Everything is Personal

Geoff Livingston just raised the question on Twitter that it's not really about the conversation. Look for his post on this next Monday. It will be good, promise. I question the term conversation as well. Much of the time we live in our own heads and very few can practice the art of listening. Why? Because everything is personal.

Take the test when you are reading or listening to someone else. How quiet is your internal environment? I'm not talking about your getting ready to reply or rebut as it may be. Just the act itself of making your self still and present to the other. How much of the other person are you taking in and appreciating? Not to be confused with appraising, mind you. It may be a subtle difference, and it can speak volumes without saying a word.

When you offer others participation in a project, who are you trying to make look good? Check in with yourself for a moment.

This conversation, this space where people exchange information. Is it really a place where they come together? My friend Peter offered a beautiful image when we last talked about the term conversation being overused a few months back. He said:

[...] when the utility of conversation is spent - or we have become impatient with it (the notion that conversation is over used ?) it will fall out of fashion.

But conversation will continue. We will talk together until I no longer hear my own voice in your words. Perhaps that what you mean by coming together.

[...] perhaps the way we interact with blogs helps us to understand what happens in a conversation. It just slows everything down for long enough to watch yourself.

As I take in your responses to the thoughts and analysis offered here - a gift for which I am very grateful - I verify how much of what Peter taught me with that image I absorbed. And carry that thought when I visit with other writers. In my own personal way.

There are a couple of conversations worthy of your time this week. Both are special because of the degree of care the authors have put into listening from the post and continuing that listening in the comments. Is this how you do social media? Is this how one does social media?

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Is customer service losing its touch? Asks Ted Mininni at MarketingProfs Daily Fix. Mike Ashworth from the UK comments that "the problems stem from the many functions of a company e.g. sales, marketing, finance, customer service... often operating completely independently of each other, sometimes with conflicting goals too." Mike is onto something.

My take is that the fist community a company has is made of its employees. The first customer each employee has is another employee, a colleague. Take it from there and you will do what is right.

To Ted's question "Why do you think companies invest so much in marketing and advertising and then fall down when the customer does come to them to purchase products or services?" I say - it's not personal enough. What's your response?

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Is inconsistency the new mass media? Asks Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation. Can inconsistency ever, really, become the new consistency? Mitch adds that creating consistently great content, establishing routines, and creating a reputation may be products of consistency. Your readers are your customers. They will take it personally. And so they should. Their lens is the one they use to take in your information.

My departure on his topic is that inconsistency is the new mass treatment. Ideas are generally the superlatives today - greater, bigger, better, more grandiose; sometimes even collectively superb. Then there is the execution.

How do you translate the idea into form? It takes many skills - the ability to communicate and articulate it complete with vision to sell it. Yet all this needs to leave enough room for the people who are implementing that idea to infuse it with their own vision and personality. What's your take on inconsistency?

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Everything is personal. Nobody can get behind your eyeballs and see the world as you are. I'm interested in learning what you see.

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Wow, I hope I can live up to the hype. What my thoughts are is that conversation is a process towards personal engagement, just like co-creation and crowd sourcing. Social media's true end result is not the over discussed conversations that everyone seems to cite as the primary reason to engage in social media. It's a psychotic, rabid fan base that touts your good tidings.

[Geoff Livingston]

Oh and if that's the true end result of conversation, than you have succeeded because you are tremendously popular amongst your fans. Including me.

[Joanna Young]

I know you're the conversation agent but I guess I prefer the concept of connection over conversation. Conversation can be noisy, superficial as well as thoughtful, engaging, inspiring. I like conversations that lead to connections - deep, unexpected, perplexing, wonderful, intriguing, connecting you to clients, new business partners, writing companions, friends.

Listening is a precursor to that though, and I know that lies at the heart of your definition of conversation. You taught me to listen on Twitter, and that changed the way I experience it - to tune in, wait, notice, and then join in at the point you know you can make a connection.

Joanna

[David Tillinger]

I think conversation in the social media context has gone beyond the actual meaning of the word and become more of a buzzword for the medium. In the social media context, conversation is no longer just two people talking, but rather it is a name that has been adopted for participation in social media.

For example, to the right of the comment box I am typing in, there is an ad showcaseing the book The Art of Conversation. My understanding of the book is that it contains various social media authors discussing social media. The same with Joseph Jaffe's great book Join the Conversation. The term conversation has gone past just being two people talking to a blanket term for the interaction among all of us in social media.

Is it overused? Not when looked at within the context of the use I described above. It has become a term like internet or social media which describes a particular community as opposed to a particular action. Saying it is overused at this point would be like saying social media or blogger is overused.

[Dion Hughes]

It would be a shame if the people leading the 'conversation' charge became tired of the word or frustrated with people taking liberties with its definition. If marketers had seen communications as conversation from the beginning, the previous century would have seen a very different form of communications - not intrusive, not insulting, not condescending.
seize the opportunity that the concept of conversation gives to all of us. it will remake what we do, and repair much of the damage we have done.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Hello everyone, forgive my tardiness to this excellent conversation.

@Geoff - there is no doubt in my mind that you will have an articulate and smart presentation of your thinking. Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot to me. Social media, as I said before, is the room in which you hold the conversation. It's still about your products and services - and the experience of you while delivering what you do.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Joanna:

I challenge my own terminology all the time. So you should ;-) I've enjoyed all the connections made on Twitter and I know that you have, too. Richard at DELL would say stop thinking about what you can get out of it and start just participating and you will learn how much it does for you. I concur.

[Valeria Maltoni]

David:

A long, long time ago I wrote a post here about "Conversation as Connection". It's all still applicable today - regardless of the buzz speak and sexy talk. People need to connect with others. Period.

Yes, conversation has become a way to describe the dynamics of social media. Because they are dynamics and we are still human, even online (shocking as it may be;-)

What I found interesting is that you all latched onto each other's comments rather than the questions I posed in the post. This exemplifies how the topic and ideas we exchange depend on who shows up - as it should be!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Dion:

Much of the vocabulary we use in PR (some do anyway) is deceptive and unnecessary. Think about the idea embedded in "spin". Then think about the vocabulary of screenplay writing - point of view. Isn't that much more honest, much closer to reality?

Everything is personal, so POV is how we articulate what we see and know. Nothing wrong with that. What is the truth? It lies somewhere out there, in a space between you and me.

There will alway be opportunists who fashion themselves as the "expert" in the latest buzz thing. In the previous century they won by sheer will - willing to do what it took. Luckily, today it takes something else entirely.

[David Tillinger]

Valeria,

You could in fact argue that "The Conversation" is the sum total of all the individual conversations. It's become a way for us all to connect and communicate and to describe those conversations en masse.

[Carolyn Ann]

Whoa! The original Conversation Agent, questioning the nature of conversation? :-) (Not really - but you did come awful close!)

Conversations can be had pretty much anywhere; I've had them on the side of a mountain (the other guy *was* wearing a safety harness), and in crowded bars. But they always involve interaction: Twitter isn't interaction, it's responding. (But then again, I think you know how I feel about Twitter.)

I'm rambling now: when I thought about your question about internal quietness, I thought of motorcycling. You have to be quiet, in your mind, when you're on a bike - it's quite hazardous to your health and general wellbeing if you're still fuming about the row with the boss, the wife, or whomever. But when I listen to my dearly beloved - I'm thinking of what she is saying. (And maybe reading an email, but we'll keep that a secret. :-) )

The conversation you describe is not the typical conversation of participants; it is the effort to have a conversation, the effort required to have a conversation, with those with whom we do business with. And yes, customer service lost touch with the consumer many years ago (I worked in C.S. for a major bank; oy, the horror stories I could tell!), and when did "official" inconsistency become news? :-) Heck - even that doyen of doing good (yeah, right), Google is inconsistent; it evades the questions posed by customer service, and consistency - rather than answer them. It's not original in this.

I do have to take umbrage with Mr Livingstone: you didn't "hype" his work; you simply praised it, and advertized a forthcoming work from him. Asserting you "hyped" it is, well - it's not my blog, but can I be offended on your behalf? And your fans are anything but "rabid"! I am a fan, and I most assuredly am not rabid. (And I would know. That was scare I care not to discuss.)

Carolyn Ann

[Valeria Maltoni]

@David - The current use has been taken as a symbol of the dynamics we seek and observe.

@Carolyn Ann - I like to question assumptions and inquire about what we perceive as reality. As I did in my post today ;-) Well, intent is often what matters, isn't it? Not intention, mind you - they can be two separate things. People use terminology that projects how they process things. It's information about them. Customer service being in trouble is not news anymore (unfortunately), demonstrating good customer conversation dynamics in the comments is worthy of note. I smiled at the contradiction of being inconsistently consistent in the other post. Then again, we all live with our own. As for riding in silence, that can be such a filling experience. Sometimes I think we talk out of the sheer desire to hear our own voice.