Digitization in bits and bytes was the fundamental activity for the Information
Technology revolution in the 80s and 90s of the last century. In the new
millennium, connecting the world to the Internet became the main role for the Information
Technology development.
For the former, we witnessed contents readily loaded in its carriers, be
it papers, films, cassettes or tapes, be it in text, voice, image or animation
format, the contents had vastly be converted into digital data, laid a strong
foundation for the information boom and tremendous cost cutting measures for
knowledge transfer. While in the Internet era, the latter, by connecting
computers and IT devices, the web technology virtually removed all borders and physical
distances between customers and companies.
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| Digitization & Globalization |
In the past, you had to setup plenty of physical overseas branches to
qualify you as an international company. But in the present days, your business
operation can reach every corner of the world even if you are a minute below-10-employee
company. Micro-international company is the new vocabulary to describe a small yet
Internet savvy company that can achieve global business goal, even without
setting up any physical business operation abroad.
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| Speak & Listen |
From digitization to globalization process, there is a change of emphasis
in communication skill too from speaking
to writing. This new trend can simply be verified by how we use our mobile
phones today. Mobile phones used
to serve human’s mouth and ears in the past, but now had switched to eyes and
fingers, a clear sign of speak and listen transiting to write and read. And smart phones are no longer merely just any phones, they
are also handheld portable computers, it means the ubiquitous and network connect
at all times, plus the mainstream social media apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter
and WeChat etc., the time we spend in reading and writing is much longer than
we do in tele-conversing.
Talking and writing are two basic communication skills, but in the midst
of the transformation from productivity economy to the service industry economy
in the 80s and 90s, the socio and economy activities were basically confined to
more local vicinities. When face-to-face or telecommunication is required to
get the job done, talking is definitely the king. The criteria of employment
especially in sales and marketing personnel emphasizes on eloquent speaker.
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| Writing, writing, writing |
When the Internet era arrived, it dismantled all borders between countries and it shrunk the physical distances, sparked
a new perspective in communications, writing proficiency had suddenly becoming more
important than talking. Since distant had been virtually removed, overseas business
expansion did not require physical store anymore, however, a virtual store is
still pivotal to display your products and services with or without an option
to online purchases, or at least a website that provides training and technical
support, elaboration on warranty claims, policies, services and etc. All these,
you need excellent writing skills to produce contents. Besides, you also need
your sales and technical personnel to be able to answer customers’ queries in
emails or Skype; and again, writing skill is inevitable. And to take advantage
of the social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other engines to engage
your customers, once again, you can’t ignore writing skill.
In short, to build an Internet ecosystem in your company, a strategy
that is probably not an option anymore for nowadays businesses, you require
more staff that can write well. Good writing skills definitely produce better
quality and more useful contents. This is what we believe in FingerTec. And, I also believe that writing is so
fundamental in today’s organization that one shouldn’t outsource it to any third
party.
