What's your Digital Body Language?

I was tackled in a voicenote yesterday from a friend who I am collaborating with on a project. I had inadvertently used her gmail address as opposed to her corporate email address to send a business update. Her tone was very serious and told me in no uncertain terms to desist from using her gmail account in corporate communication.

Fortunately, I know her well and know this is how she takes the mickey out of me.

But it got me thinking about a concept that we don’t talk nearly enough about: Digital Body Language.

We all know that we are knee-deep in a pandemic that catapulted us into a way of life that suddenly required almost all our communication to become digital. Is it then any wonder that so few of us have tailored our communication to fit this new landscape?

When last did you pause for a second and ask yourself if your communication was received as intended?

After giving this some thought, I have concluded that at the root of it, digital body language essentially creates a perception that was unintended. Think about how you’ve reacted to the following situations:

-?????????A zoom attendees’ camera is off while yours is on; how does that make you feel?

-?????????Someone reads your whatsapp and leaves you on “blue tick” status, do you feel offended?

-?????????You’ve sent a LinkedIn message to someone who has not yet responded, but you can see they’re online, are you annoyed?

-?????????You’ve emailed a request to someone and haven’t had a reply in days; maybe you feel a bit worthless?

So, if you want to mitigate how the world responds to you, let’s explore how you can show up more authentically, create less bias and build true connections in this digital economy. I believe in order to “get”, we need to first “give”, so let’s give consideration to our own digital body language, take responsibility for it, and commit to creating less opportunity for misunderstanding. How the world responds to you is in large part determined by how you show up. Let’s commit to showing up better!

I’ve put together a somewhat serious, somewhat fun list based on my personal experience over the last two and a bit years:

Whatsapp (or Telegram or Voxer…):

I love whatsapp voicenotes: as far as I am concerned, they are one of the most efficient ways of communicating in real time. However, I’ve learned that it’s not always wise to dive right in immediately. I’ve sent many voicenotes in the wrong tone of voice, with too much waffle, or simply for the sake of replying, so my message added no value whatsoever.

My advice – formulate a clear idea of your message before you hit the voicenote button ??

Zoom (or Teams or Google Meets or…)

My camera likes pulling a fast move where it just switches itself off mid-sentence. This has caused much confusion, consternation, and even laughter depending on who I was with and what we were discussing at the time. If you have wonky tech like I do, it might be good to warn people of expected disruptions. Or even better – buy a new camera. Yes – note to self ??.

I’ve had clients who seem to think they can have a coaching call while they’re driving. Now here’s the thing – as much as we pride ourselves on our so-called ability to multitask, we’re not really wired that way. If you try to combine tasks, you WILL lose concentration on one or the other. It’s that simple. Fortunately, I record my coaching calls, so if you missed any information, you’re just going to have to re-watch the call. Pretty useless waste of time though? It’s also easy for me to remember that THEY are paying me, so how they choose to use their time, is entirely up to them. Would this be appropriate on a networking call though? Or a business meeting?

When you’re meeting on virtual platforms, be mindful that tone of voice, background noise, distractions etc, all appear so much larger than in real life.

LinkedIn Messages (or Facebook messenger or any of the others..)

There’s a lady in my network who connected with me possibly a year ago. Since then, she sends me weird messages at least every second week. I still haven’t answered any of them, because I’m just not sure what to say, or what she wants, or whether she’s for real, or maybe a stalker…

Every couple of months she’ll pop up and say, “Thanks for connecting!”. At other times she’ll send a video link and comment “Glory to God!”. Sometimes she just says, “Hope you and yours are well”. Weird. I come back to purpose – what is your purpose when you message people you don’t know?

Remember too that most of these messaging platforms are not as efficient as outlook in showing you unread messages, and it becomes really easy to miss messages. So, if you feel like you’re being ignored, do pop a reminder along. As long as it’s not your 37th “Thanks for connecting”!

My advice for IM messaging – always remember your purpose, but remain clear and succinct.

There are many other incidents I could relate to you, and we’d all probably have a good laugh, but what I really want to impress on you today is the act of mindfulness. In the absence of your body language, your tone, your words, your composure on video all tell a story. Are you adding to that story, or detracting from it??