Text messaging and me

Happy 2010. I’ve been a bit bothered by something for a while now; text messaging and the implications it has on future communication. Let me explain… I capped off my week last week with a visit to an apartment I was looking to potentially move into. Before seeing the apartment I had never actually spoken to the broker, only set up the showing with her assistant over email. When I got to the unit at the scheduled time/day the broker was nowhere to be seen. After giving her a 10 minute grace period I called her cell phone, left a message and subsequently emailed her assistant in an effort to let them know I was there and waiting. I got no response from either, until about 10 minutes later when I received the following text message from the broker (verbatim): “Hi peter I have u booked for tomorrow at sackville (street name). Is that good for 11am. I have 2 places on sackville to show you. Danielle” Now, it’s not the lack of correct grammar that bothers me. It’s the fact that I’ve never spoken to this woman and after missing our appointment she felt that it was ok to text me her apology. Keep in mind she was vying for my business. In the world of venture capital it is my role to find the best new opportunities for OpenView to invest in. Guess what? There are a plethora of expansion stage companies that are trying to capitalize on the SMS movement, whether it’s opt in, mass texting or something in between. A lot of these companies are only tapping into a small percentage of brands sales and marketing budget at present, give them a few years and my guess SMS/MMS becomes one of the most widely used and accepted forms of interacting with your consumers. From a growth capital firm standpoint this has the potential to completely disrupt current communications and generate big revenue. From a traditionalist standpoint however I find this communication mostly annoying and until mobile phone carriers can cut their bloated fees for texts then I want no part. My ultimate fear is the vast majority of our younger generations are quickly dropping face to face and phone communications to send a text. Not only is this causing a slow deterioration of the English language and increase in the use of slang; like u for you or l8er for later. But the increase demand for instant feedback/gratification will only breed less human contact something which is critical to relationship development and especially valuable in my line of work. So as these generations grow into the work force does texting become the norm for communication in the business world?
“The emergence of the mobile phone and the rise of text messaging as a popular means of communication would appear to have impacted on standards of writing as evidenced in the responses of candidates,” the report said, according to Wednesday’s Irish Times. “Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing.” From a CNN article back in 2007 (link to CNN no longer exists, but this one does…http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1021)