Keep In Touch
Why VHF is like blogging.

I just spent a week on an island with no cell phone, no Internet connection and no way to communicate long-distance with anyone other than a VHF radio. And it taught me a very valuable lesson: Even without fancy gadgets, people still manage to communicate.

My first reaction to hearing that there was no phone was a sense of panic that most addicts have. What would I do without being able to call anyone? Then I realized that there wasn't much I was going to be able to do in an emergency situation anyway, so I entered the resignation stage. "Oh well," I figured, "whatever it is can wait."

Promptly at 8:15 the next morning I realized how wrong I was. At 8:15 every morning, on VHF channel 68, there was something called Cruiser's Net that provides an hour or so of chat, news, weather and gossip, connecting everyone within listening range. And just because there weren't what we might consider "normal" channels, it wasn't as if people weren't informed, didn't know what was going on, or were out of touch with one another. Restaurant menus, reservations, emergency emails, sea conditions: all readily available on VHF. And if there was something else you wanted to communicate, you just jumped into the conversation. Whether you were on a fishing boat or renting a mansion on the beach, you stayed in touch via VHF.

And that's when it dawned on me. With a few exceptions, most people need to be in touch with other people. And they will figure out a way to stay in touch, no matter where they are or what circumstances they are in.

As communications professionals, we occasionally forget that our role in life is not to communicate, but rather to facilitate communications. We can't control what people say or think; we can only help build relationships and connections.

Which gets back to the whole issue of blogs. Blogs aren't really very different from Cruiser's Net -- a bunch of people expressing opinions and exchanging information. Are bloggers revolutionary? Hardly. Sure it's different, but not that much different than making dinner reservations via VHF.

So get down off the roof tops and stop beating your breasts about this whole blog thing. It's just another form of communication. And if you want to be successful at it, do what I did on Cruiser's Net. Listen for a couple of days and figure out what information is getting out there. If there's some other information that you need, ask for it. If there is wrong information, let people know. But don't try to control the dialog; it just won't work.

Wishing you a large measure of success,

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