When I was scheduled to attend a conference in Shanghai a couple of months back, I took a plane. Soon after I returned home and recovered from the jet lag, I got on my bike and rode to the nearby grocery store to pick up some milk. Later, I used the car to pick the kids up from camp.

For these three different journeys, I used three very different vehicles. In some cases, I could have chosen differently - take the car for milk, for example. For the China trip, though, I doubt anything but an Airbus A340 or Boeing 777 would have done the trick.

I tend to view communication in a similar light. Every time I have a message to deliver, I start by thinking about my audience - the destination - and the method I should use - the vehicle - to reach them. Just as it is with my somewhat hackneyed travel analogy, sometimes I have a choice of communication vehicles, while other times the choice may be somewhat narrower.

Regardless, I always start by thinking about the vehicle. It influences how we travel, and it influences how we communicate with each other. The proliferation of new media types makes vehicle choice more critical today than it’s ever been. Make the wrong call and you could find yourself in the messaging equivalent of cycling a high-end mountain bike across the ocean.

We’ll explore vehicles in greater depth in future entries. For now, I hope you’ll take a quick moment to think about the vehicles you use in your day-to-day communication.

Once upon a time, the morning newspaper was our first and most detailed means of consuming the days news. We killed trees to keep on top of local and world news. When we were done, we shoved the yellowing, fraying results into the bottom of the bird cage. We didn’t call it recycling back then.

Today, breaking news no longer comes on paper. Sure, many of us still subscribe to our local rag. It lays out nicely on the kitchen table, and you can’t take a laptop to the beach. Not safely, anyway. Convenience aside, rapidly delivered interactive online media have changed the way we consume content. They’ve also changed the way we communicate. The impact extends far beyond the breakfast table. It changes the way we work, making the modern office a very alien place to people rooted in paper-based memos and, gasp, fax machines.

Whether we’re sending an e-mail to a colleague across the hall, preparing a PowerPoint presentation for company leadership or designing in-store signs for the next sales campaign, we can’t forget the one overriding truth: the Internet has fundamentally changed how we interact with others, and how we absorb and respond to messages.

But what to do about this. Start by knowing which way is up in this chaotically evolving world. Writing for online consumption is a necessarily different process than writing for print. Readers have ever-shorter attention spans. They scroll through a page and hover the mouse pointer over a selection of text, fingers to click on whatever link next tickles their fancy. They don’t have time to read War and Peace. They may not even make it to the War part. Be quick, be decisive, and get to the point. Now.

Speaking of which, we’ll leave the rest for the next entry. We said to keep it short, and that applies to us as well. And we’ll continue the story tomorrow.

Welcome to Words@Work, the new blog by AR Communications. We’ll keep it brief because we know your time is precious. Actually, that’s what this blog is all about: our goal is to help improve our collective ability to communicate in business.

Precise, timely communication delivered via the right media and to the right people can make the difference between business success and business failure. And we’ve all lived the nightmare of ineffective communication, the long and winding e-mails, the endless voicemail messages, the meetings that put everyone to sleep. We’re here to help.

Of course, we can’t do it alone. This blog will involve you as well. We want to know what you think, what has worked for you, and what hasn’t. The Comments link below each entry isn’t just for show: we really want you to use it each and every time you visit. The fun starts now…

Your turn: Please share a brief comment on the worst e-mail message you ever received. Why was it so lousy?