One of the important aspects of learning to speak, is not just to form the words, but to learn a vital skill called turn-taking. As we first start using our words, we also have to learn whose turn it is to speak in a conversation – and we do this by observing a number of
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A few weeks in to the Covid-19 crisis, external communications teams have run out of platitudes. They’ve pledged support to the measures in place to contain the virus, assured their clients of their continued service with additional hygiene measures where applicable, communicated any changes in the way they will interface with customers, scenario-planned for messaging
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On Saturday afternoon at about 2pm, I sent through an email to the customer service inbox of a large national retailer. I had some concerns, and I wanted to express them, and also make some suggestions on how they could be rectified. A cheery auto-responder arrived minutes later – as expected – but the phrasing
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If you want to write emails that people actually read, make them no longer than five sentences. Anything more than that, and you need some other form of communication – an old-fashioned call perhaps, or a meeting. People are so overwhelmed by email that they don’t even scroll down to read the lower paragraphs anymore.
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It seems strange to be writing one of these posts in 2019, but we need to talk about email etiquette – more specifically, the lack of it. Email is a ubiquitous part of life in the 21st century, and somehow, we’ve become so used to it, that some of us have forgotten those little niceties
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One of the best ways to check your writing is to read it out loud. I realise your colleagues might not appreciate this technique if you work in an open-plan office, so you might need to step outside for a bit. But it’ll be worth it, I promise. If you run out of breath while
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“I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter: I didn’t have time to write a short one.” That quote, in slightly different permutations, has been variously attributed to Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Blaise Pascale, among others. We can’t say for sure who said it, but we can say for sure that it holds great
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Imagine if you stood in the kitchen with a shopping bag over your shoulder and said to your significant other, “Attached hereto for your kind information, please find the grocery shopping you requested me to action.” Ridiculous, right? And yet, that’s exactly what we do the minute we step over the threshold at work –
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We take great care with our appearance in the business world – from the way we dress and decorate our offices, to the design of our logos and corporate branding. We don’t always take the same care with our words. And yet, the way we present ourselves and our business in written communication is a
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The end-of-year madness is almost upon us, and there’s a mad scramble to wrap up this year’s projects and start planning for next year. In the mess of looming budgets and deadlines and feeling like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, suddenly you realise there’s also a whole lot of content you’re going
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