It is always interesting when the advice you give in your workshops catches up with you in real life. This week a protest action appeared on my social media timelines. People are standing on Dam square in Amsterdam holding a sign which says “As long as systemic racism exists someone will be standing here.”. Even though I think this is a great course to protest for my first reaction was: They are not going to keep it going that long (unfortunately). Then the question I often ask the professionals I coach when we are developing their pitch content popped into my mind:
I quickly came to the conclusion that this message surely met the criteria I have for that. The main question to asses if a statement is true enough for a pitch for me is that if you are challenged on the statement afterwards you don’t have to start your answer with an excuse. That is definitely the case here. The main point of the statement in this case is that there are people standing there to keep the issue top of mind and the organisation definitely has the intention to keep it going as long as that is needed. The action scores even better on a second advice I give often for a good pitch: Is the key message easily repeatable for the audience? Because even if someone like me is questioning if it is possible to keep the protest going until systemic racism has gone. I am unavoidably talking about the issue.
So I joined and invite you to do the same. By talking about this issue or if you are interested in taking a 1 hr shift on the Dam having a look at Zolanghetnodigis.nl