How taking a day off can make you better in business

Take a day off.

No, I am not talking about ditching work for the day to spend it at the beach, I am talking about taking a day off from social media/email/technology communication tools and have real conversations. (Although the beach does sound more fun!)

Kneale Mann wrote a great post that talked about comparing the time you spent talking virtually vs time spent talking to real people. He makes a great point that social media is slowly ruining our abilities to communicate effectively. I have been to a couple events recently and it was interesting to see this first hand. At the OC Twestival Tuesday night, I spent some time watching how people interact. It was a little sad to see that many of the groups didn’t stray far, and were content talking with those that they already knew. Without a computer in front of them, they were nervous to just join a random conversation or introduce themselves to someone. They couldn’t just @ someone or click follow…they had to actually walk over and say hello (scary, right?). But, if you never break out of that comfort zone and go talk to someone new, how will you ever build real business connections? I have always been willing to just walk up and talk with people, and so I got the opportunity to meet some incredible new *and potential* business contacts. If I had just chatted with people whom I already knew, those connections would have been left unconnected.

As with anything, practice makes perfect, and spending a day without social media is great practice for the real life events. Having to hold conversation in person takes finesse, talent and focus. You can’t zone out or come back to their replies later. You have to be in the moment, think on your feet and come up with questions and answers. This is a skill that I believe social media and technology communication is slowly taking away. Luckily, it is free to practice and pretty easy to do. Next time you are out somewhere, if you see someone interesting, introduce yourself. Striking up conversations with random people may seem silly, but whose to say that random person isn’t your next perfect client? You’ll never know if you hide behind your BB or iphone and tweet while in line to grab your coffee.

Do you think social media has affected your communication skills? How would you suggest improving conversations in real life?

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