Thursday ramble

I talk and write a lot about how stuff shifts before your very eyes.  I mean like the whole culture is on a hinge swinging, creaking and sometimes banging into into itself.  My client's needs are changing right in front of me and I have a front row seat.  I think the whole thing is quite grand but I'm not sure all my colleagues would agree.  They aren't sure how much to charge for some of it, aren't sure about whether this is a blip and things will just go back (not just people I work with, friends in industries outside of my own) and I can't remember a time since maybe 20 years ago when I remember hearing people make decisions based on fear--that kind of thing you do to limit the downside.  That's a depressing way to look at it and I just clamp my mouth shut when I hear it.  No amount of cheerleading is going to get anyone to look at maximum upside because when it doesn't magically appear you get a "see I told you" before your butt hits that Herman Miller chair.  

Good grief.  A man needs to dream.  Sometimes the "what if" needs to be a good thing.

Some others are embracing change--except for themselves.  "You all go out and do your work differently because I don't really want to" oh, and you're responsible for the profit/loss on this risky-ass venture. Here's your rope.  It's like the early 1980s all over again.  I've heard all these scripts before.  Like how art directors don't like the type that comes out of a computer and that airbrush retouching is so much nicer, so much more natural than a computer.   Anyone remember dye-transfers?  I thought not.  For the record, I thought they looked fakey and horrible.  I think trying something new is better than doing the same thing over and over and getting nothing.  

So I suppose if you want to want to learn how to adjust carburetors, someone could teach you.  In the mean time, I'm thinking this fuel injection fad is here to stay.

I feel this way sometimes when I am thinking up ideas.  You just don't know where they're going to live these days so you have to imagine them living everywhere and nowhere.   They need a thread that can tie them together and that can either be a "voice" that is so distinctive and unique that it could be no other or it can actually be a thing.   Like a gecko that represents a brand and gives it a voice or a visual that is unique.

Allow me to digress for a moment.  Things are either unique or not.  Something can't be more unique than another thing.  Friggin' little is unique in the commercial world.  So get over yourselves already.

I like this idea that you can come up with an iconic idea, an idea that represents something in a memorable way.  Something that makes memes (look it up, those are cool) and then takes those little things that string up a story, a narrative and help you shape an adoption of a series of thoughts.  You might reject the string or you might not but you will likely remember it better if it's tied to an icon.  Like a duck.  Or a dancing baby.  Or maybe just the color orange.

Not unique.  Not the most unique.  Just a killer meme.