We Broke Writing by Making It Instant

“This is important. We should schedule a meeting to discuss it.” Phrases like this, sent via messenger, are the starting point for many meetings. Most of us have done it before, but why? What stops us from discussing important topics in a messenger? Why do we choose face-to-face meetings instead?

Confirmed presence.

When we discuss important topics, we need to be sure that all stakeholders have a chance to share their opinion before a decision is made. In chat, we expect fast responses, and those who are present do respond fast, so the discussion may progress very quickly…

But what about those who are not online? Despite the small green circle next to their profile picture, a user may not be able to participate in the chat at that specific moment, no matter what their status says. So we schedule a meeting, online or offline, just to be sure that the discussion doesn’t outrun the people who should participate in it.

Let me speak.

Chat rewards speed, but speed is not a synonym for truth. Sometimes the person who has the right answer or a good idea needs more than one short sentence to explain it, but while they are typing, thinking, or verifying it, the context of the discussion may already shift. During a meeting, you can politely ask everyone else to stop talking and listen to you for a few minutes. In chat, this will not happen. You won’t write, “Guys, please stop chatting — give me 5 minutes to write down my thoughts so we can discuss them.”

So live conversation allows you to interrupt people and take over the discussion — something you may absolutely need in synchronous conversation, but in writing, it will at the very least be awkward.

What is written is written.

We are all different, so not everyone feels this way. However, a lot of people are afraid of being wrong. If they are not sure, they will not share their thoughts. On the contrary, other people, sometimes more open, sometimes overconfident, may share their thoughts as if they were undeniable truths, and people from the first group may not challenge them.

Because they are not sure. What is written is written, they think — they become more cautious when their uncertain ideas are permanently recorded. So for a lot of people, live conversation may be a more comfortable way to express half-formed thoughts, doubts, and concerns, simply because “it is not going to stay.” Those are not “writings”, just words.

So why can’t we just talk?

That is a good question. And honestly — we can. For thousands of years, people talked. However, once humanity invented advanced writing systems, like the one you see right now, new genres of communication started to emerge, and one of the most significant of them was the letter. It was something new; it was asynchronous.

Sometimes it was necessary simply because people were too far away from each other, but sometimes it was just a better form for discussing something important. People still read the correspondence of the great minds of the past. Not simply because they want to learn what John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were discussing, but because every letter has value.

Workplace messengers turned writing into a simulation of speaking.

Humanity developed many ways to communicate, but two of the most effective have been live conversation for fast exchange and writing for more thoughtful discussion.

Writing traditionally removes the requirement to respond at the same moment, whereas messengers have reintroduced that expectation. With Slack, Discord, Teams, etc., we increasingly use writing as a form of synchronous conversation, and when it fails, we fall back on a meeting — which is also synchronous — even though asynchronous writing has historically been a powerful format for thoughtful discussion.

Historically, we used email for many of these asynchronous discussions. People stopped using it for this purpose not because thoughtful written communication suddenly became obsolete, but because they got more convenient tools — instant messengers — that seemed like a good substitute, even though fundamentally they serve a different kind of communication.

This is the reason VOSTORQ exists. Important topics require thought, and thought requires time. Asynchronous communication is not outdated, but unfortunately, it is often disregarded because modern tools tend to push us toward synchronous communication instead.

VOSTORQ gives thoughtful asynchronous discussions a structured, persistent place instead of forcing them into either chat or meetings.