Conversing Well Across Channels

Whether you call it cross-channel experience or multichannel experience, the reality is that customers interact with companies through more than one channel, so it’s important for us to understand cross-channel customer behavior.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Communication>Collaboration>User Experience

Save the Touchy-Feely for the Redwoods

When you lay your feelings out to people, it can be cathartic for you, but it also places a weight on those around you. Learning when, where, and how, to talk to someone about your feelings is tricky. Sometimes it’s okay, and sometimes it’s not.

Powazek, Derek. Powazek.com (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Emotions

The Perils of Our Digital Communications

When 90% of what you do for work is based online, there are bound to be some glitches, and not just the technical ones. How do you handle the inevitable misunderstandings that come with today’s rapid-fire digital conversations and communications in the workplace? I’ve put together a few ideas for how we can all minimize misunderstandings or at least diffuse the fallout.

Sherman, Aliza. Web Worker Daily (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Online

Finding Solutions by Being Aware of the Way You Think  

It is the task of the project manager to be aware of the larger environment in which a project is operating. One approach that helps achieve this insight is systems thinking.

Fischer, Karl. Global Knowledge (2006). Articles>Project Management>Organizational Communication>Collaboration

Does Email Communication Increase Participation in Organizational Decision Making?

One of the main issues crossing the fields of organization theory, communication theory, and information technology is whether email communication does increase participation in decision making. Common sense and some case studies suggest the so-called "democratization argument": since email allows direct (non-filtered) communication between people and identity/status concealment, it enhances more freely and easy participation in decision making.

Biggiero, Lucio. Social Science Research Network (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Organizational Communication>Email

Integrating Communities of Practice into the Fabric of Organizations

Even when some recognize the need to scratch that collaborative itch, it can be difficult to resist the urge to impede such efforts, so you need to consciously think about what you are doing to foster trust in your organization’s CoP efforts.

APQC (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Organizational Communication

Facilitating Teamwork With Lean Six Sigma and Web-Based Technology    

One of the largest team-based projects that I worked on in industry involved a team of more than a dozen members, a multiyear timeline, and a budget well into six figures. Our task was to deliver a new corporate Web site. As the business owner of that project, I remember sitting down with our IT manager, who explained that she would be assisting the team in managing the cost, scope, and time involved in delivering the end product. I was thrilled to have someone who would help ensure we were successful across those variables, until she told me that I had to pick one of the three as the most important. When the team ran into issues, she said her team would sacrifice aspects of the other two. Although I insisted all three were equally important, the manager ultimately decided that cost would be the controlling variable because it was the one by which she and her team would be judged by her supervisor. My experience with projects like this one has led me to think about what successful teams look like and then to determine how best to foster such teams.

Krause, Tim. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration

The Social Influences on Electronic Multitasking in Organizational Meetings    

Meetings serve an important function in organizational communication. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have infiltrated meetings and allowed a new range of communicative behaviors to emerge. This cross-organizational study relies on key elements in the social influence model to predict variables that influence engagement in electronic meeting multitasking behaviors. The observation of organizational norms and the perceptions of others' thoughts concerning the use of ICTs for multitasking during a meeting explain a considerable amount of variance in how individuals use ICTs to multitask electronically in meetings. Implications for workplace ICT use in meetings and contributions to the social influence model are also discussed.

Stephens, Keri K. and Jennifer Davis. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Organizational Communication>Technology

Obfuscating the Obvious: Miscommunication Issues in the Interpretation of Common Terms    

We communicate via many forms every day. When what we say or write is misunderstood, the fault may lie with either party. One source of miscommunication is the different meaning people place on commonly used words and phrases. In this article, the authors report preliminary results from a study on such miscommunication and lay out an agenda for research on improving business communication based on the Integrative Model of Levels of Analysis of 'Miscommunication,' developed by Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles.

Brewer, Edward C. and Terrence L. Holmes. JBC (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Rhetoric

How To Persuade Your Users, Boss or Clients

Whether you are getting a client to sign off on a website’s design or persuade a user to complete a call to action, we all need to know how to be convincing. Like many in the Web design industry, I have a strange job. I am part salesperson, part consultant and part user experience designer. One day I could be pitching a new idea to a board of directors, the next I might be designing an e-commerce purchasing process. There is, however, a common theme: I spend most of my time persuading people.

Boag, Paul. Smashing (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Rhetoric

Choosing Media Strategically for Cross-Border Team Communications

More and more organizations are establishing cross-border teams to take advantage of global talent and global markets. Location and time are no longer impediments to building the 'dream team' but in our rush to take advantage of these new media of e-mail, video conferences and the like we may not realize that there is also some learning for us to do on the cultural front.

Cook, Richard. TC World (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Collaboration>Organizational Communication

Aligning Yourself with a Cause

When your organization lacks a compelling cause, you can at least take comfort in the idea that you’re pursuing your calling or vocation. Aligning with your calling is ideal, but this can be an issue for technical writers, because almost no one feels that technical writing is a calling.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2010). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration

In Those Fields Where Multiple Authorship is the Rule, The H-Index Should be Supplemented by Role-Based H-Indices    

Collaboration patterns among scientists are becoming more and more complicated. Even sophisticated methods for taking the number of co-authors into account do not solve all problems related to the calculation of citation measures such as the h -index. In this article we introduce role-based h-indices and in particular the major contribution h-index, denoted as h-maj, which takes only those articles into account in which the scientist plays a major or core role. As an example we provide major contribution indices for scientists in the health sciences in China. Differences between the h-index and h-maj are shown for data based on the Web of Science (WoS), and separately, based on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. It is suggested to use the major contribution h-index as a supplementary index, especially in those fields where multiple ‘first authors’ and/or corresponding authors are common.

Hu, Xiojun. Journal of Information Science (2010). Articles>Collaboration>Scientific Communication

Validation and Application of Electronic Propinquity Theory to Computer-Mediated Communication in Groups    

This research presents an experiment based on the theory of electronic propinquity, testing how the presence of alternate communication media, media bandwidth, information complexity, and users' communication skills affect propinquity (the psychological feeling of nearness) and satisfaction that communicators experience using different communication channels. Groups communicated using one or two of several different channels, including face-to-face, desktop video, audio, and text-based chat, with channel differences between members in some groups. Predicted effects of bandwidth, information complexity, communication skills, and comparative media availability on propinquity and satisfaction were observed. These findings demonstrate a confound in previous research on propinquity theory, suggest newfound validity, and extend the model to interactive computer-mediated communication channels unanticipated by the original theory. Implications include the potential of electronic propinquity to account for discrepancies in the research on computer-mediated communication that have been generated by other theories.

Walther, Joseph B. and Natalya N. Bazarova. Communication Research (2008). Articles>Communication>Online>Collaboration