FUZZMAIL OFFERS UNIQUE WAY TO CLARIFY AND AMUSE
Ever since humankind began writing, the
possibility of being misunderstood has existed. This occurs
primarily because when something is written, two basic elements of
communication are being omitted. These two elements are facial
expressions and tonal inflection. When two people communicate with
each other while standing face to face, their facial expressions
typically convey a myriad of direct as well as subtle additions to
what is being verbally spoken at any given moment. Take emotions for
example. You can speak the same words but if it's spoken with a
frown as opposed to a smile, those same words such as "Have a nice
day" can mean something completely different.
Tonal inflection can also produce the same results. Saying "Have a
nice day" with a sarcastic tonality really means you don't want them
to have one.
But when you write "Have a nice day," the recipient can only know
it's true meaning if the previous or subsequent sentences somehow
convey your state of mind when you wrote it. If not, who knows how
you truly meant what you wrote? Perhaps the circumstances before you
received the written communication may help you in identifying what
was really meant. In any case, over the years, additional
stylizations were added to help writers deliver a more accurate
deliverance.
Handwritten documents could be underlined, pressing down harder on
the pen or pencil would make things darker to help convey the mood.
Punctuation also helped. A healthy number of exclamation points
added would make a reader sit up and take notice. Then the
typewritten document appeared on the scene. But words could still be
all capitalized, underscored, even double underscored, boldfaced and
you could still use those extra punctuation marks to help.
Then computers arrived and with them came email, instant messaging
and more.
To that generation of writing we added emoticons. These first were
just clever horizontal arrangements of punctuation marks to make
little smiling faces like :) but people got tired of twisting their
heads sideways. So we got really tiny character-sized graphics of
smiling and frowning faces with tongues sticking out to further help
us more accurately convey what we were trying to type. And while
these continue to help us to deliver more accurate documents today,
one website has added something new and clever in our ongoing
efforts to make sure that what we write is more accurately
understood. It's called Fuzzmail.
Reflect for a moment on how you compose an email to someone. You may
type something only to realize that what you just typed really
doesn't accurately communicate what you're trying to say. So you
backspace to delete that word and type in something you believe to
be better. Or maybe you backspaced it out because you changed your
mind and thought the word might be a tad too strong to use. So you
pick something somewhat milder. But usually it's your first thought
that most accurately communicates what you were thinking at that
moment. But maybe you were just too chicken to leave it there, or
you decided that if you wrote it that person would either fire you
or divorce you or worse, do both. But in fact, if you think about
it, the actual PROCESS of typing that email you just sent might have
truly conveyed to the recipient a better understanding of your state
of mind. But if they could somehow see that you backspaced out the
word "jerk" and replaced it with "sir," wouldn't that let the reader
see the true inner conflict within you and see how you really felt?
Well, that's what Fuzzmail does.
Fuzzmail records the entire process of composing the finished email
you finally deliver and lets the recipient see that entire process.
In fact, they will see the timing of that process as well. And as
everyone knows, timing is everything. So when they see you backspace
over "blithering idiot" and replace it with "What were you thinking"
along with how long it actually took you to backspace over those
words, that alone will truly convey volumes to that person that
would otherwise be missed in an ordinary email. This is the stuff of
bored minds <backspace over that> replace it with "true genius."
So whether it's an email love letter, a note to a business colleague
or whatever (there are numerous examples of this at the Fuzzmail
website), you're going to discover a whole new level of written
communication accuracy that could never have been achieved by
writers of yore. Rejoice in the discovery of this addition to your
arsenal of writing tools. Now go out there and really write what you
mean. And have a nice day!
www.fuzzmail.org
| Craig Crossman is
a McClatchy-Tribune newspaper columnist writing about computers and
technology. He also hosts the nation's longest running nationally syndicated radio talk show on
computers and technology, Computer America, heard on both the Business TalkRadio
Network® and the Lifestyle TalkRadio Network®, weeknights at 10PM Eastern
time. Visit his website at http://www.computeramerica.com |
Jump to:
[ Index of Craig's Columns | Main
Columns Page | Computer America Home Page ]
|