It's the first day of summer classes. I walk into what will be "Intro to Communications" for the next six weeks, grab a syllabus from the teaching assistant (TA), and find a seat. I take a look at the syllabus. I see some writing, an image of two phones with lines back and forth between them, and more writing. And then I wait for the class to commence.
The TA begins to talk about communications theory. That many people think it happens in a single direction: someone says something, they've communicated. Turns out that's a pretty ancient way of thinking.
And I had no idea that those two phones on the syllabus would haunt me for life.
"Two-way communication theory," he/she says. (Sadly, I don't remember the teacher. All I remember are the phones.)
Two-way communication was the phrase we were going to get sick of hearing for the remaining six weeks. Thinking of communications as "two-way" says that after all the hustle and bustle - the emails, the tweets, the hoot and hollerin' of the message - there is something that remains to be done.
There must be feedback.
Just as there is no successful telephone call without an acknowledgement, a response or an effect from the one being called, there is no real communication without a full-circle process from sending the message to getting the cue the message has been received.
I'm sure this is oversimplified and most communication theorists would slay me, but this is what's haunted me in my years of traditional and non-traditional communications experience. It is not enough to create the message. There is no communication without response.
It's important to think of communication in any form - mass, traditional, interpersonal, electronic - as a conversation, a dialogue, a relationship.
Allow that thought to be your guide as you communicate.
And I hope to hear from you.
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