The Good Ol' Days of Face to Face

The other day I saw an ad for an experiential marketing conference. It’s a conference about face-to-face marketing. The good ol’ days in their books. Makes sense since the upcoming Y generation has now surpassed the baby boomers in terms of numbers. They’ve been connected since they were in the womb and have lost some/most of their social skills outside of texting. It’s a proven fact. So, what’s this face-to-face thing all about? LOL!

Here in rural BC I can tell you that face-to-face is still where it’s at…most of the time. There is still a sense of community that involves running over to your neighbour’s to get a cup of sugar and not ordering one online from Zippy the Sugar Daddy (assuming you HAVE neighbours, that is). People still want to see you. They want to know you before they give you their business. They want to meet you to talk about their life. If you want a press release printed online or otherwise, you take the editor out for lunch. Simple.

It’s still valuable and its funny how this aspect of communication has been downplayed. Maybe the experts will be coming to rural communicators to see what this face-to-face thing is all about! Maybe in this particular area, we have a one-up! Rural Communication squared!

Welcome to Rural Communication 1.5

Never heard of 1.5? Well, it exists in the realm of rural communication, believe me. I live in a small community in the West Kootenay region of BC. By small I mean less than 10,000 people. We are surrounded by smaller and really small communities all through the “valley”. Some of these people do not have access to high speed internet and some of these people don’t want to be connected. They moved out here for a reason. Not to be bombarded with media, messaging, etc. They want peace. They want real people. It’s just a little slower out here.

Which is why I’ve decided to embark on a communication journey of 1.5. To let people of the 2.0 realm realize that it isn’t all about them. You do have to do things just a little differently out here…most of the time.