I really enjoyed this chapter. My company has an office in Austin and one in LA so I do a lot of communicating with colleagues and managers through email and IM. I tend to naturally heed the warnings the text discussed with those two mediums, but it was really helpful to read them again.
The email tips about asking clearly what you want, making good use of the subject line, and cc’ing only people that need to hear the message were all excellent advise. Again, these are things I kind of already know, but reading them tonight, I will be sure to think twice before hitting send tomorrow.
I really liked the three step process for IM and the tips as well. I tend to want to IM my boss anytime I have a question, but I think many times an email is more respectful of her time.
Part of me really hates social media, but I guess I need to get with the times. I just feel like our attentions spans are getting shorter and shorter and no one has the “time” or desire to really delve into a topic. Even the text suggested making section headers in your writing that encourage skimming. That made me sad… But I guess for business communication, time is money, and the quicker and more efficiently you can get a message across the better.
joekanemader 
Social media as a means of communication isn’t necessarily a good thing either for society or for internal communications within companies. There are companies that have instituted ‘no email’ days -employees have to actually talk to each other! There’s so much to communication that’s lost with electronic media that I don’t think it’s always productive for companies to replace face to face interactions with electronic communications. I’ve managed to work out issues much faster by getting up and walking to a colleague’s office or with a phone call when emails are just not getting the point across. Of course, there’s a happy medium between using electronic media and real conversations – I’ve also spend my share of time in unproductive meetings!
I, too, agree with both you and your classmate. I’m still not on Facebook, though a page was set up for me on the first day I taught this class as we were incorporating social media in this class (Twitter was the other media). I decided to just keep the WordPress blog because it’s writing whereas Facebook and Twitter are more mini-blogs, more making announcements rather than expressing real thoughts. I wanted this to be, not just about whether you like the chapters or think they stink, a venue for stream of consciousness writing. Finally, like you both, I prefer face-to-face communication and, I’m old-fashioned enough to appreciate a handwritten note.