Oatis Week 3 Posting

Communication is completely unavoidable. There is no job, profession, trade, school, or major in which one will not have to communicate. We are constantly communicating and interacting with the world around us through a multitude of mediums such as verbal, non-verbal, and ones that are computer based. Managing and understanding the messages you are sending (intentionally or not) is just as important as being able to interpret that of those around you.

In the text, the authors describe how dynamic communication is and how that effects how we define the very idea. This past summer I was hired as a 911 Emergency Dispatcher. I went training on how to be an effective communicator in high stress situations and how to best communicate with different types of callers.  Part of my training was learning about how communicating over the phone is different that in person. I had to use the non-verbal clues just as much as what the caller said. The tone, diction, and background noises all come into play and can give me just as much information as the words that the caller speaks. I was taught to use active listening techniques such as open-ended questions, paraphrasing, and repeating the caller’s words.  As calls were usually time sensitive, asking the right questions and getting the appropriate information from the caller was imperative.

In trying to describe and illustrate the idea of communication, we have simplified the communication model into a web of boxes and arrows.  We can study each aspect separately and really get into how the process works. However, what I found most interesting was the idea that “the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.”  All of the differing pieces come together and are instantaneously meshed together and interpreted by our brains. While we studied each piece individually as a step in the progression, in actuality, the process is fluid and all of the parts really operate in unison. Signals are always being sent, received, and interpreted.

In class we talked a lot about the integration of technology into our daily lives and how certain technologies have become obsolete.  As a dispatcher I had to work with five separate radio systems each of which had ten to sixty channels within it. As a kid I remember having walkie-talkies and thinking that they were the coolest things. Back then, those were the vanguard of technology, I also had a Gameboy color and a Nintendo 64. Naturally as time passed, companies came out with new technology and like we discussed, my technology went from the cutting edge to the bottom of the barrel. When I arrived for my first day of training, I was overwhelmed with how far the technology had come! My console at work operates tens of thousands of dollars worth of communication equipment. I couldn’t help but think back to those cheep little Motorola walkie-talkies and laugh. Technology is progressing at such an incredible rate that in order to be able to function as a dispatcher, I had to sit down and study radio systems. It quickly became apparent that within communication, there was a whole different branch of communications that was specific to public safety professionals.