5 New Communication Technologies To Supplement Email
Every business relies on effective communication with its customers. Communication doesn’t simply convey information, it conjures up trust, builds credibility, stimulates involvement and generates loyalty. But in today’s global, hi-tech, rapidly altering business environment, how do you ensure you’re speaking effectively?
THE BENCHMARK – FACE-TO-FACE
There’s little question that face-to-face communication is the best method for most people. Why? Because of its two-way nature. It’s about dialogue. Listeners aren’t passive participants. When someone talks to us, we ship a steady stream of responses again to them. Some are verbal, however many/most are not. These responses have the power to truly change the message being disseminated by the talker. What’s more, they’ve the power to alter how different listeners’ interpret that message. (Similarly, other listeners have the power to change your interpretation.)
Unfortunately, however, the global nature of enterprise makes it unimaginable to conduct face-to-face meetings for each communication. So what are the alternatives? Specifically, what are the options offered by technology?
EMAIL – THE STARTING POINT
The benefits of e mail are numerous and nicely known, and embrace (but aren’t limited to):
•Email is a wonderful mechanism for distributing info to people. It is fast and value effective.
•It is incredibly convenient – you possibly can readily talk across time zones.
•It provides a useful electronic paper trail.
•It can save a substantial amount of time because most of the fluff surrounding a phone call (the social niceties) are seen as unnecessary in email.
•It allows recipients to read and reply to messages in their very own time.
•The wording, grammar and punctuation in an email may be considered and edited before lastly sending.
But email does have its limitations:
•Its lack of social niceties is a double-edged sword. Without the good thing about other communication cues, it’s generally hard to interpret the tone of an email, and this will make some messages ambiguous.
•It is not ideal for vital communication. For many people, emails aren’t ‘real-time’ communication. We all have that unaddressed email sitting on the bottom of the list. Because emails are really easy to ignore, they’re also simple to forget.
•Ironically, email’s dissemination effectiveness has been one of many major impediments to its communication effectiveness. It’s so easy to send emails – and they’re so nameless – that our inboxes are actually flooded with SPAM. Consequently, emails are seen with some suspicion. It’s sometimes hard to identify legitimate emails, but it is very easy to just hit Delete.
•Because email senders are sometimes geographically (and often culturally) distant from their recipients, they have no immediate visual and aural cues to assist them tailor the message as they type.
But there is no need to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’. Email is a superb solution to many communication needs. And for those it’s ill-equipped to handle, there are newer, more appropriate technologies that are built for the job…
WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES – THE PERFECT SUPPLEMENT
Web 2.0, a time period coined by O’Reilly Media (an American media company) in 2004 refers, to a second-generation of internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in new ways.
Web 2.0 technologies are well defined in www.wikipaedia.org, which means that these sites permit the customers of the sites (members) to create and share content, together with exploring and discussing ideas, opinions, initiatives and issues. Web 2.0 is all about communication. It is the evolution of the web from an countless library of static pages to an countless world of conversations. These pages will be restricted to explicit individuals (eg the executive), or open to all members. The solely difference is that the interplay takes place in cyberspace, and people taking part may be sitting behind a keyboard nearly anywhere on the planet.
Importantly, a reader’s understanding of the message in a Web 2.0 communication is determined, not just by the publisher, but also by the responses (e.g. comments) of the audience. What’s more, the publisher’s actual message tends to be much more fluid as it, too, is knowledgeable by the responses of the audience. In different words, Web 2.0 services are way more like face-to-face conversations than any communication technology before them.
So what are these rising technologies that we needs to be keeping a watch on? The two most notable are ‘Wikis’ and ‘Blogs’. The following definitions are from http://www.wikipedia.org, an online encyclopaedia developed as a wiki.
•Wikis – A wiki is a type of website that enables users to simply add, remove or in any other case edit and change content. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an efficient tool for collaborative authoring. Examples include Wikipedia (wikipedia.com) and wikiwikiweb (http://www.wikiwikiweb.com).
•Blogs – A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a kind of online diary or journal which allows one to voice their opinion on something. Blogs often provide commentary or news and data on a particular subject. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to different blogs, net pages, and other media. Blogs are normally text based, but they can include photographs, movies or audio (podcasting). Blogs will be presented in a method that creates a conversation between users. As an example, see the Sydney Morning Herald travel blog (http://blogs.smh.com.au/lostintransit/).
THE USES OF WEB 2.0
As with face-to-face social gatherings and forums, on-line get togethers appeal to a broad spectrum of participants desperate to engage, entertain, befriend, advise and lecture.
It was reported in The Australian (Tuesday 8 August 2006) that the social computing element of Web 2.0 has not too long ago been embraced by the US Government. The US State Department has started including blogs and different Web 2.0 ideas to deliver public data to citizens. It is also using wiki model services to improve information by allowing small skilled communities to improve advisory services.
The similar article advised that Australia’s leading data advisory body, the Australian Government Information Management Office, had begun experimenting with using blogs, wikis and different Web 2.0 technologies.
As new on-line social networks mushroom, they are becoming increasingly focused on niches, ideally suited to membership based mostly organizations and the NFP sector. Examples of general public social networks embody My Space (http://www.myspace.com), Classmates (http://www.classmates.com) and Bikely (bikely.com).
OTHER USEFUL TECHNOLOGIES
•SMS – Short Message Service (SMS) is a service available on most digital cell phones (and other mobile devices, e.g. a Pocket PC, or often even desktop computers) that allows the sending of brief messages between cellular phones, other handheld devices and even landline telephones.
•Podcast – Podcasting is the tactic of distributing multimedia files, resembling audio or video programs, over the web using syndication feeds, for playback on cellular devices and personal computers.
•Webinars – Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live shows over the internet. In the early years of the internet, the terms “web conferencing” and “computer conferencing” were usually used to consult with group discussions carried out within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has developed to refer specifically to “live” or “synchronous” meetings, whereas the posted message number of discussion is named a “forum”, “message board”, or “bulletin board”. A webinar is a seminar which is carried out over the World Wide Web. It is a sort of web conferencing. In distinction to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one route only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is ‘live’ in the sense that information is conveyed in keeping with an agenda, with a beginning and ending time. In most cases, the presenter might speak over a normal telephone line, pointing out information being introduced on screen, and the viewers can respond over their very own telephones, ideally a speakerphone. Whilst not necessarily considered Web 2.0, Webinars will also be a helpful mechanism for info distribution and discussion amongst membership primarily based organizations and SMS can provide important or pressing confirmations.
CONCLUSION
Email is – and will continue to be – an incredibly helpful and handy communication tool. In fact, with the emergence of latest technologies which are either extra direct, more immediate, or more like face-to-face communication, electronic mail is improved. As businesses supplement their e mail usage with other communication technologies, email will likely be increasingly reserved for those communications to which it’s ideally suited.
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