I’m 25! Or at least the business is.
Category: Communicating with others
Happy Birthday Partners With You!
We celebrated our quarter century this month with a small party and it got me thinking about how different life was back in December 2000 when I decided to go it alone.
For starters when I left my old job for the last time, I didn’t own a mobile phone! The fax machine was an office necessity and if you wanted to go on-line at home, everyone had to hang up the house phone and listen to that unforgettable dial-up screech.
Communication was a different beast entirely. Not everyone had email. Mobiles were strictly for calling and if you needed someone urgently, you left a message and waited. Patience wasn’t a virtue … it was the norm.
I sent letters and proposals by post, on actual paper, with stamps.
Client visits required a paper map and a sense of adventure.
And Zoom? That was an ice lolly.
Google wasn’t a verb and there was no Twitter, no Facebook, not even Friends Reunited.
If you wanted to network, you turned up at Ecademy, BNI, BRE or BRX in your smartest outfit and hoped the men in suits would talk to you.
Fast-forward to today: communication is instant, constant and occasionally overwhelming.
We navigate hybrid meetings, WhatsApp, video calls and arguments with other generations about how to end a sentence! Apparently if you use a “.” You are angry!
Speed, clarity and emotional intelligence have gone from ‘nice to have’ to ‘essential requirements’.
But here’s what hasn’t changed: the heart of our work.
For 25 years, the tools have evolved beyond my wildest dreams, but people still want the same things. To be heard, understood and able to express themselves with confidence.
People are still people. We still have fears and irrational responses to the pressures we work under. We still need support, to be listened to and understanding.
I have loved the journey I’ve taken in the last 25 years and the experience I have gained. If you want to be heard better, understood more or be able to express yourself without fear and with confidence then give me a shout.
