In an article in August Wired magazine, Clive Thompson says that the phone call is dead. Apparently, the number of mobile phone calls we make each year is falling, since hitting a peak in 2007. Thompson says that phone calls are inefficient and deserve to die. However, the most interesting part of the article for me was this: “This generation doesn’t make phone calls because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting and social-network messaging”.

It reminded me of the managers who say, I don’t need to do O3’s, I talk to my people all the time. The problem with that is, as Thompson says, it’s a lightweight contact. It’s ‘how are you doing?’ as we pass, with the expectation that the answer will be the socially acceptable, ‘great’ or ‘fine’.

It isn’t until we have 30 minutes of concentrated, one on one, uninterrupted time that the answer to ‘how are you doing?’ becomes ‘I’ve got something to tell you’, or ‘Actually, I’m really struggling’ or ‘I have great news’. No one starts a meaningful conversation in passing. That’s what O3’s are for.