To Unleash Your Voice Break Your Own Rules. (#LatismVoice)

The following is my talk from the Latism 2011 panel titled Social Media Disruption: Finding Your Voice.  It was my pleasure and honor to be with panel leader Julio Ricardo Varela of Latino Rebels, Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of Blogher and Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother and Babble.  If you attended, you’ll see some words and thoughts you will recognize and a new thought or two. 

Unleashing the Power of Your Voice by Breaking Your Own Rules

When I launched Bilingual in the Boonies in 2006, just a few months after leaving my job as a reporter, I emailed a link to my former editor with the subject line: “Look Ma, No Hands!” Blogging was liberating and exciting. A little scary, too. I spent nearly 20 years in newsrooms and during that time at least three sets of eyes looked at my copy before it was published. Suddenly, it was just me, the dashboard and the publish button. There also had been a lot of rules to follow: correct grammar, the AP Stylebook, even specific newsroom rules of style -- everything from the abbreviation of states to how many words should, or could, be in my first graph. (And sometimes, a few rules depended on whom was your editor that day...) Suddenly, in blogging, I was not bound by my newspaper’s or editor’s rules.

Know the Rules: They Give Confidence

But, I kept to many of the good rules I learned from talented and passionate reporters and editors. I believe in rules. Understanding the basics and norms of whatever you are doing gives you a firm foundation and confidence. A grip on the basics often will point toward a better way of doing things -- and in your own style. Being comfortable as a writer gave me the confidence to try a wholly different medium for writing, one that was somewhat bold and non-reporter-like in 2006. Back then, journalists didn’t really blog. Plus, as a reporter, not a columnist, I am trained not to express an opinion - and that is pretty much the opposite of blogging. I had to get over that and by 2009, I especially had to. Here’s an example of the Disruptive Voice we’re talking about in this Latism session. (#latismvoice)

Personal (and Social Media) Disruption

Nashville voters were facing an English-Only Resolution that would ban city government from working in any language other than English. That meant translations for immigrants and refugees would have been a no-no. I did a few posts blasting the resolution and a way-too long 4-minute video in the accent and character of a Cuban, Carmen Miranda Remolino, to trash the councilman. The video is painful now to watch. I want to scream “cut! edit! cut! edit!” Well, the thing was defeated. Amen. But, that was the first time I used my big mouth and my personal blog for a cause became a broadening of what I wrote about. It also was my intro to vlogging, something I now love and something I learned to do only after I broke two of my own rules: 1. Don’t express your opinion. 2. Cover your face from any video camera. Know this:

The Rules You Have to Break Most Often are the Ones You Make Up for Yourself

If I had kept to the belief that I was always and forever a writer, a person who avoided the camera, I never would have taken up doing video. But the truth is that as my blogging style emerged, and when the Tiki Tiki Blog was born to tell the cuentos of what it is like to live Latin in the USA, I had to confront the fact that some stories have to be told on video. (Despite how long Carmen Miranda Remolino went on, I got great feedback from readers and friends.) So, for the Tiki Tiki, how could I capture the accents, the gestures, the facial expressions with just words? I can’t. So, I got a Flip cam, breathed deeply and went for it. It was scary and unknown, but a necessary way to tell the stories I want to tell. It is an irony for me that this year the Tiki Tiki and I have been recognized for our videos -- not our writing. So, the attention has come for something that I did not know a lot about two years ago, something that forced me to break rules I had established for myself. The videos bring traffic. I optimize them just as I do blog posts. The videos also bring comments, and they have helped create the community that -- blessedly -- hangs out with us at the Tiki Tiki’s social media channels. In addition, videos and the Tiki Tiki help win me freelance work, so that’s not bad. And so, back to the good rules: This new love of video means I have had to study things such technique, editing, software. It means I have watched a whole lot of vlogs, videos and business videos and heck, even commercials, which are great for teaching you to get a point across in 30 seconds. Knowledge is possibility.

And all the good stuff that doing video has brought has happened because I had the confidence to open my mouth, broke my own self-imposed rules and took a chance. When you break down your own barriers, new stuff appears for you. New paths and passions. Breaking past fear and rules means the authentic appears, and that’s the voice, the person, whom your readers and viewers really want to know.

What Rules Do You Need to Break to Unleash Your Voice?

• What self-imposed rules are keeping you from telling it like it is?
• What rules are keeping you from expressing yourself with a more authentic voice, or in a different medium?
• What rules do you need to break in order to experiment and grow?

PS:

You don’t have to go off and Find Your Voice. You already know what it sounds like. Your Voice is the person who talks inside your head, the sound of your Spirit -- the one who tells you to try new stuff, but whom your outside voice, your public persona, often quiets. Let that Voice out, scary as it can be, and many right things will happen.

#Latism11 Links

If you want to search through the Web to find more of what was said at the panel, search #latismvoice or #latism11. Here's a cool list of Latism11 tips sent via Twitter curated by Frankie De Soto.