While listening to the NFL pre-game shows on ESPN Radio on Sunday I realized something. The age of twitter, blogs and social media in general has created a paradox of sorts. All of us can within seconds share our thoughts with the world - that's the good news. The bad news - all of us can within seconds share our thoughts with the world!
Larry Fitzgerald, a wide-receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, is a super-star. He is regarded as one of the best wide-receivers in the game. After one game, his brother tweeted some not so nice things about the Cardinals quarterback. Needless to say it created some issues. One of the analysts discussing the topic later stated "In this day and age - there is no one to filter your words."
Unfortunately this is true. Too many people can say anything they want at anytime - without thinking of what they are saying. It is easy to type up a blog or add comments to a blog post or put something down on Twitter and hit the 'publish' or 'tweet' button. It takes minutes or seconds to do. This is what causes some disasters. Sometimes it is the heat of the moment that causes some anger to go through that shouldn't have or it is just typing to quickly that cause some mistakes in our language.
Communication is a very important tool. However, in this day and age of instant communication, we have a tendency to forget that point. Before blogs came along, if you wanted something published, you had to either be a professional writer - meaning you went to school specifically to write - or you wrote a letter to the editor. In both cases, those articles, letters - communication - were all edited. Blogs are, for the most part, not edited. As my friend Michael states "We all need an editor."
Don't let a bad communication experience hurt you or your business. Before you put something up on a blog or comment on a blog - make sure to edit it! We can't put a filter on our mouths when talking, but we can put an editor to our written words.
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