I don't know how to talk

At the weekend, I thought I would try to make a different kind of content. Again, I haven’t made a video in a long time, so I thought it might not hurt to make a little progress in this area as well.

I sat down in front of my computer, turned on OBS and thought I’d make a few test recordings to see what the sound was like. Unfortunately, I have bad experiences with video production. The lighting is never good, nor the sound. I only face the result when I post it somewhere. And that doesn’t feel very good.

Of course, the sound wasn’t good for some reason. I’ll look for someone to help me set up my equipment normally, if I can’t fix it myself by then. However, there was another problem that I didn’t like what I had recorded. I kept getting confused about what I wanted to say.

Now we could think, write down what you want to say. Or write down a few points that you can use as a cheatsheet. And I know of so many more miracles. And I use them as best I can. But I still haven’t managed to create something that I thought was even close to acceptable.

So what could be the problem? What made me unable to solve a seemingly simple task?

Language problem?#

I tried to record the video in English. It is not my native language, although I would like to be able to speak at a native level after some time. That is why I try to produce content in a foreign language. Can’t think of phrases? Am I saying what I wanted to say grammatically correctly?

God, I need an English teacher. Or a multinational company where I can communicate with colleagues in English. Or maybe a chat group I can join. Maybe an online community? Shared game servers where I can play together with other cubes and practice the language at the same time? Maybe Discord?

But again, these are new activities that I don’t have time for. I want to create content now. And I have no patience for it. Should I try again to meet people who don’t have anywhere near the same experience as me?

What doesn’t work, you don’t have to force it#

I thought I was walking away from the problem while I was ruminating on this. I’ve had enough of my misfortune. So I went to do the dishes instead. I thought that if I surprised my partner with a delicious chili bean, I would also be in a better mood.

Of course, my problem didn’t go away. I thought I would practice opening and closing while doing the dishes. But it didn’t go without a camera, without an audience, that is, without stakes. Even during the most basic sentences, I noticed that my speech was choppy. My English is very bad.

What if I don’t try to say it in English? In the first round, I plan to hold workshops for possible local Hungarian companies. The result? It’s pathetic. I couldn’t even say what I wanted to in my native language.

My little ego immediately panicked. How are you going to write a book like this? How will you produce video content this way? Tutorials? Hold workshops? Fuck it! Get a job quickly and forget about this bullshit.

I have been aware for quite some time that the inner voice in my head does not necessarily want good for me. And it has such compelling practices that it’s hard to get around. I didn’t leave it at that.

What could be the problem?#

After I freaked out. In other words, my inner voice. I turned the question around. What could be the problem? Why do you want to hinder my success even at the speech level. Of course, the most basic problem is that sharing my thoughts publicly is a source of completely unknown and unacceptable danger.

So one of the mental tricks I used was to ask why it was hindering me. After a while, of course, I lost my patience and started throwing up in its face why it was trying to stop me. Of course, it didn’t want to answer at first. But then slowly it started adding the possible reasons.

• Maybe it’s not that you can’t talk. It’s that you forgot how to do it.
• Oh, really? And why is that so?

Covid and remote work#

Maybe it all started during covid. When everyone was forced to work remotely. The proposal came. I was very surprised by this. I can’t really imagine a successful business in today’s world that doesn’t communicate remotely in some form.

• How do we get customers? We call them, we send emails, on twitter, linkedin and I could list other forms of online digital communication.
• How do we get colleagues? As well as customers. Colleagues are also customers. Only for internal company communication.
• How do we advertise ourselves? In this case, our service. Of course it’s online.

So why did the problem start then? When I was placed in voluntary quarantine, I was in a position of considerable responsibility.

• I had to talk to the development colleagues.
• I had to talk to the company managers, with whom we brainstormed how to develop our product.
• I spoke with customers who did not necessarily understand the operation of the product.
• I spoke with system administrators who basically had a problem with the operation of their own company and organization. Not only with our product.
• I talked with members of open-source projects about how some functions could be improved.
• I held workshops for colleagues about what we found and how to sell it to customers.

How was the communication? Online. We used Slack. It’s just that what you can’t see on Slack is when the other person is busy. Another thing we don’t see is how the other person reacts to our communication.

Are you rolling your eyes? Does he look like an idiot? Are you afraid of us? Wondering how you can help? Or, why am I even trying to work with this individual?

Disadvantages of digital communication - Who is listening?#

There are many disadvantages associated with digital communication. But I rather asked my inner self. What’s wrong with you? It even started listing a few. But before I go on, no, this is not a guide against digital communication. Maybe you have a different problem that needs to be treated differently.

Let’s look at the first issue it brought up as a possible reason.

• I don’t know who can see my content.
• Wait a minute. Don’t we want to get more visitors? So why should this be a problem?
• The content can be seen by those who need such information. But what if a colleague of ours sees it? What will you say to him?
• My interests are varied.
• Okay. But that colleague may be the project manager and may be your boss. Why do you produce such content? You lose the assignment. Why don’t you focus on your work?
• Wowowowow. Everyone has the right to express their opinion freely. In my free time, I connect with what I want. I would not jeopardize our cooperation in any way. I’m so professional now.
• Only you believe it! You deal with security. Leaking company information on social media? Negative advertising? Violation of company guidelines? If there isn’t one yet, it will be after this. And you offend.
• All right. I don’t publish anything (I hope) that would harm others. But I don’t have an active assignment right now.
• Are you surprised that there isn’t? Headhunters and companies won’t even take you seriously if you produce content. You have to express what you say well.
• Aha! So that’s the problem. You have to translate it. You constantly try to translate content and information into different languages of interest.
• And we haven’t even talked about security technology yet. This is what you would like to advise on. How do you become authentic?

No feedback#

That was a very good thought. There is no feedback in digital communication. In other words, not in the form that would be useful for us.

I really like the scene from the movie Revolver, when the protagonist walks out of the clinic and begins a monologue before being hit by a car. It’s around the 55 minutes mark if you want to watch it.

“We have a common passion. We are all addicted to recognition.”

We evolved to be members of a community. Useful members. Literally, our survival depends on it. We know how to be a member of the community through our actions and the reactions we receive. This is what the individual statistics on the various pages try to imitate. But it’s not real-time feedback. We may never get feedback on it. Or what we get doesn’t come from our community.

While making a video, how can I get instant feedback? I look at the monitor. Is the recording going? Is the sound good? Am I gesticulating? Do you understand what I’m saying? Let’s face it, do I look good? If I find a problem with any of them, I will try to correct them. How? As nature taught me. I imitate the other.

Imitating my own behavior? Sounds absurd doesn’t it? But what happens if we can’t imitate the other party’s reaction? We expect that what we have done is appropriate. This is another point that makes me stutter.

But wait. It’s just video making. Turn off the monitor. Or turn it away and you won’t see yourself. This does not explain the problem occurring in the introduction or during self-talk. What is the reason for this?

Time! And practice. Who are you watching during a video conference? Your own self. Of course, you can also turn off the camera. But then there is no feedback.

Most of the information conveyed is not in the spoken words, but in our body language. These presentations don’t help either. It’s not the numbers that matter, it’s who delivers and how.

Protocol#

How do we transfer information? This question has been an ongoing problem since two people tried to talk. But there are some rules. These are called protocols. I wish I had paid more attention in grammar lessons.

Did you know that different protocols can be present not only in speech, but in all communication channels? I just know. Because I can’t even list how many types of communication channels I had to familiarize myself with and protect.

But for now let’s stick to the talk. The channel is the air. The information transmitted is the words. But if we have to talk to business people, developers, customers, public people, we use different words. We use a different protocol.

What is the protocol in digital communication? HTTP? Just kidding. Short of. Each platform has different communication rules. And these are unwritten ones. Since no one else had figured out how to communicate through them. This technology is so new that even our brains can’t handle it.

There are tips, of course. So-called gurus make good money with some tips. But success is not guaranteed, as no actual rule system has yet been developed. And how an idea can be conveyed if the rule is constantly changing.

Let’s look at the “Youtube” “protocol”. How does communication begin? With an introductory picture. This is the first “bait”. We could spend hours trying to make this likable. Then the title choice. This is good if it contains some extra information. Then come the tags that help the “algorithm”. If we’re done with these, the video can come.

The breakdown of the video looks like this: Bait, hook, hook, hook…, call to action. But is this really the “protocol”? And am I following it correctly? The answer is no. Because as soon as this thought creeps into my head, I’m already thinking that I should throw a bait or something that attracts attention. What could it be? And I’m already researching my memory store. This will take some time as the place is huge. And we haven’t even talked about our common knowledge base, which is the Internet.

So, what stops me from thinking is whether I know the protocol. And if I guess, do I follow

Am I following the script?#

That’s too much to keep track of. I’m not surprised that it’s not going the way I want it to. That’s why it’s a good idea if I ramble a bit and write down what I want to say. But it still doesn’t work.

Wow :O! Tell me, subconscious. Why is it not working?

1. I want to talk about a topic. I’m trying to hunt this down from a fairly large knowledge base. Out of your mind.
2. Of course, I don’t remember everything right away. That’s why I look down on the script. This adds a bit of a delay.
3. I think that I missed the protocol because of this break.
4. That’s why I’m trying to rephrase what I’m saying to comply with protocol.
5. What I have to say must be translated to an appropriate audience.
6. The output must be checked for professional relevance.
7. Am I sharing too much or too little?
8. We need feedback but right now.
9. Feedback comes from the monitor. The recording does not work, there is no sound, the sound is distorted, how am I holding myself again.
10. I adapt to feedback.
11. Fuck… am I following the script?

MentalInCyber#

I don’t want to push this train of thought much further. So let’s move on to why I thought it was worth writing this and why it belongs to the topic of #MentalInCyber. Everything in the world is an information system. Our own thoughts are also part of this system. First, we try to collect as much information as possible. But we want to share this information with the community members. Because our collective survival depends on it.

The more we know, the harder it is to communicate. I could come now with software architectural concepts. But I’m trying to be simpler.

If we have a slow drive that is close to full, we are slow to read from it. There is no slower driver than the human brain. “Tell me what happened 5 years ago on that particular Tuesday?” Isn’t it slow?

If the information has to be transformed in some form, that is resource demanding. It will always be slower than raw information extraction. Have you learned a foreign language? Have you tried translating in real time? It doesn’t work. Unless you can achieve that you are already thinking in the given foreign language.

How many filters or converters do we use every day? Each has an energy requirement. But of course our available resources are finite. This leads to exhaustion or to the fact that we cannot produce adequate results.

No results, no feedback. Thus, we cannot improve the process as there is nothing to improve.

But what if there is a result, but we receive no or not good feedback? Well, that raised an interesting problem. We store new information and introduce new filters. And let’s start the circle all over again.

But what if we took a different approach? What if we instead reduced the complexity of the problem? Let the experiment begin! :)