How Is the Mobile Revolution Affecting Your Business Communication Course?

iPhonesMany companies are still adjusting to the upheaval triggered by social media, and you may still be adapting your business communication course to social media, too.

Are you ready for another disruptive technology?

Mobile communication and mobile connectivity are changing the way business communicators plan, create, and distribute messages. Mobile devices are overtaking PCs as the primary digital communication tool for millions of consumers, employees, and executives, and businesses that don’t get mobile-friendly in a hurry will fall behind.

For business communicators, the shift to mobile involves much more than the constraints of small screens and new input technologies. The ability to reach people anywhere at any time can be a huge advantage, but the mobile communication experience can also be a major challenge for senders and receivers alike. It requires new ways of thinking about information, message structures, and writing styles. With the notion of radical connectivity, for example, many communication experiences are no longer about “batch processing” large, self-contained documents. Instead, communication is taking on the feel of an endless conversation, with recipients picking up smaller bits of information as needed, in real time, from multiple sources.

As we did when social media began changing the communication landscape, we will be providing in-depth coverage of mobile communication in our textbooks, beginning with our upcoming editions. Business Communication Today, 13th Ed., and Business Communication Essentials, 7th Ed., will be available in January, and Excellence in Business Communication, 12th Ed., will be available in June.

In anticipation of these new editions, over the next few months we’ll be blogging about the impact of mobile on business communication and the ways you might consider covering mobile in your courses. We've also prepared a series of infographics that preview some of our new topic coverage. We welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

For more about mobile, see How the Mobile Revolution Is Changing Business Communication, an online magazine.

Photo: Blake Patterson