Connected, yet alone…

I love the TED talks, and this one is especially profound.

“The feeling that ‘no one is listening to me’ makes us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.”

“We expect more from technology and less from each other.”

“We’re lonely but we’re afraid of intimacy.”

This talk is bigger than just radio, but it has application to, and implications for, what we offer on our stations.

Mark Ramsey blogged recently about the intimacy radio can provide, when done well, though it feels like radio is moving further and further from this usage.

My entire career has been focused on creating content — everything that falls between the songs on music stations — that enhances the possibility of emotional connection with listeners.

And as this talk shows, that sense of personal, intimate connection with each individual listener is probably more important to him and her now than it used to be.

Each of us is likely more isolated now than we were 30 years ago, even when we’re sitting together in a room.

Understanding that, overcoming that, is our challenge.

Voice-tracking is the antithesis of authentic connection. Bitboard is a lazy talent’s way to fill content slots on a prep sheet.

PPM isn’t about real listening, only distracted hearing, so it’s making radio’s transformation worse, not better.

Someone will tune into your frequency today, hoping for human touch, needing human connection.

Will you give it to him/her?