Online Communication
Jonathan Follett, in one of two current articles posted on A List Apart, discusses The Rules of Digital Engagement:
When it comes to work style and culture, virtual teams—especially groups of contractors—are inherently less formal and more flexible than traditional office-based organizations. We are, as William Gibson puts it in his novel Pattern Recognition, “post-geographic”—operating beyond physical boundaries. But when workers no longer collaborate within a particular physical space, they must adopt a disciplined devotion to process. In digital space, the physical artifacts of day-to-day business we share are gone—what remains are discussions and deliverables. The way we hold discussions and create deliverables becomes increasingly important.
I love collaborating online, except when I’m dealing with someone who has poor communication skills. These are never people we enjoy dealing with, but the problems are magnified by geographical distance. When you can’t sit down with a person and hash out what she’s trying to tell you—in person—it can double or triple the amount of time it takes to complete a simple task.
I’m always discovering ways to improve electronic communication. For example, I try to limit emails to one topic or main question, and I use a lot more paragraph breaks than I otherwise would. I agree with Follett that, a decade into mainstream electronic communication, we’re still figuring out what works and what doesn’t.