Importance of Communicating Effectively

David R.

July 20, 2010 - 7:15 PM

Because of the family that I have coming in at the end of the week, I decided to go into my internship on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, just to make sure that I am still there the same number of hours that I would be during a normal week.

We never got to that proposal that we were planning to work on, but I was able to sit in on my first marketing meeting since I have been there. The meeting was held across the street in the Pepsi Center and it included a collection of people who work in multiple departments within KSE and the Pepsi Center. Although I didn't really do much (interns are usually just expected to observe, not actually participate), it was good to get a feel for what large-scale company meetings are like. From what I was able to see these meetings are a good way for everyone to get on the same page. One person would bring up something that someone else had never heard of. If these meetings never took place then that person might be left in the dark regarding certain things.

Sitting in on this meeting made we more aware about how important effective communication is to the way a business functions. In a world that is now highly driven by electronic communication, it is highly beneficial to communicate and interact with people in a face-to-face setting. The latter form allows people to observe a person's facial expressions as he or she speaks, helping the listener to better understand whether the person is being serious or sarcastic or what have you. I have heard many funny stories in my journalism classes about communication gone wrong through electronic communication. The most common occurrence seemed to be when the sender would make a sarcastic remark through and e-mail, that wasn't taken as sarcasm by the receiver. Long story short, the receiver of the e-mail was bitter due to a simple misunderstanding. If you were to make a sarcastic remark to me in person, I could probably tell that it was sarcasm by your facial expressions or the tone of your voice.

Face to face communication is more beneficial because it allows for clarity right at the time. If you asked me a question face-to-face, and I was confused by what you asked, I could respond with something like, "Wait, what do you mean?" On the other hand, if you had asked me the same question by e-mail, I would have to write you you back and ask what you meant, meaning I would have to wait until you responded, or I could go ahead and make an assumption as to what you mean, which is never a good idea (as the saying goes, when you assume you make an a** out of you and me).

Tomorrow is my last internship day of the week and it sounds like it should be a pretty eventful day. Key Bank, one of our sponsors, is coming in for a brainstorming session for creating promotions for next season. Hopefully we can think of some real winners!