Monday, May 14, 2007

Listen to what I mean, not what I say!


Many years ago, my wife Jennifer was explaining something to me and she accidentally used the wrong word to describe a concept. I knew what she was trying to say, yet I couldn’t resist suggesting the word that she should have used. Somewhat embarrassed and with a sheepish look, she said: “Listen to what I mean, not what I say.”


That made me laugh and smile. What an interesting thing to say. I’ll never forget that.


But then, recently, I realized that her amusing request is actually a very powerful statement of the quality of human interaction, and is the very thing we should be demanding of the Internet.


Read the rest of the article by Zeb Hodge.


I know the young man who wrote this piece about his vision of the internet of the future.  We worked together at Human Dynamics, a performance support service company in Overland Park Kansas a few years ago.    Zeb Hodge is a talented graphics artist and has created many wonderful projects.  Here is his website.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This article kinda underlines the disconnect between male and female verbal concepts and communication. Men say what they mean. Women expect you to draw on an infinite resource of knowledge about them, time of day, position of heavenly planets, current temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, eye contact, body position and heart rate to divine the true meaning of what they fail to actually tell you. It's a miracle we as men ever understand a word a woman says. :)

Anonymous said...

You are a Moron! Did you understand that? I'm a woman and I do believe I just said exactly what I mean.