Business and Professional Communication, 3rd edition
Kelly M. Quintanilla, Shawn T. Wahl
Chapter 8: Technology in the Workplace
Lecture Notes
Learning objective:
8-1 Discuss the impact technology has on business and professional communication
8-2 Explain how emotion is expressed with technology
8-3 Discuss how the drawbacks of technology can prevent you from excelling as a
professional
8-4 Explain how to use professional etique#e with technology
Outline:
I. Introduction and Example of Apple
A. 2014 Apple Inc. listed by Business Insider as one of the 14 best tech companies to work
for.
i. Based on employee feedback, work-life balance, organizational culture, and
job satisfaction.
ii. Based on bene,ts and salary that are very competitive.
B. Communicating excellence through technology is a necessary skill in today’s workforce.
i. Communication, when using technology, influence the impressions other
people have of you.
II. Communication and Technology: Tools for Professionals
A. Communication using technology is computer-mediated communication
1
i. Virtual work teams accomplish traditional face-to-face tasks and projects using
computer-mediated communication.
B. Maintaining Professional Excellence Online
i. Social networking can be a tool for sharing information and maintaining
professional connections.
C. Electronic Communication
i. Every change in technology brings new challenges.
ii. Executives now share information using blogs.
iii. E-mail can be used in negative and positive ways.
a. E-mail should not be used to deliver bad news.
b. Business people and professional organizations increasing rely on e-mail
to communicate and accomplish work.
III. Drawbacks of Technology
2
A. Employee Surveillance
i. Know how privacy is managed in the workplace and organizational culture.
ii. Workplace surveillance systems monitor and track employee behavior in
terms of the information they access or communicate while at work.
B. Time Management
i. Chronemics is the study of time in communication and/or as a communication
function.
ii. With communication technology, some messages are posted at one time and
are asynchronous, and other interactive messages like social media are
synchronous.
C. Information Overload
i. Burnout can occur from spending a lot of time on tasks that seem to take away
from your productivity instead of helping you accomplish your work.
ii. Information overload occurs when information, requests for feedback, taking
on new projects, responding to questions, answering the phone, and dealing
with family ma#ers leave us feeling as though things are spinning out of
control.
3
iii. Contributions to information overload include:
a. E-mail forwards like virus alerts, jokes, and pictures contribute to
overload.
D. Electronic Aggression
i. Electronic communication allows people in workplaces to sit behind digital
devices and ,re o4 responses.
ii. E-mail dialogues, or exchanges of messages about a particular topic using
electronic tools like e-mail, can lead to positive outcomes.
iii. Dark side of electronic exchanges is electronic aggression, a form of aggressive
communication ,lled with emotionality when interacting on professional
topics.
IV. Professional Etique#e with Technology
A. Think about professional etique#e when communicating with technology.
B. Practice your professional etique#e now with how you use technology in the classroom.
V. KEYS to Excellence in Team Communication
A. Know yourself—know that achieving professional excellence entails improving your
communication.
4
B. Evaluate the professional context—essential for you to become aware of your
professional context as well as how you come across to people when sending
information via e-mail.
5