Starting conversations online: What's different?

I'm starting to collect my thoughts, observations, and explorations in conversational media into a more coherent body of work. This will take several forms over time: a book, a wiki, and most likely a podcast series. But I believe in starting small and simply, so this is the first in a series of blog postings that I hope will yield considerable fodder for my larger effort.

In short: You can help me write this book. In fact, I can't do it without you. This is, after all, about conversational media -- so I need to have other folks involved.

The best place to begin, I suppose, is with how conversations start. So here's an open question:

What's different about how conversations begin online? Anywhere online -- blogs, forums, chat, e-mail, etc. -- as opposed to on the phone, print/broadcast, handwriting, via carrier pigeon, or in person?

...I'd love it if you'd share your thoughts either in a comment below, or in a posting to your own blog or forum. (Send me a link to it, of course.) Provide recent examples to illustrate your  points, if possible.

Here are my initial thoughts on this topic....

Conversations require attention, time, and effort. It seems to me that most of us have come to guard these resources quite carefully as we wade through the daily deluge of messages, information, and potential conversations. We all want more signal and less noise.

In-person conversations generally must meet the highest standards of relevance, since they require more from you and are harder to get out of quickly. They usually require us to interrupt whatever we were doing, listen and make eye contact, and observe social conventions that take time and interpretation. If you end a face-to-face conversation abruptly, you risk appearing rude -- which could alienate the person you're speaking to (if you care) or cause you to feel shame, which most of us try to avoid.

When someone gets in my face and wastes my time with meaningless, uninteresting chatter, or a sales pitch, it tends to annoy me more than if I'd been approached with the same potential interaction via phone, print, or online.

Online media offers more control over which conversations you'll join, when, and how. It allows delayed responses and divided attention, which is a blessing for less-crucial conversations, or conversations in which you wish to think carefully about your contributions, conduct research, etc.

Through hyperlinks and other cross-reference tools (such as tags), you easily connect online conversations, or introduce relevant materials such as articles.

Consequently, I'm generally more willing to participate in more conversations online than in real life or on the phone. In fact, I'm notoriously phone-averse. When I'm concentrating, I generally don't answer my phone unless we've made an appointment -- and if your identity isn't clear on Caller ID, forget it!

Therefore, my personal barrier of entry is lower for online conversations than for real-life or phone conversations. I'm willing to entertain more conversational overtures online, or to stick my neck out and start or join an online conversation, than I generally am in real life -- at least, when I'm working. When I'm out socializing, I love to start spontaneous conversations, often with strangers. But I sometimes have a hard time ducking out of the ones that prove tiresome or otherwise unrewarding.

...Anyway, these are just a few scattered thoughts. What are yours? Again, please comment below, or post about it elsewhere and send me the link.

Comments

[Hootsbuddy]

If you are not already aware of him, be sure to look into the work of Mortimer Adler. He's been dead for several years now and was considered not high-brow enough for some circles, but he dedicated a lot of energy into reading, listening and communicating. His writing tends to be pedantic, tediously detiled, but his ideas are rock solid.

I had a cassette tape years ago, now lost, of Adler speaking to a meeting of the National Restaurant Association on the topic "How to speak, How to listen" and became an avid fan from that moment on. I had already known of the Great Books discussion groups (speaking of conversation-starters) and the Paideia Program of education, but I never thought the man could also be such a good public speaker.

I cannot find an online source, but his speeches would make wonderful online audio content.

Good luck on your project.

[Mike Sansone]

Amy, you ask: "What's different about how conversations begin online?"

If content is king, community is the kingdom is serves. Content strikes a chord (humor, anger, sorrow, pride of knowing a 'secret').

Now, much of the content is the conversation - and we serve each other.

[Heidi Miller]

I posted a few initial thoughts/musings about a recent real-life conversation with someone who is definitely does not favor online conversations in my own blog: http://talkitup.typepad.com/weblog/2006/07/amy_gahran_has_.html

[Geoffrey Fox]

Thank you for these sensible tips. I linked to your article on my blog, where I hope to get more conversation going. My core interests are different (Latin America, fiction, politics) but the process is the same. I'm getting e-mail responses, but so far people seem reluctant to use the "comments" box, where everybody could see.

[Matt Thomas]

I see the largest diffrences as:

1. Conversations online often start (as in a blog entry say) with one person describeing a point of view at length without interuption. A blog post could be a page long. Much longer than the person would be likely to start out with in person.

2. The 'listener' whom you are starting the conversation with has the option to completely ignore the conversation (ie not respond in any way and stop listening after the first 2 words) without being seen as rude. So the audience is more self selecting.

Just my thoughts