For several years after I broke into this business, I was afraid to call Roger D'Aprix on the phone, because he was a living legend of employee communication. A lot of the practitioners I was interviewing told me he actually taught them how to think about their job.
Finally I called him and we talked and he didn't bite; he gave me a genial interview. Maybe I had been silly to wait so long. But probably, too, the waiting had prepared me to interview D'Aprix more carefully and intelligently.
Eventually, D'Aprix honored me by writing a chapter in a book I edited, and a regular column for the Journal of Employee Communication Management, which I'd founded for Ragan. Now, he serves as the senior judge on the E2E Communication Awards, which I chair.
And over the years, we actually became friends—me as a stander upon his shoulders, he (I think) an occasional admirer of my writing. And, even better, we liked each other, reveling in the occasional chance for a drink or lunch, and exchanging occasional e-mails that were always friendly and trusting and warm.
And then I check my Facebook page and I see this, on the right-hand column.
Roger D'Aprix
Help him find his friends.
Suggest friends for him.
Why is Roger D'Aprix on Facebook? Surely, because he wants to remain relevant. But I don't want to see him on there, because I want to remain reverent.
I see all the democratizing upside of Facebook and other social media. We're each our own carnival barker now. But how will we organize a profession—or a society—without reverence, and reverence's conjoined twin, irreverence?
David, while I agree with the sentiment involved, this is nothing more than your personal experience of a Joseph Campbell myth.
Your Priest-King isn’t magic. He is human.
I would no more begrudge Roger D’Aprix for wanting a Facebook account than I would want Roger to be disappointed in HIS mentor for succumbing to using a fax machine.
A true communications guru (and I have no doubt for either of you) sees the opportunity in any tool. Most likely it won’t be Facebook, but until you investigate what makes Facebook “sticky” for the hundreds of millions who use it, you can’t apply those principles to other technologies.
Cheer up. It’s just a sign that you’ve grown up.
And it’s also a sign that Roger isn’t afraid to keep growing, which is why he was awesome to begin with.
…but if I catch him poking anyone, all bets are off.
Oh, come on. Roger might be on Facebook for the same reason many of us mortal humans are on Facebook: to connect with friends.
Leave him alone about it, and while you’re at it, stop painting Facebook as a co-conspirator in the decline of civilization. If you lived 100 years ago, would you have the same high-falutin’ sentiments if you caught Roger using the telephone?
I’m not saying Roger shouldn’t be on Facebook. I’m saying it freaks me out a little to be asked by Facebook to “help him find his friends.”
I think Facebook has a hundred happy uses, most of which I take advantage of. And I spend a lot of time defending Facebook, even championing it to skeptics, who include my own wife. FACEBOOK IS A GOOD PART OF MODERN SOCIETY.
But it has its downsides, and this leveling is one of them.
And please, Robert: Facebook is not the telephone. A better metaphor would be, 100 years ago, would I have been disappointed to see Roger D’Aprix advertising for friends in the Classified Section of the newspaper.
Yes, I would.
Only, in this case, Roger isn’t advertising for friends. Facebook is telling Roger’s friends they need to find friends for him. And Roger has all the friends he needs.
I may be making a mound out of a molehill. But don’t make a mountain out of my mound.
And to you, Ike: I agree with almost everything you say, except I’d say that Roger D’Aprix, though he may not BE magic, he has lots of magic in him: Has spread some magically intelligent ideas in some magically persuasive ways from a position of magical integrity and intellectual consistency.
So there.
David, here’s a story I may share soon on my site.
When I first got into TV news, my main anchor was Dave Baird. Dave is one of the best people on the planet, and the only reason he’s not at a network is he liked his life and his wife, and didn’t have a grander ambition.
When he speaks, he owns your attention. And he is smart, too.
When I first started writing, I would always play back my script in my Baird voice. If I could hear Dave saying it, then it was written well. And it worked.
One day, a couple of years later, I realized I was no longer listening to my inner Dave voice. I was hearing my own. I had developed my own sense and style, and didn’t need the mental crutch.
I am not saying Roger is a crutch for you, or for anyone else, but it’s natural as we grow in our own skins that we find ourselves catching up to our idols. As amazing as they still are, we do catch up, and we earn their respect for what we think and accomplish.
You’re just a few weeks older than I am, David. You’ve been around the employee communication game longer, and I respect that immensely. There was a time a couple of years ago that I would have hesitated to approach you.
It’s not that you (and Roger) aren’t magic. It’s that we share the magic now.
All that said, yes! Facebook is amazingly awkward in the way it communicates relationships.
Glad to reconnect.
Ike, allow me to pay you a compliment my writer dad once got and never forgot:
“That’s what I’da said if I couldlda laid tongue to it.”
Thanks for your thoughtfulness. Glad, indeed.
Case in point: Look at lil’ ol’ me, here, on a thread with names like David Murray, Ike Pigott, Robert Holland AND Roger D’Aprix appearing too.
I’ll be honest: Some of you have become my inspiration, my magic BECAUSE of connections like Facebook. And how cool that maybe (not fooling myself), just maybe, I have something to offer back? (Even a friend suggestion for Roger D’Aprix, though I’ve never been asked. But once I took a deep breath and commented on an Angela Sinickas thread…)
I’m feeling pretty daring today… Maybe I’ll get the nerve up to ask Roger to be my FB friend! Nah… I’ll keep him on a pedestal awhile longer.
See, you durned self-actualized Canadians freak me out with that stuff. I never know when you’re jagging me with that “‘lil ole me” business. So I assume you’re ALWAYS jagging me, which is the safest position.
This reminds me of grade school, when we first learned that our teachers went home, and ate dinner, and watched TV, and did all the other things that people do. I guess we had assumed they just went up to the blackboard and switched themselves off.
You should worry only if Roger starts writing in lolspeak, or sending 127 texts a day.
I’m bewilered that anyone would look for ‘friends’ for me. I’m even more bewildered by the adulation although I have to admit I like it. David is a friend I admire for his wisdom and irreverence. My original motivation for (reluctantly) going on Facebook is that my kids and grandkids are there.I’d also like to connect with some old friends I’ve lost track of over the years now that I’m a bonafide geezer. But I admit that I rarely pay any attention to it. Not enough time.
It’s gratifying that I’ve had some impact on this profession over the years. But much of that was simply looking at some of the silliness and trying to find another way.
The Big Kahuna himself, in for the last word. How perfect.
“Simply Looking At Some of the Silliness and Trying to Find Another Way.”
This could be a fine tagline for an ad agency, slogan for a Presidential campaign … or motto for a great communication consultant.
Thanks for everything, Roger D’Aprix.
Told you. Roger’s on FB to connect with friends.
Roger, if FB ever asks me to help you find your friends there, you can count on me. Sounds like David is a little too put-off by the whole thing to be much help. 🙂
Well, “Kahuna Grandé” DID have the last word, until we interrupted him.