business communication tips for nerds (= things i'm learning the hard way)
__note: i am a big nerd and very awkward so this is the blind leading the blind, beware__
- if you sit around alone at home reading and coding at your computer all day, the first few sentences you utter that day may sound a bit weird. if you have an important phone call to make, mb try to talk to someone earlier in the day, or watch a video with people talking or something, or take a very short walk outside where their are other people.
- try not to call people during lunch (they may pick up their mobile phone, only to tell you that they are at lunch, and then they'll feel bad).
- try not to call people right before they go home (i.e. after 4:30)
- some people put both their mobile and their office phone on their card. if you are making first contact, you may want to call the office #, b/c they may not be able to chat when they are out of the office (then again, this depends on the person).
- try to focus on what you can do for others, not what they can do for you. except for your friends and coworkers, no one can afford to spend much time on what they can do for you.
- if you are trying to contact someone whom you think will feel they should speak to you, when possible it's best not to email them and ask if you can call them -- because then they might not respond and you won't know what to do. better to tell them that you'll call them, if that's alright with them. that way, if they don't reply, then by default you can call them.
- people tend to have one communications medium that is a good way to reach them (phone, email, etc). don't be surprised if they ignore you when you contact them on a different one -- they might be blowing you off, but they might just not be good at dealing with email (or voicemail, or whatever). yes, this makes it hard to know whether you should keep trying to get in touch with a stranger or whether they are ignoring you on purpose.
- when you need to blow off a stranger (by blow off, i mean only, deny their request for you to spend time doing something with or for them), here are some ways that i've been blown off in a way that seemed very professional and didn't make me feel bad:
(a) explain very concisely why you can't help them; phrased in such a way that it is clear the problem is you, not them, or that they are basically not the person you need; e.g. once i sent someone an email asking them if they were interesting in talking about a project in open source governance with me, and they replied,
(b) try to help them out as much as you can in a short period of them. finish with a short but polite, encouraging message that suggests that the conversation is over, but in a good way. e.g. once i asked someone if they'd like to talk about a project. they didn't say they would, but they said it sounded interesting and gave me a suggestion on it. Then they said it would be "interesting what you learn, and how we could apply that here". They closed with, "Thanks for getting in touch, and good luck!". Emotionally, the effect I think this was supposed to have on me was: "I don't have a lot of time to talk about this, but you are a good person and I hope that we will meet again later". (of course, being an idiot nerd i didn't take the hint and tried to continue the conversation right then, which led the other party to ignore my next email; but that's my fault; which leads us to...)
- there is a balance between (a) being more forward than you feel comfortable with when trying to get in touch with strangers, and (b) not being pushy when they have turned you down politely. (by "there's a balance", of course, what i mean in precise language is, "this is something that some people use social instincts for, and other people have a hundred unarticulated little rules for covering all sorts of special cases; either way, though, i can't articulate the algorithm you should use".) this seems like the sort of thing that you might get better at with experience (by which i mean, i'm no good at this and i hope i'm learning).
- tldr is real. don't write long messages. some people seem to be unable to even get past the first few sentences in an email. often, only the first question in an email is answered.
- before designing your product, call up potential customers and try to find a few willing to have a short conversation on how the product can help their needs (note: focus on their needs when speaking to them). this will help you design something that people actually need.
- calm down, chill out
- be confident. note to any person who (like me) would prefer to never say something logically incorrect and to attach disclaimers to everything in order to achieve this: the word "confident" as it is used in everyday speech means what you and i would call "overconfident"; this is the sense that i mean it here.
- when you want someone to do something with you, don't be like, "well, here's all the disadvantages, and i don't want to usurp your freedom of choice, so you decide" (that's what i usually do, even now, and i never convince anyone that way). You should be more like, "I saved a seat for you! C'mon!"
- even other nerds are subject to social instincts
- when you schedule a phone call with someone who may be in a different time zone, there is an opportunity to miscommunicate; be sure and find out what time zone they are in and make it clear which time zone the meeting time refers to. also, some regions have daylight savings time, some don't.
- if you need something from a stranger, and it's not their job to give it to you, you may not want to mention it immediately upon contacting them. you might want to have a discussion first, and then mention it upon a subsequent contact. but in some situations, namely when you feel this would make them feel like you were being sneaky or using them, you should mention it upon first contact.