Communicating effectively

Followers and communication

What is happening in the media system, and especially on the web, is largely determined by one idea: if I am a good communicator, I see it because I have a bunch of "followers", followers, readers; otherwise, it means I am failing to communicate. But how many times have we heard the stories of great philosophers, artists, musicians of the past who were mostly ignored in their lifetime?

Reading the title of this article, you might think you will find techniques for public speaking, for learning to communicate, conversation techniques. I am talking about something else. I want to shift the reasoning to the "content" of communication, the idea you want to express, the contribution you want to offer to those who listen to you, those who read you, see you.

In a nice book by Alberto Contri (McLuhan no longer lives here), this phrase struck me among many: “I see many investing in online ventures for the same reason dogs lick their balls: simply because they can.”
It applies not only to those who invest money but also to those who spend time and energy. The web today is overflowing with uselessness, with false news, today even with content generated by automatic "Bots". All content that is successful and, it would seem, is the result of effective communication: no! These are psychological manipulations on a global level, and I am not a conspiracy theorist. However, almost nothing we read is published to communicate an idea: everything is placed there to keep us glued to that media, that channel, that social platform or otherwise.

Consider what you want to communicate

If you want to communicate effectively, the first thing you need to do is to think deeply about the content you want to share. You need to express yourself, so it is with yourself that you must start the first dialogue:

• Do you really believe in what you communicate?
• Is it an idea based on knowledge?
• On experience?
• On intuition?
• On prediction?

The important thing is that it is your idea, reflecting your identity. Don’t think you can succeed by imitating ideas that are not yours.

Communication is not a technique (at least not only)

If someone told you that communicating is a “technique” or even a “profession”, they lied to you. There are people who can captivate crowds for hours without saying absolutely anything. Daily, we encounter characters of this type in all media. Their communication is not good; they don’t share anything new. It can be a pleasure to listen to them just like when you listen to songs in foreign languages and enjoy the sound of that language. It is not communication. After a few hours, it leaves our memory, and that is a good thing.

Young people are trying to tell us that we do not communicate

Young people, who today communicate better than we adults do, do not understand and perhaps do not even want to approach this entire "technical" world of communication. For them, communicating is being themselves, much more than what adults or communication professionals do. Young people do not watch television because today 90% of programming is designed by audience-dependent communicators. They do not even experience the web that we adults frequent. They have distanced themselves from classic Social Networks. The feeds of the major national newspapers on Facebook are unbearable and full of uselessness and falsehoods. Who creates them? What communicators are behind them? What do they want to make common?

Technology must serve creativity. Those who do not have authentic creative thinking also depress the potential of technology.