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Business Communication with Cengage Learning

 

  • A Grammarian After My Own Heart

    I want to meet this person: someone with a sharp grammatical mind and a sharp pen fixed errors at a sculpture park at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. As yet, no one has accepted responsibility, but I may have found my soul mate. I admit, I've done my share of marking public typos. In some cases, I just take a photo, but other times I can't control myself. In this first example, I asked the Starbucks barista for a marker, and she obliged. In the second exmaple, I was alone in the stairwell with a pen. What choice did I have? Discussion Starters: When have you found typos on public signs? What did you do? Shouldn't we have a law protecting typo vigilantes, sort-of like the Good Samaritan Law? No?

  • E-Board Member Embarrasses Her Sorority

    An executive board member of the Delta Gamma sorority at the University of Maryland let the entire sorority know how she felt in a scathing, obscenity-filled email . In her rant, she accuses her sisters of being boring, awkward, weird, stupid—and worse. Apparently, the last straw was an event with Sigma Nu fraternity, during which some sisters weren't at their best. Still, one wonders whether their behavior was so egregious as to deserve being threatened: "I will...assault you." One of the great ironies of the email is her concern about the sorority's image: " Seriously, if you have done ANYTHING I've mentioned in this email and have some rare disease where you're unable to NOT do these things, then you are HORRIBLE, I repeat, HORRIBLE PR FOR THIS CHAPTER." The president of the University of Maryland chapter responded: Discussion Starters: Assess the chapter president's response? What works well, and what could be improved? Should the email author also respond? If so, what should she say? How, if at all, do you think this incident reflects on Sigma Nu? Should the fraternity do anything in response?

  • Good Grammar Improves Job Prospects

    A study by Grammarly examined 100 LinkedIn profiles and found that good grammar improved job prospects: "Professionals with fewer grammar errors in their profiles achieved higher positions. Those who failed to progress to a director-level position within the first 10 years of their careers made 2.5 times as many grammar mistakes as their director-level colleagues. "Fewer grammar errors correlate with more promotions. Professionals with one to four promotions over their 10-year careers made 45% more grammar errors than those with six to nine promotions in the same time frame. "Fewer grammar errors associate with frequent job changes. Those who remained at the same company for more than 10 years made 20% more grammar mistakes than those who held six jobs in the same period. This could be explained in a couple of ways: People with better grammar may be more ambitious in their search for promising career opportunities, or job-hoppers may simply recheck their résumés between jobs." One-hundred is a small sample size, but the results aren't surprising. In another survey , 11% of employers who checked applicants' social media posts did not hire them because of "poor communication skills." I might assume that included poor grammar. Although few spelling mistakes were found on LinkedIn profiles, probably because of the spell-check feature, careless and grammatical errors could be a dealbreaker for your future employer. Image source . Assignment Ideas: Review another student's LinkedIn profile. Do you find any errors? If so, how does this affect your opinion of him or her as a job candidate? Look at your Facebook page, if you have one. If you were a potential employer reviewing the page, what would be your impressions? Consider making changes to these sites and other social media spaces that employers may visit.

  • Yahoo! Email: No More Working from Home

    New Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is making her mark, but she's ruffling a few feathers. In an email to employees , HR head Jackie Reses asks "all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices." As expected, remote employees aren't too happy about the change. YAHOO! PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION — DO NOT FORWARD Yahoos, Over the past few months, we have introduced a number of great benefits and tools to make us more productiv e, efficient and f un. With the introduction of initiatives like FYI, Goals and PB&J, we want everyone to participate in our culture and contribute to the positive momentum. From Sunnyvale to Santa Monica, Bangalore to Beijing — I think we can all feel the energy and buzz in our offices. To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo !, and that starts with physically being together. Beginning in June, we’re asking all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices. If this impacts you, your management has already been in touch with next steps. And, for the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration. Being a Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job, it is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices. Thanks to all of you, we’ve already made remarkable progress as a company — and the best is yet to come. Jackie Hundreds of Yahoo! employees currently are working remotely, including customer service representatives and workers who don't have a Yahoo! office close by. After a series of layoffs, Yahoo! may be taking a different approach to reducing headcount and increasing productivity. Some speculate that employees who can't or won't make the change will quit, making reductions easy. Yahoo! responded to the controversy with only these statements: "This isn't a broad industry view on working from home. This is about what is right for Yahoo right now." "We don't discuss internal matters." The email inspired a wave of articles, include a Wall Street Journal cover story covering the number of people, benefits, and possible career derailment from working remotely. Discussion Starters: How would you describe the tone and approach of the Yahoo! email? Yahoo! management clearly didn't want the email to be released. What, if anything, could have prevented this? What's your reaction to employees' forwarding the message: are they justified, acting inappropriately, or something else? Why would an employee forward an email that's marked "proprietary and confidential"?

  • Facebook Admits Hacking

    After weeks of reported breaches , Facebook has admitted that it was hacked. The same issue with Oracle’s Java software that allowed hackers to access data from 250,000 Twitter users provided inroads to Facebook. Although Facebook apparently knew about the breach for at least a month, the company just came clean. In a blog post titled "Protecting People On Facebook," Facebook assured users that personal information was not compromised and that its systems have been fully patched to prevent future break-ins. The first two paragraphs provide context and the admission: "Facebook, like every significant internet service, is frequently targeted by those who want to disrupt or access our data and infrastructure. As such, we invest heavily in preventing, detecting, and responding to threats that target our infrastructure, and we never stop working to protect the people who use our service. The vast majority of the time, we are successful in preventing harm before it happens, and our security team works to quickly and effectively investigate and stop abuse. " Last month, Facebook Security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack. This attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised. The compromised website hosted an exploit which then allowed malware to be installed on these employee laptops. The laptops were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software. As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day." Next, one sentence appears in bold type: "We have found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised." The post echos Twitter's blog post from February 1. Discussion Starters: What arguments does Facebook use in its post to convince us not to worry about the breach? Which do you find most and least convincing? How easy is it for non-technical people to understand Facebook's post? What, if any, jargon or business slang can you identify? How does Facebook's blog post compare to Twitter's? What similarities and differences do you notice?

  • Good Grammar Is Sexy and Improves Your Chances of Finding Love

    A survey of 1,700 online daters found that 43% consider bad grammar a turnoff, and 35% consider good grammar sexy. Eighty-seven percent of online daters posted their profile without having someone check the grammar. This could be bad news if they want to attract love, particularly if they're looking for someone who earns more than $100,000 a year. This group cares about grammar 10% more than do those earning less. Women surveyed had stronger feelings about grammar than did men, a finding inconsistent with a survey I conducted with Professor Judi Brownell in 2009 . In our survey, we asked hotel managers to rate how challenging they found "poor grammar and incorrect punctuation" in emails they received. Women rated this 1.42 (with 1 being the least challenging and 5 being the most), while men rated this item 2.88, for a difference of 1.46—by far the biggest difference of the 16 items we asked people to rate. Full infographic . Discussion Starters: Do these findings surprise you? Why or why not? How important is grammar to you in your personal relationships?

  • U.S. Postal Service Rallies Support for Cutting Saturday Service

    The United States Postal Service is going all out to convince the public that eliminating Saturday delivery is a good move. As the nation's second-largest employer , the USPS has been cutting locations and jobs for several years. After losing $16 billion last year, the organization has announced the service reduction as an essential decision, saving $2 billion a year. In the press release , Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe emphasizes "financial realities" and customer input to the decision: "The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America’s changing mailing habits. We developed this approach by working with our customers to understand their delivery needs and by identifying creative ways to generate significant cost savings." On the USPS Facebook page , a key message is customer support: that 70% of Americans support the decision. This is reinforced in the press statement with a quotation by Donahoe: "The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation. The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. Mail." However, the USPS is facing opposition. Congress still may block the move ; some consider the service cut illegal. The employee union—the National Association of Letter Carriers—and the greeting card industry both oppose the elimination of Saturday delivery. The union president referred to the decision as "a disastrous idea that would have a profoundly negative effect on the Postal Service and on millions of customers." Staying ahead of the controversy, the USPS also posted a fact sheet about the new schedule. The sheet clarifies important information for customers, for example, that packages still will be delivered on Saturday Discussion Starters: Read the USPS fact sheet . Which are the strongest and weakest arguments? What do you notice about the headings in the fact sheet ? How can they be improved? In the press release , the CEO could use more natural language. Rewrite the quotations for a broader audience.

  • Ten Jargon Words of 2012

    PR Daily asked readers to report their top jargon words of the year. The winners are: Game-changer At the end of the day (and its cousin, having said that) YOLO Epic Low-hanging fruit Value-add Impactful Utilize Some of these are real hangers-on. We're not yet tired of "epic fail," for example? But others are newer—at least to me. YOLO suddenly seems more popular than Pinterest. Image source: PR Daily . Discussion Starters: What do these words mean? After you define each, try to find a substitute. What's the problem with overusing jargon? Is it a big deal at all?

  • Citi Lays Off 11,000 and Blunders Press Release

    Someone needs a better editor—and a heart. To announce 11,000 employee layoffs, Citi issued a press release titled, "Citigroup Announces Repositioning Actions to Further Reduce Expenses and Improve Efficiency." "Repositioning" appears 17 times in the release. Sure, layoffs usually are good news for Wall Street, but the real damage is the layoffs, not mentioned until late in the release and suspiciously absent from the three lines summarizing the statement up front: Fourth quarter 2012 pre-tax charges to total approximately $1 billion Approximately $900 million of expense savings expected to benefit 2013 results Projected annual expense savings to exceed $1.1 billion beginning in 2014 The quote from new CEO Michael Corbat is a real tear-jerker, too: "These actions are logical next steps in Citi's transformation. While we are committed to – and our strategy continues to leverage – our unparalleled global network and footprint, we have identified areas and products where our scale does not provide for meaningful returns. And we will further increase our operating efficiency by reducing excess capacity and expenses, whether they center on technology, real estate or simplifying our operations." Although companies may justify jargon as required for the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), they are free to craft messages any way they would like. Companies need to be smarter about their audiences, knowing that employees likely will read their press releases. Assignment Ideas: Read the entire press release . Identify all of the verbs that can be improved. Also look for nominalizations, and change these nouns and adjectives to strong verbs. Rewrite the press release. What improvements can you make to the text and the CEO's quote?

  • Lego Comes Through for Little Boy

    For two years, James Groccia, an 11-year-old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, saved up for his dream Lego train set, but it had been discontinued. James wrote a letter to Lego and received a nice response—and the set he wanted. James's mother, Karen, described the boy's process for writing the letter: "James was very concise about what he wanted to say. He planned it, and I just helped him organize his thoughts." How about that. James hasn't even taken a Business Communication course. Lego's response is very enthusiastic and obviously tailored to James: Discussion Starters: James's letter is great—for an 11-year-old boy—but it could be improved to meet business writing principles. What could be changed? Lego's letter isn't perfect either. What would you advise that Megan change in future letters?

  • Apple's Ad Sounds More Like an Attack

    Apple followed the court order to post the Samsung lawsuit ruling, but the company followed only the letter of the law. Information Week and other sources call the notification on Apple's website a mockery. Apple sued Samsung for copying its iPad design too closely when creating its tablet, the Galaxy. But the company lost the patent infringement lawsuit and, as a result, was required to communicate the decision, according to Information Week : "The court gave Apple seven days to post notification of the ruling in a font of no less than 11 pixels, with a link to the ruling, that must remain on Apple's U.K website for six months or until the court orders otherwise. It also required Apple to publish the same notification in the first five pages of the Financial Times , the Daily Mail , The Guardian , Mobile Magazine, and T3 magazine , in a font of no less than 14 pixels." In the notification , however, Apple takes several stabs at Samsung. Apple quotes the judge's ruling about the Apple design: "It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design." "The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool." Apple posts a link to the ruling , as required, but then ends with another blow to its competitor: "However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad." Image source . Discussion Starters: Did Apple take the right approach for the company? Did the company do the right thing? What are the arguments for and against this approach? Should the judge have been even more specific in instructing Apple how to post the decision? Why or why not?

  • Nasty Email Exchange Between Clinton Aide and Reporter

    An email exchange between Hillary Clinton's aide and a reporter quickly turned nasty. Philippe Reines, Clinton's aide and spokesperson, had accused CNN of mishandling the diary of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya. The diary seemed to reveal discrepancies between the Ambassador's security concerns and The State Department's message. On BuzzFeed , emails between Reines and the reporter, Michael Hastings, were published in full. I've omitted the expletives here. This is yet another example of why people shouldn't send angry emails: the result doesn't reflect well on either party. From: Michael Hastings Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:32 AM To: Reines, Philippe I Subject: Request for comment Hey Philippe: A few quick questions for you. Why didn't the State Department search the consulate and find AMB Steven's diary first? What other potential valuable intelligence was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds? Was any classified or top secret material also left? Do you still feel that there was adequate security at the compound, considering it was not only overrun but sensitive personal effects and possibly other intelligence remained out for anyone passing through to pick up? Your statement on CNN sounded pretty defensive--do you think it's the media's responsibility to help secure State Department assets overseas after they've been attacked? Let me know if you have a second.Michael ______________________________________ On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Reines, Philippe I wrote: Good morning Michael I'm adding my colleague Toria Nuland who I believe you know. She has addressed much of your questions below during her daily press briefings, so I'll let her weigh in to remind you of what's already been thoroughly answered. As far as the tone of my email, I think you're misreading mine as much as I'm misreading yours as being needlessly antagonistic. But on your questions pertaining to CNN's handling of the diary: • You know that all USG personnel were evacuated from Benghazi after the attack. So I'm not sure why you're asking why State didn't find the diary first. • On material, I'll let Toria reiterate, but the answer is no. Though you might want to ask CNN if they took anything else from the crime scene that they haven't yet told anyone about. • In terms of the media's responsibility, I'll start with the outlandish statement that I believe the media does have responsibilities. Your question seems to imply they have none and any expectation of responsible behavior is too much to ask. To be specific:I believe CNN had the responsibility to act as human beings and be sensitive to their loss when they first approached the family. I believe CNN had a responsibility to not make promises to the family it would not keep. If that's too much to ask, I believe CNN had at the very least a responsibility to make their intentions on the use of Chris's diary clear to the family from the outset. I believe CNN had a responsibility to not deceive its own viewers for more than 48 hours on the source of their reporting, using convoluted attribution they themselves had to clarify, before admitting it was the diary they were relying on. I believe that when they finally did admit to using Chris's diary, they had a responsibility to their viewers and to the family to explain why they broke their pledge. I believe that many within CNN agree with everything I'm saying. More than anything else, I believe that CNN - since they had already read every word of the diary before calling the family on Friday the 14th, the day Chris's remains were returned home - had all the information they needed at that point to make an editorial decision on whether the contents of the diary compelled them to report on it. I believe the time to invoke their standards to justify using the diary came six days late. I believe that CNN, if they felt strongly that they had an obligation to use the diary should never have presented the family with a choice in the first place that they'd later disregard. I don't believe that CNN should get credit for issuing a flimsy confession only when caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I believe the statement CNN issued late last night, 24 hours after Anderson Cooper's ill-conceived statement on air, basically says they agreed not to use it until they didn't feel like it anymore, and only admitted to it when they were about to be caught. I don't believe that's much of a profile in courage. Lastly, I believe that you of all people, after famously being accused of violating agreed upon ground rules and questionable sourcing, would agree that it's important for a news organization to maintain its own integrity if it is to be trusted. That begins with keeping its word. If you can't manage that, then...

  • Today Is the Day We Wait for All Year

    It's National Punctuation Day! This one is for grammar geeks only. In honor of this year's celebration, The New Yorker magazine is sponsoring a contest : "The rules: Write one paragraph with a maximum of three sentences using the following 13 punctuation marks to explain which should be 'presidential,' and why: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark, and semicolon. You may use a punctuation mark more than once, and there is no word limit. Multiple entries are permitted. "In short, persuade us that your favorite punctuation mark should be the official punctuation mark of the President of the United States." Submissions are due by September 30, 2012. Read the rules here . This website features several photos of incorrectly punctuated signs, include a few submitted by me. Below is one gem, selected by the website owner as "The Dumbest Sign of the Year." Image source.

  • Go Daddy Responds to Outage

    What brought down Go Daddy's websites? Although a hacker claimed responsibility, the domain registrar and web hosting company says it was an internal issue . The outage lasted from 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m., affecting an unknown number of websites hosted by Go Daddy. On Twitter,@AnonymousOwn3r, a member of the Anonymous hackivist group , took responsibility: However, Go Daddy's CEO told a different story : Still, the Anonymous member maintained responsibility: Discussion Starters: While we waited to hear Go Daddy's response, small business owners blamed the hacker. Why would Go Daddy take responsibility rather than let customers think it was an external issue? The CEO's response is rather technical. Do you think this is appropriate for the audience and situation? Why or why not? Rewrite the CEO's message for the average business owner who has a website hosted by the company. How can you reduce the technical jargon?

  • Where's the Line Between Constructive Criticism and Meanness?

    A negative New York Times book review has caused a fiery reaction on Twitter. William Giraldi's review of Inside and Signs and Wonders, two fiction stories by Alix Ohlin, includes these criticisms: "Alix Ohlin’s sophomore effort yawningly announces itself as 'Inside,' a forgettable moniker that suggests everything and so means nothing." "Meet the four principal, cliché-­strangled Canadians whom Ohlin flies around like kites in a waning zephyr..." "Ohlin’s language betrays an appalling lack of register — language that limps onto the page proudly indifferent to pitch or vigor." "William Gass once called this breed of abysmal writing 'the uselessly precise fact' — it’s what you doodle when you need to fill a page but have nothing important to say. What then passes for wisdom in this novel? Nonsense clichés..." Giraldi sums up his review: "Every mind lives or dies by its ideas; every book lives or dies by its language." Although Giraldi got some support on Twitter, several tweeters found the review too harsh. Discussion Starters: Read the entire book review . What's your opinion of the author's approach and tone? Have you ever received feedback that you considered too harsh? What were the circumstances?
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