At last, the end of this The Conversations with the Past arc, based on a nine year old article by Chris Locke, Faster Horses! sent to me by Jim Sterne.I started this arc as an experiment in trans-temporal communication; a kind of "What can we learn from the past?" gedanken, and I've learned a lot. This posting will conclude Mr. Locke's original column entries and end with my learnings and musings.
"Never underestimate the power of dim", I was once told.
It's what I don't tell them that let's me sleep at night. Which is that even terminal confusion is a thousand times better than spiritual enslavement, and that I am beginning to see people -- some people anyway -- waking up from the long bad Night of the Undead Advertisers. No matter how slick the shtick, they wouldn't buy any of this crap if their lives depended on it, which of course they do not.
Agreed.
"Hey Beavis, I been thinkin..."
"Yeah, Butthead?"
"Let's get us some collaborative groupware."
"Yeah! Heh-heh."
"Yeah! Heh-heh."
"Yeah-yeah! Heh-heh. Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh."
Wow. Beavis and Butthead. Never got into those...
Okay, so what have I learned from this exercise?
That while I appreciate cynicism in an article, I'm not any good at it.
That I need to up my rates.
I think the real learning for me goes back to too much information, too little bandwidth, something addressed in the Responding to Frequent Reader and Brad blog arc. As I wrote in Part 9 of this arc, "I see people's frustrations at being less and less in control of their lives playing itself out in many, many ways."
Companies are hiring consulting firms with the belief that the consultants possess a certain level of expertise not found in the company. More often than not my experience when I worked for large corporations was that the consultants had less and less knowledge than could be found in the company itself.
Technology has advanced, true, but what about our ability to communicate it? To use it effectively? To demonstrate it to others? We still rely on simile and metaphor to introduce new concepts into conversations. As long as we are either unable or unwilling to accept new paradigms which are unbeholden to what we've experienced in the past, we will be bound to both the past and archaic concepts as our sole means of communication.
Pieces of the art of communication rely on knowing whether or not your audience is ready for new paradigms. Some verticals (financial, banking, insurance) are new paradigm adverse (I'm not saying whether this is a good or bad thing, merely recognizing it as a thing) and consultants need a rich library of metaphor going in in order to be understood and accepted. Business in general is new paradigm adverse until it becomes obvious no old paradigm is going to work.
Sad but true.
So I learn from Mr. Locke's nine-year old piece that the practice of engagement can be an embittering thing without a little homework, a little study, and a little willingness to recognize new possibilities even when they present themselves in old skins. I know you're not suppose to "put new wine into old skins" but I think sometimes it's necessary in order to get everyone to drink from the same cup (mixing metaphors and spreading infections).
One of my favorite sayings is "Each morning be a blank slate that the day might write itself upon you." I can't say I do that perfectly every day and I do work to apply it to every client meeting.
Here endeth my lesson. Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- Chris Locke's Faster Horses!
- The Conversations with the Past blog arc
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