Every day, we participate in a couple of different levels of communication: interactional and transactional. Transactional is the type of deep communication you probably wouldn’t participate in with strangers. Interactional communication is really just a fancy phrase for trivial small talk.

The recession is common ground
These days though, small talk is moving beyond the hi-how-are-yous, and into more transactional territory, even with people we’ve just met. Why? Because we’ve all got a common reference point to start a discussion from: the recession. Something that everyone seems to want to discuss.

When toilet paper sales are down, you know the world’s gone to pot
With both the Sundance Film Festival and the Outdoor Retailer conference occurring last week, Utah was full of visitors to meet and old friends to speak with. Last week alone, I chatted with:

• a real estate attorney
• a mining project manager
• a ski shop owner
• a bartender
• a specialty-tire sales manager (no, seriously)
• and several people in the marketing and tech industries

Guess what the common topic was? Yup. The recession. We’re all feeling it. Even toilet paper sales are down—the true mark of tough times.

Don’t listen to mom—talk to strangers
Now, I’m no optimist, but what strikes me as the plus to the recession is the ability to fast-forward; to jump into meaningful communication quickly with a relative stranger. I wonder, can we take advantage of this cultural common ground to better position ourselves with new people? To “pitch” ourselves, if you will?

Now may be the best time to forget those childhood instructions and intentionally talk to strangers. Talk to as many as you can.  (Save for the creepy ones, of course.) At best, you could plant the seed for a new job, a new client, a new friend, or, hell, a new date. And at worst, you could develop a better understanding of how the recession affects another person and her industry. It’s a unique—albeit, a generally negative—point in history when we are able to approach a stranger with relative certainty that we have something in common to discuss.