No Shift Key Questions & Doubts

Typing in all lower case in your business communications looks amateurish and reflects a possible lack of education and professionalism. This topic was previously debated on an earlier post about typing in all lower case. Some are of the opinion it is O.K. and that to look “with it” we should mimic the same rather than expect proper written communications. Instead, how about leading by example? The bottom line is you need to capitalize your sentences properly in order to be taken seriously.

Several years ago, a big techie guru, Jerry Yang over on Yahoo!, learned the hard way. Jerry is a very smart, educated guy and one of the leaders in the “Webolution”. Can you believe he notified his employees and shareholders with an e-mail update that Microsoft would not pursue a hostile takeover that was in all lower case?

Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal as well as the reader comments that follow:

Jerry Yang, Meet the Shift Key

One could argue it isn’t a big deal as a few state in the comments after this article. But take a close look at the comments by all the other business men and women who commented. All he had to do was hit the shift key and nothing else would have been drawn into question. Instead by being lazy and/or not realizing the importance of the message he was sending, he opened the door to that lack of effort possibly reflecting on the whole Microhoo drama.

The bottom line is that in business e-mails every detail counts and if you want to be taken seriously that includes using the shift key.