13 Jan 2009

Business communication 'enabling communities'

Telecommunication technology is enabling new forms of business communication which are important to understand, it has been suggested.

David Cumberbatch, a business psychologist speaking on behalf of mobile telecommunications firm Vodafone, commented that under the service of technology, the ideal is to bring people closer together rather than pulling them further apart.

On how telecommunications would affect younger workers compared to face-to-face contact, he noted that staff will value the sense of community that the technology can provide.

Rather than a sense of isolation, it can enable broader communities where people can be connected to each other all of the time, Mr Cumberbatch explained.

But he added: "What technology enables is important to understand, but some of the things that it may stop are equally important to understand."

Mr Cumberbatch's comments follow the publication of the 2008 Working Nation Report last month by Vodafone, which revealed that 56 per cent of younger staff viewed the social aspects of work as the most important factor to them, after being paid.