As a community developer for several websites, I go through lots of different information sources. I am looking for stories and nuance that demonstrate how conversation behaves like a currency. The more I look, the more I see. The strength of the analogy is quite remarkable.
Unspoken Values
I can also see how the unspoken communication stores as much value as the spoken communication. In the U.S. , there are race troubles, financial troubles, trust troubles, and confidence troubles. Many fears and anxieties can be accelerated by Social Media in unpredictable ways. First, information riles people up quicker than facts can follow, and second, the shelf life is much shorter as issues are dissipated by new ones. Much is left unprocessed.
The Micro-Trauma
What happens when important issues in life go unresolved? The life of a soldier may offer some clues where events can happen faster than the mind can process them. Perhaps the life of a child offers some clues where every day brings so much new information that all new events are processed in terms of basic necessity. Perhaps any traumatic event such as a divorce, loss of a family member, or victimization places us in the realm of the unspoken communication. This is a protection mechanism, not a delivery system.
As the World Churns
Billions of people hustle off to work and spend their day producing stuff in order to earn imaginary money so they can spend imaginary money. This helps things move from the forests to the dumps. They have no idea the sophistication of the micro-trauma delivery system that acts on how they process information.
The unspeakable drives our fears, interests and concern and influences how we process future information. I am amazed at how two people will arrive at opposite conclusions from the same data and the inability for those two people to speak to each other rationally. Advertisers, politicians. PR firms, and traditional media can deliver bits of information and dissipate them quickly leaving an unprocessed data-packets behind.
Opting Out:
I just closed my land line, canceled cable TV and purchase a subscription to on-line music radio that I play constantly. I “hide” the fringe mongers on my FaceBook, and get my news from Google alerts, feeds, and sources that align with what I am able to process mentally and emotionally. What I cannot process, I have a network of trusted friends who can process the information and guide me through the issues. I am quite happy, in fact, as many areas of my life are improving; health, friends, family, productivity, and finances…etc.
There is a tremendous opportunity available in delivering the right information to the right people with the intent of helping them to successfully and completely process information. This is more work up front, but the loyalty in the long-run is exactly what politicians, marketers, and news sources are competing for. Instead they are killing the patient to cure the disease.
In order to monetize in the new economic paradigm, help the unspoken communication become speakable and then listen to your friends.
