Wandering Wandering Star

What is strategy?

In the communications context, strategy is about solving problems with lateral thinking. It’s about understanding the cause of a business or brand problem – not simply solving a symptom – and digging for insights about people that are relevant to what the company has to offer… and linking them in a unique way.

There are all sorts of planners and strategists in the communications world: media planners, brand planners, social media planners, digital planners, experiential creative strategists and so on. What they all have in common is a drive to find a deep understanding of people – why they behave how they behave, why they think what they think, and then working out how to affect this behaviour and perception.

That’s all good and well but it’s easy for people to get lost in this stuff, in psychology, in research decks, to focus too much on being right rather than being compelling.
In a world where being agile, responsive, planning for the long-term but acting now are all increasingly important, ‘how strategy is’ – doing rather than pontificating, for instance – is increasingly becoming as important as ‘what strategy is’.

It turns out awesomeness is the single biggest driver of sharing.

Studies done by the New York Times show that the most shared articles on their site are ones that inspire awe.

Specifically, things that are epic in scope and require “mental accommodation by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way.”

“They’re seeking emotional communion, Dr. Berger said.

“Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion,” he said. “If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe.”

…The problem with just about every prediction made by industry firms like Forrester (all the way back to 1985 when these firms said that the Commodore 64 was going to change the world–until the VCR interrupted to become the next big thing) is that they are based on sophisticated analysis of what’s in the rear-view mirror.

A tough way to drive.

The trends are legit, but we have no idea what unexpected breakthrough in human interaction is going to change everything.”

Facebook’s impending problem is that even if the company enables future pacemakers to share our every heartbeat, the company cannot automate caring—the most important part of the feedback loop that has driven the social Web’s ascent.

Nothing can support exponential growth for long. No matter how cleverly our friends’ social output is summarized and highlighted for us, there are only so many hours in the day for us to express that we care.

It can’t continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.