One leading mobile-phone manufacturer used to tout ‘Connectivity’. Are we really more connected with this amazing digital device?
Is this flatter, hotter and crowded world limiting us in our communication?
Have you noticed how colleagues e-mail each other for lunch, even when they are situated next to each other’s cubicle/desk? Do we speak more to people, or send written messages instead? Are we so comfortable with technology to the point that we fear receiving that phone-call, or meeting face-to-face?
It can be absurd how we fail to communicate when it is so easy and simple. Here are some practical approaches on how to be high-tech and high-touch:
1) E-mail a friend you have not seen for a long time.
2) Talk (verbally, not on instant messaging) to a long-distance friend via Skype.
3) Type your text messages (SMS) in full sentences.
4) Only post useful messages on Twitter (I may catch flak for this one).
5) Tell someone how you feel about your concerns and causes (instead of blogging it to random strangers).
6) Arrange to meet friends when you are on holiday (instead of avoiding them).
7) Send handwritten notes instead of digital cards.
8) Personally present actual gifts instead of digital ones.
9) Stop ‘poking’ and start ‘shaking hands’ and ‘embracing’ others.
10)Follow up actual, analog, face-to-face meetings with digital communication.
Read: Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded (2009) and The World Is Flat (2007).
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