Given various communication mediums, we can break any task down into its smaller components where each bit of data can then be dealt with using a particular protocol.
I think that by putting some thought into the ways we communicate, we can be more efficient in what we do. That is, spending less time wrestling with the tools and focusing more on the messages. If one tries to complete a task and faces unnecessary obstacles which appears to be due to the inefficiency of the tool(s) in use, then it would be beneficial to reconsider the tool(s) to complete that same task.
By briefly defining the following, I hope that some of these communication protocols will shed some light to those that are not entirely familiar with them and hence allow them to communicate more efficiently with others.
- Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
- Ideal (See: IRC is a social networking platform)
- Real-time one-to-many communication (e.g., freenode)
- Conversations can be logged and accessed via URL for future use
- Ability to use channels on virtually any topic to communicate with others
- Instant Messaging (IM)
- Real-time one-to-many communication (e.g., XMPP)
- Similar to IRC but video and audio conversations are more common through the clients
- Web feeds
- Allows subscription to any content (See RSS or Atom formats
- Various data resources can be pulled (e.g., Wiki updates, Blog posts)
- Wikis
- Collaborative knowledge dump (e.g., Wikipedia)
- Centralised documentation with history (i.e., changes to entries)
- MicroBlogging
- Public or private brief notices (e.g., identi.ca)
- Updates from users can be made using various protocols (e.g., IM, SMS texting)
- Information can be accessed through a URI
- Notices can be subscribed using feeds
- Pastebins
- Quick dump locations for data which can be accessed through a URI
- In Real Life (IRL)
- All good when coffee or beer is involved ;)
- Lot's of information can be transmitted simultaneously (e.g., pheromones, hands, body posture and facial expression)
- Digital video meetings (or conversations)
- Similar to IRL but with less quality
- Unnecessary cognitive load and doesn't scale well. (See Tantek's Email is Efail)
- Indexing and searching past messages is an unpleasant experience
- Telephone
- Effective but can be unnecessarily time consuming
- Audio quality varies
- Although there is nothing like hearing an old friend's or family member's voice
- Radio
- One-way transmission (from sender)
- Can be recorded, however, indexing and searching information is not simple
- Smoke signals
- Time consuming (required resources, human power, amount of data to be transmitted
- May not be accurate given the complexity of information
- Perhaps not environmentally friendly if everyone were to communicate this way today
- Morse code
- Not dependant on the medium (information can be sent using various methods)
- Requires training and experience to transmit accurately and efficiently.
- Photographs
- Non-verbal
- Able to invoke different dimensions of emotions
- Telepathy
- Still known as a paranormal phenomenon
- Digital audio meetings (or conversations)
- Similar to telephone
- Voice-mail
- Time consuming from both ends (i.e., sender, receiver)
- Can't index, search (unless there is voice recognition)
- Paper
- Becoming more environmentally unfriendly with ink (e.g., snail-mail)
- Too slow
- Archiving consumes time, space
- Can't index or search easily
- Good for authenticated documents (although can be forged)
- Fax
- Similar to paper
- IRL (professional group meetings)
- Can be redundant
- Insanely costly, if not executed with precision
Notes
This document is inspired by Tantek's Communication Protocols and my ongoing frustration with email and other inefficient ways of communicating digitally.
