I want it the way I want it

Burger King let's you have it your way. TiVo allows you to watch your favorite TV programs whenever you wish. You can read almost any newspaper article written in the whole world. You can tune into audio and video podcasts covering a dizzying array of topics. We have choice and we love it.

I can't stand that my cable company won't let me pick and choose what channels I want to pay for and watch. I can't stand restaurants that have "no exceptions" on sandwiches - it's a sandwich for heaven's sake. I have no patience for online ads that won't let me skip them if I choose. I get agitated when I don't have choice.

We want what we want, when we want it, how we want it. We're addicted to customization and freedom. The internet has amplified freedom of choice (of distribution channel at least) and customization to a scale that can feed our seemingly insatiable addiction.

When I think about myself and others as contributors via these channels, I get to enjoy the downside of all of this freedom of choice. In order for me to stay in touch with or communicate with colleagues, friends, and family I have to be plugged into The Matrix multiple ways. As I sat down to type this, I am running a client or web pages that do instant messaging, twitter, gather my RSS feeds, e-mail, several favorite blogs, several more favorite web pages, facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and ning. For me to reach or be reached - oops, hang on...my daughter just sent me a txt msg - I have to consume and contribute via multiple channels. If I ignore a channel, say twitter, I do so at my own peril. I'll miss out on all sorts of fascinating (yes, fascinating) chatter about information/happenings relevant to my job and tweets that make me laugh if I walk away from twitter (or other channels of distribution).

To be effective, I have to be able to express ideas and thoughts to many people. To be effective, I have to be able to ingest ideas and thoughts from many people. Because there are many channels, I have to tune into many of them to be effective. I have no choice.

I'm not complaining at all about the multiple channels even though it might sound like it. I did for a little while, but then I boiled it down to a value judgement about striving to be effective or not. I've chosen to plug in and listen, plug in and share. So I do have a choice, but it isn't the one I first thought it was.

Bad communication comes in many forms. It can be no communication, it can be poorly formed communication. Now, it can be a mismatch in how you are choosing to contribute and I am choosing to consume. If our choices don't line up, we're back to no communication.

If only there were something like a wave of communications :-) . Until I can surf those kinds of waves, I'll continue to choose to plug in and reach out.

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