CMN279

Class 1
Communication Not What It Was

Workplace is Changing Fast:

It Enhances speed and volume of transmitted messages
Info overload (yields pattern recognition)
Reduced workforce flattened management hierarchies
Increasingly divers workforce
Heightened global competition
Expanded team-based management

Communicating at Speed

1. Emphasis on Efficiency:
Stray from jargon and keep messages concise and
understandable
o Simplify your messages
o Write for the reader not yourself
Most people write to impress, which leads to
confusion
How to Improve Efficiency:
o Content that makes it worth reading
o Organize the information and emphasize the important
material
o Style that is concise and easy to read
o Use visuals to clarify concepts and relationships
Do not overuse
o Format in a way that is accessible and appealing
Introduction is most important is when attention
is at its highest
Body tends to lose attention
Conclusion regains attention lost during body

2. Emphasis on the Audience:

Audience is the content
Noise Barriers to Communication:
o Channel overload
o Information overload
o Emotional interference
o Semantic interference or bypassing
o Physical/technical interference
o Mixed messages and channel barriers
Conflicting signals/wrong channel selection
o Environmental interference
CMN279
Class 1
Differing frames of reference
age/culture/demographics

Other Words for Environment:

Background
Context
Medium
Culture

Culture:
Shared system of values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and practices
is, like language, something we learn
Meaning changes with context/culture
o Change the context and you change the meaning