It was 4:30 in the morning on a Monday morning. I had just taken a weekend visit to the Belgian coast, the only trip to the seaside in about 3 years. And one of the only options without quarantine with fresh air and spacing between people.
But on the way home, early, it dawned on me why this holiday was so awkward. I was in the wrong ecosystem for my holiday. I went to a family friendly location and stayed at a small family-run hotel. Great, I hear you say. But I was alone and want to be autonomous and run on my own schedule. Nope, did not work. Small hotel only served breakfast from 08:00. Restaurants required bookings and did not have tables for one person alone. I could only eat at certain hours and in limited locations as most places were filled with family reservations (from several months ago). Because this was the ecosystem of other people who did things in different ways. This whole location had very few chain hotels and mostly rented apartments. This ecosystem was a mismatch to my needs. I had checked out the night before, and left the front door key outside near the door when I left as no one was yet up.
I have been having this mismatch with platforms and ecosystems for a while now. I am an atypical outlier, and deal with many different ecosystems and communities. And I have been tying myself in an e-pretzel to negotiate my day. Call Mike? Um, no, he only accepts FB or IG messenger messages and texts. Reach out to Celine? She’s on Skype but is having problems with the platform, so can I log into Teams in a different domain? I reach to certain folks on one email domain, other folks on another. Some use of Slack, Teams, Zoom, Asana - - you get my drift. And then there are the people who are setting up their own communities to create their own tribe. I have a number of invites, but that means I need to use their tools their way.
So it is not only about what client or supplier, what friend or relative, but what platform or means you need to reach them. It is not a communication issue, it is a plethora of disparate choices. And it is getting more personal by the day.
I’d like to go back to the days that I just needed a phone number and voice mail (ah yes, and a fax!) But with data, the choices are endless as the data repositories. And do not tell me to use WhatsApp, because I am not going there to the constant ping-pings of my mobile.
Why have we become so diverse in our choice of methods of communication and transactions? It is not due to a lack of standards but an abundance of them. Selecting your friends, your suppliers, your trusted industry colleagues means you also have to agree on how you plan to interact. It used to be about software platform and operating system. It is now about communication patterns, video connections and data exchange limitation. Never mind cybersecurity!
So I went home early, back to my trusted laptop to check all the different platforms and ecosystems I belong to. I find I spend a hour a day (minima) on this leaping from e-place to e-place.
So here is my question — when do I have enough market clout to demand people only communicate with me on the platform I select? Do I demand that I will not do something because it is not MY platform? Because I am e-tired right now. That is instead of retired. Still a few years left for that ecosystem.