by
Jean Purcell
Opine Cafe and Books
I AM PRETTY SURE THAT I miscommunicated in recent emails to other writers whom I respect a lot. What to do? And, shouldn't I "know" better? To the latter question, the answer is "Yes, but," as in "Yes, but let's be honest: Is
knowing the same as
doing?"
Opinari Quarterly has a sidebar about a nerves-unsettling subject for many writers: Marketing. The sidebar reads:
"GOOD MARKETING IS....GOOD COMMUNICATION,
RELIABLE, TIMELY, and EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION... about SOMETHING of VALUE."
I wrote that. And, I capped the words not to shout but to stress the importance of good communication. In this case, the adjective good is essential groundwork to describe the rest: marketing that is reliable, timely, effective ... to communicate about something of value.
A few years ago, I did lots of rewrites to develop that definition, and felt pretty good about it.
However, recently I have not been communicating well with others, I think. How common is this failure?, I now wonder, especially when trying to express "something of value" to people I value even more! Yet, I did it, I'm pretty sure;
I communicated unclearly, mainly because I did it too quickly, and so in the end it was probably an ineffective mess! Rereading my communiques, I can imagine run-amok reactions that ran from puzzlement into uncertainty and landed in confusion...or worse.
What to do? I'm trying to sort things out. I've rethought the changes I communicated, revised the plan, and started over, with queries to discover if my earlier emails did leave a lot lacking. No human can
communicate perfectly or even outstandingly all the time; that's too high a standard to expect. In the end, then, there is one thing we can and must do, which is to try again. Maybe those we've puzzled, confused, or worse will understand. We hope so.
The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it. -
Edward R. Murrow*
It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow *
*Source: Best Quotes
Thanks to: Wikipedia for the Creative Commons-licensed graphic.
Image via Wikipedia
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