Script

(tribal sounds with chants)

Announcer: They say language was developed so people could pass on their history from one generation another. First spoken…

 (sounds of pencil scribbles on paper, then old fashioned typewriter)

Announcer: then written…

(sounds of industrial construction, busy chatter of workplaces, computer typing sounds)

Announcer: And now corporations and universities employ researchers, writers and historians to document the general story of our civilization.

(slience)

Announcer: But what about your story? How will you convey your uncle’s struggle to leave Manhattan on 9-11 to your children, grandchildren and beyond? How will future generations in your lineage know how your hands helped re-build a school in Haiti or traveled around the world on a cruise ship as you sent to high school?  How will they know?

(music bed)

Announcer: Make sure they know with LivingHistory.com. It’s more than an online family tree, it’s a way to document in the written and spoken word the specifics of your family’s history for future generations to learn and enjoy. Connect your history with other families and show how your family fits into the community through friends, employers, and neighbors. Everyone has a story, and as a people we knew from the dawn of time that sharing it is important. Learn out you can keep the history alive for your future generations at livinghistory.com.

 

Final

Fear, when fueled by grief, is a powerful emotion. That fear can turn a manageable case of self-doubt into a crippling disease that causes a complete shutdown. That shutdown is a part of the human experience. But for a communicator trying to find a voice and discover a true self, it is a fear and shutdown that can be the precursor to near madness.

I’m sure there is a lesson to be learned in here somewhere. As I’ve struggled to determine what kind of voice that I want to have, my external voice of reason was taken. That voice had two sides. My grandfather has always been and will always be my rock. He was a preacher of knowledge and a life-long teacher. He instilled in everyone he knew that education was the salvation- the power to lift any person from their environment to a higher place. It was his voice that motivated me to begin this educational journey. That voice was silenced by throat cancer more than two weeks ago. Immediately following his departure from this earthly world, my already weakened voice of reason took on a different and difficult tone. It was easy to ignore my grandmother’s escalating dementia as she watched her life partner lose a long fought battle with an ugly disease. But when that spotlight found her as the new subject, there was no place for anyone to hide. There is no gratification in taking on the responsibility of making decisions for the people that have been the authority and voice of reason since the beginning of your very existence. Fear fueled by grief driving self-doubt. The mind shuts down. For the last two weeks, I’ve been sitting in front of a blank screen waiting for something to happen.

I will start over in order to find success beyond the grief and fear. I owe it to my voices.

I can say that I have learned that writing is hard. I have never doubted that statement, but now it has new meaning. This exercise has been a reminder of the fundamentals that I knew but had forgotten. The truer struggle has been (and I guess will always be) defining what I should do with it. I have no focus because I’ve never been challenged to find one. Everything I do is a hodge-podge of anything at any moment with just enough information to sound intelligent for two minutes. I have learned that while a 2-minute drill as an end result is fine, the entire game of research, focus, and intent is more important. I have learned that good writing is timeless no matter the stage. I have learned that as the genre gets smaller, the focus and intent has to become sharper. I don’t like to Tweet and probably never will.

One question that I have that I don’t think I found an answer to is if there is any difference between interactive writing and “traditional” writing. In my workplace, the rule of thumb has been that writing news stories as web copy is different than writing newspaper copy, or radio/TV copy. Radio/TV copy I understand because the sound bite or video footage from a source is the story. The writing around it is glue to make it stick together. But, does written news on the web differ from written news on paper? Or is bad lazy writing being glorified in the name of a new genre? Those are questions I will continue to strive to answer.

Executive Summary

The desire to capture an on-going record of history is an elemental need of humankind. Anthropologists attribute the evolution of both the spoken and written word to this rooted desire in society. The modern world of digital technology creates the ability to record history as its happening in the present. This proposal details how a website designed to collect the stories of the individual today will build an encyclopedia and recorded living history of a civilization for tomorrow.

The beginning is simple - a record of one’s existence. That record is added to other records to build a family tree. While there are other software programs and websites that create family trees and link them to others, this website would expand on the idea on a new and unexplored level. Each identity has memory to store written documents and audio files detailing moments in that life. Each record would have a content label featuring key words and phrases indicating the topic within the record. The entries would collectively create a database of real time history that could be researched and cross-referenced by year, geographic location, event, demographic, etc. Families would be able to research, read and hear the stories of their forefathers directly from the source.

This living recorded history would have larger function than just serving the individual family. The database would be used by a multitude of researchers looking for specific information.  The same principles of the collective intelligence that keep Wikipedia honest and accurate would apply. Writers and historians would then have an unlimited source of materials to track how the world was changed one person at a time. The medical community could start with one person’s disease, illness, or questionable health issue and track it through a family or a community. The personal and professional possibilities of usage are without limit.

The facts and details of historical events will always be documented by those who make it their job to do so. But so often what is missing is the individual story that gives every historical moment its humanity. People remember where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was shot, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, and when the planes hit the twin towers in New York. Everyone has a story and the majority of those stories are missed. The proposal seeks to capture all of the stories from the people who lived them and are willing to share.

Midterm proposal

It has been a struggle for me to fine my voice in this medium. I am accustomed to talking my way in and out of everything. Verbal communication in the form of the spoken word has always been my weapon with body language as my shield. My purpose is cemented in telling other people’s stories. So, how do I marry my strengths with the written word? It is that mental roadblock that has held me back these many weeks. 

When I first declared my niche as chocolate, I wasn’t too far off. I am a big fan of Chicken Soup for the Soul in its numerous forms and find the stories of others very enriching. In On Writing Well, William Zinsser was speaking to me when he said, “For me, no other nonfiction goes so deeply to the roots of the personal experience – to all the drama and pain and humor and unexpectedness of life.” It’s those snapshot moments in someone else’s life that give the rest of us a mental break from our own. Guideposts and O! Magazines are centered on the stories of others, from their “Aha” moments in life to their fall and rise in the face of the worst demons. For me, that shared moment in someone else’s time is a piece of chocolate. It’s the tangy middle of someone’s struggle that is enveloped in a sweet and happy ending of his or her success against adversity. It’s that Mental Chocolate that I desire to capture and put into words for everyone to share.

The problem that I have is how the story is told. The written word can tell a powerful story. But, my spoken word tells another story that my written word is never be able to convey. And it’s the spoken word that is not only my comfort zone, but my identity. So, how to I capture and capitalize on both with the online presence that I seek? In this blog’s present form, I don’t think that is possible. My ultimate online presence would require the vocal me. Every post would be my voice telling my stories of others – written and spoken.

Actor George Clooney once said in an interview that once he became a movie star, he missed the intimacy of television. He said that when you are larger than life on the big screen you are suddenly disconnected and untouchable. People will notice you in a public place but will not approach you. However, when you’re in television and people are watching you in their homes from their recliners in their pajamas, you are a part of their lives. There’s no fear in approaching me to tell me what they thought of last week’s episode. Radio is even more intimate as people have me all to themselves when they wake up, take a shower, have breakfast, and/or drive to work. My ultimate online presence would be to bring that sense of intimacy to the web.

Elevator Pitches

Elevator Pitch #1:

Twitter and text messaging are two ways to get a concise message from one person to another. Smartphones with touch screens are more commonplace that allow us to do more with our mobile devices. I would propose a mobile app that would allow you to highlight and text or tweet a section of any written copy from your mobile device. It would also allow you to send the text as an audio file.

This feature would allow you capture a moment of inspiration as soon as you find it without having to save and remember it for later when you are in front of a laptop or desktop computer. By sending messages as written text and audio file two different retention styles that apply to the majority of the population. Messages sent as a text are easier to store and refer to at a later day wherever you have your mobile phone. With my inspirational website, inspiring ideas can be captured and shared instantly.

Elevator Pitch #2:

What if Wikipedia and Ancestry.com merged with an element of shared audio? Each person adds written information on their branch on their family tree along with one or more audio files describing a moment in their life. The collective body then begins building a recorded verbal history of who we are as a people one person at a time. There would be prompts with script suggestions for ideas on what they should talk about and each file would be no longer than one minute. Stories that include other people would be tagged to appear with the other person’s written entry. The shared audio files would illustrate how we are all connected.

Change

Change is good.

I’m not sure who said it first, but it has been repeated numerous times over the ages. I believe in change. It is a method by which we can grow and develop. Change comes out of necessity, out of boredom, or even out of curiosity. Change can be painful and sometimes unpredictable. I get all of that. What I don’t understand is change upon change without waiting to analyze the result.

Radio is in the middle of change. The industry is in the midst of a tsunami with two very different catalysts at the beginning of the wave. The advent and growing trends in the internet and digital media has forced the radio industry to question its identity.  And if that weren’t enough, the industry’s primary tool for measuring success has changed to a new method that produces drastically different results. Those two issues have left industry executives and radio programmers scrambling to answer two questions: what are we doing and how are we being judged? Unfortunately, the second question is dictating the direction for the answer to the first question.

The portable people meter, known as PPM in the radio world, is Arbitron’s newest method of collecting data on the radio listening habits of the average person. The meter records in real time the radio frequency in its vicinity as well as the exact time of any changes. It promises a more pure sample of what people are listening to at any given time. This new method differs from the old-fashioned diary which required the listener to recall their listening habits and keep a journal of their listening activity. For generations radio programmers were trained to create radio content that would build loyalty. The goal was to rely on that loyalty  for a listener to recall their favorite station and write it down multiple times in their diary. The dawn of PPM has forced radio programmers in major markets figure out attract and keep listeners in the now abandon the need for loyalty recall later.

The radio industry’s desire to conform to the PPM world has added to its own identity crisis. The second part of that crisis lies was created by digital media. The mp3 has made the favorite song of the moment instantly accessible. The internet library and its card catalog of search engines has an infinite number of information source instantly accessible. Add to that the rise of portable web-capable devices and the world is literally at your fingertips at nearly any place and time. So in this new information-right-now age, how does radio compete? The search for the answer has created grey hair and sleep deprivation.

 The nature of the radio industry right now is answer that question as quickly as possible. PPM allows the results of a particular day to be available as soon as the day is done. The radio programmer changes to conform to the results of a particular day. The days of data collection and analysis over time are gone. The information is now and the judgment is now so there for the change must be now. I can’t help but believe that industry leaders are going to change themselves into oblivion without every considering the effect. Change is good. But without pause for analysis, change can also be ineffective.

How to Sing

Singing is difficult.  Just like anything else in life, there are two ways of doing things – the easy way, or the right way. We all sing, even if we don’t realize we’re doing it. It might be The Itsy Bitsy Spider song we sing to entertain a fussy baby. It might be that catchy commercial jingle that has no words but has a great tune that fits with our self-created libretto of nonsense syllables. It might even be that most-played song on the Ipod that turns the front seat of our cars into a rock concert venue. That singing is easy. The right way to sing takes concentration. 

The first step in singing is breathing. You may think you have this first step in the bag, but let me assure you I wouldn’t mention it first (or at all) if it weren’t important. Take a deep breath right now, like you would if you were at the doctor’s office and I had a stethoscope in my hand. Hmmm. Take another one. Did your shoulders go up?  If they did, then we need to take a closer look at this first step. A true deep breath really is deep. It should make your chest puff out in that area just beneath your rib like a woman in her fourth month of pregnancy. Try it again, but this time, lie on your back and place your hands just under your rib cage. Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth. Don’t be alarmed if you feel a slight head rush. That is perfectly natural. We don’t usually fill our lungs to this capacity so the rush of oxygen can have a rushing effect. Stand up and try it again and feel the difference from your first deep breath. Your shoulders should stay down while your mid-section expands. After all, that’s where your lungs are.

Now that we have learned how to breathe, let’s learn how to control it.

Breathing correctly is one thing, but controlling that breath is a whole other issue. Take a deep breath through your mouth like you are sucking on a straw and hold it for two seconds. Then, slowly exhale through your teeth like you are a slow leaking tire. Take as long as possible but keep the pressure constant from start to finish. What started out as that second trimester pooch should push back in and under your rib cage. Don’t let your tire go completely flat. Just when it feels like the tire’s gone and you’re about to reach the rim, take in more air and hiss again. The key to control is maintaining constant pressure and knowing when to re-fill.

Believe it or not, you are almost ready to make that first sound. Now it’s time to focus. It sounds a bit ambiguous but is still important. Imagine for a moment there is a window right on the bridge of your nose between your eyes. Your focus on the sound you create should be as if it is leaving your body through that window. All concentration should be on that window.

Now, it’s time to put it all together. Take a deep breathe, focus on your window and let out your note on the syllable “Ah” with the control of your hissing tire.

 Congratulations! You have just taken your first step towards becoming a vocal virtuoso. The next stage of adding more notes, words and rhythms is easy as long as you remember the three most important things: breath, control, and focus.