“We tweet, we text, we e-mail.  Everybody’s chatting, but is anybody listening?  Why America needs to revive the vanishing art of conversation.  We need to talk.”

It was the headline of a story by David Dudley in the AARP Magazine this month and yes, I admit to reading AARP and damn proud of being old enough to have earned the subscription!   But the best part of the story is that for once I feel I’m actually ahead of the curve.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to talk more and email less.  Just this afternoon I caught up to a new friend, Joey Carman, and had a conversation about WPPI.  Every day I talk to my co-author and good buddy, Scott Bourne.  Jim Davis Hicks, founder of Thirst Relief is coming over to the house for lunch in the next week or so and I know, like last time he was here, we’ll spend the day coming up with new ways to create more awareness for the challenge of more fresh water around the world.

The issue is let’s find a way to talk more and email less!   We don’t talk to each other enough, but instead we Tweet and email.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but we all need to do a better job of doing both!  It’s especially important since we’re all part of an industry that thrives on human contact – we’re in the business of capturing those special moments – moments of people interacting, not communicating through their computer!

So, here’s the challenge – see if you can match one phone call to anybody you know for every email you send and texting doesn’t count.  This is about using your voice and really talking to friends, no matter where they are.   If we don’t talk more we’re all going to lose our ability to communicate.   I’ve already noticed that I’m spelling things phonetically as I struggle to capture a thought in just 140 characters.   While it might B gr8 2 B able 2 do, we’re even frgetting how 2 writ!   Photographers became photogs and then just togs…grammar is out the window, words like “at” has been replaced with @, two, to and too is just 2 and the list goes on & on & on!

David Dudley said it best in his close: 

“We’re in danger of becoming a nation of hyperconnected hermits, thumbs furiously working our BlackBerrys!”

PS. After posting this a few minutes ago, I can’t stop laughing over the link for Scott Bourne.  You’ll go directly to his lead story at www.photofocus.com on using Twitter for business.   So, let’s clarify my point…it’s a balancing act.  Social Media is as necessary to building your business as a website is today or a yellow pages ad was twenty years ago.  But, it’s a balancing act with personal contact and you’ve got to have both.  Keep the connections “live” with close friends and good customers and let’s not let having a live conversation with somebody become an obscure art form!