How To Connect in Our Digital World
The Richness and Complexity of our Digital World
The complexity of this wonderful, digital, social media world has made it easier and at the same time more difficult and time consuming to connect with someone else. How to connect in our digital world just became multi-layered.
Long gone are the days when there were only two means of communications to contend with — snail mail and telephone. How simple it was to know that a phone call or a letter enabled people to communicate. And that face-to-face was the third option.
Today, many of us are faced with numerous electronic communications choices.
There’s e-mail, text messaging, smart phone, LinkedIn, Facebook, Skype and tweets. It is coming to a point where I need to keep a diary of which is the best way to successfully “connect” with the people I know. Or hope there will be an app to do that.
There are those who only communicate through LinkedIn or Facebook. Then there is the email crowd or the Y generation who text message. Growing numbers of the X and Y generation don’t respond to voicemail and only are reachable by email. The latest technology to improve face to face communication has people turning to video via Skype, Google Hangouts or Facetime.
Then there are the digital/social media communication excuses. Do these sound familiar?
- I never got your email.
- My email was down.
- Which email address did you use.
- It must have been caught in my spam filter.
- When did you leave a voicemail – I never got one from you?
- What number did you call?
We are flooded with messages through a maze of media that too often don’t reach their target. We are spending too much time accessing various digital/social media choices instead of accomplishing professional objectives and enjoying life.
I know we can’t go back. Yet I think about how wonderful and simple it was to know that once a day, six days a week, at about the same time every day snail mail arrived. And hearing someone’s voice and the phone was almost as good as being face-to-face.
As a coach, trainer and consultant, Larry Blumsack partners with people and organizations on the move and those already there to accelerate their communication, presentation and speaking skills to be on par with their ambition. Through one-on-one coaching and group training Larry helps leaders and aspiring leaders elevate their presence and communication skills to influence more people, sell more products-services-ideas and inspire others more successfully than they ever imagined.
Larry is the bestselling author of Face-to-Face is The Ultimate Social Media and founder of Zoka Institute and Zoka Training®. Zoka Training® — Mind/Voice/Body/Mindfulness in sync — is the result of Larry’s 45 years as a coach, acting teacher, actor, voice-over artist, theater and TV director/producer, radio & TV commentator and show host, speaker, trainer, serial entrepreneur, and syndicated columnist. Larry was a founding member of the theater department at Northeastern University.
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