Are you on the Right Channel?

What was the last movie you watched?

Where did you watch it?

How did you watch it?

What price did you pay?

How did you share your thoughts on it afterwards?

What else were you doing while you were watching it?

Who else was with you?

If I asked you these same questions 10, 20 or 30 years ago, it’s likely that nearly every answer would be different...in every time period.

Substitute the words movie you watched with just about anything else to appreciate technology’s impact on our daily lives.

What does this mean for us from a communication perspective at work?

Thirty years ago, we spoke on the phone, sent faxes, pinned memos on bulletin boards and flew in to attend meetings face to face.

Twenty years ago, we spoke on the phone, sent more emails than faxes, posted on the intranet and telephone conferenced sometimes instead of attending the meeting in person.

Ten years ago, we sent emails and text messages, began posting on social media and video conferenced more.

What about now? Many use Slack, Social Media and Zoom.

These technological advances both help and hinder our ability to communicate effectively. Many of us are challenging our communication defaults to remain effective communicators. When figuring out the best channel to use in any given opportunity, it's helpful to prioritize our communication objective and our audiences’ preferences over our preferred method.

Maybe it’s more 2way communication and less 1way…or the other way around.

Maybe it’s more messaging and less emailing ….or the other way around.

Maybe it’s more video messages and less written ones…..or the other way around.

Ultimately, it's not about our preferences (the sender), it's about theirs (the receiver).

What do you think...are you using the right channels?