Technology Tips That Nurture Relationships During Covid 19

During this pandemic, many of us are striving to stay adaptive in our business. We are trying to adjust to the “new normal” way of doing things.

There are two things that seem to remain consistent, no matter what is happening in society:

• Our need to communicate, rally together, and nurture our relationships
• Our need to embrace technology 

In this episode of Tech With Heart TV, I discuss Tech Tips That Nurture Relationships During Covid. Hopefully, these tips will spark something within you, inspiring you to reach out and let others know you care about them.

You can watch the Show on Roku, Amazon Fire, or listen to it on Spotify, or iTunes.

​Hi there, my name is Michelle Calloway. I'm the founder and CEO of REVEALiO. It's an innovative software and media solutions company. I'm, also the founder of Tech With Heart.

Tech With Heart is all about empowering business success in a digital era. What we do is we enlighten business owners as far as what technologies they should indeed be embracing, so that they can stay competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing digital world like we're finding ourselves in right now.

Our focus is even more on how we use that technology to connect with people and enhance our relationships with one another, because, as you’re probably fully aware, we only do business with other people. We don't do business necessarily with robots, right?

We want to use in artificial intelligence and technologies to be more efficient, but I really am passionate about making sure that we are using technology to enhance relationships.

For instance, let's talk about smartphones. How easy would it be for us to use this smartphone, not to just text somebody, but to actually call somebody. The original way that we used to communicate back in the day, before smartphones came in and were like little minicomputers is, we would just call somebody and let them hear our voice. I think that that is still such a valid way for us to connect with one another in this time of social distancing.

So, I really encourage you. Sometimes, I'm sure, if you're like me, you have a thought that comes across your mind at times, where you're like, “Oh, I wonder how so-and-so is doing?” Rather than texting, or rather than reaching out to them on social media… what if you just picked up the phone and called them?

Ah, I think that that would just absolutely make their day, especially if they answer the phone. Then you get to say, “Hey how's it going?” and just make somebody feel something super wonderful, right? I love that feeling, but we also can use technology smartphone technology to take it to the next level.

Beyond just a phone call, you can actually use facetime apps, or get them on a zoom call so that you can see one another while you reconnect. I just did that recently with a friend I hadn't seen in like two years. Oh, it was wonderful to be able to see each other and get the facial expressions behind the vocal tone. It was just a beautiful reconnection, and it's memorable for me. I know I'm a visual learner - maybe you are too. So, it really helped for me to be able to see her face while I'm hearing her voice, and just having that connection moment.

I really think that these are tools that we could all use.

There's a way on your cell phone… Did you know that if you tried calling somebody, and you had to leave a message, that you could actually leave them a video message as if you're texting them?

So, let's just show you. Here you can go. I'm just going to pull up somebody's name and you can actually click here on the camera, and you can go into your video mode. Just move it over to video, and you can actually take a video of yourself and it will put it into the text.

You can also share animated gifs with people through your texting app, which is those little short animated clips. You can have a section of a video, or it can be an actual animation of a cartoon character, or something like that. That's always a fun way to interact with people to make them feel something, and get them smiling.

Because I think that we all need to share more, like spreading of positive vibes during this Covid 19 era, where we're all sequestered and feeling distanced and disconnected.

These are just fun ways that you can use technology to engage people. You can actually add audio messages to your gifs when you're sharing that out to your friends and family,

So, those are some ideas that you can utilize your cell phone, and there's also ways that you can connect with people, obviously through social media.

Some people just use social media to kind of see what other people are doing. Then there's opportunity for you to share with others what you got going on, so that's a great way to share photos.

You can share stories. You can share little video clips. Let people feel like they're in your life with you. I know that video, for me is a very powerful medium.

My daughter had a baby, my first grandbaby. She had her daughter, and rather than just sending still photos of her baby to me, I've asked her to take little video clips so that I can hear her. I could see her move, and I feel like I'm more in that moment with her. I really love that!

So, maybe that's something that you could do as well, is just allow people to have a short little glimpse of what you're doing, or what you and your family are doing.

A great way to help us all feel connected to one another during this time, is to share little insights into our world, our lives, or just say, “Hello.” “I love you guys.” “I miss you,” you know?

Say whatever you want to your audience. I think that social media shouldn't be all that heavy on the political, or that kind of stuff, because it could cause fireworks to go off in your comments section.

I think that this is more about like sharing positivity, so that we can all pick up that positive vibe and own it. Carry it for the rest of the day. Much better vibe than some of this division that's going on in our country right now.

I use social media to encourage one another. So, you can share encouraging posts. You can share encouraging quotes You can find quotes on Google.com. You can actually type in encouraging quotes and see what comes up. You can share those, or you can come up with your own and put a little background to it and hit share.

Then you can put little hashtags in there that allow people to know what the premise is of the post. Like, if it's about appreciation, you can do hashtag #appreciation, #positivity, so that when people are looking and googling for those types of words, your post could pop up in front of them.

So that's, always good, because I love the idea on social media that we can all share each other's positive stuff. It's, a great way to engage people.

You can ask people, “Hey, how are you doing today with such and such?” Or, “Tell me what are you doing to overcome blah blah blah.” You can put that in your post and that's a great way to also engage people and to interact with them, and so that we all feel like we're, even though we're not able to be in each other's physical presence, we're still able to engage and interact with each other.

Because we are all built for community, and I think that we need to continue that, even if it's online or in the virtual online world. We can still feel like we are a part of a community that is encouraging one another.

I personally love it when somebody's sharing something great in their business. Like, something that feels of value, and also is of value to my particular audience, because I do Tech With Heart, which is about empowering entrepreneurs.

So, if it's going to be something that can ultimately empower entrepreneurs, I have absolutely no problem sharing somebody else's post or content into my group page, so that they too can be exposed into my network community. Because really, ultimately, we just want our groups and communities to grow.

So, that's a really great tool that you could use to help and boost others, because if we come at life with the idea that we can serve one another and help each other up, then it all will come around full circle. Yeah, I definitely believe in collaboration and cooperation over competition any day in the business space.

I love to share thoughts, ideas, tips, or tricks that could empower others and that's not just only in technology, but in life itself. Like, I want to empower you to perhaps, you know, I'll put a post out there saying, you know, maybe some idea on how you can overcome a certain broken mindset, or a broken heart. I want to do it in an encouraging way. I want to empower people in an encouraging way.

So, there are ways that you can use social media to do that, and you can. It doesn't always have to be your own content. You can share other people's, content on your page, which is great. Then I love the idea that whatever we put out there, think about it before you post and ask yourself, is this going to be of value to somebody else, and why?

Those are some good questions to ask yourself so that you're not out there blasting stuff that could necessarily look like you're putting yourself up on this pedestal, and that you're pointing fingers at anybody and making them feel less than. We want to lift each other up and encourage each other to be the best version of ourselves, especially in this time where many people are experiencing sadness, sorrow, depression.

So, we want to come up underneath them and lift them up too, and not make them feel like, “Oh, this person is always positive. I can't handle it.” You know? Because not everybody's always positive. So, be real, authentic, but also be posting things that are of value to others, and hopefully will encourage them.

That's my little tidbit on it. One of the things that I love doing in technology is to be a little bit in front of some of the emerging trends. I'm not sure if you've heard about virtual reality or augmented reality, but I am a big fan of augmented reality. It's kind of more like Iron Man. What it does is, it bridges the physical realm with the virtual realm in a way that it adds to our reality.

So, it's augmented, meaning enhanced or added to. One of the best things that I love to do is to send people something physical, that's going to remind them of me, or congratulate them on an event. Maybe it's a birth of a child. Or, it could be even actually, with the death of somebody. You want to show them that you care about them, so you would send them a condolence card, right?

Well, with augmented reality technology, what we are able to do is take that to the next level, and make that physical card COME ALIVE with a personalized message.

I want to share some examples with you. This is a young lady friend of mine, when I first started developing REVEALiO, she saw that I could make things COME ALIVE and she loved her boyfriend, who is now deployed overseas in the military. So, she asked if I could help her create a greeting card that would COME ALIVE with a personalized message for him. I said, “Yes, absolutely!”

So, when he received the card, this is what he saw. This card COMES ALIVE.

I'll show you what happens.

So, he held his phone over the card and her face turned into a story. Watch this… See how it's actually on the card? Isn't that the coolest thing? She's telling him how much she misses him, and how much she loves him.

Isn't that the neatest thing? I love this story. This is actually our signature story.

So, he was a soldier, and he said that he felt the oceans disappeared between them, and that she was right there with him. So, he carried that card with him in his wallet every day, because he couldn't imagine being separated from her.

Isn't that beautiful? I just love that story.

So, what I've been doing during this Covid era is, I've been sending out cards to people that are important to me, whether that's in business or whether it's in, you know, personal life. I'm sending them positive, encouraging, physical cards like this one here. It says you're all kinds of amazing. On the inside there's a nice little statement here trying to help them understand that they are valuable to me. Then my husband Jerry and I, we went to the next level, and we put a photo in there and told them that this photo COMES ALIVE.

This is what we did. We sang a song. I'll, show you. Watch this… [ Music ].

Isn't that awesome?! So, there's a really great way to utilize augmented reality to help connect people even across oceans. When you're not able to be there in person there's so much amazing things you can do with technology.

These cards themselves were actually produced with technology. There's an app called Send Out Cards. You can go there, sendoutcards.com/revealio, and you can actually create your own card for free, and send it to a loved one.

It's, a beautiful thing. You just make the card from the comfort of your chair and add a graphic if you want on the inside. You can sometimes customize the front and send it off. They'll print it and deliver it for you, and you just get to just sit back and enjoy the fact that you just made somebody really, really, happy that's gonna get it. And they even allow you to add gifts like yummy, yummy, brownies or little necklaces, or other things that you can send.

So, there's all kinds of new technologies out there that will allow you to authentically connect and make somebody feel amazing during this time of social distancing, and a lot of sorrow, and a lot of just uncertainty.

I just encourage you, if you are at all interested in joining our business network called, Tech With Heart Network on Facebook, you're welcome to go there and join our group for free.

Also, if you go to techwithheartnetwork.com, then you're welcome to join our mailing list, and join our non-profit outreach programs that we are working on to help support entrepreneurialism, and students in the San Francisco Bay Area.

So, my name is Michelle Calloway, and I hope that you and your family stay safe, stay healthy, and God bless.