For Your Approval

Remembering Johnny Cash

I just watched a wonderful tribute to Johnny Cash on CMT, with Johnny's friends and family, including Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Willy Nelson and many others singing his songs at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. I'm a complete sucker for this kind of stuff and I was blubbering away as usual.

Thinking about Johnny and his huge influence on contemporary music and popular culture, I realized that his songs, and his spirit, represent an attitude that many employee communicators have. Like the Man in Black, we care about people who don't have a voice. We understand the many failings of humanity, and of ourselves. We sympathize. We build bridges between people. Sometimes we even thumb our noses at authority.

Johnny Cash is one of the best examples I know of someone who did something truly meaningful with his life. He continues to inspire me to try to make a difference.

Right now I'm trying to decide what my favorite Johnny Cash song is, and, although I love his latter-day interpretations of modern songwriters' work like "Hurt," I'm pretty old school. I'd have to go with Folsom Prison Blues, or maybe Get Rhythm.

What's yours, and why?

The wisdom of Patti Smith

I have always admired the creative voice and powerful intellect of Patti Smith, one of the artists I avidly followed back in my university days. This week Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The singer, poet and pop philosopher recently shared her thoughts about the honour in a New York Times op-ed piece. It doesn't have a lot to do with internal communication, but there are some insights that I thought would be of interest to readers of this blog -- particularly when she writes of an emerging "new guard...

"...the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented."

Tomorrow's employees will have similar powers. They'll just be a bit longer coming.

We can all learn from country music

I just finished watching -- no, savouring -- the two-and-a-half hour Country Music Television (CMT) tribute to Reba McIntyre.

I cried like a big fat baby through most of it. I'm a total sucker for the kind of sentiment that is alive and well in what writer Nicolas Dawidoff called "The Country of Country.'

The show, the first in a new "CMT Giants" series, celebrated Reba's remarkable show business career, mainly through beautiful tributes, in words and in song, from Reba's music industry friends, including Faith Hill, Dolly Parton, Trish Yearwood, Martina McBride and Wynonna -- in other words, some of the greatest voices in country music.

Those folks down in Nashville know how to touch a person's heart. They look you in the eye. They talk and sing about what it means to be human. They're not afraid of showing their frailty. And they sure know how to celebrate their own community. The TV special combined real, human emotions with superb production values. (You shoulda seen the red dress Reba wore for the final number, her superb cover of the Bobby Gentry classic, Fancy. My, my, Reba sure looked fine.)

Employee communicators could take a few lessons from Reba and her friends.

"Do you know what the Southern definition of a true music lover is? It's a man who, if he hears a woman singing in the shower, puts his ear to the keyhole."
      - Mississippi shop owner Larry Finch, as quoted in "In the Country of Country"