GS - MGT 303 CH 1 Professional Communication in a Digital, Social, Mobile World

How Audiences Decode Messages A received message doesn't "mean" anything until the recipient

decodes it and assigns meaning to it, and there is no guarantee the receiver will assign the same meaning that the sender intended. Assigning meaning through decoding is a highly personal process influenced by culture, individual experience, learning and thinking styles, ego, hopes, fears, beliefs, and even temporary moods.

Finally, with diagonal communication, information crosses

department lines while moving up or down.6 When problems and opportunities span multiple departments, horizontal and diagonal flows can help ensure that communication doesn't get stifled moving up and down the vertical lines in the organization chart.

Horizontal or lateral communication flows between

departments to help employees share information, coordinate tasks, and solve complex problems.

Ethical communication

includes all the information an audience needs in order to make an informed decision or take an informed stance on an issue and is not deceptive in any way. Whenever you communicate in business, you ask audiences to trust that you will provide information that is complete and true. If you intentionally violate that trust, you have engaged in unethical communication.

If you move into an executive role or launch your own company, you can expect

communication to consume the majority of your time. Top executives spend most of their workdays communicating, and business people who can't communicate well don't stand much chance of reaching the top.

In general, the more experiences you share with another person, the more likely you are to

share your perceptions of the world and therefore arrive at the same meanings for a given message (see Figure 1.6). Careful audience analysis helps you understand how much of this overlap you have with your readers or listeners. The less shared experience you have with your audiences, the more background information and context you will need to provide in your messages.

Professionalism can be broken down into six distinct traits:

1. striving to excel, 2. being dependable and accountable, 3. being a team player, 4. demonstrating a sense of etiquette, 5. making ethical decisions, and 6. maintaining a positive outlook

While technology can help communicators in some powerful ways, these benefits don't come automatically. When tools are designed poorly or used inappropriately, they can hinder communication more than help. To use communication technology effectively, bear these five points in mind: 1. Keep technology in perspective. Any technology is simply a tool, a means by which you can accomplish certain tasks. Technology is an aid to communication, not a replacement for it. Moreover, it can get in the way if not used thoughtfully. 2. Guard against information overload. The overuse or misuse of communication technology can lead to information overload, in which people receive more information than they can effectively process. Information overload can cause distractions, stress, mistakes, and communication breakdowns, and minimizing it is a shared responsibility. As a receiver, be your own gatekeeper and stay mindful of what information you allow in.

3. Use your tools wisely. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other technologies are key parts of what has been called the information technology paradox, in which information tools can waste as much time as they save. In addition to distracting employees from work responsibilities, inappropriate use can also leave companies vulnerable to lawsuits and security breaches. 4. Use your tools efficiently. Knowing how to use your tools efficiently can make a big difference in your productivity. You don't have to become an expert in most cases, but you do need to be familiar with the basic features and functions of the tools you are expected to use on the job. 5. Reconnect with people. Even when it is working well, communication technology can still present barriers to understanding and healthy emotional connections. Messaging, email, and other text-heavy modes are particularly prone to misunderstandings and bruised feelings because they can't convey nuances and emotions the same way that voice, video, and in-person conversation can. Whenever you sense that you're stuck in a loop of confusion or ill will, pick up the phone or visit the other party in person if you can. A few minutes of direct conversation can often work wonders.

The Conventional Communication Model (continued) 4. The sender transmits the message through a channel. Technology continues to increase the number of communication channels you can use to transmit your messages. The distinction between medium and channel can get a bit murky, but think of the medium as the form a message takes (such as a written message) and the channel as the system used to deliver the message (such as Twitter or email). 5. The audience receives the message. If the channel functions properly, the message reaches its intended audience. However, mere arrival at the destination is no guarantee that the message will be noticed or understood correctly. As "How Audiences Receive Messages" (page 12) explains, many messages are either ignored or misinterpreted. 6. The audience decodes the message. After a message is received, the receiver needs to extract the idea from the message, a step known as decoding. "How Audiences Decode Messages" (page 12) takes a closer look at this complex and subtle step in the process.

7. The audience responds to the message. By crafting messages in ways that show the benefits of responding, senders can increase the chances that recipients will respond in positive ways. However, as "How Audiences Respond to Messages" (page 13) points out, whether a receiver responds as the sender hopes depends on the receiver (a) remembering the message long enough to act on it, (b) being able to act on it, and (c) being motivated to respond. 8. The audience provides feedback to the sender. In addition to responding (or not responding) to the message, audience members may give feedback that helps the sender evaluate the effectiveness of the communication effort. Feedback can be verbal (using written or spoken words), nonverbal (using gestures, facial expressions, or other signals), or both. Just like the original message, however, this feedback from the receiver also needs to be decoded carefully. A smile, for example, can have many meanings.

The changing nature of employment is putting new pressure on communication skills, too. Companies such as Uber and Lyft are the most visible in the gig economy, where independent contractors work without many of the advantages or the disadvantages of regular employment. Many other companies now supplement their permanent workforces with independent contractors who are brought on for a short period or even just a single project.

Chances are you will spend part of your career as one of these independent freelancers, working without the support network that an established company environment provides. You will have to "sell yourself" into each new contract, communicate successfully in a wide range of work situations, and take full responsibility for your career growth and success.

3 of 5 Effective Communication : Present information in a concise, efficient manner

Concise messages show respect for people's time, and they increase the chances of a positive response.

4 of 5 Effective Communication : Clarify expectations and responsibilities.

Craft messages to generate a specific response from a specific audience. When appropriate, clearly state what you expect from audience members or what you can do for them.

Research in AI has been going on for more than a half century, but the practical outcomes never really lived up to hopes until recently, when several developments converged within the space of a few years.

First, the primary focus of the research shifted from pursuing the generalized, humanlike intelligence of science fiction (sometimes called general AI or strong AI) to developing specialized systems aimed at handling specific tasks such as reading text or recognizing images (called narrow AI or weak AI). Second, an AI method involving neural networks, which emulate the function of neurons in the brain, was refined in a way that made it much more powerful. And third, several critical computer capabilities became available around the same time: massive sets of data that AI systems could learn from, low-cost storage to handle all that data, and fast processors capable of handling the number-crunching that the most-common AI approaches require.

Machine learning and deep learning

For any AI system to possess intelligence, it needs to be able to learn, which can include understanding text, converting spoken language to written text, or recognizing the content of photographs and videos. Machine learning refers to the general capability of computers to learn, and deep learning is a specific type of machine learning that uses layers of neural networks to attack problems at multiple levels (the "deep" part). The growth of practical AI tools in recent years, including the ICT tools available for business communication, is largely the result of advances in deep learning.

Machine Learning

General term for a system's ability to teach itself to improve at whatever task or tasks it is designed to do, in contrast to systems in which all the intelligence has been built in by human programmers.

Practice Your Professionalism Don't wait until you're on the job to develop your professionalism. College gives you multiple opportunities to hone your approach to work, which will help you hit the ground running after you graduate.

Here are three opportunities to start pursuing now: Communication with your instructors. If you have ever started an email message to an instructor with "Yo, prof," now would be a good time to up your game. The quality of your work. Everything you produce reflects your commitment to quality, in both substance and presentation. Get in the habit of doing your best work now, and it'll be second nature by the time you're getting paid to do it. Scheduling and commitments. Missing deadlines on the job can mean missing major career opportunities. Meeting your commitments requires the ability to estimate how long things will take (which comes with practice and careful planning) and the mental strength to power through the tough parts of a project.

Computer vision

In much the same way that NLP pieces together sounds and bits of language to figure out meaning, computer vision analyzes the elements of photos, videos, and live camera images to identify their content. Given how important visual communication has become in business, vision processing could play a key role in the future of business communication.

These three exchanges between a software project manager (left) and his boss (right) illustrate the variety of ways in which information is shared between senders and receivers.

In the top exchange, the sender's meaning is transmitted intact to the receiver, who accepts what the sender says at face value. In the middle exchange, the sender and receiver negotiate the meaning by discussing the situation. The negotiated meaning is that everything is fine so far, but the risk of a schedule slip is now higher than it was before. In the bottom exchange, the receiver has a negative emotional reaction to the word think and as a result creates her own meaning—which is that everything probably is not fine, despite what the sender says.

3 of 4 Barriers in the Communication Environment : Filters

Messages can be blocked or distorted by filters, any human or technological interventions between the sender and the receiver. Filtering can be both intentional (such as automatically filing incoming messages based on sender or content) or unintentional (such as an overly aggressive spam filter that deletes legitimate emails). The structure and culture of an organization can also inhibit the flow of vital messages. And, in some cases, the people or companies you rely on to deliver your message can distort it or filter it to meet their own needs.

Mobile Communication While social media tools are freeing communication from the constraints of closed networks, mobile connectivity is freeing it from the constraints of fixed location. With mobile devices everywhere you look these days, it probably comes as no surprise that mobile media consumption has skyrocketed in recent years; more than half of all internet access now occurs via mobile devices.

Mobile technology has become an essential part of the digital workplace. Moreover, this shift isn't just about consumer usage and entertainment. For a growing number of companies, mobile technology has become an essential part of the digital workplace. Mobile connectivity can give workers and companies greater flexibility, enhance productivity and collaboration, and create more-engaging experiences for customers and other users. And rather than being an accessory to or an extension of a traditional work computer, in many cases mobile devices are the primary interface that connects employees to the company's information networks.

Understanding What Employers Expect from You Today's employers expect you to be competent at a range of communication tasks that reflect the value of communication discussed on pages 4-5: (continued)

Representing your employer in the public arena. Employers expect you to conduct yourself responsibly and professionally on social media and in other venues and to follow accepted standards of grammar, spelling, and other aspects of quality writing and speaking. Efficiently using the tools at your disposal. Aside from in-person conversations and meetings, every instance of business communication involves some level of technological assistance, so employers expect a level of proficiency with the tools they provide you to use.

5 of 6 Professionalism : making ethical decisions

Responsible pros work to avoid ethical lapses and weigh their options carefully when facing ethical dilemmas

Augmented Intelligence, Hybrid Intelligence, Cognitive Automation

Similar terms to describe hybrid solutions in which computers assist humans, and vice versa. For example, an AI system might analyze a collection of data to help a human make a decision, or a system that runs autonomously most of the time might call for human advice when it encounters a problem it can't solve.

Professionalism

The quality of performing at a high level and conducting oneself with purpose and pride It means doing more than putting in the hours and collecting a paycheck: True professionals go beyond minimum expectations and commit to making meaningful contributions.

Withholding Information First, senders can intentionally withhold information, such as avoiding taking responsibility for mistakes or presenting an incomplete set of facts when making a proposal.

The widespread use of social media has increased the attention given to the issue of transparency, which in this context refers to a sense of openness, of giving all participants in a conversation access to the information they need in order to accurately process the messages they are receiving. In addition to the information itself, audiences deserve to know when they are being marketed to and who is behind the messages they read or hear. Two important concerns in this regard are native advertising and stealth marketing.

The Conventional Communication Model By viewing communication as a process (Figure 1.5), you can identify and improve the skills you need in order to be more successful. Many variations on this process model exist, but these eight steps provide a practical overview:

This eight-step model is a simplified view of one cycle of communication. In reality, the process is complicated with noise, barriers, and interruptions, but understanding the basic concepts of encoding and decoding will help you as a sender and as a receiver. 1. The sender has an idea. Whether a communication effort will ultimately be effective starts right here and depends on the nature of the idea and the motivation for sending it. For example, if your motivation is to offer a solution to a problem, you have a better chance of crafting a meaningful message than if your motivation is merely to complain about a problem. 2. The sender encodes the idea as a message. When someone puts an idea into a message—which you can think of as the "container" for an idea—he or she is encoding it, or expressing it in words or images. Much of the focus of this course is on developing the skills needed to encode your ideas into effective messages. 3. The sender produces the message in a transmittable medium. With the appropriate message to express an idea, the sender now needs a communication medium to present that message to the intended audience. Media can be divided into oral (spoken), written, or visual formats.

2 of 5 Effective Communication : Give facts rather than vague impressions

Use concrete language, specific detail, and information that is clear, convincing, accurate, and ethical. Even when an opinion is called for, present compelling evidence to support your conclusion.

5 of 5 Effective Communication : Offer compelling, persuasive arguments and recommendations.

When a situation calls for persuasive communication, show your readers how they will benefit by responding the way you would like them to respond.

6 of 6 Professionalism : maintaining a positive outlook

You owe it to yourself, your colleagues, and your company to maintain a positive outlook, even when the going gets tough

Relating to the needs of others is a key part of emotional intelligence, the

ability to read other people's emotions accurately and to manage one's own emotions in productive ways.8 The more you know about the people you're communicating with, the easier it will be to focus on their needs—which, in turn, will make it easier for them to hear your message, understand it, and respond positively. A vital element of audience-centered communication is professional etiquette, which you'll study in Chapter 3 .

Real-time voice translation

addresses the multiple challenges of recognizing speech, converting it to text in the original language, translating it to a second language and then synthesizing voice output in that language.

Native advertising, also known as sponsored content, is

advertising material that is designed to look like regular news stories, articles, or social media posts. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires companies to label such material as sponsored content if it is likely to mislead consumers into thinking it is "anything other than an ad." Industry groups such as the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau give their members specific guidelines to help prevent consumer confusion.

Robotic process automation (RPA)

aims to do for knowledge work what robots do for manufacturing and other physical processes. RPA targets the high-volume "paperwork" aspects of business and can automate some of the routine communication and manual tasks that this sort of work typically involves.

critical thinking

the ability to evaluate evidence completely and objectively in order to form logical conclusions and make sound recommendations.

Ethics

the accepted principles of conduct that govern behavior within a society. Ethical behavior is a companywide concern, but because communication efforts are the public face of a company, they are subjected to particularly rigorous scrutiny from regulators, legislators, investors, consumer groups, environmental groups, labor organizations, and other stakeholders.

Stealth marketing is

the practice of promoting companies and products without making it clear to the audience that marketing activity is taking place. For example, "street team" marketing, in which team members promote goods and services to their friends and members of the public in exchange for prizes or other compensation, is unethical if team members don't disclose the fact that they are affiliated with a company and are being rewarded for their efforts. Such practices also violate FTC advertising guidelines.24 Even something as simple as a job title can be deceptive and therefore unethical (see "Practicing Ethical Communication: Are You My Adviser or My Advisor?").

Communication

the process of transferring information and meaning between senders and receivers, using one or more forms of media. For communication to be considered successful, it also must transfer understanding.

An audience-centered approach involves

understanding and respecting the members of your audience and making every effort to get your message across in a way that is meaningful to them. This approach is also known as adopting the "you" attitude, where you is the person receiving the message, in contrast to messages that are about me as the sender. Learn as much as possible about the beliefs, education, age, status, communication style, and personal and professional concerns of your readers and listeners. If you're addressing people you don't know and you're unable to find out more about them, try to project yourself into their position by using common sense and imagination.

Messages can flow

upward (from a lower-level employee to a higher-level employee), downward (from a higher-level employee to a lower-level employee), horizontally (across the organization, between employees at the same or similar levels), or diagonally (across departments and upward or downward).

Differences in language and usage also influence received meaning. If you ask an employee to send you a report on sales figures "as soon as possible," does that mean

within 10 seconds, 10 minutes, or 10 days? By clarifying expectations and resolving potential ambiguities in your messages, you can minimize such uncertainties.

1 of 5 Effective Communication : Provide practical information.

Give recipients useful information that helps them solve problems, pursue opportunities, or take other action.

Throughout this course, you will learn a variety of techniques to craft messages that get noticed. In general, follow these five principles to increase your chances of success:

1. Consider audience expectations. Deliver messages using the media and channels that the audience expects. 2. Make messages user-friendly. Even if audiences are actively looking for your messages, they may not get the messages if you make them hard to find, hard to navigate, or hard to read. 3. Emphasize familiarity. Use words, images, and designs that are familiar to your audience. 4. Practice empathy. Make sure your messages speak to the audience by clearly addressing their wants and needs—not just yours. This is the essence of the "you" attitude. 5. Design for compatibility. Make sure your messages are compatible with the devices your audiences will use to read, listen to, or view them on. For example, websites designed for full-size computer screens can be difficult to view on mobile devices, so contemporary web design emphasizes the need to support a wide variety of screen sizes and modes of interaction.

Chapter 1 Learning Objectives

1. Explain the importance of effective communication to your career and to the companies where you will work. 2. Explain what it means to communicate as a professional in a business context. 3. Contrast the conventional communication process model with the social communication model. 4. Identify five major benefits of business communication technology and three major innovations that are reshaping the practice of communication. 5. Define ethics, explain the difference between an ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse, and list six guidelines for making ethical communication choices. 6. Identify six related skills that you will have the opportunity to develop as you work on your communication skills in this course.

The Potential Benefits of Communication Technology Technology brings a wide variety of benefits to business communication, which can be grouped into five key areas: The potential benefits of communication technology include: Greater effectiveness Greater efficiency Better and easier research Improved decision making Fewer barriers

1. Making communication more effective by helping people craft messages that convey their ideas more clearly and persuasively 2. Making communication more efficient by reducing the time and effort needed to create, transmit, and consume messages 3. Improving research tools to help communicators discover, process, and apply information 4. Assisting communicators with decision-making by guiding them through complex sets of data 5. Removing communication barriers so more people can participate in the communication process more easily

How Audiences Receive Messages For an audience member to receive a message, three events need to occur:

1. The receiver has to sense the presence of a message, 2. select it from all the other messages clamoring for attention, and 3. perceive it as an actual message (as opposed to random, pointless noise).

The Conventional Communication Model

1. The sender has an idea 2. The sender encodes the idea as a message. 3. The sender produces the message in a transmittable medium. 4. The sender transmits the message through a channel. 5. The audience receives the message. 6. The audience decodes the message. 7. The audience responds to the message 8. The audience provides feedback to the sender.

Barriers in the Communication Environment Within any communication environment, messages can be disrupted by a variety of communication barriers. These barriers include

1. noise and distractions, 2. competing messages, 3. filters, and 4. channel breakdowns:

What Makes Business Communication Effective? To make your communication efforts as effective as possible, focus on making them

1. practical 2. factual 3. concise 4. clear, and 5. persuasive

Deep Learning

A form of machine learning in which layers of computational neural networks mimic the functions of the brain's neurons. Deep learning is a key component of the communication tools in place today.

Understanding What Employers Expect from You Today's employers expect you to be competent at a range of communication tasks that reflect the value of communication discussed on pages 4-5:

Acquiring, processing, and sharing information. Employers expect you to be able to recognize information needs, locate and evaluate reliable sources of information (particularly from online sources), organize information into cohesive messages, and use information ethically. This collection of skills is often referred to as digital information fluency.5 Information fluency includes critical thinking Using communication to foster positive working relationships. This task includes listening, practicing good etiquette, resolving conflicts respectfully, and communicating with people from diverse backgrounds.

4 of 6 Professionalism : demonstrating a sense of etiquette

Be respectful Good business etiquette is a sign of respect for those around you; respecting others is not only good - it's good for your career

1 of 6 Professionalism : striving to excel,

Be the best Pros strive to excel, and excelling at every level is how you build a great career

How Audiences Respond to Messages Your message has been delivered, received, and correctly decoded. Now what? Will audience members respond in the way you'd like them to? Only if three events occur.

First, the recipient must remember the message long enough to act on it. Simplifying greatly, memory works in several stages: Sensory memory momentarily captures incoming data from the senses, then whatever sensory data the recipient pays attention to are transferred to short-term memory. Information survives in short-term memory for only a matter of seconds and will disappear or get crowded out by new information if it isn't transferred to long-term memory. This transfer can be done either actively (such as when a person memorizes a list of items) or passively (such as when a new piece of information connects with something else the recipient already has stored in long-term memory). Finally, the information needs to be retrieved when the recipient wants to act on it.12 By communicating in ways that reflect the audience's wants and needs, you increase the chance that your messages will be remembered and retrieved. Second, the recipient must to be able to respond as you wish. Obviously, if recipients simply cannot do what you want them to do, they will not respond according to your plan. By understanding your audience (you'll learn more about audience analysis in Chapter 5), you can work to minimize these unsuccessful outcomes. Third, the recipient must be motivated to respond. You'll encounter many situations in which your audience has the option of responding but isn't required to. For instance, a record company may or may not offer your band a contract, or your boss may or may not respond to your request for a raise. Throughout this course, you'll learn techniques for crafting messages that can help motivate readers to respond positively to your messages.

2 of 4 Barriers in the Communication Environment : Competing messages

Having your audience's undivided attention is a rare luxury. In most cases, you must compete with other messages that are trying to reach your audience at the same time.

Like many college students, Rana el Kaliouby pursued her education with an important life goal in mind. In her case, it was developing computer programs that could "read" people's faces, a goal she pursued from her undergradate studies in Egypt to a PhD program at the University of Cambridge in England to her work as a research scientist in the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Her motivation was to help people on the autism spectrum who struggle to pick up emotional cues when communicating with others. Could a system read faces and provide information to help people have richer social interactions?

The rise of mobile communication has some obvious implications, starting with the challenges of writing and reading on small screens.

Moreover, device size and portability are only the most obvious differences. Just as with social media, the changes brought about by mobile go far deeper than the technology itself. Mobile alters the way people live and work, which requires communicators to modify their approach to writing and designing messages. For example, smartphones have become truly personal devices in ways that personal computers never did. For many users, the connection is so intense they may feel a sense of panic when they don't have frequent access to their phones.17 When people are closely attached to their phones, day and night, they are more closely connected to all the information sources, conversations, and networks that those phones can reach. As a result, mobile communication can start to resemble a continuous stream of conversations that never quite end, which influences the way businesses need to interact with their stakeholders.

Natural language processing (NLP)

NLP involves giving computers the ability to understand language in the often-unpredictable ("natural") ways humans speak and write and to manipulate language in useful ways. NLP involves several challenging issues, including converting speech to text, analyzing text to extract intended meaning, and generating written or oral output (often referred to as natural language generation).

Communication Is Important to Your Company Aside from the personal benefits, communication should be important to you because it is important to your company, in three essential ways: Companies rely on communication for efficient operations, timely business intelligence, and positive relationships.

Operations. Every company needs fast, effective communication between managers and staff, within departments, between departments, and between the company and its external business partners. Communication carries everything from high-level strategic plans down to minute technical details, and any bottlenecks or breakdowns can reduce operational efficiency and create problems with quality or safety. Intelligence. Companies need to keep a constant "ear to the ground" to be alerted to new opportunities, risks, and impending problems—both internally and externally. Relationships. Just as in personal and social relationships, business relationships depend on communication. Effective communication strengthens the connections between a company and all its stakeholders

2 of 6 Professionalism : being dependable and accountable

Pros keep their promises, meet their commitments, learn from mistakes, and take responsibility for their errors

3 of 6 Professionalism : being a team player

Pros know how to contribute to a larger cause and make others around them better

Social and Workgroup Communication Systems One of the most distinguishing features of business communication these days is how connected everyone and everything is. Businesses have had access to digital networking for decades, and many were quick to adopt social networking concepts when Facebook and similar networks took off.

Social media are digital platforms that empower stakeholders as participants in the communication process by allowing them to share content, revise content, respond to content, or contribute new content.

4 of 4 Barriers in the Communication Environment : Channel breakdowns

Sometimes the channel simply breaks down and fails to deliver your message at all. A colleague you were counting on to deliver a message to your boss might have forgotten to do so, or a computer server might have crashed and prevented your blog from updating.

Strong AI, Weak AI

Terms that suggest the scope of an AI activity or design. Strong AI, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), is the idea of comprehensively replicating human intelligence, including the ability to transfer learning from one task or domain to another, just as humans can. Weak AI, or more accurately, narrow AI, focuses on a specific problem with techniques optimized for that single domain. All the AI tools having a meaningful impact on business today are weak AI.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

The ability to understand, analyze, and respond to human conversational input. Systems that accept voice input, such as Siri, Alexa, and other voice assistants, also require speech recognition capability, which is the ability to convert human speech to text that a computer can then analyze.

Essential ICT Terms Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The application of computing power to replicate one or more aspects of human intelligence. Generally speaking, it's a three-stage process: collecting data or information, analyzing or processing that input to make decisions, then applying the results of that decision-making activity.

1 of 4 Barriers in the Communication Environment : Noise and distractions External distractions range from uncomfortable meeting rooms to computer screens cluttered with instant messages and reminders popping up all over the place. Internal distractions are thoughts and emotions that prevent audiences from focusing on incoming messages.

The common habit of multitasking—attempting more than one task at a time—is practically guaranteed to create barriers when communication is involved, because the human brain simply isn't wired to work that way. You may think you are doing two or more tasks at once, but you are really shifting back and forth between individual tasks, and your productivity and focus can suffer every time you shift.9 As more communication takes place on mobile devices, the need to insulate yourself from noise and distractions is going to keep growing.

Data Mining, Text Mining

The computerized process of extracting insights from vast collections of numerical or textual records.

formal communication network

The formal communication network is defined by the relationships between the various job positions in the organization. in which ideas and information flow along the lines of command (the hierarchical levels) in the company's organization structure (see Figure 1.4).

Cognitive automation

also known as augmented intelligence, helps professionals make more-informed decisions by applying predictive analytics and other techniques to characterize likely outcomes of various decision choices.

Augmented writing systems

analyze word and phrase choices and suggest more effective ways to convey ideas. Some are based on general concepts of effective writing; others are specialized tools based on a deeper analysis of narrower sets of communication examples, such as job descriptions.

stakeholders

any persons or organizations significantly affected by the company's business decisions and operations. Stakeholder groups include employees, customers, investors, creditors, suppliers, and local communities. Individuals within companies also rely on communication to foster the emotional connections that create a healthy work environment.

Mining and analytics systems

are a diverse class of tools that extract insights from collections of numerical (data mining, data analytics) or textual (text mining, text analytics) content. Business communicators can use the natural language processing capability of text mining or text analytics for social listening to identify themes (such as prevailing customer sentiment or threats to a company's reputation) hidden in mountains of written information, from Twitter and Facebook posts to customer emails and surveys.

Everyone in an organization can help minimize barriers and distractions. As a communicator, try to be aware of any

barriers that could prevent your messages from reaching their intended audiences. As a manager, keep an eye out for any organizational barriers that could be inhibiting the flow of information. In any situation, a small dose of common sense and courtesy goes a long way. Turn off that mobile phone before you step into a meeting. Don't talk across the tops of other people's cubicles, and don't play music at a level that can distract others. Minimizing barriers and distractions in the communication environment is everyone's responsibility. Finally, take steps to insulate yourself from distractions. Don't let messages interrupt you every minute of the day. Instead, set aside time to attend to messages all at once so that you can focus the rest of the time.

Upward communication flows from

employees to middle managers and from middle managers to top executives, giving those at high levels insight into problems, trends, opportunities, grievances, and performance.

Every organization also has an informal communication network, which

encompasses all communication that occurs outside of formal channels. Some of this informal communication takes place naturally when employees interact on the job and in social settings, and some of it takes place when the formal network doesn't provide information that employees want. In fact, the limitations of formal communication networks helped spur the growth of social media in the business environment.

Augmented reality tools

enhance the communication experience for audiences by delivering additional information that is relevant to a user's immediate surroundings, such as systems that give technicians on-the-spot guidance to troubleshoot and repair equipment.

Image recognition systems

extract information from photos, videos, and live camera images. Search engines, for example, use AI to automatically analyze and tag photos and videos for such purposes as filtering out objectionable content and helping users search for images. This capability can be built into other systems for such purposes as tracking products, counting people, and monitoring public safety.

Canadian financial regulations state that anyone using the word "adviser" with an "e" in his or her job title is legally bound to act in a client's best interests, regardless of commissions or other pressures, a requirement known as

fiduciary duty. This means, for instance, that a financial adviser cannot encourage a client to invest in a high-fee investment if a comparable and less-expensive alternative would be better for the client. (Fees vary widely across investment products and can dramatically affect the level of net return that investors get.)

Today's business audiences are much like pedestrians on busy streets. They are inundated with so many messages and so much noise that they can miss or ignore many of the messages intended for them. One of the mind's defenses against this barrage is selective attention

focusing on a subset of the incoming stimuli or information sources and ignoring others.11 Not surprisingly, this focused attention can be helpful at times and harmful at others. If you are on your mobile phone trying hard to listen to the other party, your mind will try to block out all the noise sources—one of which might be a car horn warning you to get out of the way.

Automated writing

goes beyond augmented writing to produce finished or near-finished writing. Systems in use now can summarize corporate news and sports stories, for example. Yahoo! Sports uses AI to generate millions of personalized draft reports and game recaps for members of its fantasy football leagues.

Voice recognition

has improved dramatically in the last few years, thanks to advances in AI. Voice input is so good now that it is becoming the primary way for millions of people to interact with digital tools and the internet in general

Augmented ability tools

help people across a wider spectrum of physical or cognitive ability interact with devices and their immediate environments in more complete and fulfilling ways. For example, Microsoft's Seeing AI app can help people with limited vision by reading texts, recognizing currency, identifying people, scanning barcodes, and identifying objects in a room or on the street.

Communication in the informal network is healthy and important, because the formal network can't always capture and share all the information that helps people do their jobs. However,

if a workplace is rife with rumors and company gossip, this situation could be a sign that the formal network is not functioning effectively.

Our minds have a variety of self-defense mechanisms that protect our perceptions of the world and of ourselves, and our minds sometimes

ignore, deny, or distort incoming information that threatens those views. If you have ever used the phrase, "You only hear what you want to hear," you were referring to an example of this distorted perception. For example, if you ask four people to review a business plan that you believe is rather brilliant, and three of the appraisals come back positive, your ego will be tempted to reject the negative comments in the fourth review.

Chatbots and taskbots

interact with humans to perform a wide variety of communication functions, from answering questions about products to acting as personal assistants. Bots help companies communicate with more people at lower cost. The Gift Genie from Sam's Club, for instance, can guide customers through product selection questions and seamlessly escalate to human agents when needed. X.ai's Amy and Andrew taskbots can set up meetings and perform various other tasks as virtual assistants.

However, in recent years, a variety of technologies have enabled and inspired a new approach to business communication. In contrast to the publishing mindset, this social communication model is

interactive, conversational, and usually open to all who wish to participate. Audience members are no longer passive recipients of messages but active participants in a conversation. Social media have given customers and other stakeholders a voice they did not have in the past. Instead of transmitting a fixed message, a sender in a social media environment initiates a conversation by asking a question or sharing valuable information. Information spread this way is often revised and reshaped by the participants as they forward it and comment on it. People can expand it, confirm it, amplify it, or refute it, depending on their needs and interests. Figure 1.7 lists some of the significant differences between the traditional and social models of business communication.

The social communication model offers many advantages, but it has some disadvantages as well, starting with

less control. People inside and outside a company have always been able to refute management statements or spread rumors, for example, but owners and managers could assert at least a degree of control because the options for everyone else were limited and usually expensive. A second potential disadvantage of the social model is complexity. Companies and individuals have access to more information than ever before, which is both positive and negative. On the negative side, there are more communication channels to monitor, more work is needed to separate valuable information from noise, there is a greater risk of the spread of false information, and there is a greater threat of information overload (see below).

Individual thinking styles are another important factor in message decoding. For instance, someone who places a high value on

objective analysis and clear logic might interpret a message differently than someone who values emotion or intuition (reaching conclusions without using rational processes).

Applicant evaluation systems

speed the process of screening job applications, particularly in the first few stages of the recruiting cycle, when companies often have more candidates than their staffs can screen manually. Some of these systems evaluate résumés and related application information to help recruiters identify the most promising candidates, and some can even predict whether people who aren't actively looking for a new job might be likely to consider one. Others assist at the interviewing stage, with chatbots that can conduct interviews or video analysis tools that evaluate candidates' responses and on-screen demeanor.

communication can happen in a variety of ways, including

successful transfers of information and understanding, negotiations in which the sender and receiver arrive at an agreed-on meaning, and unsuccessful attempts in which the receiver assembles a different message than the one the sender intended.

Virtual reality (VR)

systems create a simulation in which the person experiences the sensation of being in an environment, even though that environment is entirely computer-generated. If it is difficult, expensive, or dangerous to put people in a real-life situation, a VR simulation can let employees experience the sensation of being there and doing whatever tasks are required. VR can also help people experience a product or structure before it is built. Ford uses VR to let engineers "see" design ideas before building anything and to get feedback from drivers by letting them sit in and experience prototype designs before the cars are manufactured.

A key message to glean from Figure 1.3 is how much these elements of professionalism depend on effective communication. For example,

to be a team player, you need to be able to collaborate, resolve conflicts, and interact with a wide variety of personalities. Without strong communication skills, you won't be able to perform to your potential, and others won't recognize you as the professional you'd like to be.

Automated translation

tools remove language barriers for website visitors and users. Companies can dramatically lower the costs of localizing content for various countries and language users, and anyone can get reasonably close translations of website content using Google Translate and similar services.

Downward communication flows from

top executives to middle managers to frontline employees, conveying executive decisions and providing information that helps employees do their jobs.

The conventional model presented in Figure 1.5 illustrates how a single idea moves from one sender to one receiver. In a larger sense, it also helps represent the

traditional nature of much business communication, which was primarily defined by a publishing or broadcasting mindset. Externally, a company issued carefully scripted messages to a mass audience that often had few options for responding to those messages or initiating messages of their own. Customers and other interested parties had few ways to connect with one another to ask questions, share information, or offer support. Internally, communication tended to follow the same "we talk, you listen" model, with upper managers issuing directives to lower-level supervisors and employees.

Emotion recognition tools

uch as Affectiva (see page 2) analyze facial expressions or voices to identify emotional states with the aims of understanding consumer reactions and preferences at a deeper level and bringing a more human feel to digital interaction.

Intelligent Communication Technology The most intriguing and potentially disruptive of all contemporary communication tools are a group of capabilities we can call intelligent communication technology (ICT), which

uses artificial intelligence to enhance the communication experience. Although "artificial intelligence" still has a science fiction ring to it, forms of AI are now used extensively in business and business communication. It's a virtual guarantee that you are already experiencing AI as a consumer—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify are just a few of the companies that rely on AI to deliver their services.

Distorting Information Intentionally distorting information is also a form of unethical communication. This distortion can involve

words, numbers, or images. For example, selectively misquoting someone in order to create a different impression than the source intended is unethical. Statistical and other numerical data can also be presented in ways that distort their implications. Two examples are using averages to conceal extreme individual values or manipulating trend calculations to suggest future values that the underlying data might not support. For example, you might boast that sales increased 40 percent in April as evidence of a big upward trend, when in fact March sales had been a disaster and all that 40 percent increase did was bring sales back to their earlier level. Images can be manipulated in unethical ways, such as altering photos or changing the scale of graphs and charts to exaggerate or conceal differences.

One Course—Three Powerful Benefits You will invest considerable time and energy in this course, so it's fair to ask what you will get in return. The simple answer: a lot. If you practice the techniques you'll discover here and use this opportunity to develop those techniques with your instructor's guidance, we're confident this course will help you in three important ways:

• It will help you succeed in college. • It will help you conduct a more successful job search. • It will help you succeed in your first job so you can build a thriving career.

Forms of Unethical Communication Unethical communication can take several forms:

• withholding information, • distorting information, and • plagiarizing. Note that some of these choices can also be illegal in certain circumstances.