Can you make change happen?
For the last five months, I’ve been hard at work at something you might be interested in.
The full details are here. The video explains what we're building together.
Enrollment is open today, and closes on May 11th. The Seminar begins now and the discussion board will be open for the next six months.
Seats are first come, first served. I hope you’ll check out all the details. If you use the coupon code READY before end of day on May 5th, you’ll save $70 on the cost of enrollment.
Let's go.
May 3, 2017
Modern marketing, the craft of getting ideas to spread, has split.
On one side are the roboticists. They test and measure and do what works. They do it with no interest in how people decide or what they believe or what story they tell themselves. Instead, they treat the human as an ant in an ant farm, a robot that does this or that. They're behaviorists.
On the other are those that seek to get to the heart of what makes us human. These marketers know that fear, shame, desire for gain and culture are the quartet that drive just about every decision. They know that Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand couldn't have been more wrong, and that truly understanding our narratives is the essence of doing work that matters, that connects, and that spreads.
There are ever more tools for folks who do the former, but the problem is that this is work that gets easier to automate and easier to hire for.
On the other hand, the ranks of people who understand, who understand well enough to lead, to decide and most of all, to see… there are never enough of these people doing the work that matters.
It takes patience and effort (but not focus groups) to develop this empathy. It's worth it.
[I've built a new course around this idea. Look for the details tomorrow.]
May 2, 2017
About half of all the bananas consumed worldwide come from the same tree.
Not the same type of tree. The very same tree. The Cavendish, which has no seeds, is propagated by grafting or cloning. Which means that they're all identical. If you're a mass marketer, pushing everyone to expect and like the very same thing, a thing with no variation and little surprise, this is good news indeed.
Until, of course, a fungus comes along and wipes out the entire monoculture.
It's tempting to want all your bananas to be the same. To have all your employees be clones of one another, your products to be indistinguishable commodities, each conforming to the dominant narrative of the day.
And if you're a freelancer, you're under huge pressure to be just like everyone else. It's easier to talk about what you do, easier to fit in, easier to be ignored.
But variation brings resilience and innovation and the chance to make a difference.
May 1, 2017
