Know Your Audience

Recently I saw Elvis Costello in concert.  I can’t remember the last time I felt so treasured, so seen, so held by an artist.  And, although he thinks that Charlottesville is in North Carolina, it felt like he had a special love for our small town. 

Mr. Costello got into town early that morning and spent the day walking around. He told us he wandered into a record store, Sidetracks, and browsed the discs, slipping them out of the rice-paper thin sleeves, dusting them off, and spinning their aged grooves with massive headphones covering his ears. He bought a 45 of a bluesy homage to Lyndon Johnson.  Back at the Paramount Theater he played it on his travel record player while the band gathered round.  Later that night, the band played the silly, earnest ballad for his favorite town, Charlottesville, North Carolina.

 When Tom Peters was racking up air-miles in the 80s and 90s, speaking to audiences from Poughkeepsie to Paris, he says he made it a point to read the local newspaper before delivering a talk.  He wanted to know who the high school teams were: who had won; who was favored; who was the underdog.  He knew that, even if basketball or baseball never showed up in his talk, just the knowing, the intimacy, would change his delivery.

Next time we have a speech to give, whether to the City Council about the need for bike lanes, or our tech team about the need for collaboration, or to our children about the need for forks or designated drivers, let’s do a bit more digging--let’s familiarize ourselves with the quotidian, the mundane, the intimate pastimes, the favorite diners, the hometown parades, and the source of pride only your team, your town, your child, would know.