I worked for multiple companies in the “corporate world” over
three decades. We lived in eight cities, in three countries. North, south, east
and western US, Japan and China. For work, I traveled to six continents and
flew, literally, millions of miles.
When I first started traveling, to communicate you made
calls from pay phones, wrote letters, sent faxes.
Back then, the world wasn’t viewed thinking about how it would look
later via your IPhone camera on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or WeChat.
Colleagues were communicated with by walking to their office
(or cubicle) or meeting them by chance (or plan) in break rooms. Talking was
preferred. Texting wasn’t an option.
Between cities or even across oceans; jets, trains and cars
traveled at the same speed they do today but life was much slower. I am a the
product of a low tech era.
At work, corporate info and gossip often came through “water
cooler” conversations or the “grapevine” – unstructured communication that
could be random but seemed to have a common form in every place I worked or
traveled around the world. Never good at being deskbound, my incessant need to
move and curious nature made me a student and daily user of the grapevine.
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| The Water Cooler has Evolved |
Whether it was having coffee with a colleague in Argentina,
drinking after work with customers in Tokyo or sipping tea with the office team
in Shanghai – I spent most of my career eyeball to eyeball with people. I
enjoyed learning about their world, what they felt, wanted for their kids,
their career or their company.
Time passed, things changed. Although my use of email
started in the 80s, back then it was infrequent and always business related since it came
on a mainframe terminal not a PC (younger readers you may need to “google”
those arcane terms).
I was not an early adopter of technology but stayed fairly current
– in China I had a Motorola Razr (think Jack Bauer in season 1 of "24") in the run-up to the IPhone but to me a phone
was not my preferred way to communicate.
After moving back to the US six years ago, my only social
media activity was posting pictures on Facebook. Shortly before I was booted
out of the corporate world in 2012, I set up a Linked In account and then
wondered why.
Now I know.
Working for myself has been an almost
totally positive experience; however early on I had a severe case of “grapevine
withdrawal”. Don’t get me wrong my four legged office companions are great
company and working out of a home office is the best commute imaginable but I
really missed the frequent chats with colleagues and the camaraderie of an
office setting. Initially, it seemed like I would just have to live with that
void in my work life. Fortunately, a digital solution manifested itself.
One day in a bored moment I set up a new Linked In account
because I had not used my first one in so long that I had forgotten the
particulars. At first I found the site of limited value but once I starting
writing posts about the lithium market, I seemed to get new connection requests
every few hours. I discovered how valuable Skype video calls could be. I knew
people all over the world – they became my electronic water cooler network. I
could talk with people from Argentina to China face to face from my home office.
On a trip back to Shanghai – my buddy and driver, Philip
introduced me to WeChat which seems to have the best functioning video chat of
any app I have used.
My daughter told me multiple times I should have a Twitter
account. I resisted but later decided to give it a try. I have never paid to
advertise. I don’t even have a premium (paid) account on Linked In yet I have
more business now than I can handle and almost every new person I deal with
either says: “I follow you on Twitter” or “I read your posts on Linked In”.
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| I Finally Gave in and Started Tweeting |
My small business is driven by what I know and by staying
current in my industry. I continue to travel the world meeting with major
lithium related companies face to face but since change happens so quickly; it
is great to have a growing digital “water cooler” network. If a client asks me
about a market rumor from China or Japan or a supplier’s production problem in
South America, I can often debunk or corroborate information in minutes by
accessing my network through one of various the digital platforms.
Last summer I challenged the position a Chilean regulator
was taking on a matter important to the lithium industry via Twitter. Much to
my surprise he responded within a few minutes. We went back and forth on
Twitter. The next day I was changing planes in Zurich on my way to Shanghai, I
turned on my phone and saw a Chilean Newspaper had printed our tweets and
written an article about the issue. By the time I landed in Shanghai, the story
had been picked up in Asia and I was getting emails about it. The next day the
Chilean paper asked for an interview. I did the interview from the other side
of the world. I never met the regulator or the interviewer except
electronically.
The speed of physical travel across oceans may be much the
same as when my career started; but news travels across global “grapevines”
faster than ever – and in most cases the cost is only that of an internet
connection. Even in my home office, I am never without access to a global
network I could not have imagined just a few years ago.
