I See A Voice

David Armano (via SoC) talks about ditching blogging & getting into conversation architecture. The bit about being your own personal brand lost me a little but his basic point is pretty sound: If you're going to start getting into conversations then have a voice that is unique to you & say something with that voice.

And that voice & those words come easiest when you start talking with others about something you care about deeply (as David states in lovely diagrammatic form). Do not expect the voice to emerge straight away - just as expecting to ride a bike without practice is foolish.

When I started blogging back in 2001, it was as means of keeping friends & family up to date with my travels around Asia. It then morphed into something else. Writing about what I saw (the wonderful, the horrible, the mundane) and how it changed me became a way of making sense of the whole thing. The initial voice was pretty easy to find - or should I say steal - because it was someone else's: the befuddled Englishman abroad that Michael Palin captured so adroitly in his TV series. But the more I wrote, the further I started moving away from that voice. Because ultimately it limited what I had to say & who I was. The mask did not follow how my face grew.

I have been running Engineers Without Fears on and off since November 2004. And for much of that period I struggled to find a voice. Most of my virtual interactions happened on email lists such as ACT-KM. And on those, a voice began to emerge that has spilled out onto this blog in the last month or so. It's not always a pleasant voice. It rejoices in absurdity. It can be cold & cruel as well as warm & funny. It craves conversation & large amounts of data (sweet data). It is my own voice amplified through the distortion unit of presentation & writing. I like it but then I'm biased.

What does your voice sound like?