Throwing out the bathwater
I just read a nice post on a blog called MisEntropy. The post is a reaction to the Forbes.com article entitled “The Man Who Predicts the Medals,” about an economist named Daniel Johnson who has predicted medal counts over the past five Olympics with 94% accuracy. The accuracy is impressive, but more interesting is Johnson’s approach—he bases his predictions solely on “per-capita income (the economic output per person), the nation’s population, its political structure, its climate and the home-field advantage for hosting the Games or living nearby.”
The operative word in that sentence is solely. Johnson is quoted in the article as saying “I know nothing about the athletes. And even if I did, I didn’t include it.” The MisEntropy post focuses on this statement:
That completely derailed me. In a world where endless data and information (and the ability to gather more of it) is at our fingertips, how many of us would dare to say “We probably knew it, but we didn’t include it.” I, for one, haven’t opened my register on that one yet.
What’s amazing about this is that contrary to our cherished beliefs, more information – especially more ‘relevant’ infomation [sic] – isn’t always necessary or indispensable towards acquiring knowledge.
Thinking about doing away with the extraneous, I looked back on several recent brand strategy engagements where I was charged with making a related point clear to clients. I said something to the effect of, “Your challenge is not that you lack something positive and compelling to say about your organization, but that you say too much.” In other words, these clients needed help figuring out what not to say—they needed help throwing out the bathwater in order to find the baby.
Michelangelo supposedly said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” The job of the strategist then is to find the compelling idea (call it what you want) inside an organization. Like Johnson, who presumably considered a spectrum of variables and performed calculations (factor analysis?) to determine which are correlated with Olympic medal count, the role of brand strategy is often to strip away the irrelevant, the competitively ineffective, the unbelievable and more to find that idea that matters.
To paraphrase another Michelangelo axiom, find it, and then carve away until you hit the skin.
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Such a timely post, Rob – and thanks for the link to MisEntropy.
Selectivity and discernment may once again become important professional attributes. Those often come from….(*ack*)….experience. Training. Expertise.
In marketing miasma, identifying actual unique brand, position and selling propositions, and constructing and articulating them in effective ways that clearly attract and interest the most likely consumers often becomes a revolutionary act.
Friend Marty Neumeier again has good thoughts on arriving at such from a consultative level: http://www.liquidbrandexchange.com/category/steal-this-idea/
On a contrarian/ tangental note, Chomsky’s considerations from “Manufacturing Consent” have some relevance, especially regarding “concision”, and media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cceC3DeFcY