As a young DXer I often tuned in to many interesting stations on a Sony short wave radio that my father had. I had to carefully turn the dial and catch the signal from a station while keeping the antenna near a window!
Getting through to stations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Australia, Radio Sweden and Radio Netherlands helped increase my understanding of the world outside and gave me insights on audience engagement practices.
Those days, radio stations provided a snail mail address for listeners to correspond with and send back a QSL card. The listener shared specifics details about the reception (in terms of a SINPO rating – signal, interference, noise, propagation and overall) from that part of the world and it helped the radio station know how to adjust their frequency to get to most listeners. The scale for each variable extended from 1 (lowest) to 5 (the highest) in terms of strength.
The QSL card served as a collector’s item for the listener and also provided insights about the station and the country’s culture. It often took weeks to send an aerogramme and then receive a response. This experience of corresponding with radio stations, receiving reception reports and getting QSL cards exposed me to surveying and feedback mechanisms relevant to communication.
Today, when I relate this experience to work many elements continue to explain internal communication. From a process context we are aware that in communication there is a sender and a receiver. Noise and interference comes in the way of accepting messages shared.
Signal is about the strength of the transmission and with internal communication is the quality of the messages that are sent. Interference is about the overlaps that exist among stations operating in similar or adjacent frequencies and we often know how conflicting messages or timing can impact the acceptance of internal communication. Noise from a short wave perspective relates to the cacophony of content that jar the reception and come in the way of the good communication. Propagation is to do with consistency of communication and Overall relates to the audience’s experience with messages shared.
If you look at your internal communication practices from this lens you may be able to draw inferences on how your audiences are interacting and experiencing what you share.
Interested to know what you think.
