Business Communication Messages

Looking at the entire business communication, we learned about the importance of defining the purpose of your message, selecting effective channels, adapting your message to your audience, communicating across cultures, planning, writing and revising, and outlying, formatting and designing your documents. We also identified the skills and ethical values that shape our messages. The chapter on language  showed us how to write strong words and phrases, effective sentences and coherent paragraphs in order to make our messages effective and successful. In addition, in the other lesson, we learned about building our business vocabulary and using business terminologies, idioms and expressions properly. All these ideas and exercises serve as the building blocks of effective business message, our focus in the remaining chapters of this book.

Before we focus on key individual messages that are routinely used in the workplace, let's get an overview of the various types of message in terms of the medium- written, oral, visual, electronic and nonverbal. The following sections offer a variety of examples of each medium:

Written
 Written messages are used mostly for formal purposes and when there is little time urgency. They are used when the ideas are rather complicated to convey and when you need to present facts. We also use written messages if we are not looking for immediate feedback from our intended audience and if we want to preserve the message for future reference or use. The following written messages are commonly used in business communications:

Memos :

 It is a formed, typed paper note sent to a co-worker or a colleague within the same organization. It can be traced since you can keep a copy of the memo that you sent. A memo is usually very short and simple and is not suitable for sending long, complex and confidential information. In many organizations, employees are increasingly adopting email to send or receive memos. 

Informal notes
   Informal notes are a very quick way of sending an important piece of information to a colleague at the workplace. It can be left in a place easily seen by the recipient. However, informal notes may not be confidential, and may not always reach the intended audience. The handwriting may be illegible. So, extra care has to be taken over expression and handwriting.

Notices
 It is a piece of writing information a large number of people about something. It may also announce events and issues or new developments in the organization. It is a clear and direct form of communication usually placed in a prominent position within the workplace such as a notice board. Notices save time from having to spend separate copies to many individuals. However, it is important to make sure that people are reading them.

letters
 The most formal means of communication used to communicate sometimes with people within the organization and most often with people outside an organization. Internal letters may most often involve confidential or disciplinary issues. Unlike informal notes or notices, they are well- structured, and can convey ideas or points clearly in writing. The sender can also keep a copy. Compared to telephone calls or personal meetings, letters can be cheaper to produce. They can also be made confidential. However, a letter may require a series of follow-up letters especially if the ideas have to be clarified and communicated well.

Emails
 Emails are today replacing letters or memos. They have become very common and also popular because they are free, fast, secure and confidential. They allow feedback quicker than in letters. Emails can be used for formal as well as informal purpose. The added advantage is that you can attach documents and photographs of various sizes.

Minutes
 Minutes are formal notes or records of business meetings, hearing,decisions made, or resolutions reached. They are also known as protocols. Minutes start with a list of people who were present at the meeting, followed by a statement of the issues considered by them, and their input or decisions made.

SMS ( Text message)
 Short  Message Service (SMS), a text messaging service available on mobile phones, is becoming very popular to send or receive many business message these days. Most often, it is used for sending and receiving short, urgent messages. Text messages are informal. However, depending on the context, style and tone, they can also be formed.

It can be useful in marketing, for example, alerting customers about new sale prices; updating customers on airline flight status, package tracking, and appointment reminders. It can be used for crisis management. Employees working at a disaster scene can be updated with information. It can be used for security reasons such as authenticating mobile banking transactions. As SMS is integrated with Facebook Messages and G mail, it is becoming even more useful.




Resumes
 It is a summary(usually one page) of a person's employment, education, and skills or work experiences. It is used in applying for a job in any business. The British use the term CV ( Curriculum vitae, vita) for resume. However, CV is detail document of profession affiliation at it is comparatively longer. Sometimes the term "resume letter" is used to refer to both the cover ( application) letter and a resume as one entity.

Articles
 These are short or medium-length (700- to 1,200-words) news articles, feature stories, opinion columns, advertorial (advertisement in the form of editorial content), interviews, etc. for publication in newspapers, magazines or newsletters. They may cover a variety of topics.

Newsletters
 It is a periodic publication in the form of a bulletin for the internal audiences within an organization or a professional society. It is usually printed on letter-size paper. The newsletter carries company updates and news about employees, covers developments in products and services as well as the interesting trends in business outside the organizations.