Don't Stop Talking
January 12, 2011
Sherry Hess is vice president of marketing at AWR, bringing with her more than 15 years of EDA experience in domestic and international sales, marketing, support, and managerial expertise. For the majority of her career Sherry served in various positions at Ansoft Corporation including director of European operations and later as vice president of marketing. Before joining Ansoft, Sherry spent two years with Intel Corporation, where she worked in the ASIC Group and developed relationships with companies such as Bell Northern Research and Northern Telecom. Sherry holds a BSEE and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. www.awrcorp.com. This blog is part of Microwave Journal's guest blog series.
To comment or ask Sherry a question, use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.
I can’t remember at which airport I was when I read this USA Today headline: “The Year We Stopped Talking.”
And without reading anything more, I knew the article had to be about social media, texting and the many wonderful wireless gadgets that have become necessary to our survival in the 21st century. We have certainly moved away from voice as the primary means of exchanging information and replaced it with text messaging. While I accept that we have become a world of ‘thumb’ and ‘touch screen’ typists, I can’t agree that we don’t need to communicate by voice as well, whether via skype, cell, or even the old fashion way...face to face.
Yes! Face to face. This personal interaction is important for our industry. I recently attended APMC in Japan last month and experienced first-hand the value of one-on-one direct interaction. Not only did I engage in meaningful conversation with AWR customers from Panasonic to Murata but also with other partners, colleagues and coworkers on topics such as coupled thermal/electric co-simulation of MMICs, as well as PCB layout integration through ODB++ .
I also bumped into friends at R&S and Anritsu. The first traveled from Germany and the latter from California. We all agreed that getting personal time with our coworkers was critical to ensure we are communicating clearly and working toward our corporate goals. And just as important, exchanging experiences, information and stories with respect to “emerging” technologies and trends seem much more effective in person. For example, connecting companies such as R&S, Anritsu, Mesuro and HFE with AWR in the emerging field of non-linear behavior modeling ensures we all stayed plugged into the latest and greatest developments.
Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, also agrees on this topic and reminds us that technology can be turned off. "We've come to confuse continual connectivity with making real connections," Turkle says. "We're 'always on' to everyone. When you actually look more closely, in some ways we've lost the time for the conversations that count."
To further make my point, consider these statistics: according to a semi-annual wireless survey released in October by CTIA-The Wireless Association, 93% of Americans now use a wireless device or cellphone — and not just for voice calls. From June 2009 to June 2010, subscribers sent 1.8 trillion text messages (up 33% from the previous year) and 56.3 billion multimedia messages (up 187% from the year before).
But short of sharing insights and getting answers to questions, face to face time allows other personal connections to happen and free-form dialogue to emerge. How else would I learn some of you out there enjoy reading my blog! So thank you MWJ for asking me back as a blogger during APMC and our face to face dinner meeting.
Here’s to more face time within the RF & Microwave community in 2011 and not less.
Well said, Sherry!
Posted by: Judy Warner | 04/26/2011 at 09:37 AM