BY OSMOSIS?

It’s an all-too-common plaint we’ve heard among colleagues:  Got anyone who thinks strategically?

More to the point, it’s not an easy skill set to teach.  Though we know it’s highly valued, not only by our peers but also by the universe at large:  97 percent  of senior execs surveyed last year by a market research firm agree it’s the most important attribute for organizational success. 

Sure, MBA schools list strategy courses – and claim they produce these futuristic thinkers.  There are strategic officers and strategy firms galore.  But, where in our business – of communications, design, and branding – are these practitioners?

Let’s start with the learning, agreeing that (for the purpose of this blog) thinkers can be made, and not born. 

There’s the immersive approach, where information on every facet of the corporation – customers, market, industry, suppliers, et al. – is shared to provide in-depth understanding and a wider range of information. 

Then there’s the Jack Welch approach, pairing up a known mature thinker with one who’s fairly new to the business.

Or there’s the reward point of view, ensuring that those who think strategically (and their products) are recognized.

All of those paths might prove successful.  Yet there’s another idea that has us applauding:  Surround yourself with those who look at the world differently, while questioning your own opinions.  It’s only by exposing ourselves to out-of-the-way ideas that we’ll design the actions that give our enterprises sustainable competitive advantage.  Armed with a good knowledge of the business as well as a world perspective, professionals can reframe and challenge current mindsets with a good strategy or two.

Or, in simple terms, diversity makes the strategy go ‘round.

A SAHARA BY ANY OTHER NAME

With the frenzy for eating all things fresh, green, and local, it’s hard to remember that only a few years ago, researchers had located way too many urban food deserts here in the U.S. as well as Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Coined in the mid-2000s, “food desert” is a concentrated area short on access to fresh meat and produce, long on convenience stores and quick-serve chains.  Metro-dwellers in those areas don’t eat well, get sick often, and are at higher risks for life-shortening diseases.  The solutions?  Safe places to shop, for one.  The rest follow logically:  Educating populations about good nutrition, ensuring these communities have the financial wherewithal to buy healthy food (usually higher in price than the fast-food outlets), and training residents on adopting such alternatives as victory gardens and urban agriculture.

The good news?  With community activism, widespread awareness, and retailer cooperation, food deserts are shrinking, bit by bit by bit.

Yeah, we know what you’re thinking:  “What the heck does this trend have to do with design and change and communications and branding?”

Here was our Eureka:  The same kind of sere-ness a food desert connotes can apply to communications.  We’ll elaborate, of course, through questions:

• ·       Is business writing clear, concise, sparkling … or dry as our proverbial Sahara?
• ·       Are there functions and divisions within the company that, quite simply, don’t communicate well or often enough?
• ·       How parched are your stakeholders – inside and out – for real information and intelligence?
• ·       Do constituents need to travel far to get to that communications oasis?  Or is it as close as their laptop or Internet connection?

Analogy’s over, with one last question:  How long will it take us to build safe places to communicate, and to congregate in communities of genuine conversation?

THERE'S A NEW WORD IN TOWN

Curious.

A few months ago, a software company, one not necessarily heralded for its innovation (or, at least, not like Apple), released a global study on creativity.  Or rather, on how individual humans perceive themselves and their countries as creative.

[Our curiosity was somewhat appeased by the fact that Adobe, the study’s sponsor, is launching a new suite of cloud touch applications.]  

What piqued our interest even more were the results:  Only a quarter of us are living up to our creative potential, with even fewer countries noted as creative.  [Japan, by the way, was ranked number one,

and Toyko lauded as the most creative city.]

Blame, of course, was duly assigned.  To the workplace, because of environments that emphasize productivity and its consequence, time pressures.  To the educational system and its teachers, called out as not-so-great judges of talent.

Yet, dear readers, fingers could easily be pointed at the very folks who practice creativity.  Why?  Those in the business of creative – architects and graphic designers, communicators and ad mavens, among others – oh-so-often emphasize the creative of the business.   [Emphasis ours.]  Pitches stress the proposed campaign’s linkage to the increasing of awareness, not to the changing of behaviors.  Copy points linger on, yes, benefits, but not those so inclined to move the needle.  Gorgeous and evocative Web sites extol the greatness of brands and of companies, but don’t get us to the information we need when we need it.  And how many news releases contain the facts and the impact on the product/division/business, rather than spokesperson quotes that are rarely if ever used by the media?

We have a Webster-ian proposition/solution.  Obviously, the word “creativity” has its own definitional baggage.  How about “strag-ivity,” a one-word combination of strategy and creativity that accomplishes what all clients and companies, consultancies and creatives desire? 

Or what David Ogilvy said almost 40 years ago:  “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”