Cell Phone Etiquette... a stupiphany.

I was hosting an internet marketing roundtable yesterday with Kari Carson in Puyallup, Washington at Toscanos Café and Wine Bar. (An awesome place by the way!)

We were talking about young people, technology, and how the rules of communication have changed. The subject came around to cell phones.

Now I know we’ve all had this conversation...

“Young people never answer their phones.”

True, but they will respond almost instantly to a text message. More and more, clients are doing the same. Synchronicity always amazes me. All this talk about cell phones and I, just last week, lost my old BlackBerry in a washing machine while it was running. (another story...)

OMG, you’d a thought that my brain short circuited. My BlackBerry is my office! It's my life. I was disoriented, I was numb. It happened too fast to panic... I was instantly, without any warning unplugged from the Matrix and flushed down the tubes to oblivion! But, then a couple of days later, it was like the anticipation of Christmas. My shiny new BlackBerry “Curve” 8330 showed up. "Oh yah." I’m still fumbling a little learning what keys go with what functions. They moved a lot of them around in six years. But, hey, this is a nice phone.

One of the guys at the roundtable told a great story.

It so reminded me of what happened to me the day before yesterday...

2:00 PM My friend Dave calls: “Hi, it’s Dave. Just checking in. How’s it going man? Let’s get together for coffee or something soon and catch up. I’m free tomorrow afternoon and Saturday morning until about 11:30 AM. Give me a call.”

I’m in a meeting until 2:30 PM, it goes to voicemail.

2:40 PM Out of meeting, call Dave, get voicemail. “Hey man, how’s it going? Sorry I missed your call. I was in a meeting. Yah, coffee sounds great. Let’s get together and connect the dots. Okay, talk to you later. Give me a call.”

3:05 PM I’m at a client’s office talking about social media marketing, phone is on silent mode. I have voicemail, Dave called.

3:30 PM Leave client’s office, sitting in truck, check voicemail, listen to Dave’s message. I call back. It goes to voicemail. “Hi Dave... I guess tag you’re it again. Hope all is going well. I’m headed back to the office. Call me. I’ll be there until about 5:30 PM. I’ll be home tonight. Let’s try to hook up around 7:00 PM if I don’t hear from you.”

4:10 PM Back at the office and IT guys call. It turns into a conference call with them and my guys about issues moving the website. Cell phone rings, it’s Dave, it goes to voicemail.

4:45 PM Call voicemail. “Hey, Dave here again. Sounds good, give me a call around seven.

7:05 PM Call Dave, get voicemail.

Okay... we’ve all been here before.

I have a stupiphany, “you definitely need to update your cell phone etiquette!”

Duh! No wonder kids text!

... new thread

7:15:20 PM Text Message from daughter Tawnya: Just an FYI Jake took his permit test today and passed and now has his permit ;)

7:15:55 PM Text to daughter Tawnya: KOOL!!! Way to go Jake!

... end thread

It totally makes sense to use texting. I mean, I got that before yet it took a few particular events running concurrently to drive the obvious all the way home to my subconscious. Those years of calling and leaving a voice message are so deeply ingrained they're a behavioral pattern.

Time for a new habit!

It’s just so practical to call your family/friend network and not leave a message if it’s just a touching base call. They’ll see it on their phone. They know you called. In fact, it's probably smarter just to text in the first place.