Resonating

I am busy reading 'Social Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman, the better known author of 'Emotional Intelligence' which I have not yet read.

Once I got over his opening paragraphs on technocreep (about which I am not allowed to write because of my self imposed two week ban on blogging evangelism), he moved on to talk about emotional synchronicity.

I had just watched a TED talk by Steven Strogatz on how things in nature tend to tend towards synchronising:



Goleman talks about Paul Eckman, a fascinating psychologist who has spent an inordinate amount of time studying every single possible facial expression, both voluntary and involuntary. He is not someone you would want to play poker against. The interesting point he makes is that much of the sync that is caused in interactions is through the involuntary movements we make in imitating each others emotions. You can't fake it.

Just like the best presenters, actors, comedians or musicians seem to be genuinely enjoying what they are doing. Well, in the case of actors and musicians, sometimes they take the emotions the other way. In either case though, there is something very real about the signals they send out. Perhaps they are faking it, but in most cases the only way they fake it is probably either through years of training or genuinely convincing themselves to feel those emotions.

It's that whole other level of non-verbal communication that makes some people who are useless on the telephone or over email resonate with you when you meet them in person... or at the risk of technopreaching again, through things like skype. I bet some of the people who you talk to and set records for short conversations can talk for far longer across this medium.

Exciting Times.