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"BRAVO—to the students who have worked so hard to get to this day and to their families, who have worked so hard to get to this important day!
I especially want to salute you for your vision and foresight in choosing to major in Communication--a field that I believe will be the most important discipline of the 21st century.
In truth, the study of communication reaches back to antiquity. Humans studied oration and rhetoric in ancient Greece. Machiavelli taught grammar and rhetoric in the early 15th century before he went on to write his masterpiece on political power. Every social movement has been about the communication of ideas that have created common ground and galvanized collective action.
During the last century, the field of communication has evolved to become a hybrid between social sciences, psychology and the humanities. But it was not until the 20th century that the field of communications came to be considered an integrated academic discipline.
In his 1909 Social Organization: a Study of the Larger Mind, Charles Horton Cooley defined communication as "the mechanism through which human relations exist and develop—all the symbols of the mind, together with the means of conveying them through space and preserving them in time."
The mechanisms through which human relations exist and develop. What could be more profound than that?
Communication is one of the most powerful tools of humankind, because it can serve the purposes of both good and evil.
Hitler devoted two chapters in Mein Kampf to the study and practice of propaganda. This is what he wrote:
“The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.’
Chilling words, but you and I know that these are the very tactics that are in use today—in politics, in public relations, in marketing.
You know, it is almost a cliché to hear that there is a need for more communication. Remember iconic and ironic phrase spoken by the Captain in Cool Hand Luke after he beats Paul Newman and kicks him into the ditch: “What we‘ve got here is a failure to communicate. Communication isn’t always enough. Communication by itself is not truth. Communication is not intrinsically fair; in fact it can pervert fairness.
So what is communication? Communication is power. It is objective and subjective. It is about heart AND head; about mass movements and our most private and intimate conversations. And frequently, it is unspoken.
At its base, the study of communication is often about enhancing the efficacy of the communicator. How can we predict human behavior? How can we shape public opinion? How can we get people to buy more stuff? How can I get them to vote for me and not the other guy? How can I get that person to like me?
But inherent in the study of communication is also the concept of social responsibility. The idea of journalism as the Fourth Estate, a watchdog of government. The ideals of a free press. Ethics and standards for journalism, advertising, marketing. These are all part of the curriculum of communications.
The Book of Proverbs lists Seven Deadly Sins. You can probably name them and might even have tried one or two: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. Mahatma Gandi has his own version of “Seven Deadly Sins”:
I appreciate Ghandi’s version of the seven deadly sins, because it places us all in a social context, taking into account how humans affect each other. BUT, I would like to propose another deadly sin: Communication without responsibility. People, it can be a slippery slope. There are not a lot of good role models out there, particularly during this political season.
I am here today to tell you it can be done. As an undergraduate here in communications I wanted to go into journalism because I wanted to do my part to change the world. By the time I got my degree in journalism, I had become more interested in political behavior, so I stayed on and got a Master of Arts focusing on Communications Theory and Methodology. For the first two decades of my life, I learned how to write, and I learned how to think.
The second two decades of my life became focused on public policy and public programs. I worked with a number of elected officials on environmental and land use issues. I led the Task Force to reestablish Seattle’s farmland and open space program, which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary. I mediated the policy agreements leading to King County’s first comprehensive plan, which became the model for Washington’s Growth Management Act. I served as Superintendent of Public Transportation Development at Seattle Metro, where I instituted a market-driven approach to transit planning and development. Did I use my degrees in communications? Every hour of every day, much more than I ever thought was possible!
And during that period I became more and more convinced that government and governing could work so much better. Most were using 19th century decision making tools, despite the growing complexity of government and public issues. Case in point—public hearings. These events are used by government to get input prior to a decision. Public hearings are a really good way to get input from people who are comfortable speaking in public, in English, and sufficiently motivated to do so, i.e. they are steaming angry. But by the time the hearings happen, it is often too late for the public input to make a different. They do not do a good job of advance understanding or serving the public’s interest. They are more like dueling monologues. But that’s what most people were doing in the mid-1980’s, and some still do.
So my big idea was this: What if we used all the modern tools of communications—research, marketing, decision process, graphic design, community relations and earned media—to give people information and tools to make better decisions for themselves? And what if we used those same tools to help decision-makers be more responsive to their communities?
That was in 1989 and the birth of the company I started. Twenty-three years later, we are now about 50 people strong, with offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C. We are listed by PRWeek in the top 100 firms in the country. Our revenues last year were around $5M. We are interdisciplinary, we have a common commitment to the greater good, and we have had the privilege of working on some of the most interesting issues of our time. We have worked with companies like NIKE, Starbucks and Phillips Sonicare and supported agencies like EPA, CDC and many of the states in this country. We just designed the new fuel economy label that will be on all new cars. If you have ever used a front load washing machine, used a low flow showerhead, flushed a toilet, recycled anything, bought anything to eat at SeaTac, hopped on a bus, visited the EMP, seen a game at CenturyLink field or driven on any highway in this county my company, PRR, had something to do with that.
Now we are using digital media to promote a higher level of civic dialogue. We’ve done statewide, online town hall meetings, and used Google maps to get input on transportation alternatives. Digital media is a game changer the same way that movable type was a game changer in Guttenberg’s day. No longer did we need monks to copy documents by hand. Movable type democratized knowledge, and caused major changes to the political and religious power structure of the day.
Today, we are all content providers. We are redefining what community means. Who knows what digital media will do tomorrow? Will it make knowledge less relevant? What will be the expertise of the future?
I believe that the expertise of the future is communications. And the fate of the future depends on how we as a society are willing to communicate with responsibility and respect for our fellow residents on this planet. This takes courage, because so much of our industry is about managing perception for short term gain. Each betrayal of truth erodes our trust in each other and in society. There will be many individuals trying to control your perceptions of your world and of you.
So in the words of Mission Impossible: Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to communicate with integrity. Find your own voice. Write your own narrative. Never compromise your passion. Take the long view, and understand your social and ethical responsibility as a communicator. Most of the time, only you will know you are doing the right thing. But little by little, you can change the world."