Communication richness

• Graham Bell's telephone and David Alter's telegraph bridged distances, sending our voices and words across the miles and the continents. These new mediums for communication allowed us to talk to more people, more distant people, than ever before. It was not long before we dreamed of talking with video connections, and of holographic images projected into reality. The first of these dreams is already reality, and the second is sure to follow soon. This use of technology lets us send our words to each other, and the continuum of how realistic these communications are, how closely they approximate the experience of talking to someone face-to-face, is a measure of communication richness [@Kirkman.Mathieu2005].
  • Communication richness reflects the dimension of how technology facilitates communication between human actors, and contains two subdimensions. The first element is the virtuality of the communication, and has been the focus of research to date. We suggest a second subdimension to allow for additional mediums of communication.
    • The virtuality of communication reflects how faithfully technology reproduces the experience of talking with other people. On the low end of this dimension, communication is purely textual. Where all communication already requires that we spend effort encoding our thoughts into words (CITE), purely textual communication strips any non-verbal communication abilities and requires that we write out our words.
    • Higher levels of communication virtuality incorporate non-verbal communication elements, mimicking the realism of in-person communication. Whether through the use of audio calls, or video calls, or a realistic video call that places the other in a three-dimensional form in our very presence through the use of augmented reality or holographic image, high levels of virtuality allow for non-verbal communication elements such as vocal tone, facial expression, and body movements.
      • Assuredly, there is some clarity that often comes with writing out our thoughts in textual form for others to read. However, that is a result of a process similar to the one at play when handwritten notes result in a clearer understanding and retention of material than when notes are typed: the extra encoding steps require additional steps that clarify our understanding. The medium of text itself is still a more bare medium than verbalized communication.
  • Communication richness cannot be wholly captured by the virtuality of the medium. There is a second spect of communication richness that has not received attention in the literature: medium for communication, or the incorporation of additional methods or mediums for us to transfer our thoughts to others.
    • Mediums for communication explore how communication goes beyond words and gestures, which are what we use when we have no tools but our voices and bodies. Communication is the process of encoding our thoughts into a medium that others work to decode, ascertaining meaning in their own minds (CITE). This process can utilize other tools.
      • trying different things:
      • Communication is not only about words and gestures...
      • In an analogue format, these can include napkin diagrams during dinner meetings, whiteboard use in a classroom, or visual diagramming during a conference talk...
      • For example, in a classroom or over dinner, we might grab a whiteboard or napkin and sketch out a diagram; not as something to be given over separately from our words, but to be used as a complement to our words, punctuating points on a diagram with explanations. These...
      • For example, in a classroom or over dinner, we might grab a whiteboard or napkin and sketch out a diagram. In a design meeting, we might utilize props or moldable mediums to construct physical aids to accompany our words. These tools are part of the communication process, used as complements to our words, where points of explanation are punctuated with visual or kinesthetic or other experiential elements to aid in encoding our thoughts more clearly.
      • For example, in a classroom or over dinner, we might grab a whiteboard or napkin and sketch out a diagram. In a design meeting, we might utilize props or moldable mediums to construct physical aids to accompany our words. These tools are part of the communication process, used as complements to our words, where points of explanation are punctuated with visual or kinesthetic or other experiential elements to aid in encoding our thoughts more clearly.
      • Mediums for communication can be analogue, or they can be part of the digital technologies we use to communicate. Including a diagram in an email is adding a visual element to our words; even more communicative is using mediums in a compilational manner, using verbal and non-verbal communication together with additional tools, whether by sending a video accompanying the building of a diagram with an explanation, interfacing with colleagues over a large interactive display [e.g., @Mateescu.Pimmer.ea2019], or participating in a live holographic conference call where digital three-dimensional diagrams or physical props can be conjured and manipulated at will.
        • think this is too long an explanation - especially if also want to include, as part of mediums of communication, the inclusion of the context behind our thoughts, and the possibility of _removing_ rather than adding to the encoding process, like sending the direct artifacts of our thinking. Can work to shorten from after "including a diagram in an email..."
    • Mediums for communication are not limited to two and three dimensional diagrams. The ability to include the context that gave birth to our ideas, technological affordances that allow us to send simple messages that are accompanied by access to a knowledge graph of the sources that underly ones thinking, would allow others to explore more deeply any elements in our words that were unclear, or where subject matter familiarity was falsely assumed.
      • Included, too, are methods where the encoding process is skipped entirely, where one does not consider how to put thoughts into words meant purely for communication, but shares the artifacts of their thinking directly. Live synchronous document editing is such a medium, where collaborators working together might not explain their thinking directly, but allow others to see the artifacts of their thinking directly - the writing, deleting, and restructuring that are all part of the process. Of course, skipping the encoding process does not mean that our thoughts are effectively visible, nor that the receiver does not still have to go through the decoding process. But this method of communication is one afforded by digital technologies, and not captured in examining the virtuality of communication alone.
        • Left this out of the version in Tech in Teams March 1
  • Of course, the challenges of face-to-face communication apply to digital communication as well: while we encode our thoughts into words, and try to include any context necessary for understanding, the receiver must go through a process of decoding whereby they hear those words through the lenses of their own experiences, knowledge, and biases.
  • place for this is not here - but had the thought and wanted to get it downWhen we use live synchronous documents to work together, we skip the encoding process where we must consider how to put our thoughts into words meant purely for communication. Others may look directly at the artifact of our thinking. Of course, skipping the encoding process does not always mean that our thoughts are effectively visible, nor that the receiver does not still have to go through the decoding process.
  • Diagramming, drawing pictures or representations for others, are often more effective ways of encoding meaning, particularly when paired with written or spoken words.
  • The common element in all of communication richness is the existence of the thought in the mind of one individual, where the richness of communication affords mediums for the process of conveying that thought to others. There is place for technology to help formulate the thoughts in the first place, but such leverages will be discussed later.