21st Century Communication Trends

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” Joseph Priestley

Hey its 2007! Who bothers to write a letter, put it into an envelope, stick some stamps and then drop it to a letterbox? At least I don’t. Gone those days when I people used to wait for the postman to deliver letters from our nearest and dearest one. Now we just do is dial up the number and call. What could be simpler than that? If we do not feel generous then just write an email or IM. That’s the generic picture of 21^st century communication trends. The magic touch of technology is everywhere.

21^st century communication trends can also be seen in workplaces. People no longer send memo or notes from desk to desk, instead they send email, instant message. As I pointed out in my previous blog that fewer people actually meet face to face for a team project. Instead, they rely on various modern technologies such as email, intranet, VPN, net-meeting, video-conference and various customized team suit applications depending on the requirement. These kinds of technology not only help in faster communication but also reduce the need of paperwork. Boeing designed its flagship aircraft Boeing 777 without any paperwork. The 777 was the first airplane to be completely designed with computers, which insured the internal consistency of its parts. Using computer-assisted design and manufacturing software, Boeing engineers were able to take their numerically-controlled machine tool settings directly from their plans.

Another interesting development is CEO Blog. This is a great communication tool which helps the CEOs to put forward their opinions about things, ideas and public relations. As Sun Microsystems COO Jonathan Schwartz says:

There’s no fundamental difference between giving a keynote speech in Shanghai in front of 30,000 people and doing a blog read by several million people.

The trend of blogging CEOs and other high level executives has been taken up with such fervor that an international CEO Bloggers’ Club has been started especially for such corporate bloggers. In fact people started ranking these CEO Blogs.

Time change, people change so do technology. Since the internet became public in 1995, communication technology has changed the way we communicate. What may seem advanced technology today is bound to become obsolete tomorrow. It’s just a matter of time. But at the end of the day I do agree with the fact that the more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.