• Face-to-face is still a valuable tool for imparting and building trust, negotiating, enthusing.
• Video-conferencing allows some of the benefits of meeting in person without the travel - especially if the purpose of the meeting is transactional
• Telephone - personal but loses the nuance of body expressions - a major part of communication. Voicemail and ’call waiting’ have generated enormous revenues although their effectiveness is debatable.
• Mobile phone - if a conventional call is to a location, a call to a mobile is to a person. Some people think that the major use of this is as a tool for making calls...
• Letter - still an excellent tool for contractual and complex communications, also for drawings.
• E-mail - quicker and cheaper than a letter, the biggest danger here is that too few people re-read what has been written before hitting the ’send’ button. Also a point of danger for systems - you won’t get anthrax but some e-mails will be as terminal to your office systems if you aren’t careful.
• Fax - the last ’big thing’ before e-mail usurped it; is still an excellent tool for getting pictures sent quickly.
• Text -For the worst of all worlds, SMS ("Texting") to a mobile ’phone is high on impact but often low on clarity and personalisation.
• Computer systems can talk directly to each other - settling invoices direct between company accounts for instance.
• Websites - largely aimed at one-way communications, the Internet has transformed the way that we can get hold of information.
• WAP phones - the internet on the move.