Response to #1
In his TEDxMidwest talk, “Why work doesn’t happen at work” (October 2010), Jason Fried, entrepreneur and founder of Basecamp, argues that it’s time for companies to change their thinking and practices about office work. He asserts that the typical office is an unproductive environment full of interruptions and activities that waste time, and he makes a case that employees will be more productive working in environments of their own choice. Fried’s rhetorical approach is interesting because it relies entirely on anecdotes to support his claims. He does not cite statistics or external sources. Fried knows that office workers are the audience for this talk, and he engages them by telling stories they can relate to. For example, most office workers can relate to Fried’s anecdotes about meetings that were a complete waste of time or a boss who has a habit of interrupting them. He really strikes a chord when he compares interrupted work with interrupted sleep. In delivering his talk, he does not speak from the position of an authority on office work but from the position of a peer, as someone who has developed insights from experiencing office work directly himself. He wears worn jeans and hardly ever makes eye contact with the audience as he shuffles back and forth on the stage. His tone is conversational. All of this helps him convey the message that “I’m one of you,” and create the pathos that helps his audience emotionally connect with his ideas. Fried also knows that radical organizational change is hard to achieve quickly, so he offers some simple and practical ideas that his audience can try wherever they work. For these reasons, I think Fried’s rhetorical approach is effective in getting his audience to believe his argument.
Response to #2
Margaret Heffernan begins her TEDSummit talk “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world” (July 2019) with a story about a grocery chain that tried to use technology to improve its operations. It’s a story of good intentions with poor results and helps her illustrate the main theme that runs throughout her speech, and that’s: the expensive and inefficient human way of solving problems often delivers better results. Her objective tone and poise establish trust with her listeners, which is important because she wants them to understand that her subject is serious with implications for everything from climate change to financial crises to epidemics. To appeal to her audience and build up support for her claims, she uses a pattern of stories followed by ideas. These stories are her evidence, and she draws them from many different areas of life, such as the grocery store, home health care, and sports. These stories create pathos and emotional connection because her audience can relate to these scenarios and outcomes. In her story about home nursing care, Heffernan also incorporates data to support her argument, noting that after an experiment “patients got better in half the time and costs fell by 30 percent.” This tactic helps creates logos and appeals to listener’s sense of logic and reason. Heffernan is a polished speaker, and she is also very skilled at using rhetorical strategies to strengthen her argument and persuade her listeners to share her point of view.
Dylan,
I completely agree with your idea that Fried relays the message that he is just like everyone sitting in the audience. I think that he does a great job of doing that and with creating ideas and examples that the audience can relate to. In doing that he grabs their attention more and causes the audience to be engaged and more invested in what he is saying.
I also agree with what you are saying regarding Heffernan’s talk, in which she maintains ethos, logos, and pathos throughout all of her ideas. By having all three gives her reliability and the attention of the audience somewhat similarly to the way that Fried did.
Dylan,
I agree with the assertion that the workplace is an inherently unproductive environment filled with many distractions and irrelevant activities. The entire time while I was watching this TEDtalk, I could not stop myself from picturing the TV show “The Office”. It is obviously a very exaggerated work environment, however, the show gives a very compelling visual to Fried’s argument since it provides a manager who always interrupts, workers who do not do work, and long meetings for no reason. Even though real workplaces may not be as extreme, they do still have many of the same issues just like Fried pointed out. I really liked how you acknowledged the pathos in Fried’s TEDtalk and commented on it because it was a very good way for the speaker to draw the listener in and appealing to their emotions.
Dylan,
I agree that Fried’s approach was effective in getting the audience to believe his argument. He was charming and relatable. He commiserated with the audience on the difficulties of never getting actual work done in the office. However, as a person who works in an open plan office, I felt let down by his suggestions to remedy interruptions and too many meetings. I find it difficult to get work done because many things are going on at the same time. My colleagues must collaborate with one another because we are in a creative department were things must be hashed out while looking at designs on a computer. Unfortunately, the whole room has to hear other people’s brainstorming sessions. I thought a “tech” guy could have come up with more innovative solutions and I found myself wondering how long it had been since he’d worked in an office. Ultimately, his expertise on the subject didn’t ring true to me. Perhaps working remotely for 15 months during a Pandemic has colored my opinion!
I think a lot of us are rethinking our work experiences in light of the last 16 months! There’s a growing body of scholarship looking at these issues, with some folks convinced we’re never really fully going back into the same kinds of spaces and relationships. Time will tell.
We’ll be reading a couple of texts in the coming weeks that look at different angles on this–one a critique of open-office spaces that predates the pandemic, and another that looks at the impact of Zoom on corporate culture. There’s also a really interesting piece in the New Yorker that tackles this very point directly: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/has-the-pandemic-transformed-the-office-forever (we won’t be reading this one, but I encourage you to check it out)
Yes! Crafting a relatable stage persona is central to Fried’s success–by presenting himself to the audience as “one of us” he is able to hold their attention, likely because his talk feels like a conversation (even if he’s the only one talking) and not a lecture. We all have the opportunity to do this when we’re communicating–to present a persona that our audience can appreciate. That can take a lot of different forms (and sometimes the relationship is one of teacher/learner or manager/employees), but the key is to present a speaker persona the audience will respect.