Day: December 4, 2003

Why technology will never replace face to face communication

Jeremy Pepper raises some interesting points on my follow-up RSS posting in particular that:

“RSS is another step down the slope where PR people don’t interact with humans.”

He also points out that whilst Tech PR is leading the way, for many industries, PR people’s tool of choice remains the phone.

I think these are great points.

First of all, as e-mail volumes have risen, I now find myself using the phone more often and in many cases, for all parts of my work, it’s more effective. E-mail is still number one from a volume perspective, but the phone continues to play an essential role when you need to get things done.

Furthermore, I think if we look at technologies like RSS as a means of distancing ourselves from our audience, whether that audience is media or non-media, I think we’re in trouble.  I look at RSS as a tool that may in the future increase the reach and effectiveness of information, in a world where e-mail is beginning to struggle.

What’s the most effective means of communication? Without question face-to-face is the number one. You can only build limited relationships over e-mail and indeed the phone, which is why video conferencing, often the poster child before the Internet’s rise to prominence, never took off as it was supposed to.  While it’s useful for brief meetings with people you already know, it’s not an effective medium for building relationships.

This was brought home to me a couple of years ago I had two detailed conference calls with an analyst.  The calls went well, there was a good exchange of information, but when we met him face-to-face, his first question was “What do you guys do?” – the face-to-face meeting solved that issue!

In summary, I think we should look at these technologies as a useful adjunct to the traditional disciplines of this profession, i.e. communication. It’s not a wall we’re putting up, it’s a way of increasing our reach and responding to changes in how people find information.

If RSS (in the future) helps that process then it will be used, if it doesn’t it won’t.  PR people have to be completely pragmatic.

Phil was wondering if there are any studies on the uptake of RSS. I don’t know of any, if you do please let me know. I would guess that RSS is still in the very early adopter stage.  The Technology sector normally pioneers this stuff and technology journalists are only beginning to look for RSS feeds, so I think widespread adoption is a long way off. However, we already have a large number of subscribers to our RSS feeds, so I think engineers and other IT-related end-users are already using RSS every day.