I was 14 years old when I became infatuated with the idea of Announcing. I listened intently, and tried desperately to emulate the resonant stylings of the most popular disc jockeys on the air in Detroit, Michigan. For me they were almost as much the sound of Motown as was the music. If they said it, the audience believed it. If they sold it, we wanted to buy it. They could make anything sound like the most important thing at that instant — from on-air promotions to the current time and temperature.
In my mind, this was the art of communication!
Today, thanks to social media, every one of us has easy access to a “microphone.” Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, YouTube, Google + — these new media make broadcasting a message as easy as hitting the ENTER key. Every few days the blogosphere grows exponentially as thousands of words slip from the confines of an imagination onto the broad expanse of the information super highway.