Overeager Communication
I first saw it in myself, and then saw something similar amongst bloggers.
When I am overeager to be understood, and trying to communicate with someone I really respect - or someone I want to respect me - I get so mired down in trying to be understood, trying to express myself with the full nuance and weight (and sometimes verbosity) that the topic has to me personally.
It's a product of either lack of self confidence, or unchecked enthusiasm and it tends to derail the coherence and force of what I'm saying, and actually undercuts my intention. I've always tried to be a good self editor, but restraining my overactive imagination is an uphill battle sometimes. I'm working on it, and business communication has been teaching me brevity.
But when you open your rss reader and there are 300 new posts each day - 50 from certain professionally run sites (ahem, lifehacker, coudal partners, ahem) - it really quashes effective communication. It's so maddening, they are under so much pressure to be everything for everyone that they really aren't anything for anyone.
If each of the contributors were limited to say 1 or 2 posts a day, in which they had heavily edited, nay curated (to use a current buzzword) content, it would really make the site a higher level discourse, and a joy to read.
But instead, it feels like sites like that are trying so hard to be liked that they come off like the annoying guy or girl at the party. Their heart is in the right place, and their mind is sharp, but you can only stand them for 10 or 20 minutes at a time.
Like I am learning not to be.
When I am overeager to be understood, and trying to communicate with someone I really respect - or someone I want to respect me - I get so mired down in trying to be understood, trying to express myself with the full nuance and weight (and sometimes verbosity) that the topic has to me personally.
It's a product of either lack of self confidence, or unchecked enthusiasm and it tends to derail the coherence and force of what I'm saying, and actually undercuts my intention. I've always tried to be a good self editor, but restraining my overactive imagination is an uphill battle sometimes. I'm working on it, and business communication has been teaching me brevity.
But when you open your rss reader and there are 300 new posts each day - 50 from certain professionally run sites (ahem, lifehacker, coudal partners, ahem) - it really quashes effective communication. It's so maddening, they are under so much pressure to be everything for everyone that they really aren't anything for anyone.
If each of the contributors were limited to say 1 or 2 posts a day, in which they had heavily edited, nay curated (to use a current buzzword) content, it would really make the site a higher level discourse, and a joy to read.
But instead, it feels like sites like that are trying so hard to be liked that they come off like the annoying guy or girl at the party. Their heart is in the right place, and their mind is sharp, but you can only stand them for 10 or 20 minutes at a time.
Like I am learning not to be.