Communication for the change maker in you

"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” Joseph Priestley, 18^th century philosopher, scientist, and clergyman.

Joseph Priestley provides good food for thought. Thousands of years ago we used to listen to a preacher every Sunday. Is there a stage for this kind of storytelling in the 21^st century? Today’s technologies sometimes limit our storytelling to wall posts and 140 characters. Advances in communication technologies over the past half-century have revolutionized mass communication. Earlier this week it was announced that social technologies like facebook are being used by politicians and government agencies to interact with and serve their constituents.

Changemakers like former UK prime minister Gordon Brown suggests that the web can be used to communicate to organize and to create a community, “We now have the capacity to find common ground with people we will never meet but who we will meet through the internet and through all the modern means of communication, that we now have the capacity to organize and take collective action together to deal with the problem or an injustice that we want to deal with, and I believe that this makes this a unique age in human history, and it is the start of what I would call the creation of a truly global society.” The TED stage provides a place for 21^st century changemakers to share “ideas worth spreading,” through storytelling.

I wonder if Gordon Brown agrees with his fellow countryman Joseph Priestley’s sentiment on communication?

by Daniely McCaffrey

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