What's your weapon of choice?

 

One of my favorite sayings in the whole world is "Never bring a knife to a gunfight". In my opinion there's nothing better than words painting a picture that make things so clear, in so few words: You have to be prepared for what you are facing.

In 2011 the upheaval in the market continues. Whether its politics, education, business, or economics, the question is: what's the way forward?

For business, technology has become the game-changer in more ways than we can possibly imagine. Whether it's the cloud, digital media, or the democratization of the marketplace, it's impact is everywhere and the revolution has only just begun. 

The issue though is that in the current environment a lot is going on: an economic recession, joblessness, educational stagnancy, a shifting marketplace, and political stasis (to put a few items on the table). The market, unlike anytime in recent history, is full of incredible challenges. But where there are challenges there are opportunities. 

The mistake we don't want to make is to bring the wrong weapon to the big clash. Yet so often that's what happens.

We focus intently on tactics when we need to establish strategies. We get enamored with activities when we need action. We turn the bass way up on technology making it hard to hear the voices on narrative.

As a friend of mine Tali Krakowsky states in her blog post - The Story of Story: Obsessions with Narrative; "Today data is pervasive. It is so readily available and so in abundance that it has no value. Data is no longer significant or interesting in itself – what makes it so is how it is delivered and experienced.

Ladies and gentlemen in a market where time is of the essence, business models are rapidly changing  and attention is a scarcity, how do we create value?  Choose the right weapon(s): curation, empathy, storytelling, pattern identification, design thinking, improvisation and  culture creation. These are good starts.

At the end of the day the weapon you choose, is your choice. What's on the table, though, is that in a 21st century networked world, where the limit for novel ideas is only defined by the creativity (or lack of) in your 'mental reach', how far is your actual reach when all that's at your disposal is a switch blade?

Comments

[Kira Campo]

This morning I was listening to this podcast:
http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2007/04/harvard-business-ideacast-37-f.html
Not surprisingly, Gardner places great emphasis on synthesis.
In the Age of Information-Overload, this capacity to synthesize (efficiently and effectively) seems an invaluable asset to have in the arsenal.

[Rasul Sha'ir]

Very cool. Thanks Kira for the comment and the link. Just listened to it. Very interesting (and completely agree...of course ;-) Definitely some challenges in synthesis thinking but if you take a hard look at what's going on...as you stated...definitely an invaluable asset to have in the arsenal!