Communication is essential to how we learn to live with each other.
There are as many ways to communicate as there are people. Indeed, there are more ways than people.
Some methods of communication are known and understood. Some are known but not understood. And many aren’t known at all.
Much as a community is composed of unique individuals sharing their gifts with each other, true immersive communication can be a synthesis of unique methods, applied in a comprehensive fashion.
A comprehensive approach to how a community communicates can lead to the use of efficient and effective tactics. These tactics can build up to form a strategy of how people can share with each other. This strategy should be able to scale with different sizes of communities, as well as provide recursive feedback for self-correction and accountability.
Each method or mode of communication must be studied, explored, applied, and shared. As well, each mode should have links to other modes, perhaps by developing a protocol or interface between multiple modes.
The modes encompass all of the existing ways we communicate, in addition to leaving room for the new modes that haven’t been discovered yet.
This is a journey. Some maps may tell us about certain parts of the landscape, but most of the terrain ahead of us is unknown. This is a journey to help communities communicate. We are explorers on the brink of a revolutionary advance, but we seek more than fragmentary maps. We seek the globe: interconnected, lively, expressive, thoughtful, human.
Our communities are content-rich, but distribution-poor. Share the wealth.
On Friday, 7/15/2011, the summer Community Communication class at Chattanooga State Community College will present “Tell Your Story: Nightfall Edition.”
