Have you ever gone online and taken a look at job postings on websites — or better yet, when you are trying to fill a position, taken a look at the job descriptions from your own organization? At times they are filled with initials and acronyms that are facility specific and unknown to anyone outside the specific organization, or they have so many requirements that one is exhausted just reading them.
Job descriptions, which become the blueprint for our postings and employment ads, should be concise and accurate.
When someone reads a job posting they should be able to get a solid idea of what the job responsibilities are as well as what the qualifications are that are required to perform this particular job.
Here are a few tips for writing job descriptions:
• Keep sentences as short as possible; omit words that are not necessary.
• Leave out technical language whenever possible; explain the duties, responsibilities and requirements in a manner that even a layperson would understand.
• Use short, concise sentences or bullets points. Avoid using a narrative structure.
• Write in the present tense and use active verbs.
• Be consistent with your job descriptions; do not change the requirements for similar positions. Hiring managers at times have a person in mind for a position and want to craft the job description to match that individual’s qualifications. Internal and external applicants read these and can identify when there are discrepancies. This can lead to charges of discrimination and legal consequences.
• Focus on the essential functions of the job, not necessarily the frequency of the task.
• Avoid vague terms like facilitate, interface, may, occasionally. Use accurate terms.
• Describe and define responsibility as concretely as possible.
• Try to list responsibilities in a logical sequence.
• Use” preferred” instead of “required” for qualifications like years of experience or degrees, unless otherwise stipulated by regulatory bodies. This will allow for flexibility without being viewed as discriminatory if you alter the qualifications and repost at a later date.
If you follow these simple steps, you will be amazed at how much easier it will be for those applying for positions in your facility or system to really understand the responsibilities for the positions that are available and for which they will apply.
I’ve been pondering the so-called Jobless Recovery. Like many of you, I am wondering what the jobs of tomorrow will look like in the United States, with manufacturing essentially off-shored, most businesses contracting, and only a few industries like health care and some sectors of technology enjoying job creation.
Our unemployment rate keeps climbing (9.8% in September, 2009) and the published rates don’t take into account those who have simply stopped looking for employment or those who are underemployed. The recession has claimed 4,804,642 jobs since its start in December of 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Surely when businesses are in the position of hiring again, they will tap those who have been laid off and increase the hours of those current employees who have had to take ‘furloughed’ hours or otherwise compress their work schedules.
Even the health care industry has not been immune to downsizing, layoffs and restructuring. Just this week I read about a large health care system in Chicago that is undertaking a layoff of over 300 employees. And this particular layoff is just the latest of many in the health care arena this year. What impact health care reform will have on health care employment remains to be seen and impossible to predict until we have a much better idea of what shape that reform will take. Realistically, though, reform could transform the health care employment landscape and not necessarily for the better.
All of these factors sparked an interest in me to re-read a book, written in the 90s, called Job Shift. When I opened it and read the first chapter I realized elements of it could have been written last week. The author, William Bridges, says this: “Today’s organization is rapidly being transformed from a structure built out of jobs to a field of ‘work needing to be done’.” Bridges comments further that “jobs are artificial units superimposed on this field.” He also notes that the concept of ‘jobs’ arose with the Industrial Revolution to meet the needs of a new type of workplace and that currently we are undergoing another transformation involving ‘dejobbing’.
Dejobbing is a result of many factors, including the technology revolution, which has rendered entire classifications of jobs obsolete. This holds true from manufacturing, where robotics have become common, to retail sales, which is increasingly being done online. A trip to a major department store these days in often a lonely exercises, with few shoppers and even fewer sales staff. Bookstores are increasingly empty while Amazon thrives. Online shopping is more convenient, usually quicker and you can most often get exactly what you want without spending hours browsing. What’s not to like?
Another impact factor is the tremendous number of mergers in all industries in the past couple of decades. Remember when Delta and Northwest were two separate airlines? FedEx and UPS? When Chicago had both Marshall Field AND Macy’s? There are countless examples just like these and every merger results in fewer staff in the merged company.
The lust for productivity also is a factor here. American workers are the most productive in the world. We work longer hours and more days with fewer vacation days than just about any industrialized country. Try foisting our work schedules on anyone in France or Italy. But increased productivity drives profits, despite the effect on the workforce. If you can do the same work with fewer people, why not?
Another factor is the rise in temporary employment, which has occurred over the past couple of decades. Total outsourcing of the entire employee component is now a real possibility.
Also, jobs are becoming more fluid, with job descriptions constantly evolving as responsibilities change to meet company needs. This requires a nimble and accommodating workforce.
With all these changes, what will our jobs look like in the near future? What will happen to those who have been victims of the massive layoffs in the past year? We have been talking about retraining for years, but there does not appear to be any national initiative to analyze where jobs will be in the future and how we can train laid-off workers to fill those jobs. In some industries, because of rapid technology changes and other factors, we don’t even know what the jobs of the future will be.
And how do we advise our children who are preparing to go to college? What majors should they take and what kind of careers will be there for them in the future? These are not rhetorical questions. I am increasingly concerned that the future of work is at stake.
At the moment, at this point in 2009, the hot industries appear to be health care, green industries, government and technology. But I wouldn’t hitch my wagon to any of these stars in looking to the future.
I spoke to two new college graduates recently. Both were stellar students with excellent grades and civic participation. One matriculated in civil engineering. The other graduated pre-law and completed a paralegal course, with a view towards going to law school at night and working as a paralegal (while learning more about his discipline) during the day.
Both were in for a shock. Neither one can even get an interview in their respective fields, much less be offered a position.
Experienced attorneys and engineers I know tell me that work in their fields has greatly diminished over the past year, and that like so many other industries, potential retirees did not retire, due to the great losses to IRA, 401(k) and pension programs. Even large firms and practices greatly downsized due to the rough economic climate of the past 18 months.
So where does this leave the new graduates who are hoping to find work? How do they advance their careers?
Short answer – they don’t. Right now, both of the above mentioned grads are continuing with their college jobs - one in a restaurant and the other in retail - as a means of keeping body and soul together while they pursue better options. Both are rather cheerful, and not disheartened to find that after four or five years of very expensive college, they cannot get a position.
The engineer is considering working for Teach for America, a non-profit that matches teachers with kids in American rural and low income public schools. Math and science professionals are in high demand, so he feels confident he will be accepted if he applies.
According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, this has been the best placement year ever for the Teach for America organizations. More than 4,000 new teachers have signed up for the corps to teach in public schools across the country. The average SAT score of the students applying for these positions was 1344, and their average grade-point average was 3.6. Top people, putting their education to use in fields other than those for which they trained. New teachers are placed in regions across the United States that are considered rural or underserved.
Teach for America is part of AmeriCorps, so these new grads may also be able to negotiate loan forbearance and even loan forgiveness if they are accepted to teach in underserved areas. Given the thousands of dollars in loans the average college grad has to repay, this is no small thing. And in many regions, the program has partnered with area universities to offer subsidized Masters degree programs in Education for interested participants.
How it Impacts Health Care
Is this where our health care professionals will go? How will we get them back into acute and long term care when we need them in a few years? So many will be on to other career paths and out of the running to serve the elderly and ill populations who need them.
It happened in the 80s and it is happening again. Those valuable, hard won placements in schools of nursing, PT and Pharmacy will not pay off in wonderful new graduates stepping into waiting jobs. Instead, those would-be RNs, PTs and Pharmacists will meander into other areas of work – perhaps unrelated to their original fields of study – and be lost forever to the health care workforce.
And although we are in pretty good shape at present, I still shudder when I look back at those BLS projections for 2015 and beyond. We will have a shortage of epic proportions. Few organizations take on true workforce planning, and many will be caught unawares when that tidal wave rolls in.
This past week, the Bernard HODES Group exhibited at the annual conference of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) held in Orlando, Florida. As we know, many associations and conferences have experienced at least a 20% decline in their attendance, however SHSMD only had a 17% decrease in their number of final attendees (over 700) and they had the most exhibitors they have ever had—over 120!! Steve Mitchell, Christina Tierney and Judith Russell manned the booth and attended some of the sessions. The keynote session that created the most “chatter” was the founder of the company “Life is Good.” He had a very interesting story to tell about the startup of his company.When some attendees were asked what their CEO’s are most concerned about, attendees cited costs first, then keeping physicians engaged (not losing market share) and finally, maintaining patient satisfaction at a high level.Many attendees stopped by to discuss social media, especially since this is a very hot topic right now. They expressed the need for more strategic thinking and planning around this and benchmarking what their current online brand actually is. Christina circulated throughout this conference to actually interview some of the attendees. Please check these out:
Expo Floor Interview Janet with Witt Keifer SHSMD 2009
Shannon C Isom, Associate Director Marketing and Community Relations, Scott & White, Austin, TX
Diane Weathers, Sr. VP University Advancement & Communications, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey
Kathleen Dean, Marketing & Communication, Oregon Health & Science, University of Portland, OR
Since Facebook has become one of the fastest growing social networks in the world, many people are questioning exactly who they should befriend on this social networking site.
Facebook has become a wonderful way to reconnect with old friends, neighbors, classmates, relatives and former co-workers. But when it comes to connecting with people you work with, you might want to give friending a second thought.
According to a recent issue of HR Advisor, a survey conducted by OfficeTeam, a staffing service that places highly skilled administrative specialists, befriending people at work, especially your boss, can be very awkward. A phone survey with randomly selected executives from some of the nation’s largest employers, indicated that 48% were uncomfortable with being friended by someone they managed and 47% of them felt the same way about being friended by their bosses.
The feeling of discomfort extended beyond employees and bosses to include peers, vendors and clients.
What execs said about their comfort level in friending …
Boss
Co-workers
Reports
Clients
Vendors
Very Comfortable
19%
13%
12%
07%
06%
Somewhat comfortable
28%
38%
32%
34%
23%
Not very comfortable
15%
13%
15%
17%
24%
Not comfortable at all
32%
28%
33%
33%
38%
Don’t know
06%
08%
08%
09%
09%
“The line between personal and professional has grown increasingly blurred as more people use social networking websites for business purposes,” said Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. He said that managers, even if they aren’t going to connect with business contacts on social networking sites, need to be prepared to deal with requests for friending and such.
Hosking advises managers and employees to familiarize themselves with all the different options and controls social media sites offer. Use privacy settings and create different friend or contact lists to control how—and with whom—information is shared. “Individuals should classify their professional contacts into a ‘work’ list and limit what personal details this group can view,” said Hosking.
Here are some common Facebook situations professionals may encounter—and some recommendations for handling them:
• An Embarrassing photo of you surfaces on the site. Untag yourself and change your privacy settings so photos are viewable only by your close friends. Be aware of situations that could be potentially embarrassing when you are being photographed.
• Someone makes a friend request but you don’t want to connect with them. You may have to accept requests from co-workers to avoid slighting them, but add them to your “work” list and adjust the privacy settings so you can separate your work contacts from your personal contacts.
• You’re considering including your boss in your friends list. Think twice before reaching out to your boss. It could become very awkward for both of you.
• Joining a variety of groups. You should only join groups that really interest you. Keep the groups you join separate between your personal life and your professional life. Be very careful of comments you make on groups, especially your professional ones; people you come into contact with in the course of your job may be a members of the same groups.
• Fan Pages. Fan pages on Facebook are visible to anyone who can view your profile, avoid becoming a fan of any page you are uncomfortable sharing with anyone in your network.
• Online quizzes. Stop and think for before taking online quizzes and posting the results to your Facebook page. Do you really want your professional contacts to know which Disney character you most resemble?
• Political and religious views. Political and religious views can potentially create uncomfortable situations and slant the way people think of you. Therefore they should only be shared with your personal contacts and not your professional contacts.
Bottom line here-enjoy your networking on sites like Facebook, but be savvy about it.
Boomer Time!
Yes that is me - one of the 78 million born from 1946-1964. Along with our other traits, we are classified as the Sandwich Generation. Stuck in the middle to care for our children, parents and, if we are lucky enough, grandparents. I was blessed to assist in care decisions for a great grandmother, as well as grandparents.
A Nurse – so I know it all, right? Wrong!!
My grandmother thought I knew it all! It is so different to be on the patient and family side of the bed. We as health care professionals think we remember what it is like on the patient and family side of life in our practice. From my perspective, this is not so. Health care functions in silos. One area, the clinical side, is rarely concerned with the financial or payment side. I understand hospital settings very well. I have very little knowledge of the long- term care world.
Long-term Care - the unknown odyssey.
So much to know. So far behind.
The Daddy - He was and is just the best! To be honest, he is not even my biological dad. No one would ever know. He raised me from a baby barely walking and is still teaching me today. You see, he is 73-years old and has Alzheimer’s. Looking back, personality changes had already occurred 16 years ago when my son was born. He was emotionally disconnected. He has always looked healthy. And other than his degenerating brain, is healthy. He is not on one medication, and has perfect blood pressure!
In the beginning it was so frustrating for him. He noticed the changes… slow changes. He started to become overwhelmed in activities with multiple steps. Packing - pack, unpack, and pack. Money concerned him, but he was not sure why. He eventually forgot how to work the remote control for the television, how to dial the phone, how to cook. The man was a great cook. He tried to motivate his brain – crossword puzzles and a dictionary stayed on the kitchen table. Eventually, slowly, cognition declined. Even with my frequent visits, it become apparent he could not live independently. My family became more concerned and frequently fretted about next steps. We could not be sure he was eating. We knew he was not bathing regularly. More serious, he lived in an attached condo. He could forget and leave the stove on or a burner with a pan, causing a fire. We had great concerns he could harm himself or others, or someone would take advantage of his condition.
He and my mother were married for 26 years and then divorced. Still bonded, my mother chose to move him to Tennessee where she lives, to care for him. Big commitment, right? My sister was also there to support as a caretaker.
He became part of my mother’s neighborhood. Walking was his thing. He would walk and walk and walk. He would stop and attempt conversations with the neighbors. The community came to know him, love him and look out for him.
Moving him to my mom’s was the easy step. Next came time for long- term care. This decision alone is stressful. When is the right time? The family members feel guilty and helpless. Ok, so that is one side - the family connection, feeling like you are abandoning a loved one. The other side is the unknown minutia of red tape, regulations, and facilities – in other words the real world of health care and the reason health care reform is so critical.
We hired an elder care attorney. While I know many cannot afford this, we could not either, but did. We chose to hire the attorney simply to guide us on the best decisions for my dad. It is amazing, however, the attention and response we received from health care representatives once they learned an attorney was representing my dad’s interests.
I consider our family responsible. We had records and documents and yet, still never seemed to have the right documents. What about those who do not? Maybe records and belongings have been lost in catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina.
There were so many issues and decisions. What kind of facility is best? How do we pay and what is the financial impact to his long-term care that will be needed? He could live another 15 years. My dad is a vet. He was not in active duty, but was a paratrooper. Hence, he ended up with some chronic back issues. Of course there are no records to document this injury due to a fire at the VA records facility in St. Louis. My dad could not speak to this – no memory. One recommendation – keep every document!
This is not an unusual story. It is happening to thousands of families as you read this. During this experience with my dad, one thought repeatedly entered my mind. How do people that do not have family or significant others with their best interests at heart survive in our health care world? Everyone needs a personal advocate. Every patient is a person with a history, a story, and is a human being who deserves the very best treatment at the end of life. But not every patient is lucky enough to have that advocate. Certainly the guiding principle of assuring that advocacy should be an integral part of health care reform
There’s a lot of current discussion about how important transparent leadership is in developing engaged, motivated workforces. So true! In fact, I’ve read research that shows that frequent, honest communication from the top of organizations can override the damage done by inept supervisors. Pretty amazing when you think about it, huh?
But just because a leader comes off like an open book and can serve up some tasty Kool-Aid doesn’t guarantee he can be trusted. I suggest that transparency is rather easy to accomplish, especially for gifted communicators. Trust, on the other hand, can only be earned through behavior that demonstrates honesty, fairness, unyielding commitment to doing the right thing, and irreproachable accountability.
Indeed, we’ve seen leaders whose eloquence changed the course of history. Adolph Hitler was one of them. So were Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron. Their public personas were powerful, engaging and seemingly transparent; only their greedy inner circles knew the juxtaposition between what they said and what they did. When their evilness was exposed, it left millions in shock and misery, and questioning how they could have trusted such despicable losers.
Let’s face it. We’ve heard elected officials blatantly lie to us. We’ve seen corporations run from their responsibility for human and environmental safety. And we’ve all been in personal or professional situations that made us think twice about who we can trust. Despite all that, for every miscarriage, we can probably cite a counterpoint.
Take the Tylenol tampering case in the 80s. Instead of dodging the issue, Tylenol’s maker, Johnson & Johnson, immediately stepped up to the plate with transparency and action. They backed their public service announcements with responsible solutions, starting with pulling every bottle of product from shelves across the nation. Then, they used the lessons from the tragedy to create tamper-proof packaging that’s become the industry’s standard. Now, nearly 30 years later, Tylenol is still one of the world’s most popular and trusted brands. I wonder if that would be true if J&J had treated the incident as just the isolated work of a lunatic?
Another very recent example involved a horrible error made by a surgeon on infant. The physician not only admitted his culpability, he is now working with the family to ensure ongoing care for the child, which he is funding out of his own pocket. Versus the normal outcome, a mega-lawsuit, the doctor’s remorse, personal accountability and actions were so appreciated by the baby’s parents that they felt they could not further punish him for his mistake.
At a wedding I attended, the minister started the service with a statement about his own life. He said, “My wife and I have been married for 30 years. We’ve lasted this long because she expects certain behavior from me and I oblige.” I believe that’s the essence of trust…responsible, considerate actions that speak much louder than words.
Long and short, I’m all for transparency. I want honest communications - good, bad or indifferent. But throw in consistent behavior that I can respect and trust me, I’m yours.
The August unemployment and jobs report has been released and the numbers were not good for the acute health care setting (or the workforce in general). Hospitals shed 700 jobs in August. Overall the health care industry added 27,900 positions in August and 180,400 new jobs over the course of 2009. These overall numbers include all job gains including physicians’ offices, dialysis centers, blood and organ banks, ambulatory care, etc.
Cumulative data for hospitals shows that from January 1 to September 1 of this year, hospitals added 17,100 positions as compared to 94,100 over the same period in 2008 and 66,800 for that same period in 2007.
We know anecdotally that hospitals are being cautious about adding positions due to the overall economy this year and we also know there have been significant hospital layoffs in some geographic areas. The ranks of uninsured have proliferated, leading to more uncompensated care. The overall financial situation for much of the hospital industry has worsened due to a number of factors. New building has decreased. Donations and endowments are down.
Additionally, many members of the health care workforce have had to rethink retirement due to the economy and are working longer than they anticipated. Those who were part time or per diem may have had to extend their hours to compensate for spouses who have either been laid off or are under employed. These factors have resulted in precious few job openings in general.
Adding to all the above is the huge unknown of health care reform and the uncertainty of how that will look and how the coming reform will impact hospitals, technology, usage, staffing, etc. Add to this the threat of an H1N1 epidemic this fall and you are looking into the great unknown.
Given all of these factors, what is a cogent argument for the health care recruiter or HR executive doing the work to develop a workforce plan during these tough economic times?
One reason is the possibility that the lull in recruitment may have afforded you the opportunity to think a bit more strategically and to plan for future needs more proactively than in the more hectic past.
Just a cursory look at the health care workforce demographic projections is enough to make the most sanguine person nervous. To say nothing of the U.S. population projections. No one is unaware of the aging RN population or of this same phenomenon in other health care professional groups. And we are all bracing for the impact of the aging Boomer population on health care usage.
Workforce planning can seem like a daunting task if you look at the overall big picture, but taking baby steps can both get you started and also demonstrate that it really is not as difficult as you may have thought.
Why not take some time right now to look at where you currently stand in terms of your workforce-even if you only gather information on ages by department and type of position (including managers), and average age at retirement? Capturing just these current numbers and plotting five and ten years down the road will usually be a real eye opener, particularly when you look at some of those small departments with just a handful of employees. If your current HRIS system cannot provide this information, now would be an excellent time to see if you can change that so that you can easily retrieve this information and get a birds eye view of those demographics.
Looking at your own organization, what are projected changes that might impact hiring needs? Are you adding or contracting services, changing or augmenting technology, changing staffing patterns? Are you regularly having dialogue with practice managers about these changes and forecasting future needs for your high volume areas and hard to fill positions?
Look externally a bit and investigate migration in and out of your area, focusing on age and ethnic groups. What does your current population look like? Do your caregivers reflect the community they serve? What is the business climate in your area? What are your local colleges and universities doing in terms of enrollments and graduations in health care professions programs? Are there new programs or are the current programs contracting or being dropped? What will the impact of all of these factors be on the supply of health care professionals for your facility or system?
These baby steps will give you a real competitive advantage in the months and years ahead. And will lead to your being able to develop a true workforce plan.
Beginning work on this vital initiative now will stand you in good stead when the crunch comes. And it is coming…
I am writing this entry on the Friday before Labor Day, immediately after the Department of Labor announced the August unemployment rate was 9.7%, the highest in 26 years. The latest numbers account for 216,000 jobs eliminated in August and represent an uptick from an unemployment rate of 9.4% in July.
However, economists had predicted an even higher job loss, leading some to suggest that the slower pace of job losses signals that the recession is beginning to ease. Still, most experts feel it will be many months before we return to pre-recession unemployment numbers.
How ironic to be celebrating the American worker at such a difficult time for most of those very workers.
According to the Department of Labor, The first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City as a result of plans developed by the Central Labor Union. In 1894 Congress created the national holiday of Labor Day. It was suggested that there should be parades to highlight ‘the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations’, and a ‘festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families’.
Of course, over the years the holiday has evolved into a long weekend marked by picnics, family gatherings, and golfing. Labor Day signals the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. We rarely consider the true meaning of the holiday.
It is fitting that on this Labor Day of 2009 and the week that follows, we pause to reflect on the great American workforce, which though perhaps bloody and wounded, still represents the best ideals of our forefathers and those who envisioned this holiday.
This workforce has endured a year of downsizing, layoffs, furloughs and other decreases in hours worked or salary earned. Workers have seen co-workers laid off, have been forced to work harder and smarter because their numbers have been thinned, and have worried about the security of their own jobs.
Companies they had thought safe have gone out of business, leaving more workers unemployed. The nightly news is replete with stories about food banks running out of food, unemployment insurance running out and those seeking jobs giving up the quest. Job fairs attract thousands and workers settle for either part time positions or positions they are wildly overqualified for. There is not a single American who has been unaffected by this recession and its attendant job losses, either directly or indirectly.
We can only hope, going forward, that the long decline is nearly over, that in the next few months jobs will be created, furloughs will cease to exist and that by Labor Day 2010, we can truly celebrate the American workforce, confident the worst of times is over.
The popularity of Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging has begun to have a troublesome effect on communications, based on my purely unscientific observations.
In the past few years, we have been reading about how the Millennial Generation has trouble problem solving and employing critical thinking, because since childhood they have used computer programs with pull down menus to guide them. Seems when that is your frame of reference, you have difficulty finding the answers to life’s little predicaments. No pull down menu, what to do?
Recently I have noticed the effect of the abbreviated form of communication used with Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging on communication in general. Have you noticed how emails have been becoming briefer and that apparently those sending emails are not consulting spell check? Punctuation? What is that? Grammar? Not important.
I must confess, I find myself not even capitalizing the first letter in a sentence when I am IMing, to say nothing of using any type of punctuation at the end of my IM messages. And I am not by any stretch of the imagination, anything but a member of the Veteran Generation.
When one is encouraged to be as brief as possible (in the case of Twitter, messages cannot exceed 140 characters and messages in Facebook are pretty much in that ballpark, possibly because most folks tend to use both sites), forming a longer sentence becomes daunting.
Young people prefer texting over a real conversation and that medium has a lexicon all its own. Abbreviations, symbols, numbers-it is like aliens have taken over the English language. I pride myself on never having texted in my life (although why, I have no idea). Probably my one last protest over the constant change technology has wrought. When you have the choice of emailing on a Blackberry or similar device or texting, I just can’t fathom why you would opt for texting.
We have one young friend who insists on texting rather than calling us on her cell phone, despite the fact that we don’t even have a texting out option on our cell phones and that was a conscious decision. I guess this young woman cannot conceive of a human being who is not similarly infatuated with texting and wouldn’t prefer it over picking up the instrument one is using to send the text and actually calling the person with whom one wishes to communicate.
After she has texted us, I always call her cell phone and she is invariably surprised to hear from me. Does she not realize it is a cell PHONE she is using? Back in the dark ages, people actually used them to talk to each other.
Think of what this abbreviated method of communication would have meant to the great authors. Hemingway would probably have loved it. Tolstoy, Cervantes and Shakespeare, not so much. War and Peace would probably have been a modest one hundred pages if written today.
Are we only a year or so away from mini-books, composed of 2000 characters? Is social media creating its own Haiku? Are we miniaturizing our language and our thoughts and concepts?
I fear there is only one step left…and that is communicating with symbols such as nautical flags.
