In preparation for Global PR Week, I've been thinking about PR. How do blogs change it? PR could be called the art and science of influence. Swaying opinion. And blogs? Yes, it's influence too. The how of influence is subtly different due to the human voice emanating in blogs .
The word "resonance" echoed through my mind last night.
I know I will have arrived when I completing stop composing blog entries in my head during my neighborhood runs. Or strategizing about the product roadmap for the start-up company I'm consulting with. When I just see the porch swing as if I've never seen a porch swing when I glide past that corner house. I am forcing myself to come up with breakthrough ideas because.... Because there are deadlines, I justify. And I fall short, just as Knoblauch. I know that creativity doesn't work that way and yet...
Actual note to self 6/18/04:
DO MORE STORIES - God I loved Jerry Collona (not spelling right) of Madeleine's blog post today
He (and my Dad) inspired me to write this post. Stories resonate.
Jerry Colonna's post today seeped into every cell of my being. I resonated with it. Thoughts jumble through my mind. I've been dwelling in the space of "resonance" since the run yesterday - at several layers of meaning - and his post is titled Tuning Fork.
I too have had a creator's block for some time. Just because I'm writing words down on the page does not mean I'm resonating.
Yesterday I wrote about how words themselves aren't enough - just 7% of the impression made in spoken communication is via the words themselves. People are picking up other signals.
[A resonant object] "will "pick out" its resonant frequency from a complex excitation, such as an impulse or a wideband noise excitation. In effect, it is filtering out all frequencies other than its resonance." - Wikipedia entry.
I haven't developed this idea but I keep feeling that blogs are about resonance. The ones that 'click' - that attract - that pull in readers - are subtly tuned. They resonate with readers. Influence isn't rational.
Blogging by its nature is more personal than other marketing communication. I think that strikes a chord with people. - Todd Satterson of 800-CEO-READ, interview at CorporateBloggingBlog.
Google, at times quite an Oracle when used entirely on a whim with no expectations, finds this gem below. (Don't be put off by the intellectualism at first...)
As noted earlier, the conduit metaphor (Reddy, 1973) underlies much of language communication. Understanding takes place within this framework when a speaker presents a message in coded form (language) to a hearer who breaks the code (takes the meaning out of its packaged form) and understands the original intent of the speaker. As noted early, this idea of packing information has its limitations (Cassirer, 1923). It may work well for most forms of cognitive information sharing, but it is totally inadequate in dealing with the realm of emotions. It can handle the transfer of knowledge, but it cannot convey wisdom or the depths of the human emotional experience. Hence, has its limitations. Many scholars were aware of these stipulations. For example, Suzanne Langer (1967; 1972) was very much aware of the limits of the language metaphor in dealing with the expression of meaning within the forms of music and art. She noted how even musical systems need to be reformulated as they fail to capture the essence of her experiences in musicology. Perhaps this begs the question, but one can readily argue that music is not a part of semiotics. It cannot be explained in terms of the metaphor of language. It belongs to the realm of the metaphor of resonance. Similarly, Existentialists were also aware of the limits of trying to convey the deeper meanings of human essence through narrow codes of linguistic form (Barrett, 1986). They continually reminded other philosophers that human beings cannot be solely defined by the attributed imposed upon them by society (Heidegger, 1959, 1962; Sartre, 1959, 1969). One is much more that the social label of student, doctor, teacher, mother, etc. One is a being, an essence. Evidently, the conduit metaphor cannot stand alone as a model for human communication. It must be supplemented by other modes of communication.One of the most interesting candidates for dealing with the expression of emotions, the sharing feelings, the numinosity of spiritual experiences, the impact of visual forms, the profoundness of music, and other experiences of knowledge can be found in the resonance metaphor. The tuning fork provides the model for this metaphor. When a tuning fork is struck, it emits vibrations. Other tuning forks which share the same frequency pick up the vibrations and begin to resonate. What this model claims is that people also resonate to one another. One who has fallen in love and who has had the experience of falling out of love will immediately recognize the deep emotions that can be found in simple songs that are heard every day over the radio. They will also know immediately what another person who is having that experience is feeling. They can resonate with their emotions. Anyone who has been a caretaker to someone who is terminally ill from cancer will immediately know the pains of another person who is undergoing the experience. No words need to be spoken. The understanding is immediate. It is silent. And, it is deep. There are many examples of the metaphor of resonance in everyday life. For example, anyone who has undergone a spiritual experience will know what it is all about. He cannot find the words to tell others about it. He knows that what he felt was spirituality and not religion. Religion is about knowledge and has to do with the conduit metaphor whereas spirituality is about resonance.
-- from paper titled: CULTURAL WISDOM, COMMUNICATION THEORY AND THE METAPHOR OF RESONANCE by Robert N. St. Clair, University of Louisville
Amen, Evelyn. After a (what for me seemed an interminably long and silent) week of silence, it felt wonderful to clear my head an write again.
And then, to find sympathetic vibrations out there, in the ether, well that's just grand, reassuring, and lovely.
Resonance is indeed remarkable. I think it's the physical manifestation, the physics-class embodiment of what we feel when we connect--in your piece, St. Clair likens it to love. I'd broaden it to include compassion, understanding, really seeing, hearing, understanding the other.
And when that happens, boy howdy, look out.
Posted by: Jerry | Jul 07, 2004 at 08:58 PM