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We still do not communicate well with all the options available

by bernt & torsten

Going back 25 years, we communicated mainly through landline phone calls, with the introduction of the internet and mobile phone we have got more options to communicate with each other. Today we have so many options, email, Skype, WhatsApp, FaceBook, Instagram, a phone call to just mention a few, I’m sharing with you this story that I overheard between my wife and her mother.

The background is that they have tried to get in contact with each other for two weeks, which culminated with that my wife’s mother posted a comment to an unrelated post by my daughter on Facebook. The comment “I tried to get in contact with your Mother she is not answering, can you get her to call me”

Skype

My wife got the message and called her mother on a landline, my wife’s mother said that she could not take the call on the landline as it too expensive. Then my wife’s mother asked why my wife did not have Skype on, my wife said that she could not use Skype on her Chromebook and was not keeping the Skype active on her mobile. Eventually, they settle, to use Skype, so my wife’s mother called my wife on her mobile.

To Connect

The first 10 minutes of the conversation was all about how they have tried to connect with each other using various means of communication tools, my wife’s mother asked my wife why she has not seen her WhatsApp messages, my wife replied that she only gets junkie messages from her mother on the WhatsApp.

Then my wife asked why her mother has not answered to her messages on Facebook, the mother replied I have not had my computer on, then the mother asked why have you not answered my emails, my wife replied that she had some problem with here email last week and on it went.

Moral

The moral of this story is, that it does no matter what tools we have, or how many tools we have, people preference certain tools, they preferred the devices they use, there is an age bias for certain tools. This affects not only you on a personal level, but this is also very much an issue within organizations today.

There are way too many communication tools available today, and many more communication tools will become available, it will be important for organizations to standardize on tools and not have a loose policy about it.