Emailing a Pink Slip?
A new study may fly in the face of the common belief among managers that delivering bad news in person is the most professional approach.
The study, "Straight Talk: Delivering Bad News Through Electronic Communication," notes that email may be the White Knight for organizations that are reluctant to deliver bad news to employees and thus revert to the "mum effect."
The study, conducted by the nonprofit Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, argues that staff would be more forthcoming with management if they are able to communicate via email. "Electronic information delivery might be particularly useful in upward communication situations, where negative information is often distorted."
We're somewhat skeptical of these findings, since face-to-face communications is nearly always the most effective. However, email can be an effective tool in maintaining ongoing dialogue with employees. As with all management issues, good judgment applies. (IORMS, 410/850-0300)
Send Photo Images by Disk, Email
Here's a hot tip on pitching major consumer and trade magazines: provide film images rather than digital files. Most magazines prefer images sent on disk while newspapers prefer images via email.
These are among the findings of a recent study of editorial art directors at 475 publications by Roher Public Relations measuring media preferences for photo files.
The study found marked differences in the types of digital files that consumer, trade magazines and daily newspapers prefer to receive. Only newspapers state a strong preference for digital files instead of film or prints. Other key findings:
- 56 percent of consumer magazines prefer color transparencies.
- 46 percent of trade magazines prefer transparencies and 36 percent prefer a digital format.
- Consumer magazines have an equal preference for receiving CD-ROMs and Zip disks, while trade magazines prefer Zip disks over CD-ROMs.
(Roher Public Relations, Richard Roher, 212/986-6668)