Obama's Words In State Of Union: Salmon?

I don't care that some pundits found President Obama's State of the Union address last night boring, not sufficiently soaring.   I found it impressive as heck.  He said what needs to be said, namely that words that should become our new American mantra, regardless of one's party affiliation:

"It's the innovation, Stupid!"

Yup, he finally gave us what we needed to hear: America has got to spend money in places where it matters most for our future, and that means innovative approaches to education, high-speed rail, clean energy tech and high-speed Internet.  That's the formula.  And it has been confirmed at every one of the Inner Circles I've facilitated recently on the topic of Innovation, whether in New York, Hong Kong or London.  I'm flying to New Delhi to facilitate one there in mid-February and I can guarantee beforehand the thinking will be the same there, too. 

Recently, I mentioned that at an Inner Circle in London Julian Treasure, the guru of sound, had lots of interesting things to say.  I find him and his perspective on the use and power of sound fascinating.  I've got to give him a call about the report released minutes after the President's speech--and abridged in today's New York Times-- setting forth the word cloud of the speech, i.e. which words were used the most, which the least, what trends his word usage indicates.  It's provocative stuff.  And made even more interesting because the people who did the report took an historical look, comparing the number of times earlier American Presidents has used those words, or others.

You can sense important things about the state of the union just looking at the number of times the word "terror" and "Afghanistan" are used by this President, as well as "deficit," "small business," "bipartisan," and many more.  And which of those words he is using now more than his first State of the Union address two years ago, and which ones more.

So if you think for a minute that your selection of words in even everyday conversation is not important, think again. Words do matter.

Here's the clincher, though.  NPR did a survey immediately after the State of the Union address last night and asked people which word--of all words used in the entire speech--do they most remember.  The answer was...salmon.  SALMON?  President Obama told a joke--not a particularly good one--that included the word salmon and somehow that's what people remember about the speech.  And that scary indication of just how tough it is to get one's message across in an important speech is equally true whether the NPR survey respondents were Republicans or Democrats.

Julian Treasure will probably not be surprised.  His work makes it clear that what a company or a brand or, in this case a U.S. President, may think is the heart of their message, i.e. the word or words that people will take home with them and remember, is often not the case at all.  They may think the word they are getting across is, say, innovation, but sadly, it's...salmon.

Yikes.

Comments

[Kris Manos]

Two things struck me most about the historical word cloud: one is that the words "cooperate" and "recommend" have gone out of favor in recent decades -- speaks to our increasing polarization. Another is the pattern for the second Bush -- high use of "enemy" and "terror", but he never mentioned "deficit".
Fascinating stuff.

[Susan Bird]

Kris, yes, this is interesting. "Cooperate" seems like a no-brainer for a word leaders would use in corralling their constituency, no? I love this word selection stuff. Glad you do, too.