M-am gândit inițial să-l trimit doar păstorilor, dar m-am răzgândit. Este așa de clar și necesar că merită și trebuie citit de toți cei activi pe Internet. Observați cum este scris articolul. Înțelegeți că paragrafele se împart altfel în epoca Internetului. Ideile cele mai importante sunt exprimate și cel mai scurt, în expresii ușor memorabile. Observați și imitați folosirea intensă a exemplificărilor (ferestrele istorioarelor). Oamenii mari au rămas niște copii mici cărora le plac poveștile!

Autorul este un expert în comunicare, un profesor de profesori. Vă ofer un capitol dintr-o carte excepțională. El vorbește despre trecerea la epoca comunicării pe Internet, cu bunele și cu relele ei. Nu întoarceți capul! Vă interesează! Altfel n-aveți nici o șansă să mai înțelegeți lumea în care trăim.

(Brown, Steve. How to Talk So People Will Listen. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

A microphone for everybody!

Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? Job 11: 3

To give you an idea of my prowess in “discerning the times,” let me tell you about my initial foray into the digital world. A number of years ago the board of the communication company and ministry for which I work (Key Life Network, Inc.) met, and the subject of the Internet came up. A number of board members insisted that our company have an Internet presence.

With great insight, I told the board members that I already had “too much bubble gum to chew” and didn’t need one more thing. “Besides,” I said, my deep voice lending credibility to my words, “it’s a passing fad like the CB radio. I’m not into fads.”

Thankfully, my deep voice didn’t carry the day. The board simply ignored my words and proceeded. Reluctantly, I told the staff to “do something.” They did, and we put up a very basic website (hardly anybody else did that at the time). At the very least, I thought, I’ll have bragging rights on being cutting edge even if nothing comes of it.

And then, to my surprise, the world changed.

Now Key Life has an expansive website (KeyLife.org), is heavily involved with Facebook and Twitter, and posts numerous blogs, videos, and radio broadcasts. In fact, a whole lot of what we do we’re doing on the Internet and in social media. In the past, for instance, when my publisher released my books, it involved a lot of money and advertising, and a lot of people working to get the book out to the public. Now, as with this book you’re reading, publicity is all about social media and our web presence as much or more than anything else.

So much for my prophetic gift.

Okay, what is social media? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines social media as “forms of electronic communication (as websites for social networking and micro-blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content (as videos).”

In this chapter I want to expand that definition and deal with all media use of the Internet to communicate. Given the incredible changes in how people communicate, any book on communication needs to address both the curse and blessing of social media and digital communication. I propose to do just that. But first, let me give you three basic and important things to remember.

The Basics

First, social media and Internet communication are interactive.

Of course communication, by its very definition, is interactive in the sense that someone talks and someone listens. On the Internet the rules have changed. People don’t just speak and listen. They react.

As a preacher and professor, I find it quite irritating when people interrupt me while I’m preaching a sermon or giving a lecture.

I smoke a pipe. Often, after taking a few puffs, I put the pipe in the side pocket of my sports coat. If I place it in the pocket properly, the pipe doesn’t cause any damage and the burning tobacco generally dies. Confession: I do, I might say, lose on the average of one sports coat a year.

Recently, I was lecturing to a class and was “on a roll.” One of the students in the front row raised his hand. When he thought I hadn’t noticed, he started waving his hand in the air. “Son,” I said with a degree of irritation, “I will get to you. Just be patient.”

He stopped waving his hand and started talking.

“Dr. Brown,” he said, “I hate to interrupt you, but you’re on fire!”

I looked down, and he was right. I had inadvertently placed the pipe in my pocket in the wrong direction, and smoke from the burning fabric was rising from that pocket. I thanked him, put the fire out, and continued with the lecture. One of my friends, God bless him, has called me the “smoking professor” ever since.

On the Internet, writing blogs, posting on networks like Facebook, or even showing a video on YouTube is never just a passing on of information for the benefit of the people to whom one is communicating. On YouTube, those who view the video you posted may vote on it. The site gives the numbers of “likes” and “dislikes,” and keeps track. If one writes a blog or posts a video, it is always followed by comments from those who have read it or seen it. Facebook allows you to make friends and “unfriend” whenever you want.

Social media is interactive. In other words, in social media, people can say, “You’re on fire!” or conversely, “You’re all wet!”

At our company, I do a number of blogs, Facebook and Twitter posts, broadcasts, and videos, but one of my favorite things is a weekly video chat to pastors. We have more than four thousand pastors on our mailing list, and one of the ways we communicate to them is through this weekly video. My office is a study, but it is also a studio with bright lighting. Each week, our producer comes in, we turn up the lights, and I sit at my desk and talk about pastors’ concerns. It’s when “the old white guy” talks to mostly younger pastors about the trials and tribulations of being a pastor. It is, I’m told, a helpful time for the pastors who watch the video.

But it is not a lecture. On the pastors’ website, there are dozens of forums where pastors comment on everything and anything, including the videos. Within five minutes after that video is posted, I know what pastors think about what I’ve said, whether it was helpful or not, if it made pastors angry, and what, if anything, I need to correct.

Listening so people will talk is always important, but it has triple the importance on the Internet. Social media is not a monologue . . . it is always an interactive dialogue and, mostly, that’s a good thing.

Second, social media and Internet communication is public.

Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” He was certainly right; but back then he had absolutely no idea how large that world would expand to one day. We live on the large and open stage of a digital world.

My friend Michael Hyatt wrote a great book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Thomas Nelson, 2012). That book can help you build an Internet platform to get as many people paying attention as possible.

But what if you don’t want to be noticed?

What if you don’t want your views to be praised and attacked?

What if you would rather “fly under the radar”?

Then just stay away from social media.

People warn that you should be careful about what you write in an email because, once you’ve written it, it’s forever. (Just ask the politicians who thought they were having a private email conversation!) But it’s not just email; it’s everything you say and write on social media and in the digital world. We live in a time when “personal privacy” is simply impossible. I hate it, rail against it, and would much prefer to just be left alone. But it is what it is, and anybody trying to communicate on social media should be aware of it.

Each month I write a blog that starts out as a letter to those involved in Key Life—“ Steve’s Letter.” I generally write it a couple months before it is sent. Then that letter is repackaged in a number of different ways. It always becomes an Internet blog, and sometimes it’s used as an article in our magazine (an actual print magazine or an online magazine), posted on Facebook, or published in a booklet. There are also times when what I’ve written is included in a book or on a broadcast.

I’ve written “Steve’s Letter” every month for more than twenty years. I occasionally used to get comments like, “Great piece,” or “I didn’t like what you wrote and it bothered me,” or sometimes even, “Are you crazy?” But as we have moved more and more into the digital age, the comments have increased and multiplied, many of them thoughtful and detailed, and some of them just plain drivel. Now I spend almost as much time responding to comments as I did writing the original piece. Not only that, those comments aren’t just on things I recently wrote, but also on things I wrote years ago.

Digital communication is interactive and public. When you decide to communicate on the Internet, don’t forget that.

Third, social media and Internet communication are also a mix of “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Like most things, communicating on the Internet can be a wonderful tool— positive, helpful, and fun. But it can also be destructive— narcissistic, dark, scary, and negative.

You may not remember when there was no television and no Internet, but I do. (I’m not making that up.) At the risk of sounding like an old guy lauding the “good old days,” that was a good time and far simpler than now. I sometimes even want to go back to those days, until I have an attack of sanity and think of the gift that choice is. I can access more information in five minutes now than I could have in five days in the “old days.” I can read a book (any book), watch a movie (any movie), and listen to music (any music) wherever I want, whenever I want, and however I want. I can talk to an old friend instantaneously, text anybody I want, sound off about my political or theological views, and know what others are thinking, doing, or feeling with the click of a computer keyboard or phone key.

That’s good.

But I can also hurt a friend, destroy an enemy, watch pornography, and make a fool of myself. On the Internet everybody has a microphone. That means that the “village idiots” have been given a microphone; it means that every angry and destructive person on the face of the earth has been given a weapon; it means that every idea (no matter how stupid), every religious view (no matter how weird), and every radical political and social cause (no matter how extreme) has a voice. And it means that they all have a level playing field.

Don’t get me wrong. People are my business, and people are intriguing, fun, and a constant source of amazement to me. I love talking with people and listening to them, an exchange of ideas is enjoyable, and mega-information is a good thing to have access to. But don’t forget the dark side of social media. Always check the facts, communicate with the sane, and make friends only with people you would introduce to your mother.

Talk So People Will Listen . . . in the Digital World

I’m here to help you accomplish that.

At the risk of “pushing my own stuff,” let me suggest that social media and the Internet are tools of communication and that much of this book applies to them. So as you think about social media or you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere and gotten hurt, reread especially the previous two chapters on communicating in the postmodern (or whatever you call it) cultural shift in which we find ourselves. But there are several simple things one needs to remember when sending an email, using Twitter or Facebook, and writing a blog. So I “move the previous question”: How does one talk so people will listen in the digital world?

First, be clear.

Words are tools for clarity, and the Internet is a microphone. Learn to use words to say what you mean and mean what you say. Have friends critique things you say. Read over what you’ve written or the email you plan to send and ask yourself, “Does this make sense? Am I clear? Am I pushing the communication process to a higher level . . . or writing stuff that nobody will get except my mother?”

Second, listen.

As I mentioned before, I teach communication lab classes where students give sermons, speeches, or oral presentations to the entire class. When they finish their presentations, they are critiqued by me and the other students. I tell the students that this is the one place where they will get honest feedback and that we’re here to help one another. Further, I say that the class will be one of the few places where people will “tell you the truth.”

(If you’re a Christian, you know that the comments made to your pastor on Sunday morning after the worship service are not always entirely honest. Do you know what, “Great sermon this morning, Pastor” means? Absolutely nothing. It’s what’s expected. In a survey of pastors conducted by a company where I served on the board, the pastors were asked about their strengths. In almost 96 percent of the responses, the pastors graded themselves “surperb” in preaching skills. If you’ve hung out around church much, you know that a lot of those pastors were either lying or living in denial.)

One of the good things about the interactive nature of digital communication is that if you aren’t clear, you’ll be told and told quickly. Sometimes the comments will be nonsense and at other times simply off-base. But do learn to be discerning and to listen. You’ll be better for it.

Third, be concise.

When Jack Dorsey came up with Twitter, he proved to be a genius in a lot of ways. One of the major ways Dorsey furthered communication is in promoting concise communication. Twitter is a social networking service where the users can send and receive text-based messages of no more than 140 characters. Those messages are called “tweets.”

What a gift!

There are so many people who go on and on and on, you want to say (and maybe do), “Just cut it out and get to the point!” Getting to the point is what much of Internet communication is about. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to just “chat” with friends on Facebook or that one should never send long emails to people; but for the most part, digital communication is similar to the old speech rule: stand up, say it, and sit down.

Fourth, be relevant.

One of the downsides of social media is the spurious and narcissistic view that the world revolves around “me.” Hardly anybody (with the possible exception of family and very close friends) cares what you had for dinner, where you went after dinner, and how you eliminated dinner in the bathroom. I suppose that juvenile communication has always been irrelevant because “when I was a child, I spoke like a child,” but adults should talk to adults with more than “baby talk.”

For instance, a “hashtag” (a kind of “subject line” preceded by a # symbol to keep track of a conversation topic on Twitter) often generates a great conversation about politics or theology, or a fun conversation about something as mundane as the weather. It is important, regardless, that the tweets that follow be relevant to the subject being discussed . . . just as it is important that communication on the Internet be relevant.

If you’re a Christian, the Internet is a great place to witness to your faith. Incidentally, the biggest “footprint” on Facebook isn’t the one left by Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, the Kardashians, or even the president. By far, the biggest footprint is the billions of impressions posted by people of faith on things like Jesus Daily. Even the pope emeritus, Pope Benedict, started a Twitter account at the age of eighty-five. If you are a Christian and want to “witness,” though, don’t make Twitter the only thing you do, and be careful in what you write. It should be loving, compassionate, kind, gentle, and often responsive to those who communicate back. You will be surprised at how powerful a “good word for Jesus” is on Facebook or Twitter.

Fifth, be kind.

You would be surprised at how easy it is to be a jerk when you don’t have to stand face-to-face before the people to whom you’re being a jerk. In emails and in responses to blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, I have been absolutely surprised by the rudeness with which jerks will express themselves. It’s a good way to get “unfriended” or ignored.

I once heard Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion say that in his imaginary town of Lake Wobegon there was a man who was a drunk. He eventually went through a twelve-step program and got sober. Once he became sober, everybody found out that he was indeed a jerk and “there were no twelve-step programs for jerks.” Keillor didn’t say it, but I’ll bet that former drunk started posting on the Internet.

Key Life’s president, George Bingham, has a rule about internal emails. He has mandated that when there is a difficult issue between staff members, no email should be sent. In those cases, a face-to-face and civil conversation must take place. It is easier to be civil when one is sitting across from someone else.

Finally, be careful.

On this topic, I remembered a campaign a number of years ago by people who had “discovered” a satanic symbol on cereal boxes. The cereal company has spent a fortune trying to correct the incredibly false and spurious charges. I Googled “satanic symbols on cereal boxes,” and you wouldn’t believe the hundreds of references I got about Satan being everywhere. I checked out a couple of the websites. I was amazed by the drivel and nonsense that I read. It only confirmed the belief that I’ve always had that there is no lie so big and no theory so weird that a whole lot of people won’t believe it, and put it on the Internet.

So be careful. To say that you “saw it on the Internet,” “read it on a friend’s Facebook page,” or “saw a tweet about it” means that there is a good chance that what you saw or read is baloney. Be careful what you read and what you write. There are real people listening and communicating, so a modicum of care is required.

There was a funny advertisement a number of years ago in which a man was sitting in front of his computer screen and a message came up that read: “Congratulations! You have come to the last page of the Internet. Now go out and play.”

The virtual world of cyberspace is fun, sometimes informative and helpful, sometimes scary, and sometimes necessary. But try to remember that it is virtual and not real.

Occasionally go out and play.

(Brown, Steve. How to Talk So People Will Listen. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Categories: Articole de interes general