Communicating is in the details

My friend Catlyn sent me an email message from her Blackberry. I didn’t recognize her email address and almost deleted it. The message was unsigned except for the signature line ”Sent from my Blackberry.”

I replied that I didn’t know who the message was from. But I guessed it might be Catlyn from what she said, and suggested that she should add her name to the signature. Seems simple enough. It’s a standard feature in every computer-based email client that I know.

She emailed right back that Blackberry didn’t have a setup/configuration that let her (1) add her name, or (2) remove the “sent from” comment. I don’t have a Blackberry, so I can’t verify that. But I will say that any device that doesn’t allow such a thing is flawed. More importantly, it causes a communications breakdown.

My new iPhone does allow customizing the signature, and it’s not hard to find. I changed to my standard email signature — name, cell/fax, email address. When people get email from me, they know who I am and how to communicate back.

Communicating means providing details that get the message across. To leave me guessing about the sender’s identity is not communicating — and I’m not criticizing Catlyn here. If RIM didn’t offer that level of customization on the Blackberry, that’s bad. If they did and she can’t find it, that’s worse because either the documentation didn’t communicate or the menus didn’t.

Now, in Catlyn’s case, since her Blackberry won’t do it for her, she’ll end up typing her name at the end of each message. That’s one detail she shouldn’t overlook. Someone else might not be able to guess who she is … if they don’t recognize xxx @ yyy . net, they might conceivable just delete the message. And if so, there’s been no communication.

New “twist” to blog marketing

There’s a cheeky new spin on marketing via blogs — and it’s not blog friendly. I received a trackback from a comment that was attached to my Feb. 13 posting: “Network communication to the max.”

When I reviewed the comment, I discovered that it was a advertisement for someone else selling ringtones. As far as I’m concerned, that takes a lot of guts — piggybacking on another’s blog to schlep your social products. Especially when the advertisement isn’t even on topic.

Well, insofar as this is about communications, I guess they’ve stayed within a loose connection. Ringtones are all about communicating after all; if you don’t hear your cell phone ring, you can’t answer it. And, although I didn’t follow their link to determine what genre their ringtones fall into, I guess the cultural mode is that ringtones are contemporary, often themes from movies (my son’s phone plays the “Matrix” theme) or popular television shows.

The trackback, fortunately, offers me the option of removing the comment. In this instance, I left the comment because I decided to compose this blog entry. If it happens again — and I suspect it’ll be a trend, at least for a while — the comment will get my boot. [Ed. note: After the 11th or 12th time I got trackbacks for somebody's "answer" to my message -- stupid, spam, obscene, or whatever else -- now I just delete 'em all en bloc.]

Why do I think it will become a trend? For the same reason that I get 60-75 email messages every day from people selling me … nothing, garbage, stocks that don’t exist, sex potions, Nigerian banking opportunities … ringtones. I don’t use ringtones. My neighbor’s ”Led Zeppelin” ring annoys me (don’t get me wrong, I have LedZeppelin on my iPhone but only in the music).

 Maybe that’s the whole idea. As a society, we have sublimated the individual to the point where individuals are pushing back. “Notice me” seems to be the [unspoken] watch phrase of the 2000’s. The courts are filled with people shouting … in socially unacceptable non-verbal ways … “notice me; even if only for a moment, and only to punish me.”

I chose WordPress as my forum to get attention. I’m just like everyone else — I want to be noticed. But I can’t, under any circumstances, force myself to intrude on someone else’s space in order to ingratiate myself or satisfy my craving.

Our home telephone is cordless. Lately, it’s started picking up a lot of garble from other units nearby. It’s not unusually to channel hop the whole frequency spectrum and never find a clear signal. A week ago, a women barged into my conversation with my mother, in a perfectly audible voice, and chastised me for “monopolizing her phone time.”

So it should come as no surprise that my blog, and maybe yours soon, have become forums for others to seek notice. And for this, I have no spam filter.

I called the trend cheeky. When I advised him of the trend, my friend Jerry responded by calling it ”cheesy.” Yup!

Anywhere, anytime

At the heart of convergence is a desire to link up with, and understand, other intelligent people, potentially in many locations.

This mind-to-mind communications transcends time zones (I’ve spent late nights organizing functions in Hong Kong and Sydney and come to work way early to coordinate with Germany and U.K.) — in fact, it has the potential of rendering the solar calendar unnecessary.

This converged communications brings one step closer the potential for a truly unified globe, the kind that Asimov and Heinlein predicted. With convergence comes a common language. It could be any language, most likely English or Japanese to begin — but eventually it WILL morph into a completely unique, universally understood language of communications.

As the technology improves and more capabilities are added to the device list, the language may cease to be spoken or written and may become symbolic and visual. Who needs words when streaming media is so much more compelling. And with the massive rendering engines (Toy Story, etc.) becoming more accessible, smaller, and less expensive, we may all someday be able to create our own little visual vignettes.

If we can do business over the airwaves, through wi-fi or the cellular spectrum — or maybe the Next Big Thing, whatever it is — anything becomes possible. Parents are better able to protect children, mobile offices become easier to establish, and the labor force is empowered from wherever is most functional or comfortable.

I’m reminded of two conversations I had at JavaOne, neither related to Java or development. Both are facets of communications that demonstrate

I talked to a content syndicator who wants to (and soon will be able to) push newspaper and television content out to any wireless device that accepts an XML stream. In other words, the publishers suddenly have access to thousands of devices worldwide AND millions of subscribers worldwide have access to any news any time any where.

I met a fellow from a major Midwestern (USA) university who is frustrated trying to communicate with his service staff, who spend considerable time in the institution’s 23 miles of steam tunnels. The “walkie-talkie” devices work close to the surface but not deep in the physical network. But — their cell phones seem to work from everywhere. He’s looking for a way to communicate to all at once, to groups at a time, and to individuals, to send routing information, service orders, even blueprints when appropriate.

It’s an awesome challenge but we seem to be overcoming the problems a leap at a time. By the time I retire, I expect global communications convergence. And by the time my children (26 and 22) retire, I expect they will be tied to their work and community in converged ways I can’t even dream now.

Check out my online article A New Paradigm for more thoughts.