White Space

Conversation Agent Premium Newsletter subscribers received some of my thinking on building white space vs. drilling black holes, or why next generation CEOs need to understand marketing (August issue).

White space is where something greater than a market happens. To illustrate, I will go back to a post I wrote more than 4 years ago.

In it, I talked about the sound of silence.

It's the place between words, a slight pause before listening and after talking: Silence. Poets and philosophers have fallen in love with the idea of what is left unsaid: The space where nothing exists but the shapeless abyss.

Sometimes defined a deafening void, silence is an art. It comes with its own grammar: Forging words that go with any sound or message is no trivial thing. Silence is a dynamic and ever changing force.

It's been revealed through the study of magnetic resonance that our brain is able to hear silence and it anticipates the sound. In fact, during a pause, our cortical auditory areas are primed and lay in wait of a sound.

If silence is an art, it was an artist who shared his intuition about its sound.

In 1952, with his composition 4'33", John Cage offered three whole movements without playing one single note.

More than music, Cage's revolutionary concept was in demonstrating what a beautiful instrument our mind is.

For a full 4 minutes and 33 seconds, the pianist sat without touching one single key.

During that time, the audience could listen to the silence.

This meant anticipating a melody and, with ears primed, paying attention to all the small creaks and noises inside the music hall, normally covered by the music -- whispers, yawns, someone coughing, and the distant murmurs seeping in from the street.

Cage wanted to prove that absolute silence doesn't exist.

Even in a perfectly insulated space, we can hear the beat of our own heart. His point was to demonstrate that our lives are immersed in a sound continuum.  

Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.

But if it's technically true that even silence has a sound, it is also true that silence has its place.

• As a useful tool in negotiating -- well timed, thoughtful silence during contract or pricing negotiations can make the difference in gaining the upper hand

• As legal protection -- as spelled out in the Miranda "you have the right to remain silent..."

• As an inner quality -- in spiritual practices for transformative and integral growth

• As a reverential gesture -- to show respect to a person

Water will not be the only resource in scarce supply, silence will too.

From Silent Night to Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence and Deep Purple's Hush, we've been humming about silence in pop culture.

We also learned about the wisdom of silence in popular sayings like "silence is golden" while we're still figuring out how to be still.

We're greeted by a stony silence after an argument, and we've occasionally enjoyed the peace and quiet of a relaxing moment.

***

I wanted to close the week with a moment of silence. A pause to make space and listen to your inner voice. Invite new ideas in, and trust your gut.

White space is connection with vision.

 

[image of Leave Your Mark, Apple ads collection.]

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Comments

[Rayna Fagen]

Valeria, I really like this post, and the John Cage analogy is perfect. In fact I tried imagining your silences in between your thoughts and paragraphs. Letting the ideas comfortably linger in my mind as I considered them. Noise seems to be something that has increased in our lives, especially in communication. Often people feel the need to fill silences, either out of discomfort or seeking advantage. So much more to be gleened from our interactions by pondering, listening, musing, and letting the silence takes its rightful place in our lives. Thanks for writing about this so eloquently (and with the right touch of silence).

[Valeria Maltoni]

it was an inspired moment, and things were a bit more human scale four years ago. A few years ago, I heard Jim Collins speak at the Wharton Leadership forum. It was the second time for me. I had met Collins at Fast Company Real Time in Phoenix in 2001. The same year Razorfish acquired and gutted March First. it was interesting times. It was before Collins published "Good to Great".

In a conversation with Alan Webber, which hundreds of us seemed to overhear off the main stage, Collins talked about the three circles. Where passion, what you're engineered to do, and what people will pay you for intersect - for the first time.

At Wharton, he spoke about leadership and nonprofits. He was explaining about his wife dealing with cancer, a difficult subject if there is one. Then he paused. It was a full one minute pause. There was so much story in that one pause, that I will never forget it. Ever. We all *felt* his pain, and compassion, and love. We were transformed. In one moment, we saw with our own experiences and stories. We contributed what we had brought to the conversation. It was a great teaching moment.

[Michael Said]

White space is useful in that it gives you response time to your next response. Nice post.

[Valeria Maltoni]

as in "buying time" or "making time"? Two very different concepts/actions.

[Ara Bedrossian]

I'm reminded of the Tao of nothingness. The emptiness in a room is what makes the room purposeful. Atoms are almost all empty space, which gives electrons room to spin around and move though energy levels, changing the nature of the atom's bonds and thus matter. Space is truly the commodity.
Your writing also reminds me of what drives our politics: Action, when waiting and thinking is more often necessary.