When was the last time you wrote a letter by hand?

Dear reader,

I’m a traditional kind of guy. I would describe myself as a bit of a romantic fool. It’s in my genes. I like old black & white movies. I like little hand written notes; leaving notes and receiving them.

All this, even though I consider my handwriting to be average if not scruffy! I still write using a rule to make sure it’s neat and tidy. A little bit OCD perhaps but that’s my traditional way of doing it. I feel more resilient that way; more comfortable and safe.

I was talking to someone lately in a business meeting and we were discussing resilience communication; how we communicate it and more importantly, how will it be communicated in the future. This isn’t in relation to the fantastic platforms we have in Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

But in these ‘capabilities’ we see and recognise the potential for making people aware of a crisis. How fantastic and grateful we should be to have these platforms literally in the palms of our hands, not just for our personal but for our professional lives too; helping the world to be a bit more resilient and safer.

Communication has changed and will continue to do so – simplicity is the key

If you’re like me (I don’t mean an old romantic with dodgy handwriting), you can’t remember the last time you wrote a letter by hand. The thought of that ‘lost skill’ and experience is a little bit sad but that’s life, we have progressed as the world and technology developed; we have become more selfish and precious with our time which means we can save the time of writing out letters and just text or post something instantly. #lol

Of course, technology has played a massive role in this capability to message instantly and lessened the need to put pen to paper. All because our world now means we can ‘save time’ by doing things fundamentally different to the way we did it in the past. It’s far simpler now to text and post than it was even five years ago. #emoji

Building and communicating resilience

The resilience profession needs to look at the learning opportunities given to us of how things have changed over time in the simple practice of handwritten letters to instant messaging; we need to think about the current processes and methodologies of how we communicate and expect businesses to be more resilient in the future.

If we do things now because it ‘saves us time’ but still has the effect/end result, then traditional methodologies of business resilience need to move with and be ahead of the time when thinking about the future. Traditional ways will still be needed of course and should be encouraged where appropriate.

But people and businesses will demand and want business resilience to be achievable, affordable and available in different formats in the future, simply because, times have changed! #simplicityinresilience

Lots of love

When was the last time you wrote a letter by hand? Do you agree with Paul? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – An international business resilience leader, Paul Kudray is a Fellow of the EPC and a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (FICPEM). He is a Lead Auditor for ISO 22301. In 2014 he founded his own consultancy and he is an excellent forward thinking resilience innovator and blogger. paul@kudrayconsulting.com.