The Emoticon Rideau

Do We Rely On Emoticons To Communicate Clearly?

By Rita & Lauren

Several blogs ago (the newest way I track time), I discussed how we might rely on emoticons to communicate in the near future. Like an Olympic judge, I thought people might have cards printed with graphic displays of emotion in order to clarify verbal interactions. I also mentioned that perhaps, in the same way we already use them in text messages and e-mail, we would print emoticons in books and articles so future readers understand how to interpret emotion in the written word.

My fears are not an isolated case. A parent coordinator at a Manhattan elementary school, who frequently uses e-mail to communicate with parents and school officials, was quoted in The New York Times Sunday Styles on those little digital expressions: “Can you imagine reading the end of ‘The Great Gatsby’ like that?: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past :-(“

The New York Times has confirmed my dismay for emotions as being totally valid. They recently had an article on the pros and cons of using emoticons in professional e-mail communication—that’s right, in the work place. If you read the article, and I recommend that you do, there are some harsh sentiments for people that use emoticons.

The article also quoted a Northeastern University lecturer of communications stating that emoticons are “part of the degradation of writing skills—grammar, syntax, sentence structure, even penmanship—that come with digitals technology,” said Bill Lancaster, the Boston academic. “Certainly I understand the need for clarity. But language, used properly, is clear on its own."

One business professional featured spoke about using emoticons in order to express humor because he didn’t know the e-mail’s recipient personally. From my own tiny focus group agreement with this was concluded—many people seem to use smiley faces to indicate a joke, and think it’s okay.

If a message cannot be clearly understood on its own, should it really be sent in the first place? If you don’t know the person well enough, isn’t it better business etiquette to pick up the phone and talk to them or locate a map and find your way to one another? This kind of effort to communicate in person will strengthen business relations. You just can’t express humor other character traits in an e-mail as well as you could in person.

Communication nuances are already challenging in the professional world, verbal or written. Clarity is so, so important. Are emoticons really the best way to be clear? Are we relying on e-mail and text messages too much, and losing quality communication through lack of face-to-face interaction?

Before I read the NY Times article my blog topic was going to concentrate on our need to learn oral communication rituals. While this will definitely come back up, it seemed necessary to come back to emoticons now that I know they’re being used in business correspondence… I mean, really?

This blog is for all age groups in all kinds of business groups. The question for you is this: do you think emoticons should be used in professional communication and why?

When writing anything in the business world, keep it professional. Spare us all the cute graphics, you overzealous emoticon users—especially those of us who don’t know you.

Something needs to change. Please share these concerns with office mates, family or friends who too often attempt to use digital visages in lieu of clear sentences and clarifying word descriptions. With these habits, we truly just might come to rely on, well… :-(

*** To read the original New York Times article, go HERE

Holiday Page Burners

BY RITA

Lately, multiple friends have had emotional, tearful discussions with me about painful events in their lives. These stories involve friends and family hurting them deeply, and now—several years later—the memories are still alive and burning. Each time my friends encounter the people who’ve caused them heartache, the “just let it go” mantra seems to fail them.

I can confirm that this mantra hasn’t been working, because I have been listening to the same stories over and over again. I’ve been watching the same aches and pains reappear and I see a familiar agitation emerge each time my friends are forced to see their hearts’ offenders. Their agitations have begun to rub off on me, the listener.

With one of these friends, I brought up the idea of a cure. Her traumas are not physical ones but rather emotional wounds that reopen every time she has to confront the person that has caused her pain. Any effort to have a calm and honest conversation with this person has been met with amnesia of past offenses and a constant need for justification. The two often go down the same old, rocky road, rehashing the same anger and reaching a destination of denial.

So what’s there to do in this kind of rut? Many if not all of us have experienced situations in which public peace must be held, despite our true feelings toward another person. Being in the mere presence of these people can cause stomachaches and heart palpations. For my friend the options of never speaking to her emotional offender is out. In her global village the rules of engagement demand a limited amount of polite encounters.

I am not a professional, but counselors, therapists, shamans, clerics, and spiritualists alike have a common suggestion. Make time for yourself in a place that makes you feel safe and comfortable and write down exactly how you feel. The story, the incident, events, hurts and tears—put it all to paper.

In a smart, fireproof environment, read your story out loud or to yourself, and then banish them to the fire. You can do this by yourself in front of your fireplace or around a campfire or BBQ with people you trust.

When you throw your story into the fire, visualize your anger and hurt burning away, turning to smoke, and dissipating into intangible ethers. As much as you’d like to, avoid visualizing the person responsible for your pain in the fire. Violence is not really the objective.

After your bonfire, set an intention for your future encounters with your pain maker: when you feel the emotions start to bubble, make all the ugly thoughts and feelings turn into smoke before they can touch you. Don’t allow yourself to be burned anymore.

My advice to my friends and to anyone who keeps revisiting a similar emotional rut is to pull a Harry Potter and put on your invisibility cloak in the face of useless turmoil. Don’t allow futile angst over past events get through to you. Simply turn the anger and hurt into smoke.

With the holidays upon us, this recipe may be better than the one for Grandma’s pumpkin pie–or at least a healthier one.

****The two cards feature in this post are available HERE!

I Could Never

Two of my newest paintings.

By Rita

While preparing for a small art showing in a community gallery this week, I looked at my tiny body of work and panicked as I heard my voice saying, “I can never show these, I’m not an artist.”

Suddenly I was hurled back in time sitting around a crowded kitchen table in a small Midwestern town. I'm surrounded by female relatives, near and far in bloodline, many who I only knew as characters from my father’s life story. I'm speaking with members of my own tribe who are immigrants to America, to their daughters and their granddaughters who all struggled, worked hard, and had much to show for their efforts.

I'm ready to leave for the airport when someone suddenly asked me, “Where is your luggage?” As I picked up my small, compact bag I heard gasps and sighs in unison, followed by the words, “That can’t be possible. I could never travel with one small bag. Suppose you need something?”

All this, coming from a family who came to a strange, foreign country and built themselves up through hard work and optimism. When did they start adding the never to their thought process?

On the way to the airport I started counting how many times I had heard the words, “I could never,” start or end a sentence, acting as a verbal exclamation point or period. Through the years following I listened to the young daughters of our clan say the words and I became sharply aware when they came out of my own mouth. If I heard friends, family, or co-workers say a version of the sentence I wanted to know, why couldn't they ever, exactly? What made their never so impossible?

Then this week I heard those words coming out of my mouth again. Oh, the irony.

A display of my work and cards at the art show

After nearly bullying a good friend into taking a class with artist Sondra Hersh, the most amazing art teacher ever (www.sondraart.com), my very esthetically talented friend said that she could never be an artist, she has no talent. This was based only on the fact that she had never painted before. She gave it a shot, however, and she has since produced some stunning pieces.

Somehow my simple, rational explanations of why my friend should take an art class eluded me in my time of crisis. I finally reasoned her out of doubt with, “It won’t be a Picasso, who cares. Move past the never, it's the experience of opening your heart that really matters.”

I was told long ago not to even try art, because I couldn’t draw a straight line or color inside of any. Regardless of my lack of apparent talent, I moved past my “I could never,” and put paint to canvas. Am I an artist? If I say I am, I am. What, or who, are you?

Moving past this kind of self doubt has opened my heart and reminded me that we often put limitations on ourselves. So put your never aside and stop thinking about how you can't—just go do.

Steve Jobs: A Celebration

By Rita

While listening to the news of Steve Jobs’ death, with my Macintosh desktop, my iPhone and my iPad all nearby, I realized the amazing and magical impact Jobs’ innovation has brought us. He was so young when it all started. Now, it’s time to just say thank you.

So many people around the world own devices that were designed by Apple for both communication and to enjoy life. These things aren’t just beautiful to look at but also functional, appealing to the engineer and the artist in all of us.

The Apple innovator’s life was short but astounding. During the Arab Spring you could see the impact of his work through videos and pictures captured on iPhones and iPods. Every plane ride you get on is filled with iDevices being used by people of all ages. We are one world now, enjoying music, art, culture, and each other through many of the technological gifts Steve Jobs gave us.

We have so many interesting computer fonts today partly thanks to Jobs. After he dropped out of Reed College Jobs took courses he was interested in, including calligraphy. Had he never learned to use a brush and ink pen to create beautiful scripts then many wonderful fonts available to us now through Mac would never have existed.

I’m also acutely aware that if it were not for many of my Mac products and the applications that come with them, Wilfrida’s Closet would not have been launched. While we value tradition and the art of handcrafting, we recognize and appreciate technology and what it allows us. Wilfrida’s Closet encourages creativity and individuality, two things Steve Jobs exhibited through his ideas.

Thank you, Steve, for all of your wonderful ideas.

As I listened to the recording of Jobs’ graduation speech for the Stanford class of 2005, I heard his own personal stories of the life lessons he’d endure, and creative suggestions and ideas for future generations.