Corporate communication
We live in an era when non-organic, non-sentient entities are learning to communicate.
Take our species for a moment. A baby is born being predisposed to acquire a human language. She has the native ability to learn enough from what she hears at her mother's knee to pick up her mother's language. [Chomsky, circa 1965] The elements in play are: the pre-disposition to learn language; a pre-disposition to learn; a surrounding language environment.
So who are these "non-organic, non-sentient" entities? No, this is not yet another discussion about (the yet to exist) artificial intelligence. Non-organic, non-sentient, and yes legal, entities already exist. We call them corporations.
And corporations share many rights, privileges, obligations, and responsibilities with us humans.
We can suppose then that they will share similar skills too. Companies regularly employ marketing and communications experts, spokespersons, and PR firms. Companies may not yet speak like individual people in all situations, but they do in many. And in other situtations, they still communicate though in new and different manners.
Pretend for a minute that the companies you know of and communicate with are simple black boxes. Assume you know as little about their inner workings as you do about the inner workings of your own body. Assume also that although it's apparent that some communications come from certain parts of a company (law suits, product releases, pricing tables, burps, etc.), that these parts work synergistically somehow, but may not be aware of each other. So there's some sort of emergent set of communicative activities from each company. For the moment, ignore we'd also be safe in assuming the same of governments, non-profits, and associations. Companies need to communicate with each other and with humans.
A few facts about languages. They grow and prosper in language communities. Otherwise they become dead languages. A language's sophistication generally mirrors the resources-capacity available to each individual in the community. In other words, language used by sentient and self-aware beings is generative. Language used by carnivorous pack animals need not be generative. Languages are learnable by all members of the community.
So what are the language parameters required by future companies for a full and living community to prosper (predicative) and one which we find great to interact with (normative)? What sort of language structure and capacity will be sufficient for modern businesses to become fully responsible legal and communicative agents? Or can they ever?
Do companies have the same three elements that a baby does: the pre-disposition to learn language; a pre-disposition to learn; a surrounding language environment. Certainly there seems to be a need, and hence a pre-disposition, to learn language. And if companies don't inherently wish to learn always, we have activists and governments assisting them in their growth. We're left with whether there is a sufficiently rich language environment. At this point in time, this is in an emergent stage. The evolution of language-bearing species is more precisely co-evolution of the species and language. Intertwined. So how do we foster corporate language?
Take our species for a moment. A baby is born being predisposed to acquire a human language. She has the native ability to learn enough from what she hears at her mother's knee to pick up her mother's language. [Chomsky, circa 1965] The elements in play are: the pre-disposition to learn language; a pre-disposition to learn; a surrounding language environment.
So who are these "non-organic, non-sentient" entities? No, this is not yet another discussion about (the yet to exist) artificial intelligence. Non-organic, non-sentient, and yes legal, entities already exist. We call them corporations.
And corporations share many rights, privileges, obligations, and responsibilities with us humans.
We can suppose then that they will share similar skills too. Companies regularly employ marketing and communications experts, spokespersons, and PR firms. Companies may not yet speak like individual people in all situations, but they do in many. And in other situtations, they still communicate though in new and different manners.
Pretend for a minute that the companies you know of and communicate with are simple black boxes. Assume you know as little about their inner workings as you do about the inner workings of your own body. Assume also that although it's apparent that some communications come from certain parts of a company (law suits, product releases, pricing tables, burps, etc.), that these parts work synergistically somehow, but may not be aware of each other. So there's some sort of emergent set of communicative activities from each company. For the moment, ignore we'd also be safe in assuming the same of governments, non-profits, and associations. Companies need to communicate with each other and with humans.
A few facts about languages. They grow and prosper in language communities. Otherwise they become dead languages. A language's sophistication generally mirrors the resources-capacity available to each individual in the community. In other words, language used by sentient and self-aware beings is generative. Language used by carnivorous pack animals need not be generative. Languages are learnable by all members of the community.
So what are the language parameters required by future companies for a full and living community to prosper (predicative) and one which we find great to interact with (normative)? What sort of language structure and capacity will be sufficient for modern businesses to become fully responsible legal and communicative agents? Or can they ever?
Do companies have the same three elements that a baby does: the pre-disposition to learn language; a pre-disposition to learn; a surrounding language environment. Certainly there seems to be a need, and hence a pre-disposition, to learn language. And if companies don't inherently wish to learn always, we have activists and governments assisting them in their growth. We're left with whether there is a sufficiently rich language environment. At this point in time, this is in an emergent stage. The evolution of language-bearing species is more precisely co-evolution of the species and language. Intertwined. So how do we foster corporate language?
1 Comments on "Corporate communication":
This reminds me, in a way, of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Are you familiar with it? Here's an excerpt:
These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.
Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.
But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.
While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happytalk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it.
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