Nick Carr argues in his most recent book, “The Shallows” that the Internet is making us less attentive and in general less intelligent. Carr has stirred up some controversy and his concept has certainly not been universally adopted. What if it is not the Internet at all but something else?
“The problem is not the technology but what the mind of the user includes,” Sam Ford, an expert blogger for Fast Company and Director of Digital Strategy and Insight for Peppercom, a PR and Marketing firm, might say. I have been spending a lot of time on Sam’s blog recently and he offers a powerful perspective I have not seen elsewhere. He writes from a cross disciplinary window drawing on cultural patterns that offer a richly textured look at how humanity takes on life and where businesses need to pay better attention. His advice can help a business whether it is on or off line. Businesses need to include more in the thinking to be smarter. Sam thinks we can get smarter and more ethical by how we consider culture as it informs business.
For example, Sam offers lessons extracted from cultural phenomena such as Friday Night Lights. FNL is the highly successful TV series centered in Dillon, Texas where football is the center of life. The lesson: Businesses need to see the power of not being a stalwart brand, but rather reveal the mistakes they make. By doing so, they create a personal relationship with their customers who have empathy with their struggle and value their integrity. Having grown up immersed in Texas football myself, and being addicted to FNL, I can attest to its cut on the frailties of life as a source of story but also empathy for characters. You get a strong sense of how people are trying to create a workable, if imperfect, life. Businesses have the same vulnerabilities but try to conceal them by the face they put on the brand. Humanness is what matters and it is not perfect. People relate to the character of a company, as they would a person. Sam suggests business will likely attract a more loyal following, when the company connects with people at a vulnerable personal level. I have seen Sam’s premise play out many times. Seventh Generation, the sustainable consumer products company has been very successful in spite of, and much because of, publicizing seemingly huge errors in formulation to “The Nation” of followers who love them even more for the transparency.
Then totally unexpectedly, Sam proposes that professional wrestling offers ten lessons for businesses. My favorite on that list of ten is, “Your Audience Is Always Performing.” Sam points out that wrestling fans almost always openly indicate they know wrestling is scripted, yet many of them come to arenas to perform as if they are sports fans watching a legitimate competition. Sam cites wrestlers who report “they are often astounded by the performers in the stands, those fans who often get so into their roles such that they put those “on stage” to shame.” Sam believes this is related to brands learning to listen to what their audiences are saying. He argues that it is important to always be cognizant that anyone writing or speaking about your brand or your products is performing and trying to draw an audience for their own purposes. It is a personal life performance that needs to be including in the business’ thinking.
I make a similar argument in The Responsible Business, so it is not a surprise I resonate so with this lesson. My way of saying it is that businesses have to take on “enriching the lives” of people and not just selling the products they say the want in focus groups. They have to understand and seek to make more meaningful a well-understood life. From Sam’s window, they have to care for the performance of the customer and the effect of their offerings in supporting that.
Sam’s blogs catches you completely off guard, slipping in a less considered but critical perspective on business performance and development. His stories make it clear that businesses are often oblivious to the culture of humanity they swim in and the source of inspiration it offers for understanding customers and audiences. And I would add, the fulfillment that employees and suppliers can experience when they are connected the fabric of real lives. People are using what a business offers them to produce a fulfilling life. Most business miss that completely. They are focused on themselves and not the lives of people.
Sam blogs for Peppercom’s PepperDigital. Follow him on Twitter @Sam_Ford. I suggest you sign up for his RSS feed. Every posting is a slice of life that has something to teach, and with which I am delighted and educated. Tomorrow we will look at some Q&A with Sam Ford..
Bio for Sam Ford: Sam is not your average techie. He was educated in and also taught in the humanities— a Bachelor’s degree with majors in English (writing), print/editorial journalism, communication studies and mass communication and minor in film studies from Western Kentucky University’s honors program; Master’s degree from the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. He launched a crossover research group, the MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium. He was previously the Consortium’s project manager. At WKU, he co-taught a course in journalism and a course on the history of pro wrestling. At MIT, he taught courses on pro wrestling and soap operas. Right now, he is a research affiliate with the Comparative Media Studies Program and C3 at MIT and the popular culture program at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY. Sam has a book coming out in December entitled The Survival of Soap Opera: Transformations for a New Media Era with Dr. C. Lee Harrington of Miami University and Dr. Abigail De Kosnik of UC-Berkeley, and is currently working on the book Spreadable Media with Dr. Henry Jenkins of the University of Southern California and Dr. Joshua Green of UC-Santa Barbara.
He has worked as a professional journalist, winning a Kentucky Press Association award for his work with The Greenville Leader-News and publishing a weekly column entitled “From Beaver Dam to Brooklyn” in The Ohio County Times-News.
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