Monologue Vs. Dialogue
Having put together some of the first few posts here as well as the first podcast (or perhaps the more generic 'netcast is a better word, I'll ponder that), I'm wondering what people can be thinking about these conversations. After all, most conversations have some give-and-take and provide feedback, feedback which can then be used by both parties to find even better ways to communicate with each other about the topic of conversation or even decide when to move on to a different topic.
Monologues
In my experience, the further you move away from close, personal interaction, the closer you come to a monologue, where one person says something in a vacuum and then others who listen can then respond internally to what is said or not. Even the kinds of interactions that are normally referred to as monologues usually aren't.
For example, a comedian delivering a comedy monologue before an audience is usually engaging in a conversation with that audience because their applause and other analogue communications will tell them whether or not their material is working or whether or not they need to make subtle changes in their delivery in order to better reach the people they're interacting with.
And the true monologue can happen even in the most intimate of one-to-one interactions. People can become so fixated, fascinated or even obsessed with what they're saying that their focus becomes entirely internal and they can ignore the other person that they are talking to. Sometimes they can even use this orientation of internal focus to take external communications and completely re-render them using their own internal point of view to the point that rather than addressing the other person, they essentially reframe the entire conversation as an internal dialogue. Needless to say, this isn't a really great communication strategy if your intention is to understand someone else.
Dialogues
Therefore, I prefer to think of this medium, (and by that I mean both this blog and my podcast, as a dialogue, albeit one that evolves more slowly than a direct conversation might. So I'm going to rely on you to give me your feedback and ask me your questions so that the conversation can move in a direction that's useful for you, for all of you and, by extension, for me.
You'll find that when you post a reply here on this blog, it will tell you that the replies are moderated. Although I'm trying to make sure that I eliminate content that basically amounts to spam, that doesn't mean that I'm only willing to post positive comments. I'll let through most things as long as they're reasonably coherent and seems to bear some vague relation to the content at hand, even if I don't immediately see what that relation might be.
And that's not the only reason that I'm choosing to moderate the comments here.
Since the comments are moderated, it means that I get an e-mail every time somebody leaves a comment here. That means that I can also pay close attention to everything that's written and I can take all of those things into account and keep them in mind as I write the next things that will appear here. In this, the monologue becomes the dialogue and we can all enrich one another with the conversation.
So, I'll ask you to please comment where you think you have something that's worth saying. Even if you're not sure, write it anyway if you think it might be the least bit constructive, and who knows what can come of it?
And to further the spirit of this, I'd like to announce that future podcasts will include a questions and answers segment. You can e-mail questions to me as text or, if you'd like, you can even record yourself so that you can ask your question directly on the next podcast! Just E-Mail the recording of less than 10 MB (or the plain text if you want to chicken out ;) ) to me and we'll all look forward to what will come!
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Be Well,
Michael Perez
Labels: Analogue, blog, comments, Communication, dialogue, feedback, monologue, Podcast, questions
