7 posts tagged “communications”

Research comes our way via PR Disasters that research done in New South Wales, Australia, shows that audiences do not process words they are seeing and hearing simultaneously very well at all. Supporting graphs, charts, etc., do not seem to create this confusion in the audience's mind. (Link)  "Pioneered at the University of NSW, the research shows the human brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time." And, "'It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.'"

Over at Caffeine Marketing, this myth - branding is primarily a function of communications - has been laid to rest. Essentially, brand building IS a function of all of the Four Ps. The relative weight of each of the Ps will vary product to product and company to company depending upon the nature of the product. 

Fast Company has a good post on an issue that a lot of older companies are facing and that is the communication and style differences between the Boomers who are in control of most of these businesses and the GenX people working for them. FC points out there have always been intergenerational communications problems. Another is the declining formality of the workplace where newer employees are used to dressing down and doing their own thing conflicting with a company dress code or standard.

Part of the communications problems have been previously mentioned on Marketing Canapes. And that has to do with the differences FC, and many others, noted - the current GenX lack of language and face-to-face communications skills compounded by the abbreviations used to speed communications on the devices GenX uses to stay in touch with one another.

FC says both need to adapt to one another. More points are here on Fast Company. 

Fast Company's Expert blog has a great piece on the value of F2F communications - or at least phoning versus txt, IM or email. Here's one of the more salient points: "No matter how instantaneous we think virtual communication is, it is no match for the speed and efficiency of the spoken word. This is not unimportant in a business environment where time has become the most precious commodity. But there is another, even more important benefit: There is an emotional component to speaking that we work to expunge from writing and, let’s be clear, txt, IM and email are writing. Emotional content fosters connections and we lose the ability to connect on an emotional level when we delegate much, if not most, of our communicating to the written forms." 

This "conversation," reported by the New York Times, reads like presubmitted questions, Of course, that fits into the definition of a conversation, but this could be face-to-face, right? Then why not "interview?" Here is an excerpt with some comments:

Q. In effect, are you using the universities to create more demand in the market for your products and services?

A. I think of it as shaping the market for the good of all businesses and society. The more we can bring technology and structured engineering thinking to bear on this increasingly complicated problem, the better off everyone will be. You’re also creating the skills that are more and more required in the 21st  century. (He goes on to give some percentages and further rationalizations -- but does not directly answer the question - the answer being "yes." Otherwise a simple "no" would have sufficed. The question asks for a yes-no answer. So, IBM is in this for the money, what else is new?)

The follow-up question asks what IBM is putting into the pot - answer: $100 million in grants (that includes money), free access to IBM hardware and software (non-money).

Now, check the next question:

Q. Do you offer money in exchange for changes in curricula?

A. Usually we don’t have to offer money. (Does not answer the question, skirts it, but the answer known from above is "yes" and from the lack of a simple, "no" coupled with the use of "usually.") That is the last thing they need from us. (Right, then why the grants in addition to access to hardware and software?) They need real-world information. . . .

Nice to know IBM gives us short, direct and fully-truthful answers.

This link will take you to an article on the Forward Blog concerning British Airways' response to the radiation on the plane crisis that broke this past week. 

Business Week's Magazine should have this article before long - it is dated December 4, 2006. "The perils of email are underestimated," "as few as 50% of users grasp the tone or intent of an e-mail," and "misinterpretation is highest, . . . , when the e-mail comes from a boss" are some of the interesting quotes.