Business Evolutionist: Bumper Sticker Culture

I've been joking back and forth with Fouroboros (Mark Brady) that I'm going to start a new business by offering the cliff notes version of his posts... so, with that in mind, and his permission... here is the first installment:

Courage needs a companion.. Mark wrote:

There's an ad out there, about the need for a Chief Courage Officer. In it, they ask a key question: Is Corporate America becoming too risk averse? Implicit in their question: Is that risk aversion oddly damaging the integrity and capacity of business for profit and good? The ad is from Price Waterhouse Coopers and it's a work of motivational art. I'd be proud to have it on my reel.
But I wonder. I wonder what that spot's journey was like, up, and through the bowels of several organizations? I think of the moments of doubt, overcome by inspiration, powered by belief in the message. I can hear people in a position to say "Go ahead," or "kill it," say exactly those words. I can imagine a Creative Group, suits and writers and art directors, circling the wagons on more than one occasion. And I could scribble the dialogue because I've been there. Doing the circling, I mean.

In that journey, to tell a story about courage, one that needs urgently to be told, I would hazard that there were several, perhaps legions of people saying "I dunno, seems risky." Or, "Who are we to say?" These people probably had reams of information implying as much, if interpreted just so. The idea of courage, that it's required for business to succeed, to blaze trails, to stretch and reach the potential we all want it to have was, I bet, "A good idea" in their minds. But still, "I dunno, seems risky." It still wasn't a compelling idea. Maybe it had all the elements of "we could this", but perhaps none of what compels, impels a response of "should" or "must."

Something moves us across the bridge from could or maybe to should and must. But what? Courage is a yang to a yin, an act in service of something else. But to what?

Maybe the noble idea of Courage requires a second Job, a second admission that the hole Price Waterhouse is trying to point out, and to fill, is double-wide.

Courage needs a friend. ...Courage needs counsel: a Chief Conscience Officer.

My shortened version:

Business needs a purpose
Purpose takes courage
You don't get purpose or courage from a set of bullet points.

Not quite as meaningful as his, is it? Oh well. :-)

All kidding aside, this reminded me of a something I read the other day:

During an interview in 2002, retiring congressman JC Watts explained that the reason he was leaving Washington after only 7 years was that it is a bumper sticker culture:

"If you are explaining, you are losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose."

3 seconds? Yikes!

It is difficult to fit anything into a 3 second "pitch", let alone something as meaninful as purpose or courage. Okay, I know, the 3 second thing is just being dramatic, but the idea behind it is very true. The Attention Economy, or whatever you want to call it, is here. It's also called the "elevator pitch".

It has to fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of glossy paper and simply state that you will save the customer $1,000,000 if they spend $100,000.... or something like that. How many glossy marketing brochures have you received? Don't they all sort of look about the same? Has one of these brochures actually ever influenced you to purchase something?

I think the glossy marketing brochure is another example of the depersonalization of business relationships.

Think about the message behind the brochure:

"This is who we are. Invest your time to see if our features/benefits match your needs. Then call or email us when you're ready to buy."

Some would argue that one of these brochures is nothing more than a tangible artifact that reflects the existence of an organization. In other words:

"We are a real company. We've paid someone to summarize our offering into coherent sentences, paragraphs, and images. This proves that we actually exist."

But think about the over-communicated-too C-Level manager who's used to getting White Papers and glossy brochures promising to "make your business run more smoothly" or "help you lower your costs". The switch to this kind of marketing was flipped to the OFF position years ago.

Well, yesterday I did it. I met with a potential client and when she asked me if I had a brochure, I told her nope. I don't use them. I told her that I think they depersonalize relationships and I care more about her and her objectives than to give her a meaningless piece of paper that I've given to hundreds of other people. It felt great. I'm not sure she quite understood, but time will tell.

What do you think? How do you overcome this attention-deficit economy?

[JC Watts link via Steve Neiderhauser]