Overcoming Barriers to Communication (Rough copy.)
Contents:
1. Introduction
While removing barriers to communication seems to be theoretically possible, the process itself might be very difficult, time consuming and finally ineffective.
Barriers, like weeds, grow and expand wherever they find a place to spread.
These places must be able to feed them in order to make them grow otherwise they die. What feeds the barriers to communication is information itself flowing through specially establish communication channels and only through them.
While crashing the barrier might be challenging, building simple communication bypasses seems to be more logical and effortless.
The same phenomenon applies to communication structures containing barriers. It's much easier to build new structures then decompose existing ones. On the other hand, rigid unreformable structures, while omitted by users, may become open to self-improvement and cooperation.
Communication is a power, which while properly released, may change positively everything and creation of additional channels and networks can make it happen.
To create new communication channels/networks we may need tools, so we need to set a project and a team to work on it. For this, we may need to create a non-profit organisation supporting our initiatives.
The farther development of some ideas may require more technical/technological activities and can be done by creating separate organisations. Some projects may be set as commercial and some as not. The commercial projects should raise some money for the behalf of their participants accordingly to their work and given resources.
Until the final creation of the statutory rules for such organisations takes place, all activities will be regulated by the Project Setting Preliminary Rules (PSPR).
2. Dealing with communication problems
Now, let's take care of our Disadvantaged Groups A-J we have classified previously. In order to find the way we can help them, we'll identify again the communication barriers they face, then we'll discuss additional communication channels that we can build to overcome the problems.
2-A. Disabled people with major communication problems
Disabled people may suffer from problems in mobility, communication, lack of social skills and cognitive problems. They can mitigate their difficulties, using specially designed equipment. The price of equipment is usually high as market for such products, perceived narrow, makes development and production cost relatively high.
Globalisation, fusion of markets, new communication tools and technology progress have brought some positive changes. Assistive Technology (named for its assisting character toward disable people) has already emerged trying to find its place in the economy.
Disable people have been given hope, but smart, user-friendly equipment still is not coming.
Some problems still remain difficult to overcome. They are related to specialisation.
Sure, we cannot specialise in everything. The magic of low cost design and production remains in dividing whole process in many simples operation, however development stage requires much more cross-communication and cooperation.
No doubt that effective development of assistive technology equipments requires four major elements.
- Expertise in the field and clients cooperation.
- Multiskilled and multidisciplinary team.
- Sophisticated mass production technology.
- Determination of project leaders and continuous support from the society.
- (a)Expertise in the field should cover at least general understanding of:
- (b) & (c) Team & Technology requirements while easily met by Commercial Electronics Products giants, in usual entrepreneurial practice of just borne small companies are impossible to meet.
- Particular needs of disable people and the principles of working with them
- Human sensory reception and cognitive processes
- Scientific approach for sensing and measuring physical phenomena
- Electronics, IT, mechanical, medical and material technologies
It may be hard or impossible for any single entrepreneur to acquire all mentioned skills and a multidisciplinary team plus dedicated outsourcing should be considered.
Few new entrepreneurs are able to access multidisciplinary teams and sophisticated technology (ad hoc). Those results in the development of costly, heavy, impractical equipments with limited performance and narrow application fields.
What are the solutions to those problems? - It looks like the right solutions exist but their limits remain in that they were rarely used all together.
First, the question of the team. Several products have been developed using open source project approach and virtual teams. This was especially true for some software.
Using PA (Partners Agreement) and NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) any current teamwork may extend its interest in later commercialisation of any given product or service. See also Project Setting Preliminary Rules (PSPR) mentioned earlier.
Second, the question of the technology. This was resolved by gadgets' making industry. The design and production processes are separated. Many simple small companies and single entrepreneurs design the products. Successful designs in form of models, prototype and documentation are then transferred to companies specialized in mass production for eventual redesign and commercialisation. The use of typical mass production technology assures that the products are inexpensive and have professional look.
Unfortunately as the first requirement is not met the technical level related to functionality of such products is low, cause of the lack of deeper professional or scientific knowledge of the designers.
As it has been shown, the main problem remains in team creation. No surprise! Entrepreneurs are genuine individualists. They are in love in their ideas; they are jealous and suspicious.
They are also independent freedom-loving individuals, difficult to manage. It is hard to convince them to change their habitudes and the way they perceive the reality. They are making many mistakes*) but they are indispensable in any project and while converted or assigned to a team, they are able to make things happen.
*) Check the following:
A-Z Entrepreneurs Mistakes
Top Ten Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs
- (d) Determination of project leaders and continuous support from the society. Determination and support are related to the issue of cooperation. Many people believe that cooperation help succeed more than competition does. It is true. In the case of entrepreneurs and professionals the determination to work together, acceptance of the leadership and accordance to follow the agreed rules are the most important. Real entrepreneurs and professionals if interested are usually determined to get involved but what is to fight for are their determination to share ideas and their willing to cooperate.
Society support means recognition, cooperation, organizational and financial help and communication. What is probably mostly difficult to obtain is communicational support in the early stage of any project.
Media, looking usually for big affairs, never involve themselves in a subject when there is nothing great to be shown yet. Other organisations theoretically able to get and deliver information do not do it, as it is not their statutory procedure.
What remains is private network of involved individuals sharing similar ideas and involved through their emotional relations to the subject of the project.
There is one more vital element of future success the belief in. This is what makes the real difference; we will be working on this issue.
There are two project proposed to be started in November 2007.
- Visual Communication Tool (VCT) - Internet Based Open Source Project with possible commercial version
- Hearing Impaired Assistant - Open Source Project: sponsored and commercial version.
2-B. People facing language barriers
Language is the essential element in being human. No doubt, it reflects who you are, what you are and where you belong. While the first information is usually delivered by visual contact, language may be an even more preponderant element used to classify an individual.
In the frame of the original nation, language, its style, clarity, elegance and vocabulary distinguish people according to their origin, background, education, culture, including personal, social position and so on. This is the most important flag sent in communication to introduce individual.
In the global geopolitical frames language represents culture and nation. It flags its position in the global structure including political an economical relations. It calls on the previously gathered information including opinions and prejudice.
As we can see, language builds preliminary image of any individual. This image remains if no other communication processes coerce its change.
In the international interactions language barriers are very essential not only because they may make communication process problematic or difficult but also because their presence automatically engage much dipper process of recognition/cognition and intellectual/cultural estimation of individual. The estimation goes through both global and national/cultural frames but not necessarily equally. It searches also for other references like current status, position, job and other circumstances.
How all these are related to language barriers?
This phenomenon is typical for some societies believed to be on the higher development stage.
As we can see the language skill may affect the social position of the individual. This phenomenon will be shown and explained in the next paragraph where we'll be talking about social shifts confronting migrating people when in foreign countries.
Searching for solutions to the problem of language.
To acquire good skill in any language one needs a time. Political and economical migration, looking for better places people, challanges hosting countries. Most of chalenges are related to language and skills. Many states resolve the problems by organizing free language courses sponsored by the government and public organisations.
Some states make farther effort toward professional skills and education of the new-arrivals. The United Kingdom makes a good example. The additional, excellent access to the low cost professional courses facilitates problems of the new-arrivals.
The basic English learning system is well established and expected to produce good results. Dipper analysis, however, shows that the cost/results efficiency is far from desired. Why is that?
Let's take an example from Canada. The basic language skill courses in this country are well organized and efficient while eventual farther professional education exposes several barriers.
In the United Kingdom the access to all courses is better but basic language courses look to be more correctional than basis centred and good-skill oriented. This phenomenon is related to the fact that the most of immigrating people originate from ancient British territories where certain knowledge of English remains common.
It is typical for all immigration systems to be basically rigid, retarded and unable to respond quickly to the world changes. This is normal as they are based on the legislation systems.
Some parts of educational systems if not stimulated remain inertial as well. To get better effect from both systems and make education process cost effective and fast governmental actions are needed. That requires some planning and redirection toward elasticity and adaptation to the current and future socio-economical needs and realities.
Projects and Actions
There are two project proposed to be started in October 2007.
- One Year English School - Audiovisual English Course based on method originated from the Sorbonne University and adapted to the local needs.
- Lobbing based action promoting creation of special adaptive professional English courses for skilled immigrants in order to let them contribute to economical progress of the country.
There are as many methods of teaching foreign language as persons trying to improve them. Most of them are not teachersbut opportunists. They try to elaborate something new because new seems to be a synonym of better. What is usually new is the technology in use and unfortunately only this.
As the matter of fact people have been learning the language from the beginning of its birth. No surprise that this process is well known and understood. The problems with so-called modern methods remain in a few erroneous believes. Here, they are some most important of them:
Adults language learning should differ from children language learningLearning foreign language should differ from mother language learningLearning basic language and learning advance language do not differ
- Most explanations should be given in the mother language
- Metalanguage learning should not prevail basic language learning
Learning and teaching language are natural things and we are very well prepared to do so. Learning language means mainly building structures, stereotypes and relations. The structures are built using words but not many words are needed to build a structure while many structures are needed to play with words.
Using structured groups of words means using language.
The language explains the world by building mental projections or models of the world relations. Accordingly language learning should be directly related to the world elements perceived by our senses, i.e. images, sounds and feelings.
Learning language should be gradual but not necessary infantile. It should be learned as a whole but not as detached parts. The perception of a new language requires new language matrix and communication channels able to fetch information in the right place. That must be built through experience and training.
When natural method is used the language basic may be taught by almost anybody. Of course as usual we may have better and worst teachers the same way as we may have more and less skilled parents. The result depends on both teaching and learning person.
2-C. Skilled immigrants out of the social grid
Hierarchies and Dominations
Basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical, group based system is well known. Hierarchy builds structures and relations. Structures and relations are necessary for the system to be stable, adaptive and progressive.
Let's presume that the social system goal is to provide relatively equal well-being for all members. As there are many positions, functions, actions, responsibilities and other details in the system, it is not difficult to imagine that some permutations of these elements may function better, for the behalf of the system, than other. Consequently, We can then talk about optimal positions of individuals in the organisation. To allow the system to optimise itself, flexible and adaptive mechanisms able to shift people position are required. If they are present, the system can evolve and progress.
There is nothing wrong with hierarchy if based on knowledge, experience, honesty and many other human qualities. People remain equal accordindgly to the law and human rights while holding different positions and performing different tasks in the society. Their positions and responsibilities determine their social position, which reflects respect and recognition. Any human domination based only on differences in the positions in the social grid is perceived as harmful for the society and unwanted.
The hierarchy and related domination are nothing new in the international politics. The presence of known international societies, created specially to protect diverse political communities from being dominated, reflects this situation.
The hierarchies based on leadership, engagement, friendship, appreciation and commitment were always proved to be beneficial in many structures and organisations, no matter, national or international. Right rules and right people in the right place rule make systems performing optimally with maximum benefits for all.
Social Degradation and Social Advance
The social position of the individual may reflect different viewpoints and may be:
It reflects the perception of the people from individual's environment.
Let's analyse the social impact related to the physical displacement of the individual from the original state to a different one marked by higher economical wealth.
Accordingly to the individual original background, social position, knowledge of the language of the state of destination, etc. the situations after the displacement may be quite different. We may talk about social advance, social equality or social degradation. Let's have a look at some of them.
Fig. 2-B-1. shows simplified model of social degradation phenomena due to cause umber 1, 3 and 4. It is important to mention that the general differences in wealth level of the states are transposed on background/education level so in this case an individual with good communication skill is shifted down anyway. In this case we can talk about social protectionism or discrimination and of course socio-economical loss for the hosting state. See also a related fragment of the MRC report from June 2006
It is not the purpose of this article to explore and explain all possible combination, however it may be interesting to analyse one more case shown on the Fig.2-B-2.
This Fig.2-B-2. model shows that an individual from underdeveloped state after displacement to a higher developed state benefits the wealth level, which is often understood as social advance. Furthermore, because knowledge of the language is often mismatch (transposed on)with education level, when local language skill of this individual is at certain non-zero level, the language related shift may place him at much higher social position than highly educated person with no language skill is placed.
Placing individual in the wrong place in the Social Grid creates resitance from both the individual and the place i.e. environment. Both elements just do not fit. When the new position is related to social degradation the situation may be even worst. The frustrated individual often leaves the wrong place the moment when there is no better place available. This way this person looks like out of any grid which results in separation and loneliness.
Is the language the key to make changes happen?
- Yes, it is, but the are more other barriers and we should remember that while being in the wrong social grid place our individual cannot learn the right language.
Simply because like the place like the language.
Projects and Actions
There are several project proposed to be started in November and December 2007.
- Integrator Project - Series of meetings with English Community Leaders (farther information will be given soon)
- Let's Make Friends - Series of meetings with the members of Sheffield Social and Professional Clubs and other organisations
- Enterprise - Project to help individuals to launch their own small business or organize selfemployment job
- Get involved - Initiate your own project or start to participate in one already in development
- Find Your Place website based project to help people find their personal goals
The projects listed above require leaders. Please contact us using this website communication facilities.
2-D. Just Graduated (no experience)
Just Graduated from Schools and Universities are lacking experience. Despite of the fact that you can sometimes find more black swans in a field than you might expect does not make this statement false.
What employers want, is to have highly skilled experienced workers qualified in particular jobs. In the same time they do not want pay too much. It is normally hard to meet both requirements in conjunction.
Additionally, employers are looking for people to stay and grow within the company. This can be met by just graduated if only both sides are satisfied continuously. What is interesting in this issue is that highly qualify and experienced immigrants have similar problems as just graduated have. We'll try to explain this mystery later.
Of course the hired should match the vacancy, which is not always an easy case
There is a specialisation factor, which makes this requirement difficult to met.
Most of the works performed by people are divided into simple tasks requiring narrow skills. This tendency is dictated by economical reasons of reliability, quality and cost.
The education system is trying to follow the economy demand by providing low cost narrowed study on the one hand and general wider study on the other hand in a hope for farther adjustment. This does not help too much because of too many skill-position combinations and evident lack of direct communication.
Let's face the reality!
- We cannot expect the just graduated to be experienced so we have to give them a chance do get experience somewhere and somehow.
- Highly educated or specialised people cannot get much experience from just any job. Their learned skills are vulnerable and a subject of devaluation.
- The socio-economical cost of misemployment is too high to be ignored.
First let's talk about experience. If we think experience we usually mean the relevant one not just any experience. Experience can be gotten by practice system during the study that requires more workshops in schools, more industry involvement and more voluntary works. Current proposition of the Conservative Party leader Mr. David Cameron makes a good example. More Hobby Clubs and other projects for youngsters can improve the situation as well.
Communication and Employment (to be moved to the other document)
Misemployment is a nightmare for both employers and hired. Unfortunately employers don't speak about this problem publicly. They blame usually everything but not themselves. Wrongly hired people just give up and try to adapt or quit. The situation is caused mainly by general communication problems, disinformation, and several structural barriers in place. Let's examine them one by one.
Everything starts with needs
Employment or hiring process is nothing but typical communication process. Unfortunately some people think that it is a game. Of course it may be perceive this way but we have to acknowledge that the best result of the game is when both sides win. This means cooperate. Game playing usually involves gains and losses. that is not desirable in making any employment choices. Of course salary negotiations which make parts of hiring processes involve game playing but this is an other story.
Let's have a look at our communication principles and barriers already mentioned in the previous article.
How these principles and barriers can be translated to some truths related to hiring.
Let's try to formulate them.
- Nobody but employer knows better what is needed.
- Nobody but candidate knows better what can be delivered.
- Employer and candidate should communicate directly.
- Communication Language, language level and vacabulary should be adapted accordingly to the position and discussed subject
2-E. Just Retired)
2-F. Older People
2-G. Babyboomers (in the nearest futures)
2-H. Misunderstood visionaries
2-I. Socially rejected
2-J. Nomads
To be continued...
About barriers