OK, now there's a cool, self-reflexive thing to have happen &emdash; I have come back to edit this post a day later, and now the Blogger system has kindly let me back into the title field.
If I had been speaking, it would have been like stopping in the middle of a sentence, then having suddenly been triggered to continue speaking a day later - the software has, in effect, allowed me to complete my thought...scary, or maybe just for me who likely thinks about these things far too often for the average bear.
It also means that some of my rantings below are a tad deflated, I guess. But maybe you'll find something interesting nonetheless in my fatigue-inspired rambling.
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[July 10 original post]
OK - first I must say there's been a technical difficulty: I began to write the title, and was then kicked out of the Title box, unable to click into it. Grrrr. Just shows how 'emancipating technology' sometimes traps us into saying things we didn't mean to.
I wrote a paper once on how the reliance on e-mail communication for a decision-making process could sabotage even good communicators' best efforts. People just aren't responding spontaneously to one another in an authentic two-way encounter when they use e-mail. In fact, I'd argue that e-mail is often the tool of choice precisely in those situations where you really just want people to hear and respond to your message at a later point.
But when it comes to potential or actual sensitive issues, it was easy to misunderstand each other's intentions in a group e-mail exchange. It was then that we'd resort to spending the money on long-distance calls.
Communication is threaded through so many of our experiences - and clearly, by having this blog, I spend a lot of time thinking about it.
Agape in wonder at the most primitive of code systems
This weekend, with the Toronto-area weather even more humid by this time than normal (and with the irony not escaping us), my husband and I watched Live Earth. As cynical politically as I might be about this event - this ain't the forum for it, I don't think - I was still in childlike awe of all the communication vehicles that had to converge on this event before it happened, and all those that were being used to deliver it to us.
I am old enough to clearly remember watching Live Aid some 20 years ago. But then, we didn't also have the option to watch it on computers (what, those things in Star Trek?), telephones and portable screens of all sizes; or have special content transmitted to us through the data lines across the world via the Internet.
But more striking still to me was the little theme that bookended the broadcasts before and after commercials -- no, not the Madonna song (not nearly one of her most clever, IMHO) -- it was the use of the SOS and Morse Code.
Imagine, before all of the stuff we use now: a simple . . . - - - . . . (dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot) conveyed a piercing urgency to those alert to the those needing saving via the most elementary of early airwaves. Again without getting too political, I have less use for many other legacies the military has left us than I have for such a brilliant, pure way of transmitting only the most needed information. I wish I could write as well as Morse spoke code.
The first few times, it sounded like a song. But then I saw the displayed text as above. Wow! Am I the only one who still finds this communication system just stunning?!
OK, so onto the title topic...
So I'm feeling guilty for missing a week with my blog. And, for being lazy in the last post and not adding a photo.
Hang in there with me, all 2.67 of you. I plan to give CTEM (like my nifty acronym?) a facelift soon. Be well until then, and come back again.
1 comment:
I definately agree with the challenges of email in mass communication situations. I feel that this is a case where technology has developed at a much faster speed than our social skills and we are scrambling to catch up and learn proper "email politics." I've learned in some subtle and not so subtle ways that people will often take offence to being "bcc'ed" in an email, when the should have been "cc'ed" or vice versa. It's all very sneaky!
There's also the issue of knowing whether or not your message has been received. I often find myself in situations where email goes unanswered and I'm left pondering if the email got lost in cyber space, or the other party simply deleted it!! Again, another problem we could avoid if we went back to the archaic phone!
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