My personal example of an online relationship going to face to face was this past summer when contacting someone in the professional world. A family friend of mine had a brother who was rather high up in the world of finance. On her advice, she recommended I email rather than call him due to his travel schedule. This would allow him to get back to me at his leisure. Upon asking him in an email to possibly meet and discuss his career, he emailed me back a day or so later with a rather abrupt email. As I recall it went something like “plz to meet, call my secretary to arrange a lunch time”. At this point I was thinking “oh great this guy just thinks im wasting his time”. I called, setup a time, and got another email back a few more days later saying something like “see you at 12”. For a guy whose who has done very in well in the financial world, I was rather unimpressed with his lack of email professionalism
Eventually our lunch time arrived and his personality was completely different than expected. I had anticipated a rather bland executive who would be all business. I was actually completely wrong. He had an extremely bubbly personality with an almost boy-like exuberance to him. This example can be looked at under Walthers hyperpersonal model. Here, I was using the limited clues I had about this person to create an image in my head. I was over attributing based on the information I had. That image turned out to be wrong based on the lack of non verbal clues.
According to the Rameriz and Wang paper, a person having an online relationship can often have a negative view of the other person once they meet face to face. My case was exactly the opposite. I had a negative view going into the face to face meeting and came out with a completely positive view. I think this may have happened because of the limited emails I exchanged with the person.
3 comments:
Brendon,
Great job with this post. It was interesting to note that your had a bad impression of this corporate executive early on, and it was your meeting that reverted these initial impressions you had. You were right on with Walther's hyperpersonal model-limited cues to create an image or first impression of the individual. I'm glad the guy did not turn out to be a mere business tool who lacks personality. It's interesting to note, that if we pull apart the e-mail he wrote, and lack of e-mail professionalism, we should ask ourself, is it even fair to call him "a rather bland executive"; because well firstly, he is not conforming with the corporate executive speak- doesn't that mean a lot?
Brendan-
Great post! That was a really interesting and startling story for two main reasons. First, it perfectly applies to what we have been discussing in class regarding leaving virtuality. Second, however, it signifies how CMC has affected the ways in which professionals interact. Though you were surprised by the way the businessman responded in his e-mail, I feel as though it is becoming increasingly common to ignore the conventional ways of speaking in CMC and reserve professional ways of speech exclusively to FtF. This is a really interesting concept that I am sure will be looked at more closely as CMC replaces FtF as a means of communicating in the business world.
-Emily
Brendan,
Very interesting post. In my blog assignment I had a similar experience with someone from the professional world. However, unlike yours, I found the person I met online to be enthusiastic, and the person I met in person to be a little dull. It is important that professionals learn how to present themselves effectively through mediated forms of communication or the results can be harmful to their reputations. It seems that the professional you spoke to was very busy and didn’t have a lot of time. Perhaps this is why his emails were so short and impersonal. Great job!
Post a Comment