My mum was talking to me recently about the problem of organising an activity with a large group of friends when they all use different ways of communicating.
When you have one friend who will only use the house phone, another who likes texting but doesn’t check their e-mails, one who loves e-mails but hasn’t got the hang of Facebook yet, do you have to tailor each message to the various ways in which people receive information?
A large majority of us now use smartphones, and will probably have short cuts to e-mail, Twitter and Facebook all on the home page. It’s great to have so many different communication tools at, literally, the touch of a button, yet it still doesn’t solve the annoying issue of having to use different formats to simply arrange a coffee with some friends.
I thought about how glad I was that it’s simpler in the business world; a good old fashioned phone call and a follow-up e-mail seem to be pretty standard, yet even this is changing. With LinkedIn created specifically for business networking, and Twitter becoming an increasingly popular way of finding new business opportunities, do people now check these inboxes on a regular basis for updates?
I would guess that some people still believe it is good business etiquette to make a phone call first or a formal e-mail, yet some of us would probably find it perfectly acceptable to receive a Tweet as a business introduction. Is there a line to be drawn here? Do we still need a set of certain rules when it comes to communicating with clients and suppliers, or are you considered a Luddite if you don’t embrace the latest development in communications? Personally, my Facebook page is purely for socialising with friends, whereas my Twitter account is used for both friends and businesses, so although I’d welcome a ‘tweet introduction’, I would be put off by a person trying to talk to me about business through Facebook.
Communication tools change rapidly (we used to giggle in disbelief at school when we’d get a Loveheart pack of sweets that said “Fax me”) and it seems unlikely that we’ll get to a point any time soon where we all use the same way of communicating. For now then I’ll just have to keep texting/e-mailing/phoning/Facebook-ing (new verb) people about that cup of coffee…