Published May 10, 2011

What’s new about the way we communicate today? Speed. Diversity of sources and points of view. Sources we trust. Communications value.

All of this is obvious, when we stop to think about it. The more challenging question is, what are we going to do about it?

David L. Rawle Founder and chairman of Rawle Murdy

The speed with which we can now communicate is spellbinding. It is real time. From anywhere to anywhere. Short of entering Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone,” it doesn’t get any faster.

And, since each of us is a source with an inevitably specific point of view, the diversity of sources and perspectives is as numerous as we are. Within a one-second period (an instant!) during the “End of Bin Laden” story, there were 5,100 tweets. Everyone is in the act.

However, instead of that phenomenon creating a constructive collective conversation, it seems instead to sharpen prejudices, turning us into one huge point/counterpoint society, as we dig our respective heels in more deeply, shout louder, and forestall creativity and forward movement.

Advertising genius Andy Berlin put us on to David Bohm’s writings. Challenging stuff from a renowned physicist and brilliant philosopher. Bohm wrote that we don’t know how to live together in a changing world, because while the world changes, we do not. We hold onto assumptions and opinions, speaking at one another, and rarely listening.

Bohm wrote of what he called dialogue, “a stream of meaning” where nobody is trying to win, nor is anyone going to decide what to do about anything. Bohm’s dialogues often have no subject and no leader. Participants talk and listen, seeking always to keep their minds open and free. While no action may result, wisdom is derived through the understanding of the perspectives of others. And that, according to Bohm, is how we grow ideas and relationships. It is how we learn to live and grow in an interdependent world.

How contrary this is to the intransigence we see today among political parties, religious groups, media “analysts” and nations. We are each rushing to weigh in with an opinion, instead of listening, learning, and waiting for wisdom.

One of the byproducts of now having multitudinous sources of information is that we have reverted to pre-moveable type days, times when people depended upon word-of-mouth from family and friends.

As soon as there were printing presses, people began to rely upon information gathered by greatly glorified media institutions. I suppose Walter Cronkite represented the apotheosis of “the person we trust,” the one source the collective “we” could turn to with complete confidence.

Now we’re back to the early 15^th century, seeking our information not from the media gurus but rather from one another … family and “friends” (a word given an entirely new definition in a post-Facebook world). The consequences of this seismic shift are enormous, some good, some not.

I nominate MTV’s Kids and Family Networks as Exhibit A of how to communicate effectively in today’s world.

This is a company that has established a culture capable of moving at warp speed. Every time I walk into their offices, I am struck by the fact that they have moved on to yet another idea, another challenge, basing their decisions on research, good instincts and listening … to one another and to their audiences.

This is a company dedicated to talking with kids, not at them. And so they are “owned” by their audience, a fickle constituency that is fiercely loyal to the Nick family of channels.

This is a company that comes pretty close to Bohm’s notion of dialogue. And this is a company that recognizes that trust will reside in many places, so it strategically establishes a series of trust touchpoints … from Dora the Explorer to Sponge Bob, etc.

How exciting it is to contemplate how dramatically communications have changed. And how wonderfully challenging it is to consider how to accommodate those changes. MTV Kids and Family Networks has done a pretty good job of it. How ’bout you?

David L. Rawle is founder and chairman of Rawle Murdy, a Charleston-based marketing, advertising and public relations firm. He can be reached at drawle@rawlemurdy.com.