Tag Speeches

Hello, ‘stat You?

Michael 2 Comments
A dear friend of mine is in a speech contest. The winner would have been eligible to go to Paris for an international competition. Instead she is competing for the chance to speak in front of her computer and whomever joins the Zoom audience.
 
Let me digress here for a moment. How many people heard of Zoom four months ago? Okay, thanks. Just making sure.
 
As I was working with her, listening to thoughts turn into ideas turn into words turn into new thoughts I started thinking about how much of our communication isn’t just words. A good book notwithstanding, words alone have never been an effective means of communication. If they were, Scott Fahlman* would only be known for his work on early artificial intelligence. Communicating includes tone, movement, gestures, and pace to get the point across. I grew up thinking it was my heritage that made me gesture so much but when I got to high school I realized many non-Italains did the same. And it isn’t only the speaker who uses non-verbal skills. I find as a listener I use my eyes often as much as my ears to grasp the message.
 
We live in a time where we can use those non-words to communicate even when we aren’t in the same lecture hall. Facetime, Skype, Duo, and other communications apps moved video calls from the comic books to our living rooms. Zoom, Chime, GoToMeeting and conferencing software took the calls to virtual boardrooms. One hundred years ago during a different quarantine period you would have been lucky to have had a phone. That was only if you lived in the third of the country serviced by the telephone company and you had $3 a month to spend on it (about $40 equalivalent today). Otherwise you were left to pen and paper or very loud yelling to communicate with anybody outside your home. 
 
Next week I have a doctor’s appointment. I won’t be going anywhere beyond my dining room to keep that appointment. I figure that to be where I’ll set up for the video appointment using the hospital’s electronic chart’s telemedicine function. With the proper sensors it will even record my blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rate. I’ll have to weigh myself though and tomorrow I will go in person to the lab. Those results then will be automatically loaded to the charting software. It’s as close to hands-free medicine as you can get so far.
 
TelDoc
I’m okay with some of this. Personally I like a doctor to thump my chest and peer down throat. Hands-on. But in a pinch, this will do. However, I hope all this remote stuff doesn’t take hold too strongly and we can get back to those in person appointments. 
 
And speeches,  live speeches. Let’s not forget about them. (I was hoping for an invitation to Paris too!)
 
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* Scott Falhman is credited with originating the smiley and frowning emoticons in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University to distinguish serious posts from jokes.
 
 

More Than a Dream

Michael Leave a comment
A big announcement is coming up. On February 1 the National Football League selects its Hall of Fame “Class of 2020.” I’ve always been sort of tickled by sports halls of fall identifying those selected in a particular year as the “class of.”  But then what should we expect from a business built on little boys’ games most others set aside right around graduation day?
 
There are halls of fame for everything, not all have “classes of” but they routinely preserve the memories of those ostensibly demonstrating greatness in their chosen field. There are the sports halls of fame for professionals and amateurs, music halls of fame from country to rock to gospel to blues, there are transportation halls of fame including aviation and motorcar entries, there are entertainment, business, and industrial halls of fame. There are more halls of fame than just that one that made Canton famous even if it is a little better known that say the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum of Leadville, Colorado.
 
Something almost every hall of fame can relate to is that as soon as new inductees are announced criticism of the choice or oversight of some more worthy selection commences. Criteria is questioned, motivation is questioned, often the parentage of those making the selections is questioned! I am certain among the thousands of people enshrined in the hundreds of halls of fames none would be a unanimous choice if the choice was made by the entire represented avocation, sport, or profession. We just aren’t built for agreement that way.
 
Staying with sports halls of fame for the moment, every year at announcement time the sports talk shows are flooded with calls from fans who know So-And-So was a much better PositionInQuestion than Whatshisname could ever be followed quickly by calls from others pointing out that’s only because Whatshisname played in the LiveBall, DeadBall, LessInflatedBall, LeatherHelmet, PreSteriod, or Paleolithic Era or perhaps because the players in So-And-So’s time were bigger, smaller, faster, slower, taller, better trained, or nongenetically modified. And all might be valid points if anybody really cared or if we were talking about statistics. Performance will change as time changes and standards of performance change as performance itself changes. But are statistics all it should take to be enshrined in a hall or fame. In fact, should statistics even be considered when selecting somebody for enshrinement.
 
If you’re still reading don’t bail on me yet because a point really is coming up. 
 
Criterion 1: If you are telling the story of us, can you do it without saying his or her name?
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While I was reading an article about the recent NFL special “Centennial Class,” among the readers’ comments was a surprisingly intelligent one. While others debated the merits of those selected and ignored, making what they probably thought were very compelling arguments, one reader observed the only criterion should be “can you tell football’s story without mentioning his name?” Now that’s selection criteria in a nutshell. Not victories or championships or statistics, but contribution.
 
Halls of Fame have something else in common. They all “enshrine” their recipients. Not recognize or honor. Enshrine. To enshrine is to preserve or cherish as sacred, something worthy of awe. That anonymous commenter had the right idea. If you are going to enshrine somebody that person should be such a big part of the story that the story would not exist without him or her. You might have noticed when I mentioned the different types of halls of fame from automotive to wrestling, there is no Human Hall of Fame. Maybe that’s why we don’t have a human hall of fame. Who has given so much we wouldn’t be us otherwise? Who is so worthy that we could “enshrine?”
 
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Many celebrate it with a day of service as a means of commemorating Dr. King’s service to the civil rights cause. An interesting thing about Dr. King’s famous “I have a dream” speech is that every American, recognizes the words “I have a dream.” Not many speeches have that level of recognition. Say Martin Luther King and the first thing most people hear I their heads is “I have a dream.” It’s up there in our subconscious right beside “four score and seven years ago,” “a day which will live in infamy,” and “ask not what your country can do for you.” You hear the words and you know the speech. Or do you?
 
Did you know on August 28, 1963 when Dr. King addressed the crowd i  Washington he uttered the words “I have a dream” eight times. Do you know what came after any of them? One time it followed that his dream was his children would be judged by the “content of their character.” Not by their name, their color, or their station in life, but by their character. Character. Who they are and what they do to make them them part of us. 
 
Is that not for what we all should dream and thus strive? To be of character worthy of being remembered. To not be able to tell the story of us without mentioning us. If we were to have a Human Hall of Fame and we used that single criterion – Can you tell our story without saying his name? – Martin Luther King Jr. certainly would be in the inaugural class.  
 
Later this week when you’ve done your service and you’re back to debating the various halls’ of fame classes of 2020 take a moment and pretend you’re on the selection committee for the Human Hall of Fame. You get to ask one question. Can you tell the story of humankind, how we got to be us, without mentioning somebody? Who would you enshrine there? 
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