February 04, 2002 New Thinking:
You are what you type

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• How your clothes can make you look more powerful, friendly, or competent - for the results you want.
• Important regional variations in successful dressing, from New York to Atlanta, Detroit to California, and from Paris to Tokyo.
• How your casual wear can affect your chances for both social and business success.

Replace ‘clothes’ with ‘words’ and read the above points again. Words have a power that we often fail to recognize. It was Benjamin Franklin that said: “Give me 26 lead soldiers and I will conquer the world.”

Certainly, the new economy ushered in the casual era. However, as it licks its wounds, perhaps its dress code may become less casual? Hillary Clinton recently made the point that making sure your hair looks well is very, very important. Untidy hair distracts and detracts from the message or impression you want to make.

Untidy words have the exact same impact. Billions of emails are sent everyday. Each one creates an impression. The most negative impression an email can make is that someone wants to delete it before reading it. Are there people you send emails to who delete them without reading them? Why do they do that?

One of the biggest victims of the new economy crash is speed. A few years ago everything had to be done fast. If you weren’t living on the edge you were taking up too much space. The mantra of Silicon Valley—Speed is God, Time is the Devil—became the mantra of the world. Not anymore.

Certainly, the world has speeded up. However, there are certain speed limits for the human mind. Why did you write that email you just ‘rushed off?’ You want someone to read it, right? Supposing it’s full of grammatical and spelling mistakes? Is that okay? No, it’s not.

People judge you by how you write, whether consciously or subconsciously. If I get an email that is poorly written, my opinion of the person who sent it is diminished. If I read content on a website that is poorly written, my impression of that organization is diminished.

First impressions count. The first impressions organizations and individuals increasingly make are by email and on the Web.

The next time you sit down to write an email or prepare content for a website, think about your reader. Take that extra time to edit what you have written so that it presents you in the best possible light. I guarantee you that extra time spent editing will pay dividends for you in the long run.


Gerry McGovern
 

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