Depending on the context,the timing of an external message can be critical. As discussed in Chapter 1, you must ask yourself what is going on around your communication event that will influence how your audience receives your massage. For example, announcing a major layoff at the same time as your company is promoting and advertisting its expensive sponsorship of a major sporting event will cause many employees to be even more resenful than they might have been if the announcement had been better timed. Google’s announcement of its new e-mail product on April 1was certainly questionable timing since it left many thinking it was an April Fool’s joke