Thinking about society today, technology has made our world both smaller and more interconnected, presenting opportunities and challenges personally, socially and professionally. What is an appropriate balance being online or off the radar and how does this influence accessing digital audiences in the consulting profession?
I’m writing this article on the back of a recent conversation with a friend about our digital availability. This particular chap has rather a love-hate relationship with technology and can be a hard person to get hold of, especially when he decides to go “off the grid” and only use his smart phone only as an alarm clock!
From research and evaluation consulting work I’ve undertaken over the last two decades concerning accessing and networking with experts, business and community engagement, personal digital literacies and open educational practices, I find the impact of technology a very stimulating area to explore. It’s not only relevant for businesses as well as our personal lives, that individual attitudes and behaviours are shifting and how some are fighting the notion of access anywhere anytime.
The online-offline balance relates very much to our mindset in business with regard to learning, identity, privacy and self-awareness.
Since individuals make up communities, this all builds up much wider implications for the new audiences you can potentially tap into for business marketing, in terms of globalisation and the digital society. In fact, epistemology and cultural anthropology are true emerging fields of information and communications technology.
When we explore professional services like consulting, coaching, education, we must look to new online methods of learning and development that give us access to new modes of delivery and new audiences.
However, e-learning is not technologically determined; it’s rooted in sociology, cultural and political practices and the digital literacies we develop as part of our everyday lives.
We can choose to be connected or go ‘off the radar’, but done to extreme over time it will inevitably influence greatly our place in society. These ideas are explored in a book I was reading on the train the other day – The E-Learning Reader – that compiles some critical perspectives:
“Many theories of learning stem from philosophical and psychological foundations of learning and in future will integrate new knowledge emerging from neuroscience, which will better reflect our mental & physiological processes allowing us to design & align our learning interactions & interventions more closely with our natural environment.“
What is our ‘natural’ environment in the digital society and in our professional contexts? The answer is pretty relevant to attraction marketing, business and education, I’d say!
If you have interests in communication, learning, cultural change, digital society, etc, get in touch. I’d love to hear your views on accessing digital audiences, particularly to see how people in different parts of the world think about this rapidly changing landscape – how does it influence and affect you?
If you’d like to learn more about accessing digital audiences, grab my book and get stuck in.
