Present yourself well, in person and in the social networking world.

At a recent family gathering, I met an interesting and professional woman. This woman and I are close in age. I sat and spoke to her for nearly an hour and realized how much we had in common. Instantly, we became friends. She seemed to have her head on her shoulders, (so to speak) and came across as a highly motivated individual. I thought she really had her goals and future plans together. We exchanged information after talking for an extended period of time and re-connected just recently via Internet chat. We exchanged messages for literally less than one minute when I realized exactly how weak her writing skills were. Of course, when you are socializing with someone via any social networking site, you tend to use slang and misspellings of words in order to add emphasis, but the longer I became engaged in the computerized conversation, the faster I began to realize that the woman who had presented herself so professionally and orderly in person had a serious weakness when it came to the English language and English usage.

I was astounded to read the words and phrases that kept popping up on the screen during our session. It was as if I was communicating with two completely different people. I realized how incredibly important it is to know your weaknesses and to work to improve them with every opportunity you can. I spent the majority of the time chatting with her trying to decipher what she was trying to say.

As I sit to write this posting, even I must admit that because social networking has become so popular, along with texting, etc., that sometimes communication styles can slip into other aspects of my writing. When you are involved so much with social networking - you tend to absent-mindedly add phrases and acronyms to your writing without even noticing. There have been a number of times that I have accidentally typed "ppl" or "brb" or "ttyl" in place of typing "people" or "be right back", or "talk to you later". As much of a fan I am of several different communication avenues - I am slightly concerned that the younger generations will lose their formal written communication skills as the years pass, along with the teachers who are teaching those students.

The woman I mentioned earlier is in fact a few years older than me. I can say with certainty that I was afforded a slightly better education than she may have received. However, I am a strong believer that all American school systems should increase the amount of English studies. At this point - I must say that I also remember however taking a Spanish language class in high school and a few students who were first generation Americans, (mostly descendants of Mexico) had an equally difficult time succeeding in the Spanish classes. Yes, they spoke fluent Spanish and yes, they also spoke fluent English. The difficulty came with the technical aspects of the language. Anyone can know enough English to get by if they were born in the United States, but when put to a technical test - I think many would struggle. (As an aside, I also believe most Americans would fail the United States citizenship test without time to prepare).

I don't necessarily have a point to this post - other than to say that we need more technical English classes in American schools. But, what came to mind when speaking with the woman mentioned above was this - when people come across your path in life - and you are working your way towards achieving career goals - be careful of how you present yourself, both in person and on "paper". You never know who you might meet one day that might be able to help you get where you're trying to go.