One way to think about digital communications is that in some ways it petrifies, or sets in stone, a portion of what would otherwise be a real-world conversation.

This petrification can be a useful tool to scale or supplement the in-person communication we engage in every day.

For instance, we can use media to “bottle up” a conversation which we have many times with different clients or customers with very little variation in order to scale that communication of information to a degree that wouldn’t be possible if we had to personally conduct it each time.

Or we can use our media as a sort of personal glossary where we can lay out an explanation of terms or ideas we often use in a specialized way, and then direct customers to those definitions as supplementary information to our media or even to in-person conversations.

While media is great at capturing, freezing, and replicating communication, this petrification process removes the dynamic and organic elements of real-life communication.

So, next time you go to create a piece of media, ask yourself, “how would I get this message across in a real conversation, and what am I losing by petrifying it?”

And, next time you get frustrated with having the same conversation for the fiftieth time with a new customer, think about how you might be able to use your media to have that conversation for you.