Mr Pariser argues convincingly that the personalization filters embedded in everyday internet destinations like Google, Facebook and others are limiting what you’re shown so that it agrees with your pre-conceived notions. It’s fascinating, scary, and already happening.
But while this is happening automatically to our search results and news stories, it’s also happening somewhat organically based on how we choose to communicate to one another. By virtue of having so much choice about how to get in touch—and preferences between those choices—it turns out that we’re in danger of living in our own communication bubble, which can be dangerously limiting.
In our parents’ generation, if you wanted to communicate with someone, you had three choices: person-to-person, paper and pen, or the telephone. Social success, and success in business, required some measure of competence across all three.
Compare that with today: how could I get a hold of you? I might choose E-mail, voicemail, conference calling, Instant message (in all its variety), texting, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and the list goes on and on, and grows every day. Even inside the enterprise we’ve got phone, corporate IM, email, face-to-face, company blogs, forums, yammer, and in the case the occasional Paleolithic businesses, pneumatic memo tubes.
It’s a lot of work to keep track of the context, content, and channel of every communication, but such is the world we’re living and working in.
When no channel is clearly best, which one is the right to choose? Unfortunately even this question misses the mark. Using myself as an example, I have some contacts that I have only a peripheral facebook friendship with, others that I chat with on the site every day, some contacts that are off the site entirely, and others that swear by Twitter. I was hosting a party recently and used facebook to invite my guests, only to realize the night of the event that some of my closest friends don’t have accounts, and were excluded from a great night entirely by accident.
Back in the enterprise, as we tackle bigger and trickier problems, teamwork—and by extension group communication—has never been more important. So how do we reconcile everyone’s different communication styles and preferences into a cohesive team effort?
At least a portion of the answer is contextual. If we need an immediate response from someone then we need to use a presence-based communication channel that provides immediacy, typically voice or instant messaging. On the other hand, an instant messaging exchange can quickly get overcomplicated (as can email) so much so that it often makes sense to hop offline and just figure it out in person.
What about gentle reminders? Text messaging? Sharing competitive information? The company blog? Departmental announcements? Email lists? For at least a few of the people in my business circle the best way to get in touch with them is to see where they’re headed from their Facebook or Foursquare check-ins and to corner them in person when they’re in the same physical location.
It’s a lot of work to keep track of the context, content, and channel of every communication, but such is the world we’re living and working in.
Early in my business career I was taught to reach out to your customer seven times in seven different ways. A modern update to reflect the 700 channels we have access to seems to be in the best interests of no one. Instead, we should try to “communicate often enough to be effective without overwhelming,” and recognize that every relationship will have its own sweet spot, and that “all of the above” is a sweet spot for no one.
Optimizing your communication style to fit the preferences of others may be a best practice for the 21st century. Dale Carnegie offered the great advice that you should remember something about everyone you meet, but we also need to remember how they prefer to be communicated with. Slightly more complex, but such is the reality of the modern workplace.
As for me? Even with the overwhelming choice of technology channels, I use an old trick: I leave myself a note about what the person likes best, and try to reach out to them on their own terms. So far so good.