Recording your conversations

[Novelis]

Hi everybody, I had an idea a while ago that I'd like to share.

I've read and heard time and time again about the difficulty of trying to communicate the ideas on SOTT and the C's to people in daily conversations.

I've had similar problems myself, and I think that the problems might have a lot to do with ineffective communication skills between all participants in the conversation (Or, it's at least a major factor...)

So, the next time you have a conversation about anything you deem as important, why not record it?

I am already doing this sometimes when I'm in a group of people having a conversation in Chinese. This is primarily to improve my Chinese speaking/listening skills, but I've found that it's a very useful exercise to listen to the conversation again and again for many reasons.

I'll list a few of them for your consideration:

1.You can analise the discourse and figure out what seemed to work, what didn't work, and most importantly, WHY?

2.You could improve your communicative and language skills across the board.

3.You can work out strategies to maximise communicative effectiveness.

4.The recording is 100 percent objective, and will show you what actually happened, and not what you think/feel might have happened.

5.You could give the recording to a friend for a different perspective, or better yet, submit it to a network of individuals for insights.

6.You could store it away as raw data for future use in whatever way you deem fit.

7.You could listen to how close to the facts your information was, then revise the relevant sources of data, so that next time, you can really “name names and date dates”(Give indisputable, hard facts), so to speak.

8.It could really teach you how you are hindering/helping understanding of the people you are speaking to.

9.It could show you a lot about the natures and personalities of the people you are speaking to.

10.You can work out the “rules of engagement” in you own specific socio-cultural context, and how the target audience perceives your message. (For example, in Taiwan, where I am situated, there is a complete different set of conversational cues and codes that one needs to abide to.)

11. You can transcribe it as a natural piece of discourse.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure there are many ways of using the data to the benefit of all.

Perhaps, since there is already a category on the SOTT forum for C's transcripts, there could also be a database for “everyday chats on SOTT” for the usage of everybody?

Thanks,
J

 

[Mike]

Hi Novelis,
That would be one long tape unless the individuals in the discussion are willing to let you tape them, so that you can turn it on and off. What I've found after a number of years digesting the material and attempts to convey information to others is that unless the individuals involved have an interest in knowledge, want to know more, and have at least a small drive toward finding some truth in something, that efforts to communicate with others and either recording it or rehashing what was said later are best directed toward learning to be externally considerate to others and not trying to drive a point home or give out information. On rare occasions that someone actually asks and really wants to know what I think about a certain subject or topic I try to lay it out based on what there understanding is and build from there, giving books or other information that they might want to explore if they want to build there own understanding and knowledge.

What I've found is that if you spend a considerable amount of time reading and really thinking about things over a long period of time that it can seperate you in way from people, even if they are intelligent. One they may be specialized in knowledge, as in a particular field such as engineering, and have no way to branch out to what you are describing unless they make thier own efforts. And two because they think they have a hold on what happens in life and in the world, they reject ideas and information because it doesn't fit with the ideas they have formed.

Anyway, I think taping conversations and analyzing it would take a lot of time that could be better spent elsewhere and that a rehash of conversations and making notes on what you remember might be a better exercise.

4.The recording is 100 percent objective, and will show you what actually happened, and not what you think/feel might have happened.

What I think would be objective is trying to remember what your machine was doing during the conversation and relate it to the reactions you had, as in trying to convey the information (ie what was your objective, was the person really asking, are you trying to push when a person may or may not be showing a interest. If it is a person that is really asking, what would be the best way to fit their understanding). This way you can document what your machine was doing, as in trying to remember yourself as impulses arise to try and tell others what to think or what reactions you were having.