Business Etiquette Tip: Texting (WIinter/Spring 2010)
By Karen Litzinger, MA, LPC

Are you addicted to your Blackberry or IPhone? While protocol for these devices is still forming, most etiquette experts agree on the following courtesy guidelines:Are you addicted to your Blackberry or IPhone? While protocol for these devices is still forming, most etiquette experts agree on the following courtesy guidelines:

• Give priority attention to the people in front of you.
• Turn off or on silent during meals. Only use if it relates to or helps your companions at the table.
• Turn off at meetings. Vibrate is a distraction. Check at breaks. Let meeting leader know in advance if expecting an urgent message.
• Only exception to texting during meetings is if lecture is over 200.
• Redefine what is urgent.
• Don't text and drive.
• Avoid walking and texting. Step out.
• No inappropriate material.

I recommend the advice of Will Schwalbe: "Think of your PDA as a crossword puzzle. Anywhere it's acceptable to work on a crossword puzzle, it's OK to check your PDA."

Inspiration: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucious.

©2009, Litzinger Career Consulting. Permission granted to reprint this article so long as the text and by-line are not changed and reprinted intact with all links made live.
Karen Litzinger, MA, LPC, owner of Litzinger Career Consulting, provides career counseling, job search advising, outplacement consulting, and business etiquette training. More information is available at www.KarensCareerCoaching.com