Jan fifteenth 2022
THE PANDEMIC has given a giant shove to all types of digital communication. Video-conferencing platforms have change into verbs. Venture capitalists make their bets after watching digital pitches. Products like Loom and mmhmm assist employees ship pre-recorded video messages to their colleagues. More than a 3rd of Slack customers every week are actually “huddling”—utilizing the product’s new audio function to speak to one another. And all that is earlier than the metaverse turns everybody into an avatar.
A office dominated by time on screens could seem certain to favour newer, sooner and extra visible methods of transmitting info. But an outdated type of communication—writing—can also be flourishing. And not simply dashed-off emails and entries on digital whiteboards, however gradual, time-intensive writing. The strengths of the written phrase haven’t been diminished by the pandemic period. In some methods they’re ideally suited to it.*
The worth of writing is a staple in administration considering. “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen,” reckoned Lee Iacocca, a quotable titan of the American automotive trade. Jeff Bezos banned slide decks from conferences of senior Amazon executives again in 2004, in favour of well-structured memos. “PowerPoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas,” he wrote.
Some executives write for themselves. Andrew Bosworth, a bigwig at Meta (previously Facebook), has a weblog during which he muses apparently on many subjects, together with on writing itself: “In my experience, discussion expands the space of possibilities while writing reduces it to its most essential components.” Others accomplish that to achieve an viewers. Shareholder letters from Larry Fink and Warren Buffett are the company equal of a blockbuster ebook launch.
But the transfer to distant working has enhanced the worth of writing to your entire organisation, not simply the nook workplace. When duties are being handed off to colleagues in different areas, or individuals are engaged on a challenge “asynchronously”, that means at a time of their selecting, complete documentation is essential. When new staff begin work on one thing, they need the again story. When veterans depart an organisation, they need to depart data behind. Writing every little thing down seems like an almighty ache. But so is popping as much as a gathering and never having the foggiest what was determined final outing.
Software builders have already labored out the worth of the written phrase. A analysis programme from Google into the components of profitable know-how initiatives discovered that groups with high-quality documentation ship software program sooner and extra reliably. Gitlab, a code-hosting platform whose workforce is wholly distant, frames the key of profitable asynchronous working thus: “How would I deliver this message, present this work, or move this project forward right now if no one else on my team (or in my company) were awake?” Gitlab’s reply is “textual communication”. Its gospel is a handbook that’s publicly out there, stretches to greater than 3,000 pages and lays out all of its inner processes.
The deliberation and self-discipline required by writing is useful in different contexts, too. “Brainwriting” is a brainstorming method, utilized by Slack amongst others, during which members are given time to place down their concepts earlier than dialogue begins. Lists of company values could make greeting playing cards appear hard-hitting. But considerate codification of a agency’s tradition makes extra sense in hybrid and distant workplaces, the place new joiners have much less likelihood to fulfill and observe colleagues.
Purists will sniff that none of this counts as writing. But good prose and helpful prose share the identical important qualities: brevity, construction, a transparent theme. Cormac McCarthy, a prize-winning novelist, copy-edits scientific papers for enjoyable. Ted Chiang says that his science-fiction quick tales and his technical writing each draw on a need to elucidate an thought clearly.
Writing is just not all the time one of the best ways to speak within the office. Video is extra memorable; a cellphone name is faster; even PowerPoint has its place. But for the structured thought it calls for, and the convenience with which it may be shared and edited, the written phrase is made for distant work.
* Cynical readers might query a paean to the written phrase in a publication that sells a high-quality type information and runs programs on enterprise writing. They are welcome to write down in.
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Read extra from Bartleby, our columnist on administration and work:
The rise of performative work (Jan eighth 2022)
A memo from the boss on apology inflation (Jan 1st 2022)
The Beatles and the artwork of teamwork (Dec 18th 2021)
This article appeared within the Business part of the print version below the headline “Of distant work and writing”