Does Texting Blur The Lines Of Professionalism?

Texting is a simple, quick way to communicate.  But some businesses say it's getting the job done.
   
Over the past five years, the instant technology has evolved and is now changing the way the corporate world operates.

While working on his latest project, Walter Portz, the owner of Studio Blu, can't get through a few minutes without his phone going off.

But that's not a personal call or text he is taking while at work, these days its likely to be work related.

"In the last three to four years, it has definitely started to change. Just the kind of constant contact you have with people and the inability to turn that off.  Like pretty much when someone thinks of a question they can text it to you or email it to you," Portz said.

This can be a good and bad thing for Portz.

"If it's something important or urgent, like we have clients sending us image numbers for a project or scheduling dates I really like to as much as possible to funnel that to email," Portz said.

Brian Brua works with technology everyday as the owner of Fused Interactive, and he agrees with Portz; there is a time and a place.

"If it's something complex, it really deserves to be written out in an email or discussed over the phone or just a good old fashioned face-to-face chat. Whereas if it's something quick and urgent, it definitely fits the text message model," Brua said.

While this is becoming even more popular among businesses, it's important to lay out your businesses lines to a client so text messaging isn't being abused.

"I think that text messaging could be abused easily.  Everybody knows that the phone is lying on my night stand or in my pocket so they almost expect me to answer within a matter of minutes," Brua said.

"I think it's great to be able to be in better contact with your clients, as far as ownership of a business it's harder to keep track of everything that's going on," Portz said.