Monday we talked about the influence of texting on effective communication skills.  Today I’d like to give you some links to articles I’ve written that shed a bit more light on the subject:

Communication Technology Doesn’t Replace Communication Skill!

My generation has gone from ABC, NBC and CBS to Cable TV, CDroms and DVDs. We have lived through the biggest technological advancements in history. We can now communicate with people around the world through cell phones, email, voicemail, videomail …and we can see political events unfolding as they happen! The internet wasn’t fast enough for us so we now have DSL and Cable that are 50x faster than the modems of two years ago! Computers weren’t portable enough so we now have laptops and PDAs. The technological world is obsessed with making communication technology faster, smaller and more powerful.

With so many ways to communicate, we are the most connected society that ever lived! So…what’s the name of your neighbor who lives three houses down from you? When was the last time you sat around the dinner table and had a good, old-fashioned conversation? How often do you feel ill-prepared to discuss important issues with your children? Is there a family member or business associate you are avoiding because you don’t know how to handle a delicate situation? How many times have you felt ineffective in getting your point across to others?  (Click here to read the rest of this article.)

Tech is a Wonderful Thing…Until it Isn’t (Excerpt):

Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  So what’s a techno communicator to do?  Well, since I am now well versed in the art of communicating when technology burps, I’ll share some tips with you.

1. If you know your computer is having some issues, when you are able, put out a message to your Yahoo group or friend or Facebook page letting folks know.  When they don’t hear from you, they’ll have an inkling that your Methuselah is down with a serious case of e-Altzheimer’s.

2. If you know a friend is waiting for an email from you that you can’t get through, take a few minutes to call and let her know that she’ll be waiting a wee bit longer.

3. If you are having an email issue but do not have a phone number for the person, you can look it up on the web (provided that is still working of course!).  I once had an issue getting an email to a small business owner.  I didn’t know her well enough to have her phone number but I knew the name of her business.  I Googled and found her website, looked up her contact page where I found her phone number.  (Click here to read the entire article.)

How to Keep Professional When Technology Burps: (Excerpt)

Your first instinct is to PANIC and that makes dialing back into the podcast and remaining calm and positive and professional more difficult.  What to do?

* Keep going!
The Show Must Go On!  Before I switched my major to Speech Communication, I was a Voice Major in the Music Department.  At the end of the semester you give a recital where you sing a selection from the pieces you have been learning for an audience made up of the professors from the Voice Department.  Most of your grade rests with this performance.  I sang in French, Italian, Latin and even one in English!  I had no idea what I was saying which made learning the verses more difficult.

During the last song of the recital, I stood in front of the piano with my hands at my sides and my long gown on singing verse one.  I was doing well.  I didn’t crack on the high part and I looked the part of the diva!  Then tragedy struck.  As I came to the end of verse one, I began to realize that I had forgotten verse two!  Thinking it would come to me, I kept calm and continued singing but alas the words to verse two escaped my memory.  I decided to sing verse one again.  Surely I would remember verse three by the time I got to the end!  Well, no.  By the time I was nearing the end of what should have been verse two, I had no recollection of verse three and so began my third rendition of verse one!  I think there might have been four verses in this piece.  Each and every time I repeated verse one.

If you think the music professors at Cal. State University Northridge might not have noticed, you would be wrong!  This was a popular recital piece and they knew it well as they had heard it all week from my fellow voice majors in varying keys.  My grade?  “A”!  Why?  They were impressed with the way in which I handled the situation and concluded that most in the audience would not have known this piece may not even have noticed something was amiss!  Remember, it’s all in the presentation!  (Click here to read the rest of the article.)

See you on Friday for an Historic Communication Friday Funny YouTube video!

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