“As per my previous email…”
Dave Castro, Entrepreneur, and Creator, the IceBrekr app
I enjoy the Instagram accounts assisting professionals in navigating the politics of corporate environments. You also see satirical accounts highlighting the absurdities of passive-aggressive human behavior. The communication highlighted by these satirical or coaching accounts that I have seen is commonly about email. Perhaps a less recent tech advancement in modern communication.
Ah, the art of the e-letter. Correlating “business speak” and the potential intentions of email senders is a new genre of social media page entertainment. According to the translators: “As per my previous email…” is possibly a more professional version of, “Eff off, already.”
Authors of emails can be just as calculated or as raw as authors used to be in letters. The truth is that the ability to hide behind a computer screen hasn’t fundamentally changed anything. For hundreds of years folks have been sending highly word-smithed letters instead of directly confronting their recipient. Perhaps the big difference between letters and email has been the speed and volume of messages we get.
Maybe the ease of email cheapened what used to be delivered with cost, by hand, over long stretches of time. Maybe because it is so quick and easy to type, and hit send, there is an assumption that the recipient will consider it with less weight. That they’ll understand. Or that it will get buried and forgotten, or understood that the sender was just “having a moment.”
Consider the same explanation in the context of a shift from email to social media comments. It holds true. The comments are even more base and uninhibited. Easily spoken, easily deleted, easily expected—or hoped—to be forgotten.
New methods of communication, and new mediums, take on assumptions.
Technology is at the forefront of creating new methods of communication and humans are busy exploring them, deciding when and how to best use them, and filling the use of those with nuances of meaning.
Each mobile app has its own character traits and its assumed usage. Going from messaging on a dating app to texting on your phone is a change, in tech culture it’s almost an upgrade of trust. Connecting with someone on LinkedIn has a different nuance than connecting with someone on Instagram.
An already complex world becomes ever more nuanced through new communication technologies.
Evolution is a process that isn’t confined to biology.
Take dating apps for instance. Created to improve the efficiency and compatibility between romantically interested parties, the apps have been subdivided into multiple additional categories. Sexual preference, risk tolerance, cultural segmentation, and numerous other factors now define many different apps available on the app stores.
Even within the heterosexual community using Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, there is a general segmentation between the three of them in user subculture. The user community in each has a slightly distinct vibe.
What does this mean? Perhaps the biggest lesson in all of this is to not approach each technology communication tool the same. Be aware there will be a growing user base with an evolving set of rules and subcultures.
Another distinction from in-person or more “analog” communication mediums is the ability to feint or fake your attributes with technology. Catfishing is the new norm. Filters enable users to lie about their looks when in previous decades the lies mostly embellished personal history or resumes.
When you finally meet someone in person – even at times, your LinkedIn connection, for a professional coffee—you find that they have not updated their profile picture in decades and find it hard to figure out which person at which table in Starbucks is the one you are meeting for coffee!
Advancements continue and some of the new technologies provide relief from challenges we experience in this fast-paced, often edited, technology-infused world. Along with the new features and capabilities will inevitably be new assumptions, subcultures, and inherent rules or challenges to navigate. It is important to be aware of this and either seek to be the good housekeeping rule setter with your behavior or if you are not one of the early adopters, take some time to observe and ask questions of the other users to get a sense of what the best practices or tips and tricks might be.
There are technologies that online event attendees to feel a little bit of the excitement of walking up to a table to meet a few other attendees. This is an example of a totally brand new concept and while it is still in the beginning stages, it may develop a different set of assumptions than if you were to walk through the same scenario in real life.
One such recent advancement, or innovation, is a tool that becomes a virtual name badge in whichever context the user may find themselves—a conference, networking event, or the local chamber of commerce or entrepreneur centers, for example. Without a stylish name tag on your lapel, you could turn on the app (IceBrekr.com) and be immediately aware of other
IceBrekr users within eyeball distance of you. Without using GPS, the app enables users to share the key attributes they want to be known for, or found for, like professional skills, or resume, etc., and also enables them to use key words to get notifications for which key connections might be in the room with them! The profile of this key contact provides the data you need to walk over with an “icebrekr” and gain efficiency in your networking time at the event. One unique attribute of this in-person app, is that you reduce the impact of those pesky catfishers.
As mentioned earlier, with every human advancement, not just communication technology, there are new challenges that come along with the beneficial capabilities. It is imperative that we be the good we want to see in the world by setting the assumptions and house rules by our own behavior, or the “app culture,” within the new technology to maximize the benefit it brings to the world.
Uma Rajagopal has been managing the posting of content for multiple platforms since 2021, including Global Banking & Finance Review, Asset Digest, Biz Dispatch, Blockchain Tribune, Business Express, Brands Journal, Companies Digest, Economy Standard, Entrepreneur Tribune, Finance Digest, Fintech Herald, Global Islamic Finance Magazine, International Releases, Online World News, Luxury Adviser, Palmbay Herald, Startup Observer, Technology Dispatch, Trading Herald, and Wealth Tribune. Her role ensures that content is published accurately and efficiently across these diverse publications.