Obstacles Or Opportunities?The Complex Relationship between 'Real' And 'Virtual' Communication'
- paul08129
- Sep 4
- 6 min read
I’ve just re-released another show from my podcast archive:
‘Obstacles Or Opportunities’, with Prof. Jesse Stommel.
The conversation, about the conflicted relationship between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ communication, was recorded in 2014 – after I saw Jesse speak at the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE) Arts and Humanities conference.
What was I – an ex-lawyer-turned-business communication specialist – doing hanging out with PH-Ds and Professors? No, I hadn’t gate-crashed – I’d been invited to co-host a workshop with Dr. – now Prof. Hanah Thompson of Royal Holloway University. That’s another story – for another time!
The beginning of Jesse’s speech wasn’t about communication – either ‘real’ or ‘virtual’! For reasons I now can’t remember, it was about the microscopic creatures who live on us!; but somewhere among the eyebrow mites etc, he mentioned digital story-telling. That got me curious – and the debate he sparked towards the end of his talk, by challenging the widespread antipathy among the delegates, towards phones in class, convinced me to approach him for an interview.
I found the result interesting, thought-provoking – and the tiniest bit controversial in places – and I’m so glad we did it!
Our relationship with technology is a huge, evolving subject. In the new intro, I mention ‘the rapid development of AI’ as one of the main influences on its evolution. Then there’s the explosion of remote and hybrid working, especially since the pandemic (itself a source of current conflict between managers and staff!)
The topic merits several shows and posts. So I’m not going to attempt to reduce it to five tips. Instead, I’ll back up what I say at the beginning of this programme: That while Jesse’s perspective is very much education-focused, what he said in 2014 had – and still has - implications and applications for business today. Hopefully, by doing that, I’ll give you some food for thought …
Part 1, Engaging with gadgets’:
At the beginning of our chat, Jesse made the point that we live in a distracting world and, he felt, it was up to each of his students to manage that for themselves, by:
· Deciding how and when to use their own devices and
· Making the decision to get up and move if someone else’s device use was causing them a problem.
At the time, I thought the first point had an implication for the workplace – and I still believe that’s true:
I’ve said more than once during this series, that ‘today’s students are tomorrow’s staff’ – so it follows, yesterday’s students are today’s staff. My only evidence for what I’m about to say is life experience – but If using your phone in a learning environment (for an unrelated purpose) comes to feel ‘normal’, isn’t there a better than even chance that feeling is going to carry over to the workplace? – particularly when that workplace is remote?
On Jesse’s second point, getting away from someone who’s creating a distraction by using their phone isn’t easy in a meeting – physical or virtual; but that ability does have a business application:
Learning to manage our own distractions is key to something we talked about in Episode 7 of the pod – choosing the best possible physical working environment for the task in hand.
Part 2, ‘Directing Disengagement’:
In this section, Jesse admitted something I heard from business leaders during this series (and something I’ve experienced myself) – the personal impact of talking to people who you know are not listening to you; but his response wasn’t to blame the gadgets, the people using them – or even himself. It was to recognize the obstacle – and then flip it; to look at the whole context – including the topic, the audience and the medium – and ask: ‘Is this the best combination? – or is there an opportunity to get this message across to these people more effectively?’
Learning is communication – and when we communicate information at work, it’s a learning experience. So Jesse’s approach – repurposing distraction – has business applications, especially (but not exclusively) in meetings.
Part 3, ‘It might be better to ban brains than phones!’:
If you heard Episode 4 of this series, you’ll have heard part of this section – where Jesse pointed out that the biggest distractions we deal with every day are our own brains – closely followed (he suggested) by our bladders! He’s got a point (well, two!);
What he recognized then is something anyone who ever has to talk to people for any length of time needs to remember:
Attention ebbs and flows – and it does it at different times for different people. That’s captured by the tip in Episode 8 of the series, about time: ‘You’ve got to know where your highs and lows are’.
No, of course you can’t structure a working day to maximise every individual’s attention resources – none of us can; but understanding as much as possible about attention cycles (general and individual) means we can all structure meetings and presentations etc so that we catch most of the people, most of the time.
As a trainer, I learnt that the hard way. My first assignment involved trying to engage a group of adult learners – HR professionals with a pretty dry subject (legal change), in an evening class, squeezed between a full working day and family time.
The initial session took the form of a traditional lecture – which didn’t exactly sprout wings and fly. I’ll be honest with you – I didn’t think there would be a second time after that!; but there was.
The next time (on the advice of a friend), I kicked off with a controversial statement and made the rest of the class interactive. The two sessions couldn’t have been more different – from start to finish.
These days, I make sure my training sessions use a range of modes and media – because, as Jesse said back in 2014, everybody learns differently.
Part 4, ‘Digital Story-telling’:
The business application for this section is the simplest so far – because stories are at the heart of:
· Branding,
· Marketing and
· Culture.
Yes, there is also an implication – because the same AI which has made it so much easier to tell those stories also makes it so much easier for us (or others, using our images etc) to fake them.
Part 5, ‘Remember, even the virtual is real’:
Here, Jesse made one of those blindingly obvious statements – something we all know, but still, sometimes, lose sight of – that the people involved in a virtual interaction are still human. … Unless they’re Ais – but that’s another story, for a different kind of pod and blog! If you want to go down that road, I’d recommend the ‘Flesh and Code’ podcast. It’s about life partners, rather than business partners, but in future … who knows?!
No-one really wants to admit they ever forget that little image on a screen and that slightly digitized voice in the headset is a person; but that’s what’s happening when we treat someone online with less respect than we’d show if they were in the same room – by, for example, allowing our attention to be drawn to another screen.
That takes us all the way back to Episode 1 of this series – on effective listening!
I’ll leave you with one tip:
Jesse talked about not wanting blanket policies about tech in class, because ‘that shuts down the conversation’. He wanted to keep critical thinking on the subject alive. In business, I think we can all benefit from that. Across the technological board, from the old, to the new – to the not-yet-known – there’s a lot to be said for being able to see the obstacles, the opportunities – and the link between them.
A quick technical note before I go:
Although the official first series of ‘Investing in Conversation’ runs to ten shows, I’ve added those from the archive as full episodes – because putting them in as bonuses meant they disappeared way down the list!
As always, if you need help with any aspect of conflict management at work, come and talk to me! All my details are at:
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