Emotions have become a popular topic as global communication becomes more widely spread not just to businessmen and women but to social media junkies as well.  One of the biggest social media sites is Facebook.

Facebook continually updates its site to keep up with the needs and desires of its followers.  As emoticons have become more popular on the iPhone and Android, many Facebookers tried to include them in their status updates.  These would either not show up or show up but later disappear.

Engadget writes about Facebook’s new sharing option for user status updates.  They have created not only a group of “emoticons”  for people to capture and share how they are feeling with a picture or two but icons that let your friends know exactly what you are doing.

The company began testing this new sharing option back in January and has now released it to their general users.  Some might remember way back to 2006 and note that this is similar to a previous MySpace feature.  However, Facebook has taken it a step further (as they often do) and added icons of books, TV shows, music, food as well as emoticons for emotions.

The question now is, is this really a good thing?  For many people it is and will add a little drama and color to their otherwise monotone written dialogue.  However, some fear that for the younger generations it will replace the already too short acronym style communication.   Could future posts just be linear images of pop culture icons?

Most of the icons (excluding the emoticons) are also linked to their product websites so not only is this a “convenience”  for the social media communicator but it has the ability to generate revenue as well, which in a consumer driven county is on high demand.

So end it with a smiley, winky face or a an image of the Game of Thrones and bring your friends along for your ride of life.   To find out more on the benefits of this new feature and how it works click here.

 What is your take on this new feature ? 
Are you for it or think it will cause communication issues with future generations?

© John Hix | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Contrary to popular belief or even instinct; anger is a productive emotion when it comes to negotiations.

The Wall Street Journal comments on new findings that purport displaying anger in a negotiation proves productive.

However, this is only true if the anger that is being displayed is real.  Faked anger elicited a negative response and greater demands, but people who seemed truly angry we able to conjure up a more beneficial negotiation outcome.

These finding coincide with previous research that suggests anger signals dominance and promotes compliance.   The researchers state that fake anger displayed in this experiment undermined the trust in the negotiation but real anger came across as tough.

In the book Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications , Humintell affiliate Andy Boughton expounds upon the concept of negotiation in chapter 13  entitled Negotiation and Nonverbal Communication.  He points out  that ‘in negotiation…there is one rule to rule them all – information is power!‘

“I find it best to use closed ended questions when establishing the baseline.” 

Some specifics he looks for are manipulators (unconscious fidgets we do to relive stress), emblematic slips (nonverbal gestures with specific symbolic meaning within a given culture) and microexpressions (emotions that last less than 1/2 second on the face).

To learn more about Boughton’s views on negotiation and on Dr. Matsumoto’s book Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications click here.