This post began someplace else, at the “Coffee Blog”, a place on tumblr for ramblings and photos.
I wrote about how some words are parallel, not quite synonyms as we are made to believe. In that specific post I explain the difference between “talk” and “conversation”, words that in Portuguese are used more or less interchangeably.
Even in English these words are similar. We “talk to” someone or “talk with” someone and we have a “conversation with” someone.
Talking to people is pure and simple broadcast. You are not listening to what they have to say or even paying attention to how they react to adapt in accordance. A Conversation is quite different, you listen, ask, confirm, say, pay attention and look for answers in both sides of the fence.
Companies engage more in talking than they do in conversations.
Ponder your company’s current social media strategy, or that of a company you love and ask yourself how much insight and data you get from them on a daily or monthly basis. And no matter what the answer is, move on to asking what communication and operations channels are in place to allow you to turn those insights into effective actions.
And this is more than a matter of having the right data and procedures in place. Everyone in the organization must understand and act so that you can have an actual dialogue/conversation rather than talking to internal or external stakeholders. Public Relations is around us for a while, but the truth is that I feel most portuguese companies would fail these two questions while other international brands have crystallized procedures that need to be rethought.
Copyright: Photo is called “Liquid Gold” by Pedro Pinheiro
