It was a little more than three hundred years ago when the only way of communicating with each other was face to face or with elaborate handwriting. In the late 1600s, the United States Post Office was created and now people could mail letters to each other, even though it would take a long time to get to each other.
In the past, we usually communicated to each other face to face. The business was done at lunch meetings and we flew or drove to meet our clients in person. In this way, we felt we really knew each other and could maintain our business relationship.
Fast forward to today, and you can surely see the benefits of the advancement of our communications with the emergence of the internet and mobile technology and this will only continue to grow.
There are good benefits as well as problems that come from this advancement, but whether we like it or not, we all must learn to use the new technologies well if we want to keep up and communicate with others.
Obviously, the introduction of the new technologies, including; cell phones, the ability to text, social media outlets such as Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter has altered the way we communicate with each other greatly as well as the speed at which that communication takes place.
An additional problem the technology has brought upon us is the ability to use it anywhere. I am sure you have all experienced meeting someone for the first time, only to have them be immersed in their cell phone, talking, texting, or emailing on it.
This exasperates the problem because of the constant interruptions making it all but impossible to have real communication with each other. Even the face time that we supposedly have is not really quality face time because it is a continually distracted face time.
In the end, there really is no substitute for real live communication between two or more people. However, if the user of the technology controls his use of it well, he can reap the benefits of it without causing or allowing interruptions and/or distractions to enter into his conversations making the one he’s in that much more effective.
Implement a system where you put importance on each one of your communications, whether it is a conversation over the phone, in person, a meeting, a seminar, event, etc. by not allowing any distraction or disruption to occur during each of your communications.
Insist on this with others as well, and get it being used within your entire organization for more effective communication and overall productivity.
