The Speed of Pigeon

I was watching a move over the weekend that was set in New York City in 1924. The difference in the 100 years between then and now was fascinating and notable. Our contemporary reality is overstuffed with information with most of it designed to be full of attention grabbing noise. It’s not a shocker that so many of us suffer from various forms of cognitive and emotional fatigue in our day to day. 

One key observation: We have lost the context and luxury of “slow”. In 1924 key information related to major world and local sporting, news, and political events were transmitted via carrier pigeons to send very short updates from remote places back to a point of collection where the information was then relayed to the visor wearing telegraph guy. Yes, that guy who makes that tap, tap, tap sound to send morse code over physical wires. Sent messages were short, concise, dense, and world perception forming despite the smallness of the information package. 

Those small constraints of the information container and slow transmission practices allowed time for simply processing and gaining some sort of orientation to the subject at hand. Most of all, the entire process only allowed for the important and substantive content. Nobody was trying to sell you a lawnmower alongside the primary information. Imagine that! 

 To help us slow things down and improve communication in today’s thrashing sea of information, unlimited flavors of perspectives opinion, and targeted marketing, here are three core concepts that might help us when used as a guide when communicating. 

 Simplicity - Use a format that takes up the least amount of space and captures the most meaning possible. As if you could boil it down into three or four panels of a cartoon strip.

 Depth - Even if simple and brief, a complexity of emotions, characters, and themes can be folded into the narrative. 

 Consistency - Showing up the same way, leveraging pattern recognition over time creates a foundational shorthand for context and creating a trusted connection through building familiarity and predictability.