Twenty-five years ago, The Cluetrain Manifesto published “95 Theses” built around their observance of markets as conversations. Consider the top five of their theses:
* Markets are conversations.
* Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
* Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
* Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
* People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.[1]
So, What Happened to Marketplace Conversations?
When I recently scanned my file in an online credit site, I did not understand one factor in the rating. So, I clicked on “Hey, Ed, I can help you understand your score.” But it only gave one option; “What are your goals?” What? Goals? Trying to play along, I picked one of only three choices. But that only led to a loan application. Incredibly, they could not help me understand that one factor in my score.
I’ve also noticed that automated voice response systems that use pre-recorded greetings to manage calls rarely provide a route I need. They only give selections that compel me to give my money to strangers. The transaction feels like a large mechanical opponent suddenly locked me into a full nelson.
As Rex Miller, author and corporate guru, told me, “Today we're being invaded and manipulated by algorithms that try to anticipate what we want but are designed to take us down their rabbit hole... It sends a weird sensation of this wanna-be guide or ‘friend.’ On the surface, it looks or sounds like the genuine thing until you try to go in a direction it does not want.”
Can We Get Back to Basics?
In its purest form, human speech carries the vocal symbols, the language, the heartsounds, the essence of the soul into communion between people. It is a holy and mysterious transport.
Here’s the ideal version of what that looks like:
You dare to open your heart as you seek information, help, clarification, perhaps forgiveness. The recipient of your words listens carefully and silently. You search his face or voice for some sign of awareness, warmth, or affirmation, some sense of God in this place. Both parties plead a case. They’re vulnerable. Humble. Hopeful. This thing could go either way.
We can’t talk without risk. When we choose language sounds, we load deep mysteries of the heart onto great sailing vessels of conversation. The wind will carry that cargo to others. The entire process becomes a smoky helix of spirit, soul, and body.
But today commercial interests use language to build chutes that force people into conclusions and expenditures. They perform a role similar to slaughterhouses that build chutes to force cattle to become meat products.
Calling mechanized communication “artificial intelligence” doesn’t mean anything. Any manufactured intelligence is not intelligent. It’s like a plastic flower; it may look “alive,” but it has no organic veracity, no similarity to a flower. That whole distortion violates the integrity of language.
This is no rant or crusade. I’m only trying to create a backdrop, a context of the travesty of lowland speech so we can better understand authentic and clear highland speech and its possibilities.
Proper Seasoning
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”[2] Think of it; we walk on the earth with a magnificent commission, a calling, to speak words “full of grace” into our atmosphere. We must listen before and deeper than we speak. Everyone carries heavy loads. Give them a cool drink of encouraging and affirming words, sounds that comes from up there.
Paul said our conversations should be “seasoned with salt.” That’s so delightful; our words should create a magnificent stew. How many tasteless conversations have you endured? How many over-salted exchanges have you pushed away? We don’t need much “spice,” just a little salt to awaken the natural flavors. Not just for the one speaking, but for each participant in the conversation. Gracious communication does that.
And we can do that without regard for what politics, religion, culture, or other energy centers insist we speak about. We don’t have to react, dig in, fight, stand up and be counted, or anything else about what “they” say. Just speak in your own words, in your own voice.
[1] The Cluetrain Manifesto, Copyright © 1999 Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger. https://cluetrain.com
[2] Colossians 4:6 taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan.
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