Technology is radically and rapidly changing the way we communicate.  Through the internet and mobile devices, people receive news and information constantly, getting instant gratification for every whim to know more.  This driving change has left some professional fields in a state of reaction.  To move from reaction to action, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill offers Technology and Communication studies.  The graduate coursework, which I completed last year, is offered though the UNC School of Journalism and focuses on how technology is changing how we communicate, learn and interact in our world of instant access.

Some journalists seem to be struggling to find their identity and their value in a technology enabled world.  Through video enabled mobile devices and social media, the masses are empowered to capture and share their own news to the same audience that a large media conglomerate reaches, and for no cost. As we watch CNN or Fox news, it seems that journalists behave as if their competition may be another media company.  The truth is that citizen journalists have already won the first to report competition. Through the UNC courses, journalists directly explore the world through a technology lens, learning new skills and methods of gathering and reporting news and information, and the added step of interacting with their reader or viewer.

My college degree and early working career focused on journalism, followed by a professional path that led to extensive work in corporate training.  While my professional profile may have appeared unique in the UNC Chapel Hill class, the challenges and issues I brought to the table were very similar to my journalist colleagues.  Employees no longer rely exclusively on employer sponsored, formal training courses to be proficient in their professional fields.  Technology enables employees to have significantly more choices in how and what they learn, collaborate and share.  Employees everywhere can reach out on their own time and devices, targeting what they believe they need to know, and explore their specific interests.  They can even become the informal teacher and trainer through online methods.  Rather than directing and managing employee learning, some corporate training groups and human resource professionals are reacting and even struggling to get insight into employees’ self-directed learning.  Other training professionals have shifted their mindset and are embracing technology as a powerful independent learning tool, and even offering a variety of social media options within the corporate walls.  Even with this progress, the question remains, how do we provide value to employees when they can garner their own resources for work place development?

Consumers of news and employees of corporations have become self-directed and self supported.  As professionals in our fields, we can lead the merging of technology and communication to make us all better.  Our value lies in our abilities and willingness to support our audiences in their exploration and pursuit of their unique interests and needs.  We can help them navigate the massive amount of information, providing the means for them to manage the heavy stream of new technology options and constant flood of information.  We can support them by guiding them to credible and trustworthy sources, helping them prioritize where they spend their time and help focus their learning.  We can offer bridges to communication tools that take peer sharing, posting of new ideas and best practices to an entirely new level of effectiveness.  Our new identity doesn’t lie in a dated mindset as only providers of filtered, approved and controlled content.  Our value exists as guides and navigators of credible information and effective communication through technology.