Introduction

Hi, DEV people! I'm back with super-awesome news: the Universe has heard my prayers! 🎉 Seriously, I found the coolest idea for all remote people (and not only) around the world.

It's a rather simple but at the same time very deep idea, which many people diligently ignore and don't notice. For a short:

Don't say just "Hello" in chat, describe your question immediately.

Who're interested in details and reasoning, please follow me in this article.

📝 Table of contents

• A few words from the author
• The problem of online communication
• The "No Hello" manifesto
• Let's apply this knowledge
• Online communication productive again!

A few words from the author

Initially, I found a website nohello.com, where the idea itself was described in detail. Next, I started looking for more resources describing such areas for productive communication and found the Russian-edition of original website called neprivet.ru, where more illustrative examples were given.

It inspired me to improve the idea in a more understandable form for everyone. This is what this article is all about.

Also, this article deals only with working correspondence within the company, that has moved to remote work. When communicating with friends or family, this article isn't to be followed! 😎

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🤔 The problem of online communication

How often have you had to wait for a specific question in your work chat room after the phrase "Hello"? I deal with it all the time, because I'm very often the link in the chain of communication in my company.

Usually, it looks like this:

How productive is such communication? Approximately as productive as reading just the title of an article and waiting for the author to finish the other part.

You (or your colleagues) try to be polite without going into problems, as people do when they meet in person. But chat is very different!

People print much slower than they say. Instead of being polite, you make the other person wait until you formulate the question, which leads to a loss of productivity.

Therefore, it's better to do so:

In addition, when you ask a question at once, the possibility of asynchronous interaction is opened. If the person you're talking to is unavailable and you leave before he or she gets back, he or she can still answer the question instead of looking at your "Hello" and thinking about what happened.

Yep, this is the main idea of the "No Hello" manifesto.

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📖 The "No Hello" manifesto

1. Send your question in one clear & understandable message.
2. Describe your question in as much detail as possible.
3. If necessary, split your message into semantic paragraphs.

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✅ Let's apply this knowledge

Okay. Just rewrite the message from Jane Doe, using our new knowledge:

If you read this message from Jane, you will be able to answer faster, because you will immediately begin to think about the question.

On the other hand, if you get this message in, say, a couple of hours, you will have more input data to answer.

It's great, isn't it? 🥳

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👍 Online communication productive again!

Now, if you received a message from a colleague at work that has no semantic value, such as "Hello. Are you here?" or "Hello! There is a question" or "Do you have a minute?"… Just send a link to this article!

P.S.

If you want more articles (like this) on this blog, then post a comment below and subscribe to me. Thanks! 😻

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My main projects that need your help (and stars) 👇

• 🔥 gowebly: A next-generation CLI tool that makes it easy to create amazing web applications with Go on the backend, using htmx, hyperscript or Alpine.js and the most popular CSS frameworks on the frontend.
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Other my small projects: yatr, gosl, json2csv, csv2api.