Leadership’s Future: Personal Communications
by Miki Saxon
We are talking about communications this week; Tuesday we looked at a sample of opaque corporate communications; today we’ll consider personal communications.
I will skip the idiocy of the tell-all approach so popular on Facebook, MySpace, etc. and focus instead on the trail of poor communications so may people leave behind as they comment their way around the Net, whether it’s a review on Yelp, comment on a business/professional/”straight” blog, profile or some other form of “personal branding.”
Let me say this in words of one syllable: How you write tells people who you are.
As I’ve written before, this isn’t just about Millennials, it applies to anybody still concerned about the impression they make.
I came across a perfect example completely by accident.
Granted it is an extreme example; the comment was left on a blog post discussing social judging skills citing research showing that children as young as three months demonstrate them. (I’m not including a link to the post because I have no interest in embarrassing the writer who used her own name.)
well i think that people say they an change a baby if they are rude or like bad you know but really the baby knows what there trying to pull on them:) i think that people say they can change peope and if they think they changed someone there wrong cause deep deep down your still that mean cruel un hearted person or caring person:)
Lots of people write all lower case, so perhaps we should ignore that. And there are many words that sound alike with totally different meanings—there and their—so should we give that a pass? Can you make sense of what the writer is saying?
What is your impression of the writer?
Would you hire her or want her on your team?
Now consider that it was written by an adult, native English speaker, who has a college degree and works in a professional capacity.
If she was a candidate you were considering and you googled her name and saw this would you hire her?
It’s unlikely she writes like this all the time, because if she did she couldn’t do her job, but when it comes to the web the usual attitude is ‘who cares’?
Your writing is like breadcrumbs left along your route on the web; they enable the world to follow you and get to know you; it is their first impression of you.
It’s up to you to decide what that impression will be.
Join me tomorrow for the basics of good breadcrumbs.
Flickr photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanbaptisteparis/224566560/
