Communication is power: October 13, 1997 issue of New Thinking

October 13, 1997 New Thinking:
Communication is power

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October 13, 1997

Communication is power

By Gerry McGovern

The power to change is the power to communicate. Communication is what makes the Internet such a powerful thing.

Think about it. Think about anyone who has ever led. Think of President Clinton; a superb communicator. Practically anyone who has ever thought great ideas has had to learn how to communicate the sense of greatness of these ideas.

The Internet returns us to something old, something that has fundamentally affected every aspect of the world we have built, that has fundamentally affected how we live together.

Communication and language is so much taken for granted that it is hard to imagine a time we did not have language. However, there was a time when our communication was very crude, when our language was that of grunts and squeals.

More than any other thing, a comprehensive language which opens up the possibilities for complex communication, has allowed us be what we are today and build what we have built.

However, language is a construct, something we invented and developed. Among other things, it is a compression technique for the visual world that abounds around us. As technology has expanded its potential, there has been a natural tendency to embrace again the visual as part of the communication process.

The communication of much of the younger generations is already highly visual. MTV and all that jazz. Words find their way into some songs not because of their meaning but rather because of their contribution to the rhythm or melody.

So many of the world brands reaffirm their position, not by sending us letters, but by waving their logos incessantly before our eyes. They color our lives and not so much make our dreams come true, but rather, and perhaps sadly, make our dreams.

Then a new tool, that is really an old tool, rocks into our world with force of the century. This Internet must piss a lot of people off. Because a lot of people don’t get it and don’t want to get it and don’t want you to get it either. Because if you get it, which either you have already or you inevitably will, these people will be out of a job.

The power of the Internet is the power to send letters again. The power of the Internet is the power to revisit language again. Language has a new tool in its toolbox. In there with the words, grammar, quills, pens, ink, typewriters, now can be found the Internet. Language and its communication is reinvigorated by the Internet.

Before the Internet the world had been dominated by visual media and visual people. The Internet brings us the future by reawakening the power of what made our past. Yes, the Internet will change and become more visually driven. For now though it is the central domain of language.

Today, the opportunity and challenge the Internet offers to individuals, businesses and organizations is the opportunity to communicate to other people and consumers using language.

Have you got anything worth saying? If you don’t, much of the Internet’s promise will pass you by.

Gerry McGovern

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The Internet offers to individuals, businesses and organizations the opportunity to communicate to other people and consumers using language.