Comments on: Scaling The Levels Of Social Communication

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:14:32 +0000

Yes I believe there's an opportunity approaching for you to give this a go yourself

By: treypennington

treypennington — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:30:16 +0000

Yep, I especially like that part where you put on a conference, raise money, and pay for me to fly across the ocean and be with you! You've been quite good about that!

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:08:47 +0000

Well let me know where you mulling takes you!I'm not really one for networking events – so best if we just meet up!

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:05:43 +0000

Agreed – a lot of people enjoy hiding behind the tech.But also a lot of people (like ppl who are dyslexc) just don't thrive on the tech.So we need solutions for both!

By: Sue Windley

Sue Windley — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:21:13 +0000

Interesting idea re action as a precious commodity – I will take some time to think that over!! I tend to use time to plan (prioritise?) my actions more carefully, simply because the nature of my business means I will always have more things to do than actual time available to do them all. I certainly agree about turning community into connections – social media has enabled me (at a local level) to network in person with many people I had not met before around Exeter / East Devon. So I promise to say hello in person next time we're at the same networking event!

By: Martin Howitt

Martin Howitt — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:35:55 +0000

absolutely – and I am far more comfortable speaking to you on the phone because I've already met you.I think that, for maybe 50% of people, climbing the communication barrier is a major problem and depersonalising it actually helps reduce the amount they have to psych themselves up to do it. Hence technical people are much more prone to collaborate online (they've been building community software since the internet was invented) and struggle with face to face or phone interactions.You are absolutely right about scaling though: you can't replace body language and collaborating on stuff. That's partly why I did what I did, after all.

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:24:18 +0000

LOLSo yes, each method of communication has it place, and I'm not saying that we should be on the phone all the time.My point is that we must learn to scale in order to build stronger relationships.Consider you and I – our relationship is based upon lunches together, working together, as well commenting and emailing.This doesn't mean we don't do what we're doing now – but it means that our connection is stronger bc we have scaled higher already.

By: Martin Howitt

Martin Howitt — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:18:29 +0000

ok, so I like this model. Where I work you sometimes get enormous email chains that go round in circles and on more than one occasion all it takes to break the cycle is one phone call. But I want also to offer a small challenge: I find talking on the phone quite intimidating. Email allows me to construct an argument, cross bits out, rearrange it. If someone challenges me on the phone, I sometimes struggle because my brain is set up somehow to think more slowly (but maybe deeply) through things.I think all these communication methods have their place and we are, as a species, only just starting to adjust. We've had millenia to adapt to face to face communication and the less immediate stuff has been around for virtually none of that time. Email has been mainstream for 15 years tops. The phone only a century (and that was just for the lucky ones).And now I'm not going to re-read this, move bits around, delete it and then cancel sending it altogether like I too often do…am just going to hit “post”…

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:03:00 +0000

Hey Sue, thanks for the kind words.Yes, time is a very precious commodity – I actually think that Action is the most precious commodity that we have (because I have time to waste in front a laptop watching TV, but I rarely waste my action)When we use this commodity of ACTION, something happens with people-to-people. We find that we connect with people who share the same vision, and we begin to connect.Sure, out of this we need to build deeper connections on a person-to-person to level, which does take time. But because so much relationship can be bulkt “on the job”, we are able to identify who those people are that we will invest more time and effort into.However this is still I think a very idealistic view. It works for me, because I work on project / event basis. Making this bigger requires further thought.The respect you are giving your audience – I think that is good. But it won't get you much return unless you scale up the levels of communication with that audience. Turn your community into connections!

By: Sue Windley

Sue Windley — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:56:56 +0000

Well articulated article, Scott. In this maddeningly rapid world of change we live in, I think the most precious commodity now is time. Person-to-person takes time and effort which is why it is so valuable, yet the majority of us (especially in business) want to reach out to everyone as it's more convenient (and I'm just as guilty as the next person!). My compromise in social media (as my biggest frustration is the prevalence of auto-tweets) is to take the time & effort to write every tweet manually and only retweet what I find to be genuinely interesting because I think my “audience” deserve that level of respect. Am I being too naive or setting an unattainable goal?