Marketing A Healthy Lifestyle

Archive for the ‘Web 2.0’ Category

Talking about communication, let’s stay on the subject for a while. I have to deal with many nationalities in my offline work and communication is the most important factor I deal with on a daily basis. It is imperative that I’m able to contact my clients at any time no matter where they are. Time is of no importance in most cases. Communication, when dealing with people that might not have English as their first language can sometimes be a trying ordeal. Explanations and elaborate at that is more than likely what is needed in those cases. Today with the addition of e-mail as principal way of communicating attachments can mean a lot. A digital picture tells a thousand words becomes a phrase that really means something. Web 2.0 style communication with live videos also becomes a part of the communication that can be used if the client has web access. In those cases the spoken word becomes the important part. If need be the addition of live pictures sometimes makes for a much simpler way of conveying the point of conversation. We see examples like this on youtube and other similar sites. It has become one of the most dominant parts of Web 2.0 style communication and conversations. Exploring and utilizing this avenue of communication will be the future way of marketing online and it already bears some significant results for those that have managed to tap into it.

The basic of e-mail is still the most used for of communication we have in many businesses and it has become the principal way for internal company communication. It has put a whole new language into use and with that comes many new abbreviations. You see a lot of this in chat-rooms and live messaging. Text messaging is getting to the point that you are using words to describe emotions and you also have the ever so popular emoticons. Text in itself is emotionless so these kinds of words and symbols are there to help express emotions.

How does communication going to be in the future? Text messaging and the vocabulary that is developing in this field will continue to develop and tapping into the wireless communication field with marketing concepts is going to be popular. It is already on the table in many ad agencies. Basic web sites with hardly any content will slowly be eliminated in order to un-clutter the Internet. User based websites will be the dominating force on the web. Content will be even more important in the future and I would not be surprised to see more direct access TV style content. It will probably be like a multi layer of TV channels. In certain industries this is already under development. I’m talking about multi layer communication and user channels.

The other day I got this e-mail. It was a guy’s take on effective communication. It brought up one very interesting point amongst many. If you sit down with somebody like a friend or your wife/husband and are trying to have a conversation but can’t seem to get the point across. No matter how hard you try, you’re totally misunderstood. Whatever you are saying is misconstrued and you can’t seem to make any sense to them.

Or is it? The e-mail went on to explain that when you look at communication as “the result you get” which is the essence of this first principle is that it gives you ownership of the interactions with other people.

The communication and also when done like this is fine if you are working at getting and trying too hard to make your self understood in a “web of different explanations”.

Personally I think that you should always ask yourself this one simple question, How can I explain this in one simple way only that makes sense to them?

Staying simple is always the best way. At times we all do it, we make it more difficult than it has to be.

Hey, even here, I’m making it more difficult than it is. Communication and effective communication is when you drive a point home to somebody and they understand the simplicity of a subject that you are talking about. They simply understand you since you explained it using terminology that is simple and right to the point. Effective communication is when you have explained something to somebody and they can explain it back to you making references to your explanation in such a way that you understand what they are saying. You made them understand and re-explain it to you as a confirmation of their understanding. You have full ownership of the communication process that way.  You have now obtained the leverage and this is your beginning only. If you understand this process and can use it regularly you are a good communicator. Listening to some of the best motivational speakers out there can prove my point. They know the process almost by instinct. Maybe not but it’s certainly well done and it takes some practice.   

I see there is a lot of interest in the subject around on the net and think most people really don’t care too much except that it’s a great topic for discussions. Let’s face it; the net is evolving very fast. New ideas and a lot of new technology will shape it even more and faster. Hiding the head in the sand want do you any good. You will be left behind so fast you want even smell the smoke when it passed you by. The name of the game is interactive and community and whatever language you feel like using. Hmm – language, yea the net has it’s own language, haven’t you noticed? Wassup? Lol  – great stuff isn’t it? The most part of it is fun stuff and a lot of abbreviations’ – abbreviations’ for just about anything. Anyhow, Myspace is a great sample of ideas that just exploded into something big. I will get more into Myspace later on as this blog thing gets really going.

Ideas can make for great changes so I like to hear from you with comments for some of this stuff

The World as we know it has been in the process of evolving into a interactive community for some time now. Parts of the world that once was considered untouchable buy regular means are today at your fingertips any time of the day. You can have a communication and interactive conversation with anybody anywhere anytime of the day. So what does it all mean? How would you define it? Where does the term come from?

Many more questions can be asked and this thing can go on forever but I will give my own version of it here.

If you throw a rock in the water and watch the rings that forms and spread out you know what I’m talking about, right? Imagine the reaction you get when you do an action. If you burn your finger, you feel pain and you have a reaction and pull your finger away from the heat. Your finger picked up a signal of heat witch was transmitted to your brain through your nerve endings. The signal bounced back and forth for a while as you continued to feel pain. Again a reaction to an action. Do you see where I’m going with this? The Internet as we once knew it has become a world of it’s own. People are living here and spending their wake moments glued to the screen. Outside world is going on and is slowly getting swallowed up. We have become part of a huge memory bank or database or whatever you want to call it. Soon we will have a microchip implanted in our bodies and be in constant contact with the big memory bank online. The information that is compiled here is so vast that we don’t really have a grasp on it. The whole thing will be like the human body or the water as I talked about earlier. It will all be a tremendous complex information system. Once we are hooked up to it, we don’t really want to let go again. It’s addicting in a way. It has become like a living person of it’s own. Growing and growing, getting more and more information.  I will put a scenario in front of you;

Imagine being borne and at birth having a microprocessor/chip implanted in your body. This chip will be connected to your nerve-endings and brain. It will be your connecting link to the Internet and all the data available through the network of computers that are hooked up to the Internet. In other words, you will be borne and shortly afterwards have instant knowledge through the system. Mankind will no longer know what is the difference between real world and what the computer is feeding into your brain. The computer that is running the system only limits the capabilities you will have. In other words, you will have no limits. You will no longer need a pc, your brain is hooked directly to the system so no need for and mechanical device as slow as a laptop or desktop. When people are talking about web 2.0 and the possibilities in the future, don’t take it lightly as some people seem to do. A few people of the right kind and the proper financial backing, a boy and a girl at a very young age and they are on the way.

I don’t know if they have managed to connect a chip to the body nerve endings yet but if they haven’t, I would think it’s not far off. Imagine the possibilities. You will have a direct user inter-phase between the Internet and your body through some kind of computer.

Well I’m rambling here but it’s interesting isn’t it?