InfoTrax Systems
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How to Select an Effective Communications Strategyby Leroy Ball In high school, I used to work for my dad's watch repair shop. Customers would sometimes ask, "What's the best watch to buy?" Dad would usually respond with, "What's the best kind of car to own?" His point: you have to know what it is you want first. A railroad engineer's need for a precision timepiece differs from a fashion conscious high-society woman. Although a semi-truck and a sports car both have wheels, their purposes are poles apart. This can be analogous to how the Internet is used to interact with others. There is a scale where we find Peer-to-Peer on one side and Broadcasting (Web Casts) Internet communications on the other. Though the term Peer-to-Peer was made popular with Napster, the "Peers" are really colleagues (or equal) PCs used by regular people to do email, browse the web, do word processing and personal applications*. The purpose in peer to peer is often to 'touch base' with people we know, or make decisions. In this context we use the term Peer-to-Peer to include email, forums, chats and instant messaging. Broadcasting, on the other hand, is more like radio and conferences aired over cyberspace. Broadcast communication is more often used to share information to a wide number of people at the same time. The Internet provides a low cost way to achieve the same purposes we use to achieve through snail mail or live meetings. In thinking about different types of communication, the purpose for communicating is the most important consideration. The next consideration is how much face-to-face like interaction is needed in order to achieve the purpose. Face to face interaction is simultaneous, continuous and constantly changing. If you and I are trying to decide where to go on vacation over the weekend, we need to be able to bounce back and forth between ideas in a dynamic fashion. The farther you get away from face-to-face the fewer nonverbal signals you have to rely on to understand the message. (Some communication scholars believe that 90% of what we understand about a message is nonverbal.) One of the significant differences between face-to-face and computer mediated communication is how dynamic or continuous the interaction can be. There is also a gamut between synchronous and asynchronous communications**, where each of us engages in one form or another - daily. The term synchronous refers to interacting between people and the messages flowing simultaneously in both directions. Asynchronous applies to an interaction where there is a clear distinction between messages being sent, and messages being received - it flows one direction at a time. The closer you are to face-to-face communication over the net, the faster the connection speed and the more expense involved. Now back to the question: what's the best way to communicate over the Internet? You have to know your purpose. If your objective is to disseminate information, then perhaps a web site or e-mail is more appropriate. Yet, if you want to connect with people, build and maintain relationships, and closely monitor your organizations in a personal way, then instant messaging (IM) or e-mail may be more fitting. A forum, like the one found here at MLM.com, is an excellent way to share information with colleagues having common interests. Meetings and conferencing add value in another way. They can intensify effectiveness of educating and training people about products and business opportunities. Either approach can be extremely effective, depending on your goal. Being curious, I made an attempt to visualize this framework and here's what I came up with.
So, I made a crack at overlaying popular Internet communication tools over this framework model to see where they might fit. Here is what I discovered: certain tools lend themselves better to specific requirements. For instance, e-mail is a better fit for prospecting with qualified leads than voice mail, or instant messaging. E-mail messages do not require synchronous communication. However, once your lead is interested, they may attend a WebMeeting to gather more information about the products or business opportunities. WebMeeting's can overlap to both the asynchronous or synchronous quadrants.
As I examine this panoramic lay of the land, I realize every tool evolved out of a specific need to interact - either simultaneously or occurring at different times. We all recognize the advantage of quick access through instant messaging. We can also appreciate having a place for people having a common interest to share information, as we have seen with forums. Take away any technology here and you end up with a void. They are all valued and we need them to work more efficiently. From a technician's perspective, I have a particular appreciation for the varied choices in Internet tools we now have. You may share a similar view. My choice between a pocket watch and a Rolex™, or my choice between a diesel truck and a Porsche® sports car really depend on what I want to do. "The difficulty in life is the choice," says George Moore, from Act IV of "The Bending of the Bough.***" I echo that sentiment. * Bricklin, Dan. (2000). Thoughts on Peer-to-Peer. http://www.bricklin.com/p2p.htm. |
The horizontal axis depicts the spectrum between Internet Peer-to-Peer and Broadcast and the vertical axis describe the gamut between Synchronous and Asynchronous communications. If this model represents the relationship between how we communicate and the range of communication tools we use on the Internet, I wanted to test this theory with the technologies we have available.
The product offered by InfoTrax Systems allows listeners to interact with the host of the program through a one-way chat session. If the host chooses to respond, he or she can announce to the listening audience that so-and-so just asked a question. The host can then choose to read the question to the listeners and respond. The synchronous aspect of a WebMeeting comes into play when they are hosted using a conference bridge. This is analogous to a talk show host with either one or more guests or experts in the topic of discussion.