Sting and Change

I’ve been a fan of Sting since I was 14 and first heard “Roxanne.” I’ve seen him live half a dozen times – with the Police (1982 and 2007 versions), as a solo artist, with Yo-Yo Ma at the Salt Lake City Olympics. A few weeks ago, I was at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall where he performed with members of his current band and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

You can never be sure what a Sting song is going to sound like live. He is completely willing to adapt and re-imagine anything he’s written to suit his interest or his venue.

For the CSO appearance, new arrangements were created for songs plucked from his vast catalog. Some were immediately recognizable, some were not.  Some were successful in their new incarnations, some were not. But all were interesting.

It made me think about my own adaptability and how willing I am to take a skill that I have – putting words on paper, for instance – and adapt it to make it work in a different venue – creating Twitter posts, for instance. I also thought about my clients who grapple to make social media work for them.

I grew up as a writer in the old-school world of printed pages where you could go and on and on – way past 140 characters. People had attention spans and weren’t bombarded by endless media at every turn.

Being human, we tend to cling to what we are used to. I am tempted to bolt my wordy, windy ways onto formats for which they are ill-suited.

Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.