There seems to be a real problem with the up and coming generation with regard to proper email etiquette which is somewhat upsetting to the established professionalism expected in business. Much of this comes from the generation of instant messaging with small handheld devices like cell phone, PDAs and laptops. What is happening is that more and more slang is being introduced into business communications.

What is done by the fast paced communicators of the next up and coming generations is a skipping of proper and expected protocol, things such as not capitalizing "I" and using purposely misspelled shortened versions of every day words and phrases such as "by the way" just written "BTW" with a dash mark and then an additional sentence added on.

What we are finding is that the non-professionalism is looking like the communicator is disrespecting the receiver of the correspondence. Personally I often feel somewhat disrespected when contacted in this way from someone;

A.) I have never met;

B.) Is asking me to expend time to explain something to them, IE give them information;

C.) Wants to do business with me. It is quite hard to consider communications with horrendous spelling errors, impersonal slang, abbreviated words and lack of capitalization.

It almost appears to be purposefully disrespectful. And this is causing significant issues and making the up and coming next generation look uneducated, intellectually challenged and lacking of personal character or attention to detail. Something to think on, as maybe you have observed this scenario yourself to some degree; How does it make you feel?

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?