How Do You Communicate?

I remember when I was a little girl and the way I communicated with my friends was either to call them on our rotary dial phone or hop on my bike and ride over to their house. Life was so much simpler, but I also have to think that communications were so much slower…how did business get done?

Today, I am amazed that we are able to run a virtual foundation, out of over 150 homes around the world to help orphans in China. We get emails and Skypes with updates on the children we help daily from our staff in China. Problem solving is instantaneous and happens immediately with computers. We are able to conference call for meetings and there are days that I never speak to anyone except through my computer.

I have to laugh, though, at a conversation that I had with Amy on Friday. When I was talking to her on the phone, she said that she didn’t know where to start…she had hundreds of messages on Facebook, Twitter, email, that all needed to be returned. We both thought back to a year ago, it was just email and phone. Now we know people in all different mediums, people who want to help children, have questions about adoption, or doing the work to make this foundation run. There are even more social networking tools out there that we have still to explore, like Linked-In. How funny it is that we have so many ways to communicate. I wonder what will communication look like a year from now, what about 10 years.

What do you use to communicate and what is your favorite way to contact people? Do you think there is such thing as communication overload? Do you see disadvantages as more of our communication takes away from personal contact or do you think that communications will allow us to streamline how we work and create even more personal time?

Karen Maunu