It’s no secret that Lawrence Lessig has been one of my heroes in this conversation for a long, long time, and I just wanted to share his most recent presentation from this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. Would have loved to have been there.
I’ve always been a student of Lessig as a presenter; when I first started I ripped off his minimalist PowerPoint approach without apology and got away with it because very few of the people I presented to had ever seen him present. I’ve gone down a different path these days in terms of the technology, but I just don’t think there is anyone better in terms of making a clear point by building a contextual narrative that really gives perspective to that point and builds on it and challenges an audience to think about it in serious, meaningful, and new ways. Listen to the way he weaves the story, with just enough humor and cynicism, and how he brings it all together in the end, in this case, by getting back to the “core problem.” Very few intellectual moments in my life come close to the first time that I saw Lessig five years ago at Harvard, when I literally had goosebumps, and I am really looking forward to seeing him again in NYC in a couple of weeks.
Anyway, in case you haven’t heard his newest message, take 30 mins to watch. My bet is he’ll make you think.
Hey, Mr. Richardson —
Remember me from Central? I’m a senior at Rowan University now. I’m giving a speech on changing media tomorrow for public speaking class and about a third of it is about blogging, and I remembered you and your prediction of blogging being the future of journalism. And whaddya know, YOU WERE RIGHT!
I’ll be managing editor of Rowan’s student newspaper The Whit next year too.
Hope to hear from you,
Amelia
You think he’s done that talk before?