While you’re sitting in a taxi, you could pull out your smart phone and find info on the net, update your Facebook page, Tweet something…and on…and on…
But are you having any sort of quality conversation doing all that at once?
Is all of this “real-time” stuff really doing us any good?
I don’t think we’ve adapted to it fully enough to say yes to those questions.
I mean, can you really, truly have a quality conversation with someone at this current place in time (be honest with yourself)? How many times have you been in a conversation with someone only to hear a variation of the following:
“Can you hold on just a sec, I’ve gotta take this…”
And this is what bothers me. I mean, it’s cool to have these tools at our disposal…but I think the way we’re using those tools at the expense of a quality conversation is irresponsible (and I’m guilty of it as well).
It’s almost like a conveyor belt that just keeps moving even when you turn it off. We have all this time pressure to “cram in” as much technical life as possible into one day…and 24/7 that day just keeps plugging along (people keep Tweeting, Facebook updating etc…).
When do we have time to have truly meaningful conversations anymore?
Why does life have to move so fast? And even more importantly, who said it had to?
I’ve written a sort of “Manifesto” on the topic before, but I’m going to be thinking and writing about this a lot in the coming weeks…and how it has been impacting businesses (because yes, it has). Customer service has gone out the window, profits are suffering, and we blame this economy thing…but what if the economy really had nothing to do with it to begin with?
Maybe it has to do with how we’re truly treating the people who support our businesses.
More to come…
