Digital Communication Hygiene

I routinely find myself thrown into new collaboration environments, where I frequently end up explaining what I’ve learned about making distributed collaboration more effective and pleasant. This is an attempt to capture some of that received wisdom.

• read and write

  Text communication remains our most fundamental, effective and sustainable tool – regardless of medium.

• overcommunicate, even if it’s awkward

  This might mean being proactive in sharing what you’re doing and why, but it could also mean responding to others’ messages: Receiving nothing but crickets and tumbleweed can feel particularly alienating to authors in a digital setting.

• humor spawns community, community begets trust, trust is the foundation for progress and civilization

  Banter is essential for group cohesion: Not everything needs to be goal-oriented, scheduled or otherwise highly disciplined.

• async by default

  Unless you’re in an active exchange, it’s usually okay for responses to take a little while.

  Resist the temptation to go synchronous: It might feel simpler and easier, but that’s often an illusion – in part because it means anyone not present is excluded (which might even be your future self). It helps to assume that at least one member of the team is deaf; that automatically guides you towards patterns where important stuff is accessible and retrievable in textual form.

• be wary of persistent history

  Written communication tends to stick around forever. That might not be what you want for every message, so be conscious of that.

  Relatedly: Chat should not turn into an ad-hoc knowledge base.

Be Mindful of the Work You Leave for Others

While overcommunication is essential, it’s worth being cognizant of the burden communication might impose on others.

• distinguish important 🔕 from urgent 🔔

  In practical terms, this mostly means consciously avoiding immediate notifications unless absolutely necessary: You don’t want to force folks into a context switch.

  Unfortunate defaults in enterprise chat applications mean that it’s often better to avoid direct messages, e.g. in favor of dedicated (perhaps transient) channels – which come with the added benefit of topical distinction. Similarly, direct mentions (typically “@…”) might not be warranted.

• optimize for recipients

  Messages are usually read more often than they are written. Any shortcuts you take as an author (e.g. stream-of-consciousness narration or disregarding spelling) might increase the effort it takes readers to interpret your message.

  Bottom Line Up Front is an important principle: You generally want to lead with key information (conclusions, expected actions, uncertainties etc.), which includes being explicit (e.g. about requests, expectations or task assignments) – more detailed explanations and background information is typically still necessary, but should be distinct.

• channel discipline

  Most environments provide mechanisms for distinguishing topical discussions, e.g. via channels or rooms. Try to put messages where they’re most appropriate, taking into account the respective audience.

  However, excessively strict categorization is unhelpful; consider following Postel’s law.