It is easy to forget the person on the other side of the internet is human.
It is easy to pretend you are tweeting with an imaginary person you’ve never met — because it is very likely you never have met. When you add a comment to a blog post, it is easy to write emotionless. When you record a video, it is easy to avoid looking at the lens.
It is also easy to apologize to yourself.
There are two easy ways to show your humanity and they involve using other forms of media to socialize.
1. Pick up the telephone.
Reach out and call someone.
You start the conversation by saying hi. The rest is easy. Dialogue will flow if you are yourself; especially if you two shared a private moment prior to the call. Maybe you responded to a tweeted joke or you wrote something memorable on a bulletin board.
Follow Irene Koehler and Sid Burgess who understand the value of making a phone call completely out of the blue.
2. Send a letter.
Everyone can be reached by postal delivery, so why do you shy from sending letters? Why shy from asking to receive them?
When Dan Slee asked for addresses to send vacation postcards, I got one.
When I solicited my tweeps to write me via paper, Bryant Adams replied.
It is easy to know how to contact someone.
It is easier to actually do it.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, absolutely to all of this.
It’s always worth connecting offline. And spending time away from tech. Every year I leave my phone and laptop at home when I go on holiday. I take a £10 mobile with £10 of pay as you go credit just in case. It recharge the battery and reminds me how the simple task of sending a tweet or an email is really quite special.
Have you gone mad Ari?
Letters and the phone.
What next… face to face conversation? LOL
September 12, 2011 at 5:14 PM
A handwritten note is very unusual in the business world today and would definitely get attention and be appreciated (as long as it’s not scrawled).
@Roz Bennetts
Hi Roz
Good point – have you been looking at my handwriting? LOL
September 12, 2011 at 5:39 PM
@easyP
Actually I recall with shame one Christmas card I wrote in a hurry one year (my handwriting looked sloppy like I didn’t care too much) and the person didn’t thank me and when I asked if he had received it I got a polite but curt ‘yes thank you’. I’ve never forgotten it.
One of the advantages with email is as long as you can spell no-one needs to know you wrote it in a hurry.
Also I can type much faster than I write.
@Roz Bennetts Precisely when I come across job vacancies (or when I want to send a note to a prospective employer), I send a hard copy either in place of or in addition to whatever they ask online.
@easyP Blasphemy! Skype is just as easy.
@danslee But why do you vacation from technology once a year? Why not whenever you go home?
September 15, 2011 at 7:55 AM
Online life is just different from offline. It’s a great idea to connect with followers are offline. to me it sounds interesting!
What’s your opinion on voice recordings that prove humanity? They can be personalized for each person you’re reaching out to, and since they’re in your own voice it shows that you’re not farming it out to an intern. I’ve been using @TweetWithVoice and other Voice.com apps to respond to followers on my personal twitter account, though I’ve yet to try it with professional contacts out of fear that they’ll think it’s spam. It definitely gets attention because no one has really been voice-enabling social media yet, so it stands out. Just a thought to consider!
Writing and sending letter or calling always shows the front person that we are interested in making our relation ship stronger and always make the person remember us.