Over the years communication and technology have evolved at a rapid pace, and they seem to evolve consistently together.
Many years ago people were using fire and smoke as a means to communicate over long distances. The advent of the telephone made international communication possible, and today telephones have been miniaturized into cellular phones with a host of features and gadgets, some in aid of communication while others serve purposes completely alien to interpersonal communication.
The business world has seen incredible productive advancements due to communication and technology. Conference communication technology has made meeting clients and service providers a productive and efficient experience which can take as little as thirty minutes, while in the past it meant businesses had to send representatives across great distances to liaise with each other, costing them a great deal of time and money. Cellular technology allows short conversations even when out of the office, and email has become the common business communication and technology standard across the globe.
Communication and technology also presents business with many problems which were perhaps not troublesome in earlier years. With mobile connectivity and the World Wide Web, businesses can operate in many different countries and share their information across the globe with online databases and company intranets and web pages, but this efficiency also creates the opportunity for criminals to defraud them and gain access to their sensitive information. This means that businesses have to spend large amounts of money to protect themselves against this kind of criminal activity, either by purchasing effective firewall and antivirus software, or by hiring “white hat” hackers to put mechanisms in place to prevent criminals from gaining access to their information.
It is not only criminals who present businesses with problems due to the advancement of communications technology. Effective business communication can be disrupted by employees who are uneducated in terms of good business communication and technology practice or, perhaps worse, by employees who deliberately misuse the technology made available to them by their companies. Businesses therefore have to ensure that they have stringent communications policies in place, and that these policies are freely available to anyone who makes use of their communications technology, be it clients, employees or service providers. An effective way to ensure that this is done is to have a company intranet put in place where all employees are able to freely log into it and any changes to policies and systems can be regularly updated and made available to everyone it impacts.
Effective business communication relies on the advancement of technology to keep ahead of communications trends and production strategies which make use of the latest technology to reduce corporate expenditure and maximize profits. A very effective trend in communication is the rise of online production whereby employees perform their business functions from their own homes. Communications technology is then used to liaise with the business. This means that employees spend less time in traffic because they do not have to physically travel to a company office, and this in turn leads to greater morale and productive capacity.
More Communication and Technology Articles
Overview
Successful Blogging
Email Etiquette
Using Social Networks
Instant Messaging Etiquette
Conference Call Etiquette
Learn more about Speech & Communication
Watch Speech Videos
