I was chatting with a cab driver in New York City yesterday on my way from the hotel (on 9th) to H&K's offices (on 3rd), which, given the state of NYC traffic during morning rush hour, allowed for considerable debate on issues ranging from the most likely candidates for the US presidential race, the prospects for newly-annointed French President Nicolas Sarkozy to truly affect economic change, the perils of colonialism (the driver was an Algerian who grew up under French rule), Quebec separatism, and Jean Chretien.

The driver was animated, extremely intelligent, and put forth his opinions (and he had a lot of them) with a sense of humour and (dangerously) a desire to maintain constant eye contact.

Which left me questioning how the discussion might have unfolded had it taken place online or by email. In this case, the driver's broken English required considerable effort on my part to translate the real intent of what he was communicating. I had to focus my attention not only on his words, but on his expressions and tone. Without those qualifiers, without his expressiveness and dynamism, I might not have truly understood the passion behind what he was seeking to impart and left the discussion with a completely different perspective.

Likewise, and as we become increasingly dependent upon purely text-based tools such as email, I've noticed, and been both catalyst and victim to, increasing levels of misinterpretation based on having only the words themselves to guide my understanding of what the person is "really" trying to communicate. Irony and sarcasm do not translate well on email (I should know... I've failed miserably in this regard). Lack of vocabulary can also hobble emphasis and clarity. Messages that could be communicated in 30 seconds over the phone or in person rarely get communicated effectively in our efforts to send written responses instead (recognizing that to write out a 30 second diatribe could take 5-10 minutes or more - and who has that kind of time).

In the proliferating world of web 2.0 and the resulting "conversation" that these tools enable, I find myself witness to increasing instances where "conversations" degenerate as a result of the same issues that hobble effective email communication. Poor use of vocabulary, lack of any additional contextualizers (for want of a better word - and beyond such trite efforts as emoticons and LOL-style acronyms), the desire for brevity at the expense of accuracy or clarity. Each of these elements - and others - are, I believe - creating a new challenge for communicators that won't easily be overcome, and which will demand a greater level of effort to capture the real intent of those to whom we are communicating or who are communicating to us.

Conversation cannot just be about text. Too few people in the world have the combined time, conviction and vocabularly to effectively articulate the appropriate combination of information and emotive intent in a way that accurately captures their true character and motive. Communication must be viewed as a three dimensional exercise, and be approached as such, which means elevating the need for additional media - audio and video - and the need to continue to engage beyond digital and extend the conversation into the real world.

Clearly, there is value in each of the media we use to help our clients communicate. However, more so than ever, we must understand both the opportunities and the limitations each provide.