The Power of Voice
Today I came across a Powerpoint version of Martin Luther King, Junior’s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. Here’s a sample screen – a bar graph contrasting “dreams” versus “implementation” across the centuries:
I Have a Dream, in Powerpoint
The presentation is a slam-dunk spoof of how people tend to communicate through Powerpoint, and a reminder, to me, of the power of voice. What if Dr. King had relied on Powerpoint, reducing the power and beauty of his language and intonation to bullet pointed double-speak? On the flip side, what if more people took the time to communicate their ideas fully, and authentically?
I remember, one of the toughest parts of adapting to office life in my 20s was learning to speak in bullet points; otherwise, I found, people became impatient: Get to the point!. I’m not advocating that we all ramble on – there is, of course, a middle ground – but I think we need permission in more work environments to express complexity. Some things can’t be reduced to headlines; you can’t be succinct ’til you know what you want to say. When we communicate small, we think small.
On the subject of Powerpoint, here’s a presentation I gave last year at an event called Ignite DC – also a spoof of the medium – in which I employ every cheesy, annoying convention I know to communicate need-to-know data points about my dog, Cosmo:
