This year as we celebrate the birth of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., let us remember him for the radical he was–and try to live up to that example.
Please read:
4 Ways Martin Luther King Was More Radical Than You Thought
Would Martin Luther King Use Social Media?
Happy Martin Luther King Day to all my readers in the United States, and everywhere the legacy of nonviolent social movements is alive today.
Dr. King knew how to communicate, connect
Tripp Braden writes:
I got into a conversation with an older friend who knew Dr. King. He asked me how different the Civil Rights movement would have been if it happened today in such a divided country.
I shared that I can only imagine how Dr. King would have leveraged today’s technologies and social media to make change happen even more quickly. After all, Dr. King knew the power of connection long before the rest of us even imagined it.
– See more at: http://www.trippbraden.com/2015/01/19/connect-like-dr-king-jr/#sthash.zjOHFTN5.ERBdZMb7.dpuf
Please join Tripp and me for a webinar on No Nonsense Social Media this Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. EST. We may not all be powerful orators like Dr. King, but we can all follow his example and build relationships that contribute to a better society. Sign up today!
What We Have Here is Tailored to Communicate
“Tell me a story.”
Beginning in childhood, we all ask to hear stories. They entertain us. They delight us. They help us make sense of a world that’s been there before us and that’s going on all around us, which we spend our lives trying to understand. As adults, we discover new techniques for making sense of the world: measurements, statistics, correlations, theory. Graphs and charts help us make discoveries. Photos and artwork call our attention in ways words can’t, and music touches us in places that words don’t. Still and all, when people mobilize to get things done, it’s usually because we have seen ourselves as characters in a story. The pictures, the numbers, and the words all come together and we see the present moment as part of an ongoing drama. When the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” that was one of the shortest stories ever told…and one of the most compelling.
I’ve come to realize that in my work life, what I do best and what I like to do the most is to tell the story of an organization, to make its case, so that people want to devote their time, their money, their energy, their ideas to helping it succeed. In my years at CAAS and in the nonprofit world, I’ve enjoyed many ways of communicating, from in-person and on-air interviews to written proposals, from helping Reflection Films produce a video about CAAS to helping Andy Metzger write articles about poverty for the Somerville Journal–and of course,writing this blog.
I’m starting a journey toward making Communications a bigger part of what I do every day. Come along with me. I’ll share some of the sights and sounds and reflect on what I meet along the way. Some of you may be experienced travelers who can give me tips for the journey and point out milestones as they pass. All of you are welcome.
Note: this entry originally appeared in May 2012 on my personal blog.