Abbreviations and Shorthand Won't Always Save Time

We need to say exactly what we mean, and be willing to read things longer than a Tweet!

I remember an anecdote about a young professional woman who was at a conference and heard about a great new technology that might work for a problem being faced by her employer.  On the Friday afternoon that concluded the conference, she sent a text message to her director, along the lines of, “remember how we were trying to figure out how to do x? I found out about this great app that only costs $300 and it does it:(link to app).  I’d like to give it a try”

Half an hour later she got a reply: “Y”

The young woman, assuming that the boss didn’t have time to follow the link or read about the application, realized that he must not see the solution to be as obvious as she did.  So, she spent the whole weekend trying to find out what she could about the software from just reviews and discussion boards. She prepared a brief proposal with cost-benefit analysis to make the case for spending $300 on the software, trying to answer her boss’s question of “Why?” they should try it out.  

Eager to get started on the possible solutions, she was waiting for the boss when he came in on Monday morning to present her proposal.  He looked a little surprised as he thumbed through it quickly. “Thank you for all this information, but am I understanding that you’re making this recommendation without having tried the software out yet?  After all, I said ‘Yes’ right away when you texted me for approval to buy it...come back to talk to me once you’ve actually tried the app.”

He had thought nothing of the $300 expense to explore the option, and responded with a quick “Y” (meaning, “Yes”)* and moved on to other things.  She thought “Y” meant, “Why?” and lost a weekend doing research to answer a question that was never asked.

What’s the point here?  The point is that when we are communicating across mediums (and cultures, and generations), we all must force ourselves to be more literal and explicit in what we’re saying.  Not only are we deprived of the cues of voice and body language, but being overly brief or cryptic in the written word can lead to worse miscommunication than had there been no communication at all.

That means you’ll have to be as specific and clear in your questions as possible.  It also means that you may have to suffer through reading complete sentences, paragraphs, even pages sometimes.  But, in the long run, making sure we all understand each other from the start means that in the long run we’ll be wasting less of each other’s time.

So, please provide me (or the class, via the FAQ) with as much detail as possible when you have questions or answers or are interpreting the course content.  Similarly, please continue to ask for refinement or clarification on my assignment instructions. If we all learn to stop and think about the different ways someone might interpret what we’re saying, we will increase the likelihood of being understood better, sooner.   

*Or, in the days of MSN, an instant messenger that was used a lot before everyone texted on phones, “Y” meant “Thumbs Up” (as in, go ahead and spend the money)