I think the author is right about the use of emoticons and I think they're an underused and misunderstood form of communication. I similarly used to avoid them, but I also used to get into a lot of misunderstandings in long e-mail exchanges. People would misinterpret my concise and direct messages as being brusque, impatient, etc.
In my experience, throwing in an occasional light-hearted remark accompanied by a smiley face actually makes a huge difference. Obviously it's not always appropriate and, like many textspeak artifacts, they're open to abuse, LOL :). But, in general, I think emoticons put a human slant on what is an otherwise very impersonal communication medium. I would equate their use with the use of small-talk in face-to-face conversations - it doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the discussion, but it often puts people at ease.
I think it very much depends on who you are, different people will have different reactions. Personally, although I use smileys in Skype/SMS/etc. (a lot), if anyone uses them in an email, business related in particular, I get pissed off. I don't know why that's my reaction for email from friends, but when it comes to work stuff: we're talking in a professional manner, so act professionally please. (Again, that's an instruction based on my personal feeling, I'm not suggesting everyone ought to think like that.)
But yes, I do agree with being friendly - as long as it's authentic, not sickeningly fake and over-the-top, it will almost always be an improvement.
I use smileys in a professional setting, but not on first contact. You can relax the strict business tone when you are on a more personal level with somebody.
I would say that if your email was extremely concise and could have been seen as rude, a smiley can make it seem like you're not being an asshole.
Either way, you should always make sure your emails are friendly and to the point.
For me the style of writing as I become more familiar with somebody goes like this:
- Initial contact, "Dear ..", "Kind Regards,"
- Slightly looser, "Hi ...", "Many thanks," or "Yours,"
- Pretty friendly "Name," or "Hey name,", "Thanks" "Cheers" etc
- Very friendly, no mention of their name at the start, signing with just "Corin" or "C"
And it depends on who it is as to what stage it gets to. Generally the people I talk to either reciprocate following a similar structure, or they follow that structure before I do, leaving me to reciprocate.
I match what the other does to me. That said, I am a little annoyed with the concepts of greeting and signature within an email. Thanks to the "From:" and "To:" headers, this is redundant data. A lot of people write emails as if they were writing snail mail. Yet, simultaneously, those greetings and signatures do sometimes convey a certain formality because of my experience with snail mail; depending on my mood, I will either chuckle at the "Dear Sir" or read the contents in a more businesslike tone. I wonder if these parts of the writing structure will fall out of fashion in another 50 years.
When I'm writing snail mail I write the recipient's address, and my own, right at the top of page one; then I still use greetings/signitures. The signiture is used partly as a formality, partly as an indicator of warmth/personalisation - it's not meant to be for the reader to go "oh, so that's who wrote it".
I disagree. The salutation sets the tone of the body. Just by reading "Dear Sir", I know that the body will probably be impersonal, yet polite. If I see "[Name]," I know the body will be professional and to-the-point. "Hi [Name]" sets a friendly tone, often followed by a request. If I do not see a salutation, odds are that the body was written in haste (or in reply to an existing thread).
It depends a lot on the person or company I'm contacting and why I'm contacting them.
When contacting support I'll usually try to make it friendly and a bit fun. I keep in mind there will be a person reading it who may frequently have to read and respond to frustrated or angry people, so if I can spend an extra 10 seconds to write something I think might make them smile I'll do it. And I try to use their name in any replies I write. That's a basic courtesy you should extend to anyone in any medium.
Face-to-face and email is very different in terms of behaviour - or at least it is for some people.
In my office swearing is fine, we all do it, and we have plenty of clients in front of whom I would be fine swearing, and they will swear too (obviously not at each other, just in general). Swearing in an email or a letter though, totally unacceptable.
Perhaps a better example of the differences is just that, if you meet with a client, even one you don't know well, you don't end with "kind regards" or "yours sincerely". The fact that you do (or at least, might well) in an email/letter doesn't really signify a difference in what you are trying to convey, purely a difference in convention.
I have no problem using humour in an email or a letter, that's fine. I guess maybe the reason smileys feel inappropriate is because they are so associated with children. Sure, adults use them, but they started among young people, and they will forever (I think, but at least still today) remain more popular among younger age groups. When chatting through IM software it feels fine to throw off adulthood, when talking to friends I might sometimes open with something I'd be far too embarassed to actually say in real life, such as "waddup bitch". Email, for me, is a high-tech version of the letter, not a high-tech version of face-to-face.
For the record, they didn't start among young people. Emoticons were in use on the Internet before I got online in 1990. Kids ran with them because they want people to know what they are feeling and the feeling they are trying to portray, which can be nearly impossible to do in reasonably succinct writing.
An occasional emoticon can be useful, but it is easy to over do it. If I see five, I think "immature". If i see one, I don't think anything.
Like I say, I'm not saying it is the definitive way to behave, simply that it's how I think of it - purely an emotional opinion. But I do know plenty of other people who feel the same way.
The way that you're addressed can skew the tone though. For example, starting an email out with "Hi John, can you take a look at this?" sounds much more friendly than "John, can you take a look at this?"
If I initiate contact I always keep my first email extremely formal and polite. You never really know how the other person interprets emails (they could be a total snob for all you know) so it's better to play it safe.
If they respond in a more "casual" way, then I write back in a tone that matches theirs.
If I am writing to apologize about something, I try to write it in a more personable manner so that I can connect with them on a personal level. This generally diffuses any tension and makes people more sympathetic (at the cost of making you look less professional.. but something that's just worth it)
When I use emoticons, I feel like a bad writer. I feel like my jokes were too subtle or just not funny, so I have to make up for my deficiency by inserting a symbol that says "I MADE A JOKE HERE, BUT NOT WELL ENOUGH THAT YOU GOT IT."
It's the same as in a face-to-face interaction where someone laughs at their own joke in hopes of inspiring you to laugh-- generally, not a good strategy.
Still, I understand the utility of the emoticon in the customer-service situation, where you have no shared experience to base jokes on.
The problem is that it's not always the quality of the joke. A lot of face-to-face interaction, beyond the words spoken, is the tonal inflections, gestures, facial expressions, and such that cannot be expressed in a purely text-based medium. Just pick up any book where two characters have a conversation and look at how much of the text is what they're saying, and how much is the narrator talking about what they're doing while saying it, or adjectives about the tone of voice they're speaking in.
Yeah, that's what makes writing well so goddam hard. The best writers can do a great job of communicating without resorting to graphical representations of the intent of the text. I just wish I were better at it.
But the best writers aren't throwing out 60 short stories before lunch. They also have an audience who will actually read all the words.
When communicating via email, brevity us crucial. If I can drop two sentences by inserting a ;), you better believe I will. To not do so would be disrespecting the recipient's time so I can hone my writing skills (or lack thereof, in my case) at her expense.
Yeah, emoticons are efficient. I just feel like a chump using them, like using a megaphone in a restaurant. It works, but everyone else thinks, "Why can't that jerk just speak clearly in a normal voice?"
I'm emailing customers back and forth a lot, and I like to "humanize" the company a bit. We're based in Toronto, and if we have someone based in Montreal, Ottawa, or Vancouver that emails during the winter I'll usually throw in a jab about hockey.
Something like "You should see it show up in the mail before the next time the Senators win" - 90% of people are at least aware of hockey around here, and appreciate a little rivalry. Most respond back with a friendly jab at the Toronto Maple Leafs, etc.
Doesn't work for everyone, but I've never had anyone say anything bad about it - in fact it usually gives us something to joke about when/if we talk in person.
In my experience, throwing in an occasional light-hearted remark accompanied by a smiley face actually makes a huge difference. Obviously it's not always appropriate and, like many textspeak artifacts, they're open to abuse, LOL :). But, in general, I think emoticons put a human slant on what is an otherwise very impersonal communication medium. I would equate their use with the use of small-talk in face-to-face conversations - it doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the discussion, but it often puts people at ease.