Business_Communication_Trends

As technology advances, so does business communication. Business communications play a major role in everyone’s day-to-day work activities although not all communication is face-to-face. The current trends in business communications is making communicating with consumers, vendors and employees much easier and faster than it was in the past. The use of a Blackberry makes communication instantaneous without the restrictions of being tied to a desk. With the average American spending 195 hours using the Internet (Locker & Kienzler, "The Building Blocks of Effective Messages," 2008), social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter help companies communicate the use of new products and provide valuable information to consumers and the general public. Emails are the preferred method of communication with those in the business world. Emails help foster relationships, exchange information and help consumers and employees on track and in constant communication with each other. In addition to these forms of communication, electronic calendars help manage our daily activities at work; the use of software such as Outlook, help keep schedules coordinated and meetings on schedule as well as keeping contacts organized. With so many companies conducting business internationally and allowing employees to work from home, the use of video conferencing is becoming just as important if not more important than the use of the phone and of emails. Being able to conduct a meeting with a potential client in India when a company is based in the United States could mean the difference between landing the deal or not. At the company where I used to work, the President of the company held monthly Town Hall meetings with everyone in the company at once; this was accomplished with the use of video conferencing. This offered everyone in the company an equal amount of face time with the President and made the meeting more personal. I have also noticed that the use of “Communicator” has become more common; communicator is an instant messaging software. Instant messages are useful when someone has a quick question or wants to have a brief chat. In my experiences, the types of messages that result from the instant messaging trend are messages that are personal in nature. While the instant messages can only b sent to other employees, I have found that it is being used as a means of “goofing off” just as much as it is being used for business purposes. I have also found that employees are more comfortable being “inappropriate” when using instant messages than they are in their emails because they do not believe that instant messages are monitored.   References Locker, K., & Kienzler, D. (2008). Business and administrative communication (8th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.