Comments on: Osmo Wiio: Communication usually fails, except by accident

By: Noel Jackson

Noel Jackson — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:16:17 +0000

When creating a presentation on design and its direct correlation with communication I ran across Wiio. Unfortunately his books are very hard to find, and expensive if you happen to run across them.

His words are brilliant, succinct, and guiding.

By: orange

orange — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:36:57 +0000

i find that observation about the six people in any two-person conversation to be excessively astute.

i’ve had some frustrating experiences with e-communication lately (regarding my tone and my intent and others’ responses that are dependent on same) that reminded me of the same conclusion, but the quote above expresses it way better than i did. or at least: i like that phrasing better than my ponderings about whether i’m a different person when i’m talking to the various people in my life, and what that signifies and whether it’s genuine ;P

yet one more phrasing: one creates unique context with each friend that one interacts with, and one best be cognizant of the fact that overlapping those contexts might lead to messy venn diagrams.

By: richard

richard — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:39:09 +0000

What a joy to see one of my favourite quotes surfacing after all these years. I first came across Osmo Wiio in a book by Jacques Vallee, “The Network Revolution”, published in the UK in 1984, in the US in 1982. And, “Communication usually fails, except by accident” has echoed around in my mind ever since.

Vallee has another Wiio quote that is worth a good, long ponder:

“Often it is better not to know what other people are thinking. Many conflicts could be avoided if people just kept their thoughts to themselves”

One I coined for myself following in the spirit of Osmo Wiio and works for me is, “Communication is only possible where communication is unnecessary”.