What is humane communication?
Too much of the marketing and sales tactics we see today are slimy, pressuring, and dishonest.
Think about these familiar scenes:
You have to close the door while a door-to-door solicitor is still trying to convince you to switch to fiber internet.
You see an unfamiliar number on your phone screen, and you hit “mute,” because you know it might be a telemarketer who won’t take “no” for an answer.
You avoid eye contact with the person standing by a table at a vendor fair, for fear that you’ll be pressured into signing up for a free, strings-attached assessment of your home’s windows and doors.
These forms of communication are bad for the people receiving the messages, and they’re not very fun for the people whose job it is to push out these messages.
When these practices permeate our market, they inevitable seep into our interpersonal communications too. We end up writing pitch emails, cover letters, and even dating profiles that sound nothing like us and feel slimy, but we feel trapped in the system of inhumane communication.
Here at On The Nose, we practice humane communication.
The word humane means having or showing compassion, kindness, or consideration for others, namely other people, animals, and the world around us.
Communication is defined as the process of sharing information (that imparts meaning) to an individual or a group.
Humane communication simply combines the two:
Sharing information in a way that shows compassion, kindness, and consideration for others—and for the communicators themselves.
Humane communication borrows from multiple approaches from several disciplines, including human-centered communication, humane marketing, donor-centered fundraising, and sustainable philanthropy.
Some of the values of humane communication are:
Reliability and integrity
Truth and candor
Humanity and respect
(Appropriate) humor
Ascribing to humane communication leads us at On The Nose to consider both what we say and how we say it. If you have a message to share that’s good for others and the world, please connect to see if we can help. Thank you for reading!