Now’s the time to brush up on your netiquette

Friday, June 22, 2007

While communication should be meaningful, this messaging tool can become diluted when your electronic in-box gets deluged with forwarded forwards, reply-alls, urban legends, massive attachments or flaming messages.

We all share similar frustrations with our virtual mailbox. Recently I attended an effective e-mail communication training provided by Jo Anne Ellison and John Carns, and within seconds our group listed a dirty dozen of e-mail gripes. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Jo Anne and John reported that they’ve amassed a global list of pet peeves from participants, and we found that all ours voiced that morning were among the 40 irritations they had accumulated.

When it comes to this instantaneous tool, major challenges are to make each message appropriate for the audience, to set the right tone and to concisely convey your thoughts. Our impulse is to send a first draft of a critical message or to add entire address books to the cc and bcc fields. Don’t.

Remember, there’s a whole lot missing from e-mail; that doesn’t mean to write more. Instead, what’s missing from e-mail, as with any written communication, is your vocal inflection, tone, accompanying facial expressions, body language and the like. It’s not what we say that’s absent; it’s how we say it.

Jo Anne referenced a study by Dr. Albert Mehrabian noted in ‘‘How to Say It at Work” to explain that words comprise only 7 percent of a message. The remaining message is split between 38 percent vocal quality and 55 percent nonverbal.

As a PR individual you should be particularly concerned with how this communication tool conveys your message and cultivates your relationship with your recipients.

So, what do you do about it?

My suggestion is to study what irritates you and others about the electronic mailbox, then learn and practice netiquette — the proper way to communicate and interact with others using e-mail over the Internet. Plenty has been written about the subject, and the Internet is ripe with resources on how to communicate effectively this way. Some sites you may find helpful include www.library.yale.edu⁄training⁄netiquette or www.iwillfollow.com. Or, look for local training opportunities such as a recent workshop featured by the Charles County Chamber of Commerce.

It’s your responsibility to promote communication, to prevent misunderstanding and to remain professional. Here are some tips developed during the training with Jo Anne and John, and gleaned from the above Internet sites to get you started.

*Use a subject line that addresses your message. Apply journalism principles to write a strong, pointed and accurate heading that will compel readership and you won’t have to overuse a red-flag. What you consider a high priority, others might not. After the third or fourth such demanding message, the recipient may decide to no longer listen to this cry of urgency from any of your messages.

*Do you need an action, or is the message informational in nature and nothing further is required? Among your circle of frequent recipients, consider agreeing and using in the subject line such abbreviations as NRN for no reply needed, NTN for no thanks needed or EOT for end of transmission. While I don’t advocate the universal use of abbreviations that others might misunderstand, those of us who attended our workshop have found these three simple letters freeing among ourselves. We hit delete without guilt and move on to the next message.

*Even the most grammatically savvy among us still need to use spell-check, style manuals and a second read before we send the message. Letters and words can easily become transposed when we type in a hurry, and once it’s gone you can’t retract the mistake. I doubt it’s your goal to convey a sloppy, unprofessional image through messy messaging.

*Don’t be hasty. If you’re irritated with an e-mail you’ve received, take a break from it and don’t respond with a flaming tongue-lashing. Praise in public; criticize in private. Remember, e-mail may seem private because you’re using it in the secure surroundings of your office or home, but it’s not. What you write can, and will, be shared with others. If you wouldn’t want your message plastered to the office bulletin boards for all to read for the next decade or so, then don’t send it through e-mail, either.

*Speaking of multiple readers, be selective on who you choose as recipients of your e-mail. I read an interesting analogy that puts it into perspective. Think of your message in terms of a pyramid. Your initial message is the top point, and you send it to six individuals with a copy to six more. Each recipient replies to all; there are 144 e-mails created. If all recipients did that yet again to the 144 messages, before you know it you have a pyramid with a base of more than 1,728 e-mails. Little wonder our in-boxes become so stuffed.

When all else fails, pick up the phone or meet face to face. If the thread has become three, four or five messages deep, perhaps it’s time to break the cycle and find an alternate way for dialogue. And, instead of always hitting send to forward humor, practice your delivery skills and share the smile and wink personally.

Karen Smith Hupp, the immediate past president of PRISM (Public Relations Individuals of Southern Maryland), is the director of community relations at the College of Southern Maryland. For information on PRISM and upcoming meetings and workshops, go to www.prismonline.info or contact Hupp at karens@csmd.edu or 301-934-7701.