Hey look, it's my paper. :-)

Dunno why this caught back on now. Paper is from 2012.

This is fascinating. Unsurprised by a lot of the findings, as I see them on a pretty regular basis.

I really interesting technology offering would be an application of this used to map the "real" power structure vs. the org. chart. Imagine the power of that as a starting point in an organizational design?

Conversely, I know people who say, "Great thanks!" in threads in which they otherwise play no part. And I hate those people.

Or gmail could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in more downward facing terms

> Or gmail could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in more downward facing terms

Gmail, if you could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in more downward facing terms, that would be greeeeeat, mmmmmmmkay?

Google: I'll circle back with you on Wednesday

There is some interesting research in open source community interactions using network analysis as well. See here for example: http://fastwonderblog.com/2015/08/04/network-analysis-and-co...

Anybody interested in this overall topic might also find this book of interest:

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Power-Social-Networks-Understan...

It's all about applying Social Network Analysis in organizations, mapping informal power structures, etc. Good stuff.

There is in fact a fairly old (1970s) linguistics theory on this subject. See e.g. Brown & Levinson on politeness theory.

You can build some fairly easy software that applies this on conversational data (1:1 emails, chats, phone transcripts, etc), and it works pretty well.

This is fascinating but I would be even more interested in actionable advice. Where is the ballance between being polite and ass kissing? Is the male / female difference in openness productive or contra? I understand that it greatly depends on the company culture, but as a non-native speaker and programmer (geek?) I usually struggle to decide how much information is appropriate in a sick day request and all my emails (up/dow/sideways) usually contain multiple "please" and "thanks". Do you know any "communication in office for geeks 101"?

Makes you wonder about the dynamics of Facebook's upcoming Facebook at Work. Can imagine the 'interest graph' of a lot of employees will be interest in pleasing their bosses. Will they spend a lot of time 'liking' their boss's posts instead of following 'useful' people? Blogged about this recently. https://tmail21.com/blog/is-social-the-future-of-work/

That was a great read, thanks!

#14 of "Phrases in Emails People Send to Their Bosses" is "shit". I'd like to see some examples of that usage.

It's probably not too different from the other statements, e.g.

"Shit, I'm really sorry, I'll get that done soon"

"Yeah, I'll talk to the other team and tell them to get their shit done"

"No problem, I'll tell Bill his shit's not that important, and I'll get this done"

(But, since it's Enron, there was probably an inordinate amount of just "Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit The books aren't adding up")

I have read in a few places that use of profanity signals affinity, and even used by some sales people to quickly build rapport with their leads. Same thing might be at play, subordinates trying to be chummy with their superiors.

Yeah, it's a nice middle-ground curse word. "Fuck" is a little too string, and "damn" just doesn't have the same light-heated sound to it. I'd guess "shit" usually is a bit self-deprecating too; as in, "shit, I completely forgot to do that!"

Even more puzzling to me is #7 "kitchen".

Maybe it's from infrequent food-related announcements for events, sent by office-assistant types and received by many people?

"Project Iota launched! Pizza in kitchen"

Meh, kitchen plays a big part in day-to-day office life, so I'm not surprised at all.