Having been with my partner since before I had a mobile phone….and way before I had a PC at home, I’ve never played the internet dating game….or the text message flirting one for that matter, at least not with anyone other than him.

So when I was talking to a friend this week about her new fella that she met “online”, I had nothing short of an epiphany.

Internet dating is the rebirth of the pen pal….but with bells on (so to speak).  So you get to know someone through the medium of word, sometimes knowing their very deepest and darkest secrets, before you meet them in the flesh.  In fact, sometime you chose not to meet them in person at all…. While this was a revelation to me, I get the feeling that I’m just not down with the kids.

But what’s frightening about this is our inability to talk to each other, or at least our reluctance to say what we really think , rather than writing it down, re-writing it, proofing it, changing it , then writing it again.  And if this is what goes on in our personal life, what chance have we got in our working lives?

It goes without saying that working in PR requires you to think before you speak (no room for those mouth-before-brain faux pas) but are we sometimes too careful about what we say?  So busy thinking about the ramifications of the published word, that we can’t get our point across.  Is there a danger that we are trying so hard to communicate that we actually fail to communicate?

I can hear it now – my account director bellowing at the team: “Just pick up the phone!”

I think now, I truly understand the reason why.

Helen Stevens