Communication

Communication

1. Oral

   • Telephone meetings, telephone conferencing
   • Telephones and mobiles are used for discussing something with a person you can not meet face-to-face. If someone is unavailable you can leave a message. This method is not suitable if the information is too complex or needs confirmation.
   • These can range from informal team briefings, where staff contribute ideas and suggestions, to formal meetings where external stakeholders or clients or shareholders are invited,
   • In a telephone conference, several people often both internal and external are connected. This saves time and money as there is no need for travelling to a meeting place. It needs to be well organised (people speaking one at a time).

2. IT

   • Video conferencing, Internet
   • This enables two or more people in different locations to hold a meeting. They can sit a PC and be connected over the internet. They just need the right hardware like speakers, headphonesm webcam and microphone and software.
   • Whether a business uses its website just for promotional and communictaion purposes or to sell over the internet as well will depend upon its business activity and its aims and objectives.

3. Written

   • Memo, email, letter, financial documents, advert, minutes
   • Memos are internal documents used to send information between members of staff. Today email is often used instead.They are not signed and mostly focus on one topic.
   • Letters are sent everyday. Some are individually written and signed off by the author. Others are mass produced to promoted new products or services, The language is quite formal and slang or abbreviations are never used.
   • Financial documents include quotations, purchase orders, invoices, statements, cash flow statements, profit and loss accounts, and balance sheets.
   • There are two types of advertisements: promotional and informational. Informational may contain large amounts of text. They are used for technical or business-to-business advertising and when advertising for new staff.
   • Minutes is the document that records what happened at a meeting. Some are in a brief, note format which includes the decisions made and actions to be taken. Others are me detailed. The minutes are sent to everyone who attended as a formal record of what took place.
   • Any electronic file can be attached to an email.

4. Visual

   • Images, advertisements, presentations, graphics
   • These include photographs, cartoons, graphs, charts, diagrams etc.
   • Promotional advertisement suse images, graphics, pictures and film clips to convey their massage and ideas.
   • Good visual communications can transform a presenation, This can include film clips, animations and graphics.