The irresistible change of 2007
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on December 31st, 2007
Tagged as: Copywriter, Ken Robinson, Richard Binhammer
Hot on the heels of Richard’s end-of-year wrap up and well-wishings, I feel morally, professionally and compassionately compelled to do the same.
For all his generosity, consistency and more-than-welcome attention though, Richard has been unable to overcome those barriers that confine me and this blog to the dreaded but unquestionably deserved “occasional writer†category.
Yet his is the sort of support that keeps you afloat, and so if there is anyone I must thank for encouraging me to take this medium further, it is him.
2007 has been a watershed in my career as a copywriter or, as I commonly refer to myself, the IT world’s biggest ghost-writer.
I have always been out of the spotlight, whisked secretly into meetings with high-level management to help put sense to the latest initiative/product/idea and get the message out.
And this year I’ve written for occasions, launches, announcements and anniversaries that were once beyond the scope of my wildest dreams and aspirations. Now I’m churning out a couple a month.
But in 2007 with the arrival of the kind of relationships possible through blogging that this blog can only claim to scratch the surface of, everything I do and stand for changed ever so slightly but enough to raise questions. No longer absolute and unquestionable, it became relative.
There is a wonderful passage in Sir Ken Robinson’s book, Out of Our Minds, in which he says:
The dynamics of culture result in an irresistible process of change. Contemporary ways of life are not only different from those of the Victorians, they were largely unpredicted and essentially unpredictable. Cultural change is rarely linear and uniform. It results from a vortex of influences, which is hard enough to understand with hindsight and impossible to plan in advance.
I think the relativity of blogging is a pretty damned good example of the vortex of influences Sir Ken refers to and the accountability of thoughts, opinions and most of all ideals leads to the irresistible process of change he mentions at the beginning.
How far we’ve come is easy to measure. We all use the New Year to join the dots. I personally can claim a small victory in changing the way my biggest client sees itself in relation to the outside world and believe me that’s no mean feat.
But like Sir Ken infers, how far we as a community are going to take it is anyone’s guess.
I for one have a few things I’m going to try out in 2008. After all, if it’s irresistible, why fight it?
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RichardatDELL wrote:
You are too king, Michael!