Went to see "The Cove" the other night at Angelika, my favorite movie theatre in Manhattan. If a movie is playing at the Angelika, I can pretty well assume at the least it will be interesting and at the best, truly great.
"The Cove" is a documentary, the first film conceived and directed by Louise Louie Psihoyos , one of the the world's great photographers, and financed by Jim Clark, the billionaire who started and sold a string of blockbuster businesses including Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon.
"The Cove" is basically about the slaughter of dolphins and whales in Japan. Not exactly subject matter than makes you feel warm and cozy about a night at the movies, nestled in a comfortable seat with a big box of popcorn and oversized cold soda. But trust me, this is a gripping, compelling film and could, just maybe, be the next Inconvenient Truth.
What does this film have to do with conversation, you may ask? Especially conversation that impacts your business? Plenty, it turns out.
The film came about because of a conversation between Louise Psihoyos and Jim Clark, about what they could do to save the oceans from continued degradation. Many conversations later, involving lots of people connected to the fledgling project, it ended up focused on this remarkable drama over the killing of dolphins in Japan, specifically the city of Taiji, Japan.
Once they decided to make the film, it took lots of conversations to seduce experts from a number of fields to bring their unusually prowess to the movie (from how to build containers that looked like rocks but would contain hidden cameras; to how to find deep sea divers who can hold their breath for long periods below the surface of water in order to implant cameras in strategic places in the sea, documenting what is going on down there; to many others).
One of the many ironies of this film is that it claims the Japanese have been keeping secret the killing of dolphins that take place in a particular cove near Taiji, Japan. The plan with this film is to create a conversation about this secret, dragging it into global conversation where public outrage will stop the slaughter.
To our surprise, both Psihoyos and Clark showed up standing in the front of the screen at the Angelika screening theatre last night where we viewed "The Cove", and did a private Q and A for those of us in the audience. Awesome. Why were they there? Because they want us to talk about the movie...in blogs, on Twitter, everywhere, in order to create the word of mouth that could turn this into a must-see throughout the world. It's all about conversation. A basic "tell your friends" plea that could just work, given the power of the Internet as the extreme megaphone of our time. They've already got a big headstart, what with their own connections in the media world (Clark is a friend of Stephen Spielberg, and his son-in-law Chad Hurley sold YouTube to Google...) but you can't have too many people talking if you want the world to know and care about whatever you're hawking.
You may want to think about how to use that kind of mega-conversation in your own business to get people talking about your product or service. Meanwhile, do see "The Cove." I guarantee you'll want to talk about it.
Author of I is for Intercourse: The ABC's of Conversation, Susan Bird is the visionary behind Wf360, and a sought-after speaker around the world for her views on leadership, the strategic importance of conversation, entrepreneurship, and the role of women business leaders.
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Hi I really liked your post! I hope more people will recommend to watch it! "The Cove" is amazing documentary film, well produced and written !!!
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If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth
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