Communication

[crbnunit]

I just got out of a management seminar a little while ago and came home with some really interesting statistics about communication. I think everyone here would do well to remember them as they read and type.

Verbal communication consists of three basic components and are followed by their importance represented as a percentage in the communication process.
Words 8%.
Tone 37%.
Body language 55%.

In a computer forum all we have are the words and, to a limited extent, tone in the form of the little smilies if you happen to use them. That leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation unless you are really careful in the words you use to post.

 

[shadetree]

I just got out of a management seminar a little while ago and came home with some really interesting statistics about communication. I think everyone here would do well to remember them as they read and type.

Verbal communication consists of three basic components and are followed by their importance represented as a percentage in the communication process.
Words 8%.
Tone 37%.
Body language 55%.

In a computer forum all we have are the words and, to a limited extent, tone in the form of the little smilies if you happen to use them. That leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation unless you are really careful in the words you use to post.

Very true. I try to be very concise in what I say. I double check my posts before submitting. My sentence structure may not be correct, but I make sure of spelling and other errors that I see. My object, especially in giving tech advice, is not to mislead.shady

 

[rangerbum]

YES! Your absolutely right! No matter how you really mean it, you cant express much emotion through computer, so think twice. easy thing to post by!

 

[Mark_88]

WHAT? THAT'S ABSURD~!

hahaha...my favourite is the caps lock confusion...

but, yeah, easy to misinterpret a post without the emoticons...I try to avoid posts of more than three paragraphs because I know unless it is adressed to me that I just skim over those wordy ones and go to the ones with the nice pics...

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

i run into the problem of not being able to convey my sarcasm alot on here and other forums. as a result, i offend a lot of people

 

[Bryan22]

haha. that's pretty interesting. Alot of people would do well to think about that before getting all uppity and offended! This site rules! I'm addicted to TRS!

 

[rickcdewitt]

That leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation unless you are really careful in the words you use to post.

as long as you're using percentages- 50% of the above misunderstanding and misinterpretation is from people not spending the time to try and understand what somebodies intention was when they typed something. or they're just being dick heads and mincing the other guys words.

most of the time people listen with the intent to respond,not absorb and contemplate.no matter how articulate someone is if the listener doesn't take the time to look for the meaning past the words and puts a total burden of proof on the speaker its a pretty sure thing they won't get anything out of the conversation.

from your stats its pretty clear how non important the words are compared to focusing on comprehension




EDIT: haha, so what i'm saying is if you don't understand this its your fault. J/K

 

[crbnunit]

Too true. I have been guilty of that very thing. it is easy to fire off a terse response rather than asking for clairification.

 

[BlackBII]

i run into the problem of not being able to convey my sarcasm alot on here and other forums. as a result, i offend a lot of people

Same here.

I try to use the smiley's to compensate.


Im on the phone at work a lot, and I can tell you the tone is all that matters when on the phone. You can say almost anything, as long as the tone is correct.

 

[97ranger4x4]

Same here.

I try to use the smiley's to compensate.


Im on the phone at work a lot, and I can tell you the tone is all that matters when on the phone. You can say almost anything, as long as the tone is correct.

I will remember that the next time I am telling a tele-marketer to go F himself, in a nice tone that is

 

[woodyedmiston]

" most of the time people listen with the intent to respond,not absorb and contemplate.no matter how articulate someone is if the listener doesn't take the time to look for the meaning past the words and puts a total burden of proof on the speaker its a pretty sure thing they won't get anything out of the conversation."

Well, said Rick. I think of people who I correspond with by email, this site, etc. as friends. I don't call my friends names because the disagree with me. As a result, when the time comes to tell a friend he is a dickhead - it get's his attention. I try to do so sparingly. The people on TRS really do feel like friends even though we don't meet.