at the top), “You should have said.” I should have said, “You could have said.” That would have sounded nicer and been less pushy.)
Hey, Katie,
You called it a conversation. No need to watch every word you say. 🙂
I understood what you meant.
Thanks for the observations. One of the thinks I like about this blog is that I get to put all of that experience to some use where it might help others get some perspective on how good they really are!
Interesting topic Liz! Can you imagine Seth Godin, one of the top business bloggers, as a technical/business writer? He would probably get fired on his first day! Thankfully he works for himself…
Hi John,
I imagine Seth writes very differently when he wants to impress a CEO or get VC funding. He’s not fooling me about that! Seth didn’t get where he is by not knowing how to market the right text for the right situation.
But I get your point, John. YEAH, a bloggers’s style won’t get far in the boardroom!
Hi Liz,
So, if I understand you correctly, aside from the obvious differences of media, blogging must appeal to a wider audience, while business writing’s target can be more focused?
Hi Rico!
Yeah, that was really what I was saying. Folks need to pay attention when they’re writing or they’re going to be unfocused and lose their audience, make their paragraphs too short and their writing too global.
In a way business writing is both harder and easier than blog writing!
It’s harder because it always takes time to refine your thoughts to specific concise objectives and outcomes that are relevant to the business. While you have to refine your thoughts on a blog, it’s basically your forum and you can deviate a little to the left or the right and that’s ok. You can judge what works and doesn’t and adjust. In a business environment one blown pitch can kill you. Sometimes you don’t get a second chance!
It’s easier because you generally know your audience. If you don’t, you can go down the hall,or make a call, talk to someone that does, or start an email conversation, etc. to get to know them a bit before you produce something that will fall flat on its face. It’s hard to do that with hundreds of readers (or in your case, Liz – thousands!).
Is the elephant pink? (I thought I might have seen her)
Ann
Thank you once again, Ann, for beautifully translating what it is that I was trying to say here. You and I do make a good team that way. 🙂
I didn’t want to come right out and say that. In a business environment one blown pitch can kill you. Sometimes you donââ¬â¢t get a second chance! But now that you do, I think maybe I should have.
I see it happen more often than not in the writing that I edit. People have a problem getting focused to their audience in business, whether they blog or they just have no practice at business communications.
Business folks are as impatient with text as blog readers, but they want different things in different formats. The three sentence paragraphs of blogs in a business proposal could make a CEO think a proposal was insulting to his intelligence.