LECTURE NOTES
CHAPTER 4--COMMUNICATING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEW WORLD OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
- The choices you make as a communicator today are more complicated.
- When choosing communication technology, consider
- Audience expectations
- Time and cost
- Nature of the message
- Presentation needs
TECHNOLOGY IN WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
- Word-Processing software is the most common tool for creating printed documents.
- Desktop publishing (DTP) software computerizes the process of assembling finished pages.
- when planning documents, you can use technology to
- Research your audience and your content (via databases, statistical analysis software, and CD-ROM information sources).
- Outline your document.
- When composing documents, you can use technology to
- Enter text (via keyboarding, pen-based computers, voice recognition systems, dictation systems, and scanning).
- Add graphics and sound.
- When revising documents, you can use technology to
- Cut and insert material.
- Search for and replace text.
- Generate supporting elements (such as notes, indexes, tables of contents.
- Print documents.
- Distribute documents (using such tools as mail merge and fax machines)
- Technology helps you create electronic documents usch as e-mail, documents that are created, transmitted, and read entirely on computer.
- E-mail networks can be set up within an office, across the country, or around the world.
- E-mail has changed the style of business communication
- By opening new channels of communication inside the organization.
- By being an informal communication channel.
- By encouraging people to drop their inhibitions and speak out.
TECHNOLOGY IN ORAL COMMUNICATION
- Technology helps you improve oral communication between individuals (via telephone tools such as call management systems, PBS systems, pagers, and voice mail).
- Technology helps you improve oral communication between groups (via teleconferencing, overhead transparancies, 35-mm slides, computer-driven presentation, and group decision support systems.
HOW TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING COMMUNICATION
- Technology both positively and negatively affects
- Information flow
- Communication ease
- Organizational structure
- Profits
- People with no access to technology
- Pressure levels on people to perform
- Technology adds complexity, costs a lot, and is only as good as the person using it.
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