Communication

Post photo: Conversation | © Leonardo Thomas on Pixabay

I have often written something about communication and communication spaces, also here on this weblog and also taught again and again. Recently it was again a lecture topic for me as “Communication Management”, albeit “only” in the context of business informatics. However, this blog post is more dedicated to the current means and tools that I use myself for my communication.

The best is still the word and this directly in conversation with my counterpart. Thanks to telecommunications, even the greatest distances between the respective interlocutors can be bridged, but this does not improve communication. And the supplementary form of video telephony shouldn't really increase the quality of the conversation. Also not the possibility that you can now call several people at the same time.

For me personally, "Teletext" is still the best way to communicate with each other, be it by email, chat or SMS. That's why tools like Skype or GoTo don't rank first for me for personal conversations. And when I observe today's mobile phone users constantly making video calls with their friends and acquaintances through the city, I can't help but wonder — such calls should be charged additionally, if only for the sake of the environment.

It's a bit different when long-distance calls become long-distance meetings, because then it can be an advantage if you can use several channels at the same time. In this case, the most suitable tools are those that include text as well as pictures and words. Here I like to use the old Skype as well as the somewhat newer GoTo, whereby the maximum number of users speaks for the latter. And in this case, the advantage of Skype does not have an effect either, namely that you can get together very quickly and easily with Skype.

And there are also countless tools for “teletexting” today, some of which I have used again and again, but then decided to reduce them to a manageable number. As already written, I'm sticking to Skype and Linkedin, because I can still reach very old acquaintances via them, and those who still have my phone number saved on their mobile phone can reach me via good old text messages.

But I still mainly use Twitter, Threema and Delta Chat, although the latter is really only for the real nerds among us. And, since not everyone wants to get a Twitter account and even fewer want to bother to deal with Delta Chat, I'm now trying to convince my fellow human beings of Threema. Threema is ideal for those people who are more concerned about their privacy and also want to have their personal data under control.

The only catch is that not many people are going to be so concerned about their privacy that it's worth a one-time fee of around 5 euros to get this tool.

Since Threema now enables voice messages and group chats in addition to telephony and text, I first set up a EUROPA-UNION Heilbronn group (EUHN) and a group for the district board (Kreisvorstand EUHN). Now I'm really excited to see which of the members will use this type of communication.

In case you me recently via Messenger or other tools tried to achieve, now you know that those attempts are going to digital nirvana and will stay there forever. I still find it funny when someone tells me that they have informed me of this and that in great detail via WhatsApp, because I have never used this tool before.

The readers of this weblog can also send me a message.

In all cases, however, my principle still applies that if you do not receive an answer from me within 48 hours, you will never receive an answer. If in doubt, please ask if your message was accidentally in mine PAL filter got stuck — when using Threema, however, you can rule this out in advance.