Is there room in professional communication for emoticons? – 9 June 2008

Often people will talk about the blunt email they received and you will hear people talk about how someone misinterpreted the email they sent. Emoticons are increasingly being used to give this some context. To add emotion and give the reader of the email an idea of how the message is intended – whether it be sad, happy, joking etc people are using emoticons. Faces created originally through the use of symbols and now special characters themselves.

Is there room for these emoticons in professional communication? I’m not sure that there is. If I received an email from my Chief Executive with a smiley face at the end of it, I would interpret the message less seriously and it would diminish the authority of the sender. To me emoticons are for use in emails to friends and we should continue to maintain a level of formality in a professional context.

The Media Report 18 October 2007 featured a story on Emoticons and email etiquette and I found an interesting transcript to read.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

Another website on the topic of email etiquette is
http://www.netmanners.com/