The Problem with Voice, Part 2

David Rogers responds to my blog about whether corporations can have a voice:

I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s blog on voice for quite awhile—and finally put my thoughts down right here on my blog.

You might want to read this entry on Mark Twain and voice first.

Ultimately, I’m struggling about your assertion that a corporation can’t have a voice on the Web. You’ll see that I try to assert that it is possible—just rare and difficult.

David’s blog on this topic is thoughtful and I think hits the nail on the head … although I disagree with the direction he drives it. He thinks a corporation can have a voice, although he’s careful about this.

David writes:

When I speak of “voice” on the Web, I primarily mean “authentic, sincere, with human qualities and values”—more or less the kind of voice you’d hear in a conversation or letter from a dear friend. OTOH, I sense that to DW and the Cluetrainers “voice” means “human, coming from a truly individual human source, authentically speaking that person’s thoughts and ideas.”

I think the problem is indeed in our definitions. I’d say that authentic voice does come from a real human being speaking the thoughts and ideas that matter to her. If you take the human out of the equation, how can the voice be sincere? What’s the what that’s speaking its mind?

David takes Walt Disney as his main example:

…Walt Disney shamelessly promoted his original theme park on television in what were nothing more than 60 minute infomercials. Yet the public loved it! The secret was Walt’s voice. He gosh-gollied and aw shucks-ed his way through every episode. Ratings skyrocketed and Walt built a huge audience for his new Disneyland park.

It is certainly the case that a spokesperson can speak for a company authentically and in a real voice. To some extent, Ben and Jerry, William Ford, and Jeff Bezos do this. And, in some small companies, that one person does all the marketing writing; Seth Godin points to Norh, a tiny Thai stereo speaker company, but even its voice has degraded as it has grown, for at some point, Disney, Ben, Jerry and William all hire marketing writers who now adopt (= mimic) the voice of their chieftains. And now there’s a human being writing inauthentically. Hell, I spent enough years doing it.

There are two other possibilities for authentic voice emerging from a company in addition to having a leader who speaks for herself. You can miraculously get everyone you hire to believe in what you do and to sound exactly like the corporate style authentically and of their own free will. Ok, so scratch that. The other possibility is to set free the myriad of voices in your organization. Let 1,000 employees bloom. Let them speak for themselves about what matters to them and what they care about. Scary as shit, but do it. Why? Because your employees are already out on the Web doing it … that is, if they care about your products at all.

Only by so doing can your corporation have an authentic voice … because its voice consists of the individual voices of actual, living, breathing people.

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