"Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink." -- Martin Lomasney In a business context, I try to route substantive co

"Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink." -- Martin Lomasney In a business context, I try to route substantive communications through email (or, if internal, through systems like Slack). There's nothing like a searchable corpus to minimize ambiguity, commemorate who said what, and when, and in response to which questions. Likewise, there's a certain kind of project counterparty who inevitably tries to drive substantive communications through phone calls -- specializing in the dreaded dozen-person multi-time-zone conference call, featuring the ever-popular ten-minute parade of welcome tones, "who just joined?", and mystery attendees. These email-avoiders are the ones for whom calls are a tacit means of trying to project power, and ambiguity is a project management feature, not a bug, bound up with their own personal risk management strategy. You probably know the type: when asked a detailed question by email that requires a specific and accountable response, they reply "Let's set up a call. -- Sent from my iPhone". N.B. I like iPhones just fine, but please, turn off that sig.