Information and messages come at us at lightning speed every day. Provocative headlines bombard the airwaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In this dawn of the 21st century, our society's view of what happens in the world is colored by the blaring, and sometimes almost crude, manner in which information is delivered to us. News stories about companies or individuals often paint an all-black or all-white picture as information is delivered through the fast-paced funnel of competitive media.

The latest stories create heroes and villains out of politicians, entertainers, business leaders, and want-to-be apprentices to all. Infotainment dominates. The explosion of reality TV even colors our thinking and our language. Information, accurate or not, zooms across the web every minute and every hour of every day.

The very core of our relationships is impacted. Our children are seduced by coarse standards of entertainment. We are distracted by noise--from constant babble on cell phones in public spaces to the cacophony of information overload. Standards of civility, many say, and we agree, have fallen.

Recent news from the corporate sector can lead to the conclusion that in today's world, the only values that really matter are a company's economic value. Based on the headlines, human values such as integrity, and ethics appear to have fallen by the wayside.

Yet most business is still based upon relationships and trust. Perhaps the reflection we see in the media mirror is not quite an accurate representation of what really occurs in the world each day. Whether in a small business, the core of today's economy, or global corporations, business begins with a handshake and is conducted through a one-on-one relationship.

In this era of communication overload, defining and delivering the message in a manner to successfully break through and communicate with an individual, is more critical now than ever before.