The future of communication

Technology has driven the way we communicate, and that evolution shows no sign of stopping

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For considerably more than a century, changes in the modes of business communication have defined dramatic shifts in industry. The telegraph made synchronised global stock trading possible in the 19th century, and the telephone has increased the pace of business throughout the 20th century, further enhanced by the mobile variety in the 1980s. But in the last decade there have been increasingly rapid changes in communication tools, with no sign of the pace slowing. Skype and smartphones are just the beginning.

Nowadays, anyone with a laptop and a Wi-Fi (or mobile data) connection can videoconference on the move. Although email has existed since the 1960s, and been a mainstay of business for a couple of decades now, there are signs that it could be taking a back seat in the near future, if it hasn't already. The mobilisation of workforces, and the population in general, has placed more immediate, short-form communication at centre stage. Twitter, WhatsApp, and even Snapchat have taken over from AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, offering more smartphone-friendly rapid text-based communications that fit the pace of contemporary industry better. They sit in the happy halfway house between email and telephony, with the persistence of the former but the immediacy of the latter.

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was a promoter and DJ in East London. He is now marketing executive of The First Post.