How good are you at communicating with other people?
What do you consider the fundamentals of good communication?
As simple as these questions seems at first glance, they represents a major stumbling block in how effectively people and companies alike stay receptive to the needs and views of others in order to build relationships of value and substance.
From early experiences of establishing playground friendships to the hierarchical models encountered while growing up, there is no rule book to what and how we share with others.
Designing better engagement models between services and customers hinges on the skill in which we listen to what people need. The ability for a company to embrace a listening culture does not happen by default. It requires an investment in customer-driven collaboration methodologies and for this approach to be embraced from the top-down, in terms of senior management.
In the words of Malcom Gladwell,
“Everyone has a story. When people are talking about something they know well and do well, they’re almost always interesting. And if they’re not, it’s generally your fault because you’re not asking the right questions and you haven’t made them comfortable. And once I learned that lesson, my journalism became a lot easier.”
Storytelling remains one of the most powerful tools of engaging people.
The video above was constructed by fusing together around twenty or so different interviews with people living in Milan, Italy. The ages of the interviews ranged from eight to eighty years old. The theme of the interviews was memory.
The original presentation of this video was a circular room, that contained nine video projection screens lining its walls. Each talking head played in the round, immersing the visitor in the experience.
Rob Le Quesne 