I noticed several months ago after using Twitter for nearly a year that my emails were getting shorter and more concise. I mentioned this to my Senior Director, Anthony Scarpino (@A_Scarpino) and my “social media partner in crime.” He agreed and jokingly added even his arguments with his wife have become shorter and more concise.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the many blog posts about how Twitter makes us better writers. If you haven’t you can here, here, here, here and more here. I'm on the fence about this. With only 140 characters to get your point across you have to be concise in Twitter. You learn how to replace phrases with single words or acronyms and longer words with shorter words. And this - the good and the bad of it - has trickled over into our daily lives whether we want to admit it or not. Case in point… below is a note I quickly jotted on a random piece of paper I found pinned to our frig this morning.
No kidding. In fact, my grocery list is on the back of that note. We need paper towels, almonds, and bread if you're wondering. Obviously I didn’t send the note. After realizing what I did I took a deep breath, found a proper piece of paper, and neatly and patiently wrote a note to Ms. Ginger, my son's lunch manager, that she could understand.
Are you wondering about the story behind this note? Here’s where I’m going to lose my newly acquired skills for concise writing.
My son was not able to buy a treat on Friday and our school requires a parent’s permission to buy a treat on any other day. To a 7 year these Friday treats are very important and a near tragedy if missed. To a parent of a 7 year old these Friday treats are a huge annoyance. My kids get enough junk in their lives – school should be a place where good nutrition is a priority and the treats should be healthy - not an adult size chocolate eclair. We are NOT lucky enough to live in a county that contracts with Sodexo for school lunches. If we did, these treats would be an issue as new research from our School Services shows that Sodexo school lunch saves time, money and provides good nutrition. Sodexo School Services conducted the research for National School Lunch Week (Oct. 12 to 19) to determine if participating in a Sodexo school lunch program is a solution for parents who are concerned about good nutrition, stretching their food budget and are pressed for time. You can read more about the study here.
I’m not arguing that more concise writing is a good thing. I like being more concise in my communication. And I agree that Twitter forces us to exercise our vocabulary and forces us to improve our editing skills as noted in this blog post on Copyblogger and again here in this blog post by Michael Gass. But sometimes this new way of communicating is not such a good thing and less is not always more as exampled by my note to the Ms. Ginger. So I remain on the fence about whether or not Twitter really improves our writing skills.
Now, if I can get my voice mails more concise I might do a little dance of joy. Yes, I am one of those long voice mail ramblers. I drive my husband nuts with this and he often will not even listen to my voice mails because of it. I try really hard not to do this at work… oh, wait we don’t leave voice mails at work anymore, do we?
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