In a private e-mail exchange I speculated that the neo-communicators (specializing in technocom) were becoming a much larger group that than the paleo-communicators (i.e., folks like me).   If I want to communicate with them it will be increasingly on their terms, not mine.

We have, of course, considered this phenomenon — technocom — at several of the annual BLSCI symposia.

The provocation for raising this issue again with you is the article “Does Your Company Have an IT Generation Gap?” from Accenture.  The abstract for this article reads:

“Surrounded by technology all their lives, the newest members of today’s workforce want a big say in the tech tools they need to do their jobs. They also say they want to pick their employers based on the “coolness” of the technology available to them. Those are just some of the challenges that business leaders must respond to now—before the Millennials’ kid brothers and sisters start joining the workforce.”

If you accept the hypothesis I advanced in the beginning of this post, then the force of “coolness” ought to concern you for it portends, as I see it, continued change in communications.  If we, the paleos, are unprepared, then we’re going to be left behind.  And being left behind means declining relevance and value.

To paraphrase a podcast I heard a few days ago, “If you don’t understand what’s going on, hire a nine-year old.”

I sense this, obviously, as an issue of growing significance.  My institution is doing little about it.  What about yours?

I bring this post to your attention because it examines the issue of blogging and writing, all to often written as blogging versus writing as if there was an either/or choice.

It’s worth a read for the useful ideas that we might find ways to pass on to other.

The content aligns well with what has been the major themes of the recent annual symposiums (at least the last two; maybe the last three).

Are we doing anything different?  I don’t mean little things, but big things — things that embody a significant change in communications quality.  Quite frankly, I don’t think I am, and I find this a somewhat humbling, troubling conclusion.  Am I too set in my ways?  Do I lack the capability and capacity?  Am I too worried about trends that are, in the long run, insignificant?

This is the most extreme example I have encountered of the phenomena discussed in last year’s annual symposium.

It’s hard to deny the results of this approach to communications. That is, the needs of the parties in the communication are being satisfied. And, in the end, isn’t that the aim of communications?

That conventions are being changed is, I’m afraid, the inevitable result of the release of new methods amongst significant numbers of people who are unafraid and are motivated to explore Frost’s “road not taken.”

New rules are an irresistible force and we need to find a way, as those who have preceded us have had to do (e.g., consider the developments in communications over the centuries), to come to some accommodation with these new practices.

Transformation in communication will undoubtedly accelerate. This accelerated change and its “tipping points” will lead to miscommunication, the subject of this year’s symposium. Managing change and its attendant outcomes thus becomes critical as “new speak” (I think I picked this up from Orwell.) continually influences our lives.

At the risk of inflaming passions, let me advance the notion that we must be on guard against becoming the Luddites of language.

The last line from the piece:

‘As Professor Shirky puts it, “social software” like e-mail “is not better than face-to-face contact; it’s only better than nothing.”’

Should this, how would this change our approach to teaching communications?

If an objective of our educational system is to produce students who survive, thrive, and make a difference in the world, then we must (as I believe I have argued before) be cognizant of the target environment and make sure that we do all we can do to prepare the student to “make it there.”

The link to the paper is below.

Channels, Audience Needs, and Communications – The Rise of a Idea.pdf 102K

“There’s only one problem with this process: We all speak different “languages.” We assign different meaning to linguistic behaviors such as questioning, apologizing, and being indirect. Result? We misjudge one another—ignoring or outright rejecting someone’s ideas because we’ve decided he lacks competence.”

seems to me to merit some additional thought.

More grist for the communications mill.

My hypothesis is that pattern matching could be an essential tool for communication in the emerging world.

I don’t recall much conversation about visualization and pattern matching in our discussions on communication.

I also draw your attention to the decision tree at the beginning of Dave’s post, not its contents so much as the concept. Perhaps this presents us with a model for organizing discussions or, even, the Symposiums.

The other thought about the decision tree is that if there was a way we could assign frequency and importance of communications to the various links and nodes in the tree, we might develop additional insight into the manner of communications. Maybe Pollard’s idea represents a useful diagnostic for understanding communications within a community.

That may well be what I am observing with the SUNY Maritime Masters blog. The ramp-up in former and current graduate students becoming members of this blog is lower than what I expected.

This brings me to best practice versus popular practice versus what is needed, a theme my students and I have been discussing. Perhaps blogs fall in the popular practice category. I have earlier expressed dissatisfaction regarding tne involvement of business in cac.opony. Maybe that’s true because the blog doesn’t fill business need.

Anyway, we all needed more to think about over the weekend.

After all, an essential element of education is, in my view, the development of knowledge, skill, and experience in working on teams.

If communication has any major outcomes at all, it certainly must be one of fostering collaboration. Indeed, many of the posts on this blog deal with collaboration technologies.

Peter McAfee’s article asks whether we have the right technologies. Perhaps, but I also wonder whether we have the right change management processes in place to provoke and/or incent the use of the technologies.

For me, the catchy quote from McAfee’s article is “While all knowledge workers surveyed used e-mail, 26% felt it was overused in their organization, 21% felt overwhelmed by it and 15% felt it actually diminished their productivity.”

Yikes!

I can definitely relate to the gap in the workplace but the issue I want to bring up is not so an issue of gap between old school and new generation but rather an issue of workplace gap where people are so involved in technology which allows them to do more in less time that often times there is no company spirit or friendly workplace environment. People are getting lazy to be human. Now its too hard to stop at someones desk and talk but most common way is to send an e-mail to person who sits right next to you.

She describes what I consider to be the dark side of technology, the decline in critical social relationships. Furthermore, and perhaps more worrying, is the tendency to believe that if you have shot off an e-mail you have completed your responsibilities with respect to communication. How many times have many of us encountered the phrase; “But I sent you an e-mail?” Or; “Sorry, I did’t see your e-mail?”

Technology has become a convenient scapegoat for our failure to accept the responsibility that communication is more than message flow, it is achieving understanding.

‘Think of all the miscommunications you experience in an average week – and realize that most are with people who share your culture. You can then appreciate how much more complex it is to be an effective communicator in a world where we interact with people in China, India, Latin America, Russia Mideast, etc. who don’t share your cultural norms and business traditions.

…
Different cultural values, beliefs and norms

Every culture has its own set of shared values, beliefs and behavioral norms. For instance, while Americans generally value individualism/independence, focus on time to control the future, tend to be direct, open, honest and practical, other cultures are more concerned with the group’s welfare, respecting the past, people’s rank and status, indirectness and ritual. People’s value of time, deadline, accountability, etiquette when engaging others of differing ages and characteristics, all impact on direct and indirect communications, relationships, decision making, motivation, leadership and organizational structures. Most of us develop our personality and communication styles as we grow up within our culture. But when we interact with people from different cultures, conflicts can occur unless each party is sensitive to the cultural discrepancies and language differences, and adjusts to them. For instance, when doing business with people in India, it’s advisable to be properly attired (wearing non- leather products), avoid beckoning with the palm up, wagging a finger, whistling, winking or pointing one’s feet at a person, and know when and how to use words like “no” and “thank you”.’

It prompts to ask for suggestions as to how we should address these issues in our education and in our businesses.

BLSCI, it seems to me, is a center for members of the Institute, and Baruch faculty and students. The Institute’s BAC (Business Advisory Council) and the Annual Symposium attracts limited involvement from the business community, but certainly the claim cannot be made that BLSCI is a center for the business community.

My sense is that BLSCI and the business community are missing out on a relationship of potentially significant mutual value. This is, of course, a hypothesis. One might argue that the somewhat low level of business involvement disproves the hypothesis.

I’m not so easily persuaded.

I’ve been noodling on this notion for some time and want to raise it as a discussion topic.