How to Create Business Communications That Get Noticed
Information Overload = Information Overlooked
Overheard at an electronics trade show: “If this is the Information Age, how come nobody knows anything?”
Maybe it’s because nobody’s really listening or reading. We skim e-mails and reports and only listen or read the parts we find personally relevant. The irony here is that there has never before been so much one-way “communication”. We all keep sending, though it’s apparent that nobody really wants to receive. Office communication surveys reveal that, in an ideal business environment, each of us wants to be able to contact anyone – instantly – though we, ourselves, would prefer to remain selectively inaccessible.
The overwhelming speed of information, made possible by the new information technologies, is the single greatest (though not the only) obstacle to real communication in business. That’s because, with so much to read, who has time? I know a senior vice president of a telecommunications firm who claimed to process more than 130 e-mail messages a day. This was in addition to his usual full-day agenda of meetings. His coping strategy was brutally simple: at the end of each day, he skimmed them quickly and responded to none. “If it’s really serious,” he claimed, “somebody always manages to reach me.” Continue Reading »
