Archive for September, 2007
The Value of Ideas
Sep 28th
“It’s human nature to place a higher value on one’s own ideas. That’s why someone will give you a penny for your thoughts, then give you their two cents worth.”
Finding Your Voice
Sep 27th
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
- Samuel Clemens
[audio:http://pigott.name/downloads/findingvoice.mp3]
(Run time – 2:17)
Yesterday, I pondered the consequences of what would happen if I lost my voice, which for the longest time might have been the worst thing that could have happened to me other than dying. But what does it mean to have a voice, and not use it? Certainly the world would become a noisier place. And it has.
On the whole, we live in the greatest Age of Freedom with regards to free expression. We still have a long way to go, but never have more people been free to share ideas without repercussions. More importantly, never have more people had access to the tools of amplification. We have access to say, to see, to find, and to disagree. The Marketplace of Ideas has never had so many vendors and consumers. And for many of us, the stakes have been raised – because there is a greater need to know how to be heard above the noise. More >
Losing Your Voice
Sep 26th
[audio:http://pigott.name/downloads/findingvoice.mp3]
(Run time – 2:25)
My family moved to Idaho when I was three. Actually, the point was just to move west to find cleaner air. My father was a preacher, and we drove west until we found a preaching job. We did – we rented a house – we unpacked the U-Haul – and got some bad news. It turns out that “preaching job” was an unpaid teacher for a Sunday school class. With no other options, my father got out of the ministry, and traded “selling God” for “selling cars.”
After a few months, there were more people sitting in a cramped room for my father’s class than there were in the minister’s auditorium session. A jealous man, the minister conspired with some of the church leadership, and we were ‘invited’ to leave. Not long afterward, that preacher inexplicably lost his voice. Permanently. I don’t know and I don’t care what you think about spirituality – but there is a certain sense of divine justice in that story. More >
Friendships Defined
Sep 25th
“Friends are defined by what you’d give for them. There are Handshake Friends and Car Key Friends, and even fewer Kidney Friends. Count yourself among the most lucky if you’ve got a Heart Friend.”
The Rise of the Communicators
Sep 24th
If someone asks, I’ll tell them I am a communicator.
I used to ply my craft in the world of broadcast news, where deadlines are stiff and constraints are unreal. You’re expected to weave a whole day’s worth of development on an issue into 70 seconds. If you’re lucky, 70 seconds of video will match up with 70 seconds of audio and tell a unified story. If you’re skilled, 70 seconds video + 70 seconds audio = greater than the sum of the parts. It’s not easy. You have to become a master at finding and exploiting analogies. You have to learn how to frame an issue and the context together so it makes sense. And did I mention you have just one day to pull it all together, with travel to unwilling subjects, and you can’t stretch your deadline by a single second?
Broadcast Journalism departments squeeze out as many graduates every year as there are jobs in the industry. Most never get in the door, and go on to something else. A few stick around for the long haul from behind a cushy anchor desk, where the salary typically becomes inversely proportional to effort exerted. A lot of us, myself included, leave after several years of honing our skills in the crucible that is daily news. And we have a mission. More >