Email is the New Offline

Lately I noticed that I refer to email conversations as offline. Definitions must be changing, I thought, especially since we spend so much time online - in real time.

Online, in technology jargon or terminology, indicates something that is connected, while offline something that is dis-connected. Yet...

Consider this

When we spend so much time meeting new people and balancing those encounters with people we may already know in person, our communications flatten a little.

They become broader as they get thinner.

Imagine you have a wallop of dough, as you knead it and start making it wider, it necessarily becomes thinner...

So do conversations

Do we dilute ourselves? Maybe a little. What I observe is that everyone comes to it with their own persona -the authentic self we like to put forth as we spread our own content and impressions. Online can also mean scheduled. With many blogging and now Twitter services, you can post for tomorrow, tonight. 

Have you scheduled posts, for example when you travel, or if you accept guest posts at your blog? It's a great way to provide a spring board for someone else to meet your readers, and for your community to learn from a new point of view.

It's different with email

Email is still very personal - it's in you in box. It's something that comes directly into your space, where you correspond with those friends who have a priority line on your attention. I'm not counting pitches, of course. To date, the good ones have been few and far between.

Your mail inbox is sacred. Many protect themselves from spam by asking you to identify yourself via a software tool. Others have the unsubscribe reflex - they pull the trigger as soon as the email hits the box. All I'm going to say is that the delete key is a beautiful and vibrant member of my keyboard.

Offline on time

It's even harder to find the time to meet in person these days. That's probably why email has become a welcome substitute to making a call. You have a few minutes, want to connect with someone, you fire off an email. But wait, weren't you connected online?

Nice try. There are just so many things that you can say in a much more private setting. Email is that much more private - and if you have credibility and honor - safe haven where the real business gets under way.

That's why it's more important than ever to make sure that your customers and potential contacts have invited you in their inbox. It's their offline world.

Which one do you prefer as a private method to contact you? Direct tweet, phone call, email? Or is it all out in the open?

Comments

[Jocelyn Canfield]

I can spend 7 hours of my day in back and forth email with clients on my graphic design work...can you adjust this, add this new text, rework this logo...and on and on. There are days when I hardly speak to anyone, but my in and out bin totals in the hundreds. I am tremendously productive, but I miss the human interaction. Email is simply not relationship building. Twitter can be about relationships, but realistically my day is too full to develop deep Twitter relationships unless I do it to the exclusion of my in-person relationships. I want phone calls, even if they take a few minutes longer. Most of all I crave face to face interaction. Eye to eye at lunch with warmth and smiles. By tying myself to my computer for so much of my day, I believe that my soul suffers.

[Paul Lopez]

Very useful article. Email is asynchronous, Twitter is more unstructured synchronous communication because you don't have to know the specific handle of who is receiving your information.

[Angela Connor]

You know, I'm really surprised that I don't get more phone calls. It seems to me that there is still something very personal about hearing someone's voice for the first time, particularly if you are already connected elsewhere. When I received a tweet from a follower wanting to set up a time to chat via phone, I was impressed and happy to oblige. I turned around and did the same thing a few weeks later, asking Connie Bensen if I could call her and we ended up talking for well over an hour.That certainly isn't the norm, but a 10 or 15 minute phone conversation is a nice change of pace. I'd like to have more of them.

[Ari Herzog]

I've lately turned to Google Talk and Skype for those personal communications that Twitter doesn't serve for my purposes, and when emailing is too cumbersome.

The problem is when people only use email and aren't on any social media.

[Carolyn Ann]

I often think email has replaced writing a letter. It's not a replacement for a phone call, but is just an another way to communicate.

The social web, I'm not so sure of. The online world seems to be a very disconnected place, a veneer - a plastic veneer - replacing actual interaction. It seems to be getting worse, too.

Twitter might be thought of as a social interaction, but it's not. Not really. It's a cursory contact, perhaps a stilted conversation - but that is not social interaction. Sometimes it seems that the only way to validate an experience is to "share" it, via the instant: your Blackberry and Twitter. You can dispense with contacts as easily as you make them; the standard isn't whether friends are valued, but how many you have. The pithy, the summary replaces thoughtfulness, and the elevator pitch develops meaning.

Perhaps the concept of "social" is changing? Instead of meeting people, it all happens at a distance, and electronic signals replace the handshake and the smile. We still gather - at sports events, at contemporary watering holes, and at other venues. We still value the personal, of being with people, more than we value being alone - but (I think) far too many eagerly seek an electronic tether.

There's a sadness there; I'm not going to think about that! People think the social web is advanced - it isn't. We're in an electronic preschool. But there aren't any teachers to help us figure it all out. It'll be messy once we make it to kindergarten.

Carolyn Ann

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Jocelyn - I think it comes down to having a healthy balance of activities. I do prefer email when it comes to planning and connecting, taking things off the main stream on Twitter, for example. Phone calls have their place to truly catch up, and so have face to face meetings.

@Paul - many online conversations, aside from Twitter when all the people you're messaging are on at the same time, are asynchronous. There is some value to having or taking the time to reply, though.

@Angela - I get tons of phone calls, mostly sales pitches, in the office. So much so, that most of the time I cannot answer a known phone number or I won't be able to get anything else done. Phone conversations have a place in the relationship continuum, I agree. Connie and I have not had a chance to chat, yet. She's an example of a person I'd have no problem making time for.

@Ari - I'm using Skype a lot for international calls and chats. Imagine AT&T's surprise, right? In the end we do find the tools that fit the purpose. And yes, some people are not on any social network so email it is.

@Carolyn Ann - you're onto something about letter writing. I still send hand written cars, but letters are more rare and take longer to write. Another reason why I don't put pen to paper much is that I have the impression I think faster now and that hand writing would slow me down. To your social veneer comment I respond, it depends. Thankfully, I've had the opportunity to meet face to face or in person many of the people I became acquainted with online. That's good. I like your insight about validating an experience only through sharing... being photographed at an event makes you "seen". Your presence is documented, therefore you exist. Perhaps we're missing wisdom and maturity - it is all so new (tools). Another opportunity to reinvent ourselves? Is there a cost?

[Janet Engel]

Very interesting --thanks. There are phone people and then email people. I am an email person for sure. I do find the communication that I do with the most depth is via email, either my work or personal account, or via Facebook directly to someone. Twitter, for me is to capture the most current news, trends and thinking, not so much for relationships-- it just moves way too fast for that. Since using all the platforms I am using, ( work email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, personal email)in addition to the other day to day face to face, I have noticed a need for more "quiet time" where I am truly offline, as it can really fry my brain mentally! I also, think way too fast to allow my own handwriting to catch up to my thoughts...!

[dape]

I like what you have to say about e/mails they tend to get a bit flat after a while I've lately turned to Skype for those personal communications when communicating with other colleagues in our other offices and save the e/mails mainly for the customer base.

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