Choose your message wisely

Once you understand the power of the internet, you have the responsibility to choose your message wisely

Technology excites people, they get fired up, they just came up with a thought, an answer to a question, a reaction to an earlier discussion, and they have to post it to their blog, shoot it out as an e-mail, tweet it to their friends.

Is you approach --> Ready --> Fire! --> Aim?

You really should think about what you are firing, and where you are firing.  Do you compose your message right from your brain directly to the tool you are using? 

It is a good idea to open up notepad, and dump your thought into word first, and take a look at what you are about to say.  Think about how your message might impact you, your business, your colleagues.

Whether it is a job interviews, or a sales presentation, people will try to get you to say why you are better than the competition. Be careful! If you can't say it as a positive benefit, don't say it!

 There is no "do over" button.

There is a really big reason for choosing your message wisely, once you send that e-mail, post that page, launch that tweet, your message is forever in cyberspace. 

During a recent coversation with a salesperson he made an unsoliticed negative remark about one of his competitors.  Since it was just  myself and the salesperson present at the time, the remark made was only heard by me.  Whether I agreed with the remark or not, I was taken back by the comment, as I thought it was out of place.  Had this remark been made using some form of social media, it would have circled the globe in a few hours time. 

There are NO secrets on the Internet. Once you put something online it stays there. Even deleting or retracting comments afer they are made, online entries are nearly impossible to completely erase from cybersapce.  Things like silly photos of activities that seemed like  a good idea at the time and off color remarks about your competition may come back to haunt you.

Didn't your mother ever tell you, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all?