By Denise Hayman-Loa, CEO, Carii, Inc.
There is plenty of content available on the internet these days, and plenty of quick likes, cat photos and pictures of dinner. What is more valuable though, and not always as evident, is a true conversation, and one with quality for all involved.
My entire career was spent in and around financial services firms, starting in 1980 at Salomon Brothers, which was a pretty rough and tumble male environment at that time. I found that the key to being taken seriously and treated as an equal, which I do feel that I was, was all about having quality conversations. I was careful to do my homework and have valid content to share, at the right level of detail, and in the right context. The key then was to really add value to a conversation – to listen carefully and have a meaningful response. I think that is still true for men and women today – whether in person, on the phone, in email or in social conversation.
So first, how do we define conversation? There are a number of interesting variations:
“the informal exchange of ideas by spoken words”
“an informal talk involving two people or a small group of people” or my personal favorite:
“A conversation occurs when people talk to each other. The noun conversation comes from the Old French word of the same spelling, meaning “manner of conducting oneself in the world”.” So how do we want to conduct ourselves?
And how about defining Quality? Quality is an amorphous term, with many different perspectives and contexts and my favorite “you will know it when you see it”. That said, there are some good suggestions. An Arts Council of England blog on Continuing the Quality Conversation had good pointers for quality:
· Striving for excellence
· Emphasizing authenticity
· Being inspiring and engaging
Quality conversations are more a mind-set – they can happen anywhere and on any medium. Yet certain environments encourage them. Hard to have a meaningful conversation on the subway or in a mall, but it is amazing how conducive a long car ride or a long ski lift ride can be to an open authentic conversation with a recalcitrant teen.
In the online space there are similar analogies. Twitter is great for quick connections and highlights but it is more like a crowded subway. Facebook is great for sharing personal snippets and for quick likes, but is more like a mall, and is an unlikely spot for sharing thoughtful ideas. LinkedIn has pockets of thoughtfulness, and many people trying to make it work that way for them, but it is quite a formal environment much more conducive to job seekers and professional contacts.
There are numerous stories of people connecting with each other and sharing ideas, insights and yes, conversations, via various internet based methods and platforms. I have people I have only met online who I feel very close to – and would probably never have met otherwise. These conversations – in order to have that kind of relationship meaning – by their nature need to be of a quality that is authentic, inspired and engaging.
Conversation has been a focus for years – and it is fascinating to look back in time to gain perspective:
Napoleon’s biographer said: “He learned not so much by reading as by conversation.”
Daniel Webster told Charles Sumner: “Converse, converse, converse with living men, face to face and mind to mind – that is one of the best sources of knowledge.” Of course nowadays we would make some obvious edits to that phrase! But the meaning is still very valid. Especially the “mind to mind” part, which carries over perfectly to the online world.
And in 1973, people despaired that conversation was becoming difficult because of the noise of the TV and the radio! And a young girl wrote to Ann Landers that the boy she was dating was so dull and couldn’t hold a conversation at all! Ann suggested that the boy read some newspapers and get educated.
So we are not alone…..nor is our current situation new, it has just been magnified at a global level thanks to the advent and broad acceptance of social communications.
And clearly there is an opportunity to blend the two, to leverage the good aspects of the current social communications world and extend it to quality conversations, and collaborative ones. Real ideas can be shared and enhanced by collaborating through quality conversations across networks of engaged people. Of course this type of engagement needs a positive environment to support it, and a common purpose to drive it.
So here is the next intrinsic movement in collaboration – one in which authentic, quality conversations lead to collaborative insight, thoughts and results! Imagine the potential opportunity to solve real challenges – and create real solutions and actions in the real world.
And it’s more fun that way, too! When there is a continuous flow of quality conversation through an accessible Chat/Messaging platform that is not disjointed like posts on social – all members can participate.
So the age-old human need for meaningful conversation, and the more recent interest in collaboration, have evolved now to the platform we created to support them: Carii – authentic, meaningful collaboration and conversations, leveraging chat/messaging for real-time results!
Where quality conversation and collaboration meet across connected communities.