Most companies treat communication as an afterthought to the work.
Over the last few decades we’ve tried to minimize it with fewer meetings, faster handoffs, less “overhead.” But we’ve missed the point entirely–and we’re only missing it worse now.
Human communication isn’t just how we express an idea. It is the idea. We’ve known this for ages, both intuitively and academically. But now it’s time to remember it, to reclaim it, and to put it at the heart of the work we do.
The best ideas of the future will be forged in human communication, which means that we need to start taking human communication seriously and designing it intentionally.
We’ll discuss:
- Human expression as inherently generative, not (just) referential
- The importance of communication as a multilateral system (ie, how to incentivize good listening, not just good broadcasting)
- Adapting design systems and processes as the company scales
- How deliberate communication design can make our existing tools less stressy and more useful (think: comments on a shared doc)
- Why the future belongs to us chatty and curious and messy humans (in your face, robots)
