Five Minutes On: Communication (or lack thereof)
E-mail doesn't work as a communications method when nobody really reads it.
Heck, people can tune you out even when you're talking directly to them.
I'll even admit to doing it now and again myself.
Our minds are not 'hard focus' by nature; like any other multitasking processor, it tends to get distracted by the zillion other signals that come into the system. It's also very true that it takes a little bit of time to comprehend the inputs that are so complex that computers currently don't exist that can recognize color, shape, and uniqueness yet.
Unfortunately, a lot of what we need to work with others (and play with others) is communication. It is only the /lack/ of communication that people tend to notice -- that dead air in the middle of a conversation, the fallout from when you and a colleague miss a rendevous, the thing left behind because both of you thought the other person was going to grab it -- that sort of thing.
Breaking the communication down into discreet packets is one sort of way to get your message heard -- you have to be smaller than the person's attention span. State of the Union addresses? Too long. Catchy bumper sticker phrases? Sure.
Anyway. As an exercise, before speaking, consider shortening phrases down by at least a third, and see what happens.
That's five (some text deleted: three and a half) minutes.
-Denali!
Heck, people can tune you out even when you're talking directly to them.
I'll even admit to doing it now and again myself.
Our minds are not 'hard focus' by nature; like any other multitasking processor, it tends to get distracted by the zillion other signals that come into the system. It's also very true that it takes a little bit of time to comprehend the inputs that are so complex that computers currently don't exist that can recognize color, shape, and uniqueness yet.
Unfortunately, a lot of what we need to work with others (and play with others) is communication. It is only the /lack/ of communication that people tend to notice -- that dead air in the middle of a conversation, the fallout from when you and a colleague miss a rendevous, the thing left behind because both of you thought the other person was going to grab it -- that sort of thing.
Breaking the communication down into discreet packets is one sort of way to get your message heard -- you have to be smaller than the person's attention span. State of the Union addresses? Too long. Catchy bumper sticker phrases? Sure.
Anyway. As an exercise, before speaking, consider shortening phrases down by at least a third, and see what happens.
That's five (some text deleted: three and a half) minutes.
-Denali!