Communication lies at the heart of any business. In fact I would even go so far as to say that without communication there can be no business. As a draughtsman I quickly had to learn that you must assume the person who was looking at your drawing knew nothing. If it is true that experts are people who have made lots of mistakes then I am a super expert.

You should never write as though you were having a conversation. When so much of communication is usually down to visual clues in a conversation when those visual clues are not available communication becomes much harder. This is rubbish. Writing is far more complex than this.

A little while ago I was involved in a project where we had to redevelop part of a web site. To compound the problem both parts were tending to be referred to by the same name. I was frustrated that they couldn’t understand what I was talking about and they were frustrated that I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. It was only because I said something that immediately made the other person see we were talking about different things that suddenly we started making sense to each other.

The real trick is to write in such a way that you communicate your message without overdoing the detail. So use few words but don’t assume that the other person knows what you are talking about. Clearly there are good reasons for such thinking and many organizations take that advice to heart and it becomes policy. Of course, on the flip side is the dirty word of secrets and many folks who are not privy to secrets feel disrespected because they are not trusted and therefore, do not give their 100% at work.

Is it true that not everyone can be trusted with information? Many people would agree, some would go so far as to say that humans cannot be trusted with information, but why? For instance, many folks have a lot of knowledge, experience, observations, insight and original thoughts.

But, like water it does flow, information, like living organisms want to be free. Sometimes, even the folks who have the information do not even trust themselves with the information they have because it’s too easy to make a mistake. The right information is defined both as the correct information and only the need to know information.

There is little doubt that the business world locally, nationally and globally has been forever changed by the information age. Today, the world is closer together than ever before and an economic crisis in any one country has far-reaching effects elsewhere around the world. But, what will these new technologies be that increase business communication speed of transmission and bandwidth be like? Remember it was not long ago you were chugging along on your dial-up access on your 286 IBM Clone computer and you were quite amazed at its abilities when it first came out.

Soon, we will have super small devices that operate by voice and eventually by thought. And you will have holographic projection technologies using spectral imagery. Well, think about it for a second, you can collaborate on designs. You will be able to see a miniature of whoever you are talking too, watch the body language and get a much better feel for the conversation.