In the last couple hundred years we discovered electricity, automobiles, telephones, airplanes, the Internet and we even had people walking on the moon. The magnitude of each here cannot be understated. I felt the need to lay the groundwork here for this next discovery. In my eyes it's just as important.
Roger von Oech visits and talks with Bruce Nussbaum. At Creative Think, Roger tells us about this chat. Roger comments to Bruce about David Armano's observation that the tone of Nussbaum On Design appears to have changed over the past few months from being reporting-oriented to being more conversational and audience-engaging. Bruce replies, "I've gotten to a certain age where I feel I can just say what's on my mind."
Now, if Bruce were your typical blogger this statement blends into traffic and maintains the speed limit. But Bruce isn't your typical blogger. Bruce is a journalist for the McGraw-Hill company Business Week online. While Bruce is a blogger, he does not enjoy the freedom of speech that you and I* do. Why? Because he works for the Man. Even though Bruce says he can say what's on his mind, I am relatively sure if he believed so, he couldn't say, "Land Rovers project the aesthetic brilliance of a steaming heap of cow dung." I think it has something to do with companies that pay his company money.
I wish he could express this feeling if it were his feeling. If that ever happens then all bets are off. History changes and our culture evolves. How's that you ask. Because as a reader or consumer our intelligence is not insulted. That might be Bruce's opinion and while I value it and can weigh the plusses and minuses of it, I form my own opinion on Land Rovers. Of course Oprah Winfrey and the hypnotic-like trance she holds over her followers might blow this theory to smithereens. Darn it! I thought I had a good case here until I thought about Oprah and Kool-Aid.
Maybe I've had too much coffee and over exaggerated my position in the first paragraph. But here's the deal. As the tone of a writer's discourse becomes conversational, becomes more human-like, I am better able to relate to his point of view. His stuff begins to click. As his voice takes a front seat to reporting, I find myself wanting to return more often. Visiting some of Bruce's earlier online work at Business Week, his voice is clearly there. The conversational aspect of his writing is becoming more evident as David A., notes.
Bruce, I mean no disrespect here, but if you lost the tie, would your bosses eyeballs pop out from the force of their starched underwear?
*Ten years ago, when I first began to write online, I encountered violent opposition from the company that I worked for...to the point that they forbade me from talking about my Web site while attending a trade show. Our site's mission was to gather folks from all corners of the industry to exchange knowledge, information and ideas. It wasn't until years later did we even mention the company's name that we worked for, speaking of it on our site's last day of existence.
I still work for the Man, albeit a different one. And while it is the best Man that I've ever worked for I will neither mention its name here or talk about my profession. So, from a work-related aspect, I do not enjoy freedom of speech either.
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