Remember communication 101? When we learnt that Communication was a two way process between communicator and listener, by means of a channel which is blocked and influenced by filters? The definition has never changed…or has it?
The problem with communication is the illusion we have, that it has been done.
Having become interested in the whole Climate change debacle/debate (call it what you like) I found the following comment on one of my Linkedin group pages last week:
“CO2 climate change is based on fraudulent science; it takes more energy to build a solar panel (or a windmill) than the energy one gets back from it “
The guy who placed the comment is an imminent South African Engineer. It received 28 “hits” in the first hour. The statement presented as fact shocked me, and I did a bit of research…
In the first place, A “Hit” gives no indication if your message was read, never mind understood as you wrote it, it simply means it was opened.
Secondly, what the engineer wrote was flawed….Climate change itself is not based on fraudulent science…some of the solutions to the problem might well be! I must however disagree that the power taken to make Uugna’s Chinese solar panel (which he has used in his ger in the gobi desert for the last 17 years to provide his family with 12 volt power for their daily consumption) has been pretty well compensated for by now!
Thirdly, Feedback (vital in the communication process) like body language, intonation, tone of voice is totally absent. We all know that “well done!” can mean several different things depending on the tone of voice, body language and situation where in it is said. To a reader (not a listener) well, who knows, the messenger may just as well have been ordering a steak.
Then I loved the quote by Lee Lacotta used by the anti green crowd… “We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
Whether the quotation was made in reference to climate change or to air intake required into a GTO carburettor is just irrelevant somehow.
When communicating purely on a social networks to get a message across, you may as well hug a tree to prevent climate change.
good 'evans andy! 