Are We Speaking the Same Digital Language ?
9:00am
John , Sr . Vice President Hi Jessica hi
Jessica , Acct . Manager
Figuring out the etiquette for sending emails , GIFs , and emojis can be a minefield .
by stephanie walden
illustration by guillem casasus
9:05am
kk
Jessica , Acct . Manager
John , Sr . Vice President
How are those deliverables coming ?
Can you get them to me by EOD ?
Does this type of exchange at work look familiar to you ? Perhaps something you ’ d send or receive on Slack or Teams instead of email ? Does it feel too brief to you ? And what about the double ks ? Too informal ?
If you feel ambivalent about those questions , you ’ re not alone . Stephen Connolly , a writer at
Interact Software , a company that provides intranet products for enterprises , was recently chatting with a younger colleague about how 20-somethings communicate . Connolly , 41 , left the conversation a little bewildered . First off , his Gen Z coworker had explained , his use of
email is aggressively formal . This was news to Connolly . So is his form of “ okay ” in his communications . “ Apparently , there are multiple ways to write ‘ okay ,’ from uppercase (‘ OK ’) to lowercase (‘ kk ’ or ‘ k ’) to lowercase and punctuated (‘ ok .’),” he says . If you get a text from a Gen Zer that uses that latter form , with a
period , you ’ re in trouble . But “ kk ” is much more
congenial and warm .
Connolly ’ s experience is just one example of how having a digital conversation can be an exercise in code breaking . Our reliance on an ever-evolving rotation of platforms combined with differing intergenerational communication styles poses a critical question : How do we learn to speak the same digital language ? J
HP / INNOVATION / SPRING 2022 35