Lesson 13
Electronic Communications
People often use written communication to make requests, invite people to events,
express gratitude, persuade, or complain about a product or service. Using a computer
for written communication is not only important in tasks that involve the workplace but
also in everyday situations and in friendly communication. Email is used both for
business communication and for keeping in touch with friends and family. The style of
language used in business communications is usually much more formal than a casual
email or text message to a friend. Most businesses want to convey a sense of
professionalism, so it’s important to be aware of the impression you are giving by the
style of your writing.
Learning Outcomes
13.1
Interact with and identify different types of electronic communication: email, cell
phones, video and teleconferencing, and other electronic devices/tools.
13.2
Identify other online collaboration tools for work and social communication:
Google docs, blogs, wikis, twitter, chat, social networks.
13.3
Identify the appropriate communication tool for a given situation and audience.
13.4
Understand common problems and challenges with electronic communication:
delivery failure, spam (junk mail), fraud, viruses, etc.
13.1: Electronic Communication
Interact with and identify different types of electronic
communication.
Email
Electronic mail or email has been around since 1993. This is relatively new in the grand
scheme of communication. Maybe this is old to you, but to 50 percent of the world (all
us old folks) who used to wait weeks and weeks to get a
letter by regular US Mail, this is new, and it is amazing!
Email has become very popular over the last several
years because it is very easy to send and arrives within
minutes.
Many Internet companies provide free email. Two of the
most popular are https://login.yahoo.com and
www.gmail.com. Many people have more than one
email account using more than one email provider.
If you don’t already have an account, make sure you get
permission from your parents to open an email account.
Also, before you open an email account, you should be
aware of everything in lesson 11 on safe practices and lesson 12 on ethics.
When you create an email account, you will be asked for some personal information.
You will need to tell the email software your name, choose a username, create a
password, give your birthday, tell what gender you are, give a mobile phone number,
and list another email address, if you have one. And to make sure you are a real person
and not a robot pretending to create an email account, you will need to type some weird
letters and numbers. Below is a sample screen shot of the “create an account” window
for Gmail. Most email account-creation windows and the email screens are similar.
Take a look at the Yahoo email screen below. See if you can identify the different parts
of the screen and the buttons.
To:
type in the address of the person you are sending your message to. Email
addresses are different from addresses you would use at the post office.
An email address contains the username of the person you are sending
the information to, then the @ symbol (located on the number 2 key), and
finally the domain of the company hosting the email. For example:
username@byu.edu
Cc:
Cc means “carbon copy.” In the days before computers, when you needed
to make a copy of a document using a typewriter, you would slip a sheet
of carbon paper between two pieces of white paper, roll the paper into the
typewriter, and type. When the keys struck the paper, the impression
would go through the top sheet of paper, through the carbon, and imprint
on the second sheet of paper. If you made an error, the error would show
up on both the original page and the carbon copy. Today, the phrase
“carbon copy” is still used, but it just means that you will send a copy of
your email to another person.
Subject:
A very brief description of what the email is about. Make sure you put in a
subject. People are busy. The subject lets the receiver of the email know
whether your email is something that has to be opened immediately or if it
can wait.
Bcc:
Across from the To box, in the Yahoo sample above, you will see the
words Show Bcc. Bcc means “blind carbon copy.” Use Bcc when sending
an email to a list of people. Your email will go to the people on your list but
the people on the list won’t know that you sent the email to others. Let me
give you an example of why using Bcc can be important.
My neighborhood has a newsletter. Once a month, the woman in charge
of the newsletter hand-delivered the newsletter to every home in the
neighborhood. This was very time consuming, so she decided to email the
newsletter to the neighborhood. After she sent the first newsletter, we
discovered that one of the neighbors had taken our email addresses and
used them to send us spam (junk email) about his business. Everyone
was very upset. The problem could have been avoided if the newsletter
had been sent using the Bcc option.
Just above the To box are the following buttons:
Send
This button sends your email message on its way. Only use this button
when you are finished composing your email and only after you have spell
checked your document.
Attach
This button lets you attach a file to your email message. You can attach
files such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. You can
also attach pictures, music, and videos. This is a great way to share
information and submit school assignments to your teachers.
Save Draft
This button allows you to save your email message until you can finish
and send it. So, if you start a message then get called away from your
desk, save the message so you can finish it later.
Spelling
This button allows you to spell check your message. Always spell check
business messages!
Cancel
This button closes the message without saving and without sending. Use
this button if you change your mind about the email message you were
writing.
Reply
This button allows you to answer an email message to the person who
sent you the message.
Reply to All This button allows you to answer an email message replying to all the
people who received the message.
Think carefully before replying to all,
especially if your reply is not needed to
go to all. People at work don’t like it
when someone emails something he or
she thought was funny. Then all day
long others hit the Reply All button with
a comment. You are left deleting this
internal spam all day long. Not funny!
Forward
This button lets you send a message you received on to someone new.
This is a great button to use when you want to send your friends
something fun that you received from another friend. The problem
with Forward, however, is that several other email addresses are visible.
The address of the friend who sent you the original message is visible, as
well as the address of the person who sent them the message, and so
forth. Sometimes you have to scroll down several pages through all the
addresses before you can find the message, the funny story, or the
interesting picture.
Delete
This button lets you delete an email message. Be careful with this button.
You may or may not be able to get a deleted message back.
Now, obviously I’ve only shown you how to use Yahoo! Mail. However, you will see
something similar in each of the email programs. They all have the following parts:
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To:
Cc:
Bcc:
Subject:
And they all have the following buttons that you have learned about:
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Send
Attach
Save
Cancel
Reply
Reply All
Forward
Delete
Attachments
Email is a great way to send files to someone. You can
attach word processing, spreadsheet, presentation,
music, or video files to an email message. When you
click on Send, the attachment goes with the email
message.
So I was curious; I wanted to see how many emails were
sent in a day. In 2010, the estimate was around 294
billion per day. Here’s the article if you want to read it yourself:
http://email.about.com/od/emailtrivia/f/emails_per_day.htm
Disclaimer: Remember, websites move or are deleted by their owners. If the link doesn’t
work, do your own search. I used Yahoo to find the above article, but try other search
engines and see what you find.
Video: E-mail Etiquette (20 minutes) by bepublishing.com
As you learned earlier, email at work should not be considered private. Anything you do
on company equipment (your work computer) can be seen by your employer. With this
in mind, be very careful what you say in your email messages, in your memos, and in
your faxes. I have a friend who was fired because of things he wrote in an email
message. At the top of the message he told the receiver to delete the message as soon
as the receiver finished reading it. He was shocked when a few days later he stood in
the boss’s office looking at a printout of the email message he had written and was told
that the message was the reason for him being let go.
And another reminder, if you read your personal email at work on your work computer,
others can read it too. You are being monitored!
Cellphones
Cellphones are pretty smart these days (pun
intended). A cellphone is a miniature computer.
You can search the Internet, send email, make a
phone call, text your friends, pull up Google
Maps or GPS, and create a document using
Google Docs and then send it to your boss.
Many businesses will provide a cellphone to you
depending on the type of job you have. I have a
friend who is an engineer for a mining company that has offices all over the world. His
phone is on 24/7.
However, for most of us there are times when we should turn our cellphones off: if you
are in a business meeting, for example, or working with your team on a project, or at
lunch with clients. Turn it off.
Just like the netiquette rules when using email, use proper etiquette with cellphone use.
My niece came to town a few months ago. I was so excited to see her. I took her out to
dinner. Her cellphone went off every few seconds. She didn’t have time to eat, and she
didn’t have time to carry on a conversation because she was communicating with many
people by text messaging.
Teleconferencing
A few years ago, you could connect with
people in other cities, state, and countries
through teleconferencing. Say that your
company is working on a project for Australia.
Your engineers have questions. The people in
Australia could hop on an airplane and twentyfour hours later (hopefully) be here to answer
the questions. Or . . . through the device in
figure 13.1, you could meet over the telephone Fig. 13.1. Teleconferencing
and turn the speakers on so all could hear.
This would be much easier, cheaper, and faster for everyone.
Videoconferencing
As technology developed, teleconferencing advanced to
videoconferencing. Now we can see and hear the people in
Australia, and they can see and hear us.
Technology has taken it another step further. Anyone who
has a computer connected to the Internet can
videoconference using a software tool called
Skype.
Netiquette
Okay, it’s true that there is always someone
at work or school who pushes your buttons
in the wrong way. Badmouthing fellow
students, coworkers, your boss, or someone you met online using email, chat, or social
media (for example, Facebook) is unacceptable behavior. These actions are called
flaming. Flaming is totally unprofessional and is not tolerated in school or work
environments.
Here are some guidelines to use when composing your messages. Some people call
this netiquette or network etiquette:
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Be polite, courteous, and professional at all times!
o This is not the place to vent strong feelings or for flaming!
Keep your messages short and to the point.
o If you like to write, go write a book!
Put the important points in the first paragraph if possible.
o Most people will only read the first two paragraphs.
Never use all capital letters.
o This is the equivalent to shouting at the other person.
Avoid using emoticons at work.
o Emoticons are small graphics that can be inserted into text. Below
are some examples:
Always spell check, grammar check, and proofread your message before
sending it.
o No one lkes ta reed bedly mispeled an porly puntiated masseges
13.2: Online Collaboration Tools
Identify other online collaboration tools for work and
social communication.
Google Drive and Cloud Technology
You have probably heard of cloud technology but what is it? Currently you store your
files on your computer’s hard disk, flash drive, or you write to a CD. If your files are
stored on your school computer hard disk, you have to wait until you get to class to work
on your assignments. At home you got a good start on your science paper. You have
time at school to continue working but you can’t because the report is at home on your
home computer.
You are not the only one who has had this problem. In fact, so many people have had
the same problem that some smart people developed the cloud. The cloud is nothing
more than several super-fast computers with super huge storage capacity holding all
the data that people want to put there. These computers are always turned on and
always connected to the Internet. Now you can go to any computer that has Internet
access and get to your files. Are you Walter Mitty trekking through Greenland? You can
access your files. Are you with “Doctors Without Borders” in Africa? You can access
your files. Are you a student on a farm in the middle of Kansas? You can access your
files. Your files are safe and backed up in the event that the cloud has a problem which
you may never know about because the computer
network engineers are on top of it!
To access Google Drive, you must have a Gmail
account. In the upper right corner you will see
APPS
nine squares that make a square. When you
mouse over it, it will say APPS. Click on the Apps
button, and you will get a menu of items included Google Drive and Google Docs.
Google Docs
So now you have a place to store your files (Google Drive) but you need application
software so you can work on your files. Not every computer has Microsoft Word, Excel
and PowerPoint on it. You see your documents in the cloud. How do you open them so
you can work on them? Enter Google Docs. Google Docs are a “free web-based
software office suite”, which includes “a word processor, spreadsheet program, a
presentation program and a survey program . . . ” (Wikipedia, 2015). Access Google
Docs from the Apps button in your Gmail account.
Podcasts
Podcasts are digital audio and video recordings that can be placed on websites for
downloading by anyone. Teachers use podcasts to record short segments of lessons for
students to download at a later time.
Blogs
It used to be that when you had a problem
with your computer, lawnmower, or
dishwasher, you would go to the store
where you purchased the product and
hope the salesperson could help. When
that didn’t work, you would call the
product manufacturer and spend hours on
the phone waiting to speak to someone, explaining (to more than one person) what was
happening, and hoping the solution they gave you will work. Today, you can find many
solutions to problems on blogs. Blogs are written conversations people have with each
other.
A few weeks ago my printer was not working. I put new ink cartridges in, but nothing
was coming out. I followed all the manufacturer’s suggestions to clean the print heads,
change the paper, install printer driver updates, delete the printer driver, and install
upgrades, but nothing worked. I got onto the manufacturer’s blog and found a bunch of
people who had the same problem I had. I had spent hours trying to fix my printer and in
five minutes I discovered that my printer was not repairable and I should throw it away
and buy a new printer.
You may be asked by your employer to create a blog for your company. There are lots
of guides on the Internet to help you design and get started.
There are blogs for anything you can think of. I even found a blog about Collie dogs just
like the one that is sleeping on my feet. Because blogs are posted by individual people,
the posts will be listed in reverse chronological order. In other words, the most recent
will be at the top of the list.
Blogs are the opinions of people. Anyone can start a blog or add to someone else’s
blog. So the information you find in a blog may or may not be accurate. How do you
know if the information is accurate? Check out a variety of websites for information. If
you consistently read the same information from a variety of sources or authors, then
maybe the information is accurate. If you have having a problem with a lawnmower,
camera, microwave oven, etc. Go to the manufacturer’s website. Many times the
manufacturer will have a blog that is maintained by the manufacturer and the product
information will be accurate.
Wikis
Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and
edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks
and has a simple text syntax for creating new
pages and crosslinks between internal pages
on the fly.
Wiki is unusual among group communication
mechanisms in that it allows the organization
of contributions to be edited in addition to the
content itself.”
Like many simple concepts, "open editing"
has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki
usage. Allowing everyday users to create and
edit any page in a Website is exciting in that it
encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition
by nontechnical users (Wiki.org, 2002).
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media service that lets you tweet
short messages.
Vine
Owned by Twitter, Vine allows users to record, edit, and send up to six-second video
clips.
Instagram
Owned by Facebook, Instagram allows users to share photographs and video on a
“variety of social networking platforms” (Wikipedia.org, 2015).
Snapchat
Snapchat allows users to take and send photos and videos called “Snaps.” Users can
also add text and drawings.
Chat
Chat is real-time communication with one or more
people. Real time means that you are talking at that
moment with a real person on the other end of the chat. Yes, there may be a slight
delay as the other person thinks and types her message, but if you are following other
people in the chat, you hardly notice the delay at all. Chats are fun, and it can be
challenging to keep up with multiple conversations. Did I mention fun?
However, as you learned in lessons 11 and 12, you do not know to whom you are
talking so be very, very careful! It is easy for people to lie about their age, gender, and
intent. If you feel that anything is even a little “off” with a conversation, get out of the
conversation/chat!
Social networks
“Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to
create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with
friends, family and colleagues. The site, which is available in 37 different languages,
includes public features such as:
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Marketplace—allows members to post, read and respond to classified ads.
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Groups—allows members who have common interests to find each other and
interact.
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Events—allows members to publicize an event, invite guests and track who plans
to attend.
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Pages—allows members to create and promote a public page built around a
specific topic.
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Presence technology—allows members to see which contacts are online and
chat” (WhatIs.com, 2014).
When Mark Zuckerberg created
Facebook, he wanted a way for
college friends to connect. He was
very successful because according
to Wikipedia, as of “June 2014 Facebook had over 1.3 billion active users”
(Wikipedia.org, 2015).
13.3: Communication Tools
Identify the appropriate communication tool for a
given situation and audience.
Ok, so let’s see how well you remember what you learned in this lesson. See if you can
answer the following scenarios with the best electronic communication tool for the job.
Scenario 1
Your boss wants you to create a database with known solutions to known products with
your company’s products. She wants your customers to be able to find search your
database for the solutions. She thinks this will cut down on the number of phone calls
coming into the office. What would you recommend?
Scenario 2
The medical team needs to help a man who lives in the Amazon jungle of South
America. The village has one telephone and no Internet service. The medical team is
gathered in the conference room and needs to ask the man some questions about his
health. What would you recommend?
Scenario 3
Many of your friends are away at college, so you haven’t talked to them for a while. You
arranged to have all your friends online tonight for some real-time conversations. What
would you recommend to connect all your friends?
Scenario 4
Did you see your favorite player get elbowed during the March Madness games? He
must be feeling really bad about it too. You want to let him know that you support him all
the way. What tool would you use?
Scenario 5
You have been asked to help out in your company’s other office across town. You don’t
have a laptop, but you need your files so you can work. What tool would give you
access to your files?
Scenario 6
Your boss wants you to contact one of your suppliers and get a price on a new
dishwasher for the restaurant. You need to give the supplier the measurements of the
space the dishwasher needs to fit into and other requirements and you want to Cc the
message to your boss so he knows it got done. What tool would you use?
Scenario 7
You’re on the road to a client’s office. You get a little lost. Okay, a lot lost. You pull
something out of your pocket and key in the address of where you want to go.
Unfortunately, road construction is making it impossible to get down the streets you
need to go. You finally decide to talk to someone in your client’s office. What tool are
you using?
Scenario 8
You are at the office across town. The computer you are using does not have a
spreadsheet program, which is what you need to start the budget report. What tool
would you use?
Scenario 9
You are building a new Walmart in California. You have a pipe that you think is too
small for the intended purpose. You want to show it to the architects (who are in New
York) and talk to them about it. What tool would you use?
Scenario 10
You have a problem with your toaster. You get online and find others that had the same
problem. You read what they did to fix the problem. The solution worked, but you had to
change the steps they gave you just a little. You get online and write about what you did
to solve the problem. What tool are you using?
Scenario 11
You have a brother in Canada and a sister in Florida, your parents are in Hawaii, and
you are in Nebraska. You are a very close family. You want to see pictures of all your
nieces and nephews, talk to mom and dad (but it’s too expensive to call them), and find
out what everyone is doing without spending money. What tool would you use?
Don’t look at the answers until you have thought through each scenario above!
Answers: (1) Wiki (2) teleconferencing (3) chat (4) Twitter (5) Google Drive (6) email (7)
cellphone (8) Google Docs (9) videoconferencing (10) blog (11) Facebook
13.4: Challenges with Electronic
Communication
Understand common problems and challenges with
electronic communication.
Delivery Failure
When the school I work at was built ten years ago, there was nothing out there but
horses and cows. One hundred percent of our student body was bused to school
because everyone lived a good distance from the school. So when my family would call
me to remind me to come home (I love my job), I did not get some of their phone calls.
These are called dropped calls. My cellphone carrier did not have a tower that far out,
and I had to live with dropped calls until the growth caught up with the area and a new
cellphone tower was installed.
Dropped calls are very familiar to people who live in canyons and valleys surrounded by
hills. Should your business be in one of these areas, you may be forced to use land
telephone lines instead of cellphones or risk losing business due to dropped calls.
The other day, I sent an email message out to my team of teachers informing them of
an upcoming meeting. Minutes later, I received notification that one person did not get
the email message. The message I received said that my email was “undeliverable” and
that the “user was unknown.” Since I had talked to her just that morning I knew that she
was not unknown. Upon closer inspection I noticed that I had used her old name (she
just got married). Once I used her new, married name, the email arrived at her computer
just fine.
So, what could cause email to be undeliverable?
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The user’s email address was spelled wrong.
o This could include the person’s name and company’s name
The domain may be incorrect.
o You typed in .org when it should be .net.
The @ symbol was left out.
The person got married and changed email names.
The person moved to another division of the company and got a new email
address.
The person left the company and no longer works there.
I’m sure you can think of other reasons for email to be undeliverable.
Spam
You have already learned about spam email
messages. Spam is a major problem for businesses.
Here are some tips to help your company out:
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Don’t open spam email.
Don’t ask to be removed from their
email list.
o This just tells them that your
address is a good address and
to send you more spam.
Don’t fall for the “You’ve won!” pop-up that asks you to key in your name
and address.
Use a good antispam program.
Check with your company’s IT person.
o
Larger businesses will have a firewall and gateway to block most
spam coming into your company.
Fraud
The American Heritage Dictionary defines fraud as
1. “a deception practiced in order to induce another to
give up possession of property or surrender a right.”
2. “a piece of trickery; a trick.”
3. “one that defrauds; a cheat.”
A couple of years ago, my next-door neighbor put a
dent in her car door. She wasn’t looking when she
opened her door into a sign post. A few weeks later,
she said, this nice man and his wife knocked on her door and said they could fix her car
door. They had all the materials with them. They mixed up something white and spread
it on her red car door. They said it needed to dry, and they would be back to sand it and
paint it. But they needed the $100.00 she offered to pay now since most of the work on
the car door was done. She has been driving her red car with the large white spot on
the door for two years. She joked that she didn’t know it would take this long to dry.
Fraud is illegal. So why is it here in the lesson on electronic communications? The other
day I got a voice message on my phone from the IRS. For those who don’t know, it
stands for Internal Revenue Service. The message said that I had made a serious error
in my taxes, I owe a lot of money, and if I don’t pay I will go to jail. Luckily, a couple of
nights before, I heard on the TV news about a new scam where people are calling and
claiming to be with the IRS. These scam artists were demanding payments. This is
fraud! And I didn’t fall for it. But I have to tell you that it made me nervous enough to call
my accountant. Fraud can happen face-to-face or over electronic equipment. Fraud can
happen to an individual, to a family, and to big businesses and governments.
Viruses
You have learned a lot about computer viruses, what they are, what they do, and how to
prevent them. The challenge to business is the cost to stop all the bad things coming in
and still be able to keep the network open to do business.
A few years ago, I was on the IT (information technology) team of a dot-com company.
We did all of our business online, all buying and selling of merchandise. A virus called
the “I Love You” virus came through email and took my company out. After my team
spent hours cleaning the virus off every computer in the company, a new wave of the
virus hit as soon as employees could get back to their computers. We had to start the
cleanup process all over again on every computer. Finally, after the third attack, my
supervisor went to the company president and asked him to shut the company down for
the rest of the day. Everyone was sent home (with pay) while the IT team closed the
gateway to prevent any more email messages from coming in and cleaned the virus off
every computer, laptop, and server in the company. It was a long night and an even
longer day the next day as the IT team stayed at work to make sure the company was
back to normal. The cost of that one day was enormous!
Computer security is a critical component of maintaining a computer network today.
Businesses, schools, and governments, to name a few, need employees who are highly
trained in computer security. These types of jobs also pay a lot! If you like the challenge
of hacking into computer systems, “go into the light, my friend” and try the other side of
things by becoming a computer security expert.