Reflections on the Realities of Business Communications

By Craig Miyamoto, APR, Fellow PRSA

(This is the 2004 Second Quarter issue of Public Relations Strategies, a quarterly publication of Miyamoto Strategic Counsel)

Every now and then, one should review some realities of business communications. Start with these axioms (print them out and post them next to the computer):

1. Think first. Put your brain in gear before putting your fingers in motion.
2. Say what you mean in a way that you can't be misunderstood.
3. Every piece of communication created is a business record.
4. At some point, everything you create will become public record. Documents are forever.

Why does this matter? Documentation management dictates that certain business documents must be retained, they are kept somewhere. Time and space constraints behoove the communicator to be accurate and concise. Good communications promote good understanding and results. And, these days, there are potential consequences of mismanagement.

A business document is anything written down or otherwise recorded, including phone message slips, private notes, notepad doodles, faxes, audio tapes, videotapes. It�s email and voicemail, it�s computer disks and hard drives.

Email is especially vulnerable. Many don�t realize it, but email is indeed a business record. Once you send it, it's out of your control. It doesn�t matter if you delete your email; it will continue to exist permanently on your computer, on the recipient's computer, on company back-up drives and tapes, and on an anonymous email ISP's hard drive until THEY delete it, and then it STILL might continue to exist. Inadvertent dissemination is always a problem because missent email can and might be forwarded. Be advised that retrieval of email is now an accepted and often-used law enforcement tactic.

Some tips:

• Educate those who create documents for you. You are responsible for anything they write for you, or communicate in any manner on your behalf.
• In a business document, humor may not come over as humor, especially to those who read it cold (and always assume that it WILL fall into the wrong hands), and will create a perception of impropriety.
• If someone in your organization says something stupid (in other words, sends a bad document, do NOT create another document explaining what was wrong with his/hers.
• Sometimes it's not just the content that's the problem, sometimes it's also that the email was sent at all.
• Ask yourself, "How can what I'm writing be misconstrued?" If you can think of ANY reason, then fix it, because chances are it WILL be misconstrued and come back to bite you in the butt sooner or later.
• Assume that everything that is documented in any manner, at any time, will become public record at some point.
• Use a "scrubber" available on popular virus protection software that will "super-delete" anything you delete on your computer. At least your computer will be clean.