Writing reports and proposals, as well as adapting to your audience is very important in the fast passed ever changing world of business. And the reading backs the claim I just made up. In the reading we learn that the attitude is especially important with long or complex reports because they demand a lot from readers. In the book we also learn you can help your audience navigate through your reports by providing them with clear directions to critical information. Its also a relatively good to send your audience previews. Previews help readers prepare for upcoming information, and reviews help them verify and clarify what they've read. In short it gives readers a better understanding of the information your sending their way. The five main points that I took away from the reading is being sensitive to your audiences needs, number one. Number two is self explanatory but very important and it is building strong relationships with your audience. The third thing that many people don't know is controlling your style and tone. Number four is producing formal reports which I went over in some detail above. The fifth main point I took away from the reading is distributing reports and proposals. In the next few paragraphs I will go into more detail as well as provide real life examples of each of the main points.
Being sensitive to your audiences needs, and by this I don't just mean adapting to your audience. But helping them understand the purpose behind your writing as well as helping your readers navigate to the main points. As some of you may know todays readers often lack the time and or patience to plow through excessively long reports page by page or screen by screen, Todays reader typically want to browse quickly and the information they seek. If you want readers to understand and accept your message help them navigate your document by using headings as well as links to help the transaction flow more smoothly. I could not find any examples to show you on the internet. However, I can share with you some personal experiences I have experienced both good and bad. I went to write a proposal to my parents for a dirt bike when I was 11, the proposal did not work. And I fell it was pretty good for an 11 year old. It went something like this:
- Dear mom and dad
- I am writing you to ask for a new dirt bike I promise to clean my room more and help with chores around the house. You can write me a check ill be in my room.
As you can see it wasn't very good and I left out price and other critical information. I don't even think I munched my audiences needs. But as I got older my proposals got better.
In a proposal or a report it is important to build strong relationships with your audience. So I asked my self where does this start, then I just read the paragraph. I was shocked to learn that building strong relationships starts with planning. I was shocked so I kept reading, and learned you need to know how to adapt your style and language to meet their demands and expectations. Bear in mind that some reports in particular those that can be transmitted online, can take lives of their own.
Controlling your style and tone is a very important aspect of writing proposals and reports. For example if you know your readers fairly well then your report will likely take own a informal tone. And is more likely to meet with their approval. To make your tone less formal you can use words such as you and I or we, instead of names.
When producing formal reports and proposals its important to remember that formal reports and proposals can include a variety of features beyond just the original text and visuals. Most of these elements has the potential to provide additional information, a few tend to be more decorative and add a formal tone to the writing. One of the most important elements to consider is an introductory feature that helps time sensitive readers get a sense of what's going.
Distributing reports and proposals, a very complex and vexing problem. For physical distribution of important printed reports or proposals. You may want to use a professional courier or package delivery system according to the book this can add a more professional message to who your sending the report or proposal to.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Unit 12: Pages 330-341
When writing a persuasive business message its important to get your readers attentions, capture there interest as well as insure there desire to take action. Your success as a business professional is tied closely together with your ability to encourage others to accept ideas, and change old habits, as well as to act on your recommendations. Unless your career takes you into marketing and sales, most of your persuasive messages will consist of persuasive messages, which are designed to elicit a preferred response in a non-sales situation. Even if you have a place of authority where you have the power to compel others to do what you want them to do, persuading them is often more effective than forcing them. People who are forced into accepting a decision are less motivated to support it and more likely to act negatively than when persuaded.
When framing an argument, you'll notice most persuasive messages use the indirect approach as opposed to the direct approach. According to the book titled "Business Communication Today" most experts in persuasive communication have developed numerous indirect models for such messages. One of the best is known as the AIDA model, which organizes messages into four sections. With the AIDA model for persuasive messages, you can craft one or more messages to move recipients through the four sections of attention, interest, desire, and action. This model tends to work well for both persuasive business messages such as persuading your manager to fund a new project and thing of that nature.
As far as my own personal experience with the writing and delivery of a persuasive business message, is limited I have only had the opportunity to write and review them in class. But from my experience it can be formal or informal. Sent by email or in a business letter type format or even in a presentation. There are good ways of persuading people and some bad ways for example:
While this cartoon was meant to be seen as humorous you get the idea in the next paragraph I will go into detail about the four components of writing a persuasive business letter.
The first thing you need to do in any good business message is catch your intended audiences attention. Then get them to pay attention to your message, and ignore all other messages clamoring for their attention. The second thing you need to provide is concise information points that pay off the promise you made to get their attention as you build a case that you can meet or even exceed their individual needs. Desire, is an important concept especially when your trying to provoke someone to act. Your message needs to move prospects from I'm interested to I want to purchase this. And by continuing to show how your solution will benefit them as well as removing doubt from their mind is a good way to ease them into this process. To motivate your intended audience to take action is the whole goal in writing persuasive business messages. Weather your seeking more information or wanting a decision made in your favor or even wanting someone to purchase an item you will need to know how to write a persuasive business message in this ever changing world.
When framing an argument, you'll notice most persuasive messages use the indirect approach as opposed to the direct approach. According to the book titled "Business Communication Today" most experts in persuasive communication have developed numerous indirect models for such messages. One of the best is known as the AIDA model, which organizes messages into four sections. With the AIDA model for persuasive messages, you can craft one or more messages to move recipients through the four sections of attention, interest, desire, and action. This model tends to work well for both persuasive business messages such as persuading your manager to fund a new project and thing of that nature.
As far as my own personal experience with the writing and delivery of a persuasive business message, is limited I have only had the opportunity to write and review them in class. But from my experience it can be formal or informal. Sent by email or in a business letter type format or even in a presentation. There are good ways of persuading people and some bad ways for example:
While this cartoon was meant to be seen as humorous you get the idea in the next paragraph I will go into detail about the four components of writing a persuasive business letter.
The first thing you need to do in any good business message is catch your intended audiences attention. Then get them to pay attention to your message, and ignore all other messages clamoring for their attention. The second thing you need to provide is concise information points that pay off the promise you made to get their attention as you build a case that you can meet or even exceed their individual needs. Desire, is an important concept especially when your trying to provoke someone to act. Your message needs to move prospects from I'm interested to I want to purchase this. And by continuing to show how your solution will benefit them as well as removing doubt from their mind is a good way to ease them into this process. To motivate your intended audience to take action is the whole goal in writing persuasive business messages. Weather your seeking more information or wanting a decision made in your favor or even wanting someone to purchase an item you will need to know how to write a persuasive business message in this ever changing world.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
288-311
Negative messages are not my favorite topic in the business world. However, they are a necessary topic. In this blog post I will be writing about how to use the three steep writing process for negative messages; as well as my own personal experiences with negative messages. Negative messages can have as many as five objectives. Giving the bad news, ensuring the acceptance of the bad news, maintaining the readers good will, maintaining the organizations good image, as well as minimizing or eliminating future correspondence on the matter, as appropriate. To do this we must analyze, use investigation skills, and we must learn to adapt to avoid alienating your readers.
This is important for anyone wanting to enter the business field particularly management or a position of authority. Yes! I'm talking about the three steep writing process for planning a negative message. Something you want to consider, is that the employee doesn't want to hear what you have to say. We
use the first steep to minimize damage caused in the message.
In the first steep we have to consider our purpose or our objective thoroughly and carefully. Weather its simple such as, rejecting a job applicant or more complex such as drafting a negative performance review; in which you give the employee not only feed back on past performances, but also help the employee develop a plan to improve future performances. With a clear purpose, and your audiences needs in mind, you need to gather the information, your audience requires in order for the employee to understand and except your message.
Step number two is writing the actual message. This is where adapting your message to your audience, pay close attention to effectiveness and diplomacy. After all you must remember your audience does not want to hear it. Or your audience may strongly disagree with you, so your message must be clear. If your messages are unclear or unkind it will amplify the audiences stress. Continuing the negative message as clear and polite as possible, you can deliver the news in a kind way. The only experience I have in this is when I worked for McDonalds and was told we were going to have to shut down the store while they re-built it. I didn't think the employees would take it well, but I was respectful and kind and I came pre-pared to answer the employees questions.
Completing the message, the obvious still applies scan and re read the message for errors. Also read the message and think how would I take this. Because as previously stated the employee doesn't want to hear this message or may strongly disagree with you. Bare in mind that the message needs to be clear.
Questions:
1. What do you do if your not giving a reason or a purpose for writing the negative message?
2. What do I do if I'm not giving sufficient information?
3. What if I don't know how to approach the problem?
4. What do I do if I'm not giving sufficient time?
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Readings: 123-136 & Blog Post
Joshua Lovette, Student at Appalachian State University
When writing its important to know your audience and adapt to their needs, by controlling your style and tone. When communicating with your superiors or with customers, your tone more formal and respectful. Communication is a people skill an art if you will how to get information from one point to anothe "http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/15?e=mclean-ch01". The article previously listed discuss communaction, as an activity an art, as well as how it affects human knowledge. The article also discus the tone, both formal and informal. While this article is a little dry it is informative, the tone can be considered a mesmerizing tone as it tries to paint communication through the ages in a playful tone.
However, with close friends and colleagues the formal tone would sound cold and distant. In the next few paragraphs I will discus business communication in modern United States, as well as how to adapt and relate to business professionals. There are five guideline which are important to set the conversational tone of a message.
It's important to keep in mind that most business's aim for a conversational style that is warm but business like. To achieve this we must follow the five guidelines, the first one seems to be commonsense; however, in our technology driven world, you would be shocked how much people send emails, assignments, and letters in a text format with text language. I myself have done this several times, however when we are at work or sending in class assignments we must remember we cannot write like this as business professionals.
In conversational emails we must remember to avoid stale and pompous language, according to the book most companies shy away from outdated phrases such as, "attached please find" and "please be advised that" just to name a few. Similarly, we need to avoid using obscure words, stale words, and clichéd expressions.
The third guideline, is avoid preaching and bragging. Most readers to get annoyed and irritated by know-it-alls, who like to brag and preach. Its important not to come of like this, to your boss, employees, or your customers. However, if you fell the need to remind your audience, or readers something that should be obvious, try and work it in the information. In the middle of the paragraph somewhere, this way it will sound like a secondary comment rather than a major revelation.
Business messages should generally avoid intimacy, you don't typically want to share your personal life's details with your boss or your employees. For the most pat we want to keep intimacy out of the work place. This can make you look to casual and have an unprofessional tone. However, there are some exceptions to this, if you have a close relationship with the audience, such as a close knit team, a more intimate tone is appropriate and sometimes expected. You would not want to use an intimate tone on your first day at work. However, if you have been working and dealing with the people for a while and you become close, then an intimae tone is perfectly acceptable.
Humor and the work place, can be a good and positive thing. However, in writing professional emails especially email, letters, and messages its best to avoid using humor; because, humor can easily backfire, and divert attention away from your message. The book says "If you don't know your audience well or your not skilled at using business humor don't use it at all." I disagree I don't think that humor should be used in professional messages at all unless you know your audience really well. The statement that the book does make which I agree wit is that we should avoid using humor when were communicating across cultural boundaries.
When writing its important to know your audience and adapt to their needs, by controlling your style and tone. When communicating with your superiors or with customers, your tone more formal and respectful. Communication is a people skill an art if you will how to get information from one point to anothe "http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/15?e=mclean-ch01". The article previously listed discuss communaction, as an activity an art, as well as how it affects human knowledge. The article also discus the tone, both formal and informal. While this article is a little dry it is informative, the tone can be considered a mesmerizing tone as it tries to paint communication through the ages in a playful tone.
However, with close friends and colleagues the formal tone would sound cold and distant. In the next few paragraphs I will discus business communication in modern United States, as well as how to adapt and relate to business professionals. There are five guideline which are important to set the conversational tone of a message.
It's important to keep in mind that most business's aim for a conversational style that is warm but business like. To achieve this we must follow the five guidelines, the first one seems to be commonsense; however, in our technology driven world, you would be shocked how much people send emails, assignments, and letters in a text format with text language. I myself have done this several times, however when we are at work or sending in class assignments we must remember we cannot write like this as business professionals.
In conversational emails we must remember to avoid stale and pompous language, according to the book most companies shy away from outdated phrases such as, "attached please find" and "please be advised that" just to name a few. Similarly, we need to avoid using obscure words, stale words, and clichéd expressions.
The third guideline, is avoid preaching and bragging. Most readers to get annoyed and irritated by know-it-alls, who like to brag and preach. Its important not to come of like this, to your boss, employees, or your customers. However, if you fell the need to remind your audience, or readers something that should be obvious, try and work it in the information. In the middle of the paragraph somewhere, this way it will sound like a secondary comment rather than a major revelation.
Business messages should generally avoid intimacy, you don't typically want to share your personal life's details with your boss or your employees. For the most pat we want to keep intimacy out of the work place. This can make you look to casual and have an unprofessional tone. However, there are some exceptions to this, if you have a close relationship with the audience, such as a close knit team, a more intimate tone is appropriate and sometimes expected. You would not want to use an intimate tone on your first day at work. However, if you have been working and dealing with the people for a while and you become close, then an intimae tone is perfectly acceptable.
Humor and the work place, can be a good and positive thing. However, in writing professional emails especially email, letters, and messages its best to avoid using humor; because, humor can easily backfire, and divert attention away from your message. The book says "If you don't know your audience well or your not skilled at using business humor don't use it at all." I disagree I don't think that humor should be used in professional messages at all unless you know your audience really well. The statement that the book does make which I agree wit is that we should avoid using humor when were communicating across cultural boundaries.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Pages: 88-98
Joshua Lovette, Student at Appalachian State University
When writing a professional letter, email, or memo its important that you understand the three steep writing process. As the name suggests it consists of three elements, planning, writing, and completing your message. In the planning stage as I have learned through trial and error its important to analyze the situation or in my case the criteria or the objective your teacher wants you to complete. Gathering accurate information also falls into the planning stage, you need to determine your audiences needs and obtain the information need to satisfy your readers needs.
Selecting the right method for delivering the message; however, if your a student like my self and its for a teacher, you want to submit it in the format they want you to submit it in. The last steep in planning is organizing the information, you want to define your main idea, limit your scope, select a an approach to writing, either direct or indirect, outlining your content is important when writing professionally. Steep number two when is writing the actual email, you want to understand and adapt to your audience.
When writing you want to be sensitive to your audiences needs. You can do this by using a what is known as a "you" attitude, and being polite always helps. Your trying to build a relationship with your audience by establishing your credibility and projecting your or your company's preferred image. When composing the message, choose words that will help you get the important points across as well as help you create effective sentences and paragraphs. Step number three, putting the finishing touches on your message.
Revise the message, evaluate the content and review readability, and if necessary, rewrite for clarity. Producing the message, is important in that you want to use effective design elements and a suitable layout for a professional appearance. Proofreading your message is the most important part of producing a business letter. If you don't analyze, your paper you could have misspelled or worded things differently, thus sending the wrong message to your readers. Distributing the message, your wanting to deliver your message using the chosen method for delivering your message. Making sure all files are distributed successfully.
When writing a professional letter, email, or memo its important that you understand the three steep writing process. As the name suggests it consists of three elements, planning, writing, and completing your message. In the planning stage as I have learned through trial and error its important to analyze the situation or in my case the criteria or the objective your teacher wants you to complete. Gathering accurate information also falls into the planning stage, you need to determine your audiences needs and obtain the information need to satisfy your readers needs.
Selecting the right method for delivering the message; however, if your a student like my self and its for a teacher, you want to submit it in the format they want you to submit it in. The last steep in planning is organizing the information, you want to define your main idea, limit your scope, select a an approach to writing, either direct or indirect, outlining your content is important when writing professionally. Steep number two when is writing the actual email, you want to understand and adapt to your audience.
When writing you want to be sensitive to your audiences needs. You can do this by using a what is known as a "you" attitude, and being polite always helps. Your trying to build a relationship with your audience by establishing your credibility and projecting your or your company's preferred image. When composing the message, choose words that will help you get the important points across as well as help you create effective sentences and paragraphs. Step number three, putting the finishing touches on your message.
Revise the message, evaluate the content and review readability, and if necessary, rewrite for clarity. Producing the message, is important in that you want to use effective design elements and a suitable layout for a professional appearance. Proofreading your message is the most important part of producing a business letter. If you don't analyze, your paper you could have misspelled or worded things differently, thus sending the wrong message to your readers. Distributing the message, your wanting to deliver your message using the chosen method for delivering your message. Making sure all files are distributed successfully.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
40-53 Blog Response
Joshua Lovette, Student at Appalachian State University
There are two types of feedback constructive feedback and destructive feedback. Constructive feedback is meant to be beneficial, to help someone improve, on the other hand destructive feedback, has no purpose other than putting someone down, so its completely useless in the business world. When giving feedback it is important that you make it constructive, focus on the material and how it can be improved. Its important not to insult someone or make them feel inadequate about the work their doing. Instead you want to help them improve. In contrast, destructive feedback delivers criticism without any direction, and does not stimulate improvement. Its basically insulting someone, by telling them there not good at meeting whatever objective they are working on. An example of both, out of my own personal experience was when me and a couple of co workers where promoted to crew trainers at McDonalds. The newly promoted crew trainers where young, I was one of the oldest at nineteen. And they where in charge of training new employees, who sometimes where much older than them. The only sixteen year old crew trainer, told another girl she was stupid and incompetent and couldn't even put food in a bag. I intervened and told the young crew trainer Catherine that we needed to talk in the back after work. I took over the young girls training from that point on. I used constructive feedback when I trained her, giving her advice on how she could improve the process.
Many of the social interactions we as business majors will participate in, will occur in meetings. Well ran meetings can help companies solve problems, develop ideas, and identify opportunities. Making meetings more productive, can also be a great way to promote team building through the experience of social interaction. As useful as meetings can be, they can also be a waste of time. If a meeting is poorly ran, you'll have employees who don't wont to be in it, employees on their cell phones and etc. Preparing for meetings can help prevent this, the first thing you want to do is define your purpose, meetings are about reaching decisions, or collaborating to solve problems or identify opportunities. Next is the participants you select for the meeting, you want to invite only the people who really needs to be there. Choosing the venue and time is very important, you want to select somewhere that is not distracting and where all participants can fell comfortable. Setting a productive agenda requires three questions to be answered. What do we nee to do in this meeting to accomplish our goals? What issues will be of greatest importance to all participants? What information must be available in order to discuss the issues.
Listeners who are effective adapt their listening approaches to different situations. Content listening's primary goal is to understand and retain the information in the speakers message. As students must of us use content listening almost every day in class, when taking notes and trying to retain information. The goal of people using critical listening is to understand and evaluate the meaning of the speakers message. You want to evaluate the logic, evidence, and the validity of the conclusions. Empathetic listening can be used when talking with a friend about their felling's. The goal of empathetic listening is to understand the speakers felling's, needs and wants so that you can appreciate his point of view, even if you don't agree with it. Active listeners users make a conscious effort to turn off their own filters and biases to truly hear and comprehend what the other party is saying.
Nonverbal communication can be a useful asset, there are six types of signals that are particularly important, facial expressions, gestures and postures, vocal characteristics, personal appearance, touch, time and space. Your face is the most important for expressing emotions, it revels both intensity and type of emotion you want to convey. For example, if someone comes up to me crying or frowning I can make the assumption that the person is upset. The way you position and move your body, express both specific and general messages, some voluntary and some involuntary. Your voice carries both intentional and non intentional messages. You can control what you say however, more often than not, you cant control the emotions which your vocal characteristics convey. People respond to other people off of appearances, your personal appearance should convey that you are serious about wanting a job, nice clothes well groomed hair and etc. Touch is an important way to convey warmth, comfort as well as control. Like touch time and space can be use to convey authority, imply intimacy, and send other non verbal messages.
Business etiquette is an important but also necessary element of every day business communication. Mutual respect and consideration among all participants is important. Nobody wants to work with someone who is rude to colleges or an embracement to the company. Treating others poorly can have a huge negative impact on moral and productivity. Poor business etiquette can chase away investors and consumers, as well as other important audiences your trying to attract.
There are two types of feedback constructive feedback and destructive feedback. Constructive feedback is meant to be beneficial, to help someone improve, on the other hand destructive feedback, has no purpose other than putting someone down, so its completely useless in the business world. When giving feedback it is important that you make it constructive, focus on the material and how it can be improved. Its important not to insult someone or make them feel inadequate about the work their doing. Instead you want to help them improve. In contrast, destructive feedback delivers criticism without any direction, and does not stimulate improvement. Its basically insulting someone, by telling them there not good at meeting whatever objective they are working on. An example of both, out of my own personal experience was when me and a couple of co workers where promoted to crew trainers at McDonalds. The newly promoted crew trainers where young, I was one of the oldest at nineteen. And they where in charge of training new employees, who sometimes where much older than them. The only sixteen year old crew trainer, told another girl she was stupid and incompetent and couldn't even put food in a bag. I intervened and told the young crew trainer Catherine that we needed to talk in the back after work. I took over the young girls training from that point on. I used constructive feedback when I trained her, giving her advice on how she could improve the process.
Many of the social interactions we as business majors will participate in, will occur in meetings. Well ran meetings can help companies solve problems, develop ideas, and identify opportunities. Making meetings more productive, can also be a great way to promote team building through the experience of social interaction. As useful as meetings can be, they can also be a waste of time. If a meeting is poorly ran, you'll have employees who don't wont to be in it, employees on their cell phones and etc. Preparing for meetings can help prevent this, the first thing you want to do is define your purpose, meetings are about reaching decisions, or collaborating to solve problems or identify opportunities. Next is the participants you select for the meeting, you want to invite only the people who really needs to be there. Choosing the venue and time is very important, you want to select somewhere that is not distracting and where all participants can fell comfortable. Setting a productive agenda requires three questions to be answered. What do we nee to do in this meeting to accomplish our goals? What issues will be of greatest importance to all participants? What information must be available in order to discuss the issues.
Listeners who are effective adapt their listening approaches to different situations. Content listening's primary goal is to understand and retain the information in the speakers message. As students must of us use content listening almost every day in class, when taking notes and trying to retain information. The goal of people using critical listening is to understand and evaluate the meaning of the speakers message. You want to evaluate the logic, evidence, and the validity of the conclusions. Empathetic listening can be used when talking with a friend about their felling's. The goal of empathetic listening is to understand the speakers felling's, needs and wants so that you can appreciate his point of view, even if you don't agree with it. Active listeners users make a conscious effort to turn off their own filters and biases to truly hear and comprehend what the other party is saying.
Nonverbal communication can be a useful asset, there are six types of signals that are particularly important, facial expressions, gestures and postures, vocal characteristics, personal appearance, touch, time and space. Your face is the most important for expressing emotions, it revels both intensity and type of emotion you want to convey. For example, if someone comes up to me crying or frowning I can make the assumption that the person is upset. The way you position and move your body, express both specific and general messages, some voluntary and some involuntary. Your voice carries both intentional and non intentional messages. You can control what you say however, more often than not, you cant control the emotions which your vocal characteristics convey. People respond to other people off of appearances, your personal appearance should convey that you are serious about wanting a job, nice clothes well groomed hair and etc. Touch is an important way to convey warmth, comfort as well as control. Like touch time and space can be use to convey authority, imply intimacy, and send other non verbal messages.
Business etiquette is an important but also necessary element of every day business communication. Mutual respect and consideration among all participants is important. Nobody wants to work with someone who is rude to colleges or an embracement to the company. Treating others poorly can have a huge negative impact on moral and productivity. Poor business etiquette can chase away investors and consumers, as well as other important audiences your trying to attract.
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