As Another Disruptive Technology Transforms Business Communication Instruction

The history of business communication instruction over the past couple of decades has been one of almost constant change. The first major wave was the digital revolution, replacing much of the print communication of the past with email, instant messaging, web content, and other new forms. Then came social media, which fundamentally redefined the relationship between businesses and their stakeholders. And now comes the third wave, and it’s proving to be every bit as disruptive—and full of exciting possibilities—as the first two.

        Mobile communication, and mobile connectivity in the larger sense, is 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.

The fundamental skills of writing, listening, presenting, and so on will always be essential, of course, but those skills must be executed in a contemporary business context. That’s why Bovée and Thill texts carefully blend technology awareness and skills with basic communication skills and practices. The new coverage of mobile communication is deeply integrated throughout their textbooks, with major new sections in many chapters and important updates in other places, along with a variety of new questions, activities, and cases. Welcome to the wild new world of mobile business communication!

Why Business Communication Instructors Continue to Choose Bovée and Thill

The reasons instructors throughout the world choose texts by Bovée and Thill can be summarized as follows:

• Market-leading innovation. The unique new coverage of mobile communication in this edition is just one example of how for more than three decades, Bovée and Thill texts have pioneered coverage of emerging trends and their implications for business communication. They were the first authors in the field to give in-depth coverage to digital media, then social media, and now mobile communication.
   
• Up-to-date coverage that reflects today’s business communication practices and employer expectations. Technology, globalization, and other forces have dramatically changed the practice of business communication in recent years, even to the point of altering how people read and how messages should be constructed. To prepare students for today’s workplace, the business communication course needs to address contemporary skills, issues, and concepts.
   
• Practical advice informed by deep experience. Beyond the research and presentation of new ideas and tools, Bovée and Thill are among the most active and widely followed users of social media in the entire field of business communication. They don’t just write about new concepts; they have years of hands-on experience with social media, blogging, content curation, search technologies, and other important tools. They are active participants in more than 45 social media sites.
   
• Engaging coverage of real companies and contemporary issues in business communication. Bovée and Thill texts emphasize companies and issues students already know about or are likely to find intriguing. For example, cases in recent editions have addressed location-based social networking (the business communication implications of the FourSquare game app), employer restrictions on social media, and the use of Twitter in the job search process.
   
• Integrated learning. In sharp contrast to texts that tack on coverage of social media and other new topics, Bovée and Thill continually revise their coverage to fully integrate the skills and issues that are important in today’s workplace. This integration is carried through chapter-opening vignettes, chapter content, model documents, end-of-chapter questions, communication cases, and test banks to make sure students practice the skills they’ll need, not just read about them in some anecdotal fashion.

• Added value with unique, free resources for instructors and students. From the groundbreaking Real-Time Updates to Business Communication Headline News to videos specially prepared for instructors, Bovée and Thill adopters can take advantage of an unmatched array of free resources to enhance the classroom experience and keep course content fresh

There has been a revolution in business communication instruction in the past few years. As demonstrated here, the only authors who have fully responded to this revolution are Bovée and Thill. For a wealth of material you'll find useful for teaching a course in business communication, we suggest you review these websites: Google+, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Also see Business Communication Instruction with a Mobile Component.

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