When many of us entered the business world (myself included), we had only three methods to generate significant personal communications: onsite visits, personal letters and person-to-person phone calls. We were taught that, in order to cement a relationship, we had to meet with our clients in person several times, as well as conduct conversations over the phone and via letters. However, that seems to be less of an expectation with each passing, and more technologically advanced, generation.
As business leaders and marketing communicators in today’s market, how do you choose to communicate with your audience? How do you employ technology to generate meaningful connections? No doubt, the rapid rate at which new technologies are introduced has made these choices more varied and the execution of communication strategies more involved. For example, new applications have generated new ways to communicate: e.g., from the one to the targeted few with posts via Facebook and from the one to the unknown masses with posts on Tweeter. To complicate one-on-one communications further, the ownership of multiple devices (cell phones, iPads, laptops and desktops, to name a few) allows for simultaneous communications from one device to another.
Soon there will be yet another choice in phone communications - Jawbone Thoughts. Click here to view the video. The Thoughts application allows you to record a short voice message and send it to an individual or group of your choice. Individual recipients can then return the communication right away by sharing their own recorded voice messages.
Compare this to the experience many of us share. We attempt to reach someone by phone but find that few people pick up or even place a return call. Instead, we eventually receive a text message – many times identified with trailers such as “sent via Blackberry” – from a device that could have also been used to place a personal call. Developments such as Jawbone Thoughts, with its new way to deliver immediate phone messages, may cause us to ask if we are finally on the way to converting most of our communications to virtual real-time conversations?
Key Point – When we generate communications that only allow for responses that are composed in the absence of an in-person exchange, we automatically factor out the potential for creating synergy. Synergistic solutions, those that are more than their component parts, are rarely formulated unless we have the ability to engage immediately with each other’s ideas, thoughts and emotions.
Share Your Opinion - When it is possible for individuals to hold a phone conversation while texting someone else while following a tweet and/or Facebook stream of conversation, how does that change the dynamics of communications and the nature of connections?
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