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Day Thirty-Three: Finding Our Voice

I’ve always believed that the most important skill for any PR pro is the ability to write well. The rest can be taught. And as writers, the most important piece might be the process of finding the right voice. In the case of artist/blogger Ray Basile, he’s found all eight of his. At least that’s the number that came out during our hour-long chat over coffee in a outdoor Seattle cafe.

In addition to being a VP at a major retail branding company, he’s been an accomplished artist for much of his life…whether the medium is photography, music or digital art. Basile made the leap into writing via the blogosphere in 2006 with Mr. Besilly. A thoughtful collection of observations that gained an impressive national following.

But it wasn’t enough.

During the summer of 2007, Basile launched iPhone Savior on a lark. Four days after the iPhone hit the stores.

“It was slow at the office and I just started the new blog for fun,” Basile explained, adding, “I never planned for it to become as big as it is now.”

And it’s big.

He averages an audience of 140,000 per month and is regularly referenced on such well known geeky tech and apple-centric sites as Gizmodo and Cult of Mac.

But it’s not nearly the same thoughtful, philosophical site as Mr. Besilly was, which he stopped in December 2008. It’s a satire site that is full of snarky tid-bits and observations about all things Apple. And it is positively saturated with Basile’s twisted sense of humor.

“I can do things on iPhone Savior that I could never have done on Mr. Besilly,” he added, “it wouldn’t have fit.”

Here it’s important to paint a picture of Basile who is a boisterous, energetic, Cuban/Italian-American with a genius for fake-accents that makes all conversations with him mildly schizophrenic and wildly hilarious.

Take this moment during our conversation when his phone rang.

Because we were outside, the sound didn’t travel much past our small table, but the tune was unmistakable. I asked him, “Did you just Rick Roll yourself?”

He laughed. Loud.

“No, dude, I just Rick Rolled the whole freakin’ restaurant,” adding that he put the ring tone on his iPhone more than a year ago and has kept it on there for those brief moments when he’s sitting in a quiet coffee shop to hear it go off and get that one knowing nod from someone across the room.

Dude. You just got Rick Rolled.

I wish I could put in a sound effect of Basile’s laugh here but it’s a full-belly, gutteral laugh. Imagine the uncle you always hoped would be at your family reunions when you were a kid because you knew he’d make it fun. It’s that laugh.

Although his humor and his more sober insight-driven writing is on polar opposites of the spectrum when it comes to tone, both are inspired by the same delicious love for small moments that might otherwise go unnoticed.

That attraction to pulling something fantastic out of the mundane, miniscule or just the overlooked, lead to the “10 Life Lessons from The Princess Bride” post on Mr. Besilly that became part of a University Professor’s syllabus. It’s the inspiration behind this shot of Fergie’s “iPhone pouch” (which lost him 30 followers on Twitter because of it’s “risque” nature). It’s also what inspired his latest blog project, Best Kisses, which he does with his wife. It is a site dedicated to that most intimate fleeting moment: the kiss.

He doesn’t stop with the blogging. He’s also an entrepreneur, helping start a new project with some leading marketers and business gurus from some of Seattle’s most well-known companies. Called Doctor Fishy, the company creates, designs and markets apps for iPhone and the Google Android phone.

“I don’t do any of this stuff for the money,” Basile said, “I do it because I love it. It’s who I am.”

And who Basile is turns out to be artist/musician/philosopher/satirist/comic/
businessman/shock-jockey…and now, teacher.

He just returned from a trip to Spain where he taught a class to some university students on the Power of Creative Vision. The class was based on the wealth of work he’s done and used the posts from Mr. Besilly as a kind of workbook. The purpose was to uncover for these students, among other things:

1) Who they are as creative individuals.
2) How to find value in their creations in a world that monetizes everything.

The ten-day course ended with an art forum where the students were asked to create two pieces. One in the medium they are accustomed to and most comfortable with using. And one using a medium with which they have no training or experience.

The result was, in Basile’s words, “life affirming.”

Not only because the students created some remarkable work, but for Basile it was a moment we all yearn for. A moment where he could see that all of the seemingly random, crazy, “just for a lark” stuff he does actually matters. It actually moves people, touches lives and influences hearts and minds.

It was a moment that screamed out, “Yes, Ray. You are doing well. Your work is important. Keep doing it.”

We all need those moments. Even the artist/musician/philosopher/satirist/comic/
businessman/shock-jockey/teacher who boasts more than two million visitors to a blog that started “on a lark” and now fends off up to 30 press releases a day from flacks near and far wanting him to pimp their latest iWhatever.

“I still fight those days,” Basile added, “I fight the days where I listen to that inner voice that says, ‘Nobody cares about your sh**.’”

Yes, it’s critical to find a voice. It doesn’t matter if you are a brand and you call that voice a “niche” or an artist and you call it “your sh**.” Find your voice and own it. Only then can you do anything truly unique that will capture the hearts and minds of others.

And maybe, after practicing that voice for a while, you might be fortunate enough to have a life-affirming moment or two that squelches the voices in all of our heads that tell us we are wasting our time.

In that spirit, I’ll put it here in writing for Ray and all of his voices (both inner and outer) to hear:

“Well done. Keep going. We want more.”