Feb 26, 2008 1
Inspiration and… Real Estate?
Garr Reynolds, at Presentation Zen, is a must-read blogger/writer/authority on presentations for anyone involved with marketing, communications, or any sort of presentations. He also has some views that he shares from time to time that are highly relevant to any thinking about marketing.
His latest is a masterpiece as well, and it deals with the issue of Inspiration in presenting:
If your presentations, speeches, and your words in general are inspiring to others—or if you yourself are deeply inspired by the words of another—it’s just a matter of time before someone emerges to dismiss the importance of such inspiration. It’s just a matter of time before someone will try to bring you down. They will demean your enthusiasm, optimism, and hopefulness as symptoms of shallowness. Inspiration is OK, but “too much” inspiration is inconsistent, they will say, with the idea of serious content and a serious message. This, of course, is complete horseshitake.
I urge you to read the whole thing. It’s worth your time.
Now, onto the arguments. 
I gather that Garr himself was inspired to compose this paean to inspiration by one Barack Obama, orator extraordinaire, currently the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President. Mr. Obama has been under attack recently for the seeming emptiness of his soaring rhetoric, and Garr leaps to defense of not Mr. Obama, but of soaring rhetoric:
Attacks on his record and experience are fair game, but it’s ironic that Obama’s amazing oratory skills are belittled by some as unimportant—and worse that they are just a symptom of a man without ideas or a plan. You know, a man who is all hat and no saddle as they say. Logically this does not follow. A man can be articulate, engaging, inspiring and have important content. But my point is not to discuss politics here, of course, but simply to address this issue of emotion, inspiration, and communication in a way that relates to our own lives as business people, academics, researchers, and leaders of all kinds.
Since I too do not wish to discuss politics, of course, I won’t get into an analysis of Obama. Rather, an analysis of Obamania is warranted.
