Professional Correspondece: Part 4: "HOW"

This post continues from Professional Correspondence, Part 3: WHAT.

Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The medium is the message,” which appeared in his 1964 book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.” McLuhan describes a message as “the change in scale or pace or pattern” introduced by a new invention or innovation. Look at how much communication has sped up and increased in volume with the wide adoption of email. It’s been ten years since the first iPhone made it possible to take and send high quality pictures from the same device. Can anyone here remember the last time they used a fax machine?



The means of communication are multiplying, and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. These include phone calls, formal documents like meeting minutes and transmittals, emails, chat clients, Slack and Quip and Basecamp, text messages, and more. Teaching the right use of these different means of communication must address which is most appropriate, effective, and necessary.

Necessary communication is spelled out in contracts. This includes formal documentation of the project such as field reports and observations, invoicing, draw requests, records of meetings, RFIs, submittals, and so on. All necessary communication is in writing.

While necessary communication tends to be fairly dry, there can still be some gems worth remembering. The best RFI I’ve ever received was titled “Provide Gnome Layout”, and requested a drawing for the placement of the owner’s concrete garden gnome collection in the side garden. This RFI included photographs of the collection, and each gnome was different - one playing a lute, one dancing, one with a big frown, and everyone’s favorite: the one picking his nose.

Beyond the obligatory communication prescribed by the contracts is all the other communication that happens on a project - asking for decisions, explaining conditions or details, looking for contact information, sending updates, arranging meetings or conference calls, and all the little day-to-day questions. This is where understanding the distinction between all the different means of communication is key.

Email is probably 80% of my regular correspondence on any given day. Email is good for documentation, sending supplemental information with attachments, and is generally sure to reach your recipient. It is easy to send to a big group. Teaching email writing for a business setting is even simpler than teaching the quintessential five paragraph essay, because there are only three steps: Come to the point immediately. Make a call to action (or make clear that action is not necessary). Assume that every email will be forwarded to the entire universe.

I’m going to repeat that: assume that every email will be forwarded beyond the intended recipients. This sounds obvious, but the consequences are significant enough it bears repeating. So many of AEC business relationships are built on reputation and referral - one indiscretion can have the power to permanently harm a business relationship. At best, that embarrassing email is going to go into someone else’s Hall of Shame - how do you think I can recall all of these little anecdotes?

Phone calls make up the balance of my regular correspondence. Calling is the preferred method for urgent matters, and also for discussing topics that don’t need to be (or shouldn’t be!) documented. Teaching the distinction between what should and should not be documented is critical, and can typically fall back on the terms of a contract, and a superior’s judgment. If the phone conversation requires action, it should be documented. I like to send a follow-up email summarizing the conversation if it’s brief, and will send a formal telephone report or minutes if it’s a longer or more involved call. Not only does this remind everyone on the call what actions they need to take, it alerts the rest of the project team to the discussion, and any actions other parties need to take.

If emails should be brief, text messages should be downright terse. I tend to use text messages with only a select few in order to supplement emails and phone calls. This means that I send an email or leave a voicemail, and then also send a text message notifying the recipient that I’ve done these things. This can be effective for quick alerts to a bigger message, but is not a substitute for email because of the difficulty of project documentation. Text messages can be a good strategy for a client who requests the extra alert for an urgent decision or message, particularly one who travels and is frequently “catching up” on emails. Texting can also be effective to contact colleagues for quick updates or information requests. Unlike email, text messages are not expected kinds of communication - any texting exchange should be agreed-upon in advance. Some people are more protective of their mobile phone numbers than others, and these boundaries need to be confirmed and respected.

Company culture can vary widely from place to place; I was comfortable sending a bitmoji to my boss via text message because of the company culture in my office. (I was delighted to receive a bitmoji of him saying “Killin’ it!” in return, so much so that I printed it out and have it hanging up at my desk.) I would hesitate before sending such an informal message to a client or contractor - internal correspondence has a different set of formality rules than external correspondence.

Slack, Quip, Basecamp, and similar cloud-based applications tend to be most successful when they remain internal to the company. There’s a lot of “sausage making” that tends to occur on these platforms, and that can be off-putting or even disquieting to outside parties. While they are used for professional purposes, these platforms are built with informal communication in mind. Because it can be difficult to read tone in writing, these are best reserved for internal communication, where the company culture informs the overall tone and colleagues can work together without the scrutiny of an outside party like a client. Even though these are more relaxed digital spaces, one must still assume that anything written has the potential to travel beyond its intended recipients.

Chat clients fall into a similar category as Slack, Quip, and the other cloud-based applications. These are very informal spaces, and best used for internal communication only. They can be beneficial for an office where collaborating colleagues may be in different rooms or different cities, with more immediacy than email and more informality than a call. Chat exchanges, unlike the cloud applications, are more difficult to record, and are therefore not good candidates for conversations that need to be documented. Conversely, chat clients are ideal for intra-office communication - did someone make a fresh pot of coffee, I’m changing the paper size in the plotter, do you know when so-and-so will be back from their meeting, could you close out of this file I need to work on, and so on.

Learn more about "WHEN" in Part 5.