“The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used
interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” 

American journalist Sydney J. Harris made this observation in the mid-20th century just as broadcasting began to eclipse print as the dominant media for the news. Today, options for pushing information far outstrip anything Harris could have imaged. Business faces new challenges for communication in his sense of the word, but the options offer unprecedented opportunity.

Looking back at the changes in media over the past 100 years reveals lessons to make the most of this opportunity.

Commercial broadcast radio revolutionized the transmission of information in the early 1920s, offering seemingly limitless access to news and entertainment every evening. In 1933, more than half of all American homes had a set in the living room. But something even bigger was on the horizon: a radio with pictures.

At the 1939 World’s Fair, RCA introduced the first television. This amazing communication device became an even bigger sensation. By 1955, it had replaced the radio at the center of the American home, and popular radio shows had transformed themselves for the new medium. TV soon dictated how Americans arranged their living rooms, ate their meals and interacted with their families. Its omnipresence got through to the public.

But the public had no means to respond directly to the screen. That would be the next major step in the communication revolution.

In the 1970s, microprocessors and floppy discs transformed room-sized computers into desktop machines. When PCs connected to the Internet in the late 1980s, their popularity skyrocketed. Within a decade, the home computer had become a necessity. It offered the same new promise of unlimited information as the radio once had, with an important difference. For the first time, the consumer had a role in the communication.

Now, we carry our computers disguised as phones in our hip pockets, and social media is poised to overtake other media channels. It’s possible to “get through” 24/7.

But as marketers, we hesitate, even though Erik Qualman’s landmark book Socialnomics makes a compelling case that social media drives behavior more effectively than traditional marketing ever did.

Does that mean marketing is dead?

No, it means it’s different. Just as the Internet has supplanted the radio, the old paper newsletter is giving way to interactive web communication, online advertising, Facebook, blogs and more.

And our hesitation is a good thing. Flooding social media channels with commercial messages doesn’t mean we’ll get through. We have to be more strategic, thoughtful and relevant than ever before.

We don’t have to look back very far to find examples of leaders who embraced the latest technological frontier. Franklin Roosevelt harnessed the power of the radio, inviting every American for soothing chats by the fire at a time of social turmoil. John F. Kennedy challenged a rapt television audience to help land a man on the moon. Jesse Ventura transformed himself from professional wrestler to governor of Minnesota through the Internet.

We can learn from our history that information technology constantly changes. And with creativity and wisdom, we can use technology to transform information into communication.

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