Spring Full Awakening Moon
Into Minneapolis for a meeting on strategic communication. This event featured such words as messaging and brand; both seem to have cabalistic charm for certain groups of people, especially, ironically, those involved in communication. There is a desire here to make communications flow more freely within and among aspects of the organization, a good idea, and to have consistent messaging and branding for external communications. Hmmm.
“The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers…
Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.”
Messaging seems to mean, communicating through messages. Uhm.
I find all this jargon amusing, confusing and obfuscating. We need to present ourselves clearly to the public. Yes. We need to provide marks and symbols that give a consistent view to the public at large. Yes. We need to have clear messages within and among different aspects of the organization. Yes. Why can’t we just use language everyone understands?
We also need to help the public understand our organizations role and identity among the various organizations that do similar thing. Yes. An important work.
Communications will not, in the end, be my area. At least as long it has the most impenetrable jargon of any group in the organization.
Charlie,
This presentation on communiction brings to my mind the many “education” courses that were required in college for anyone who wanted to be a “teacher.” The courses were taught by professors who didn’t know how to teach, but had published a book on the subject of education. They knew how to use big words to cover up their lack of interest in learning what it was to teach. There is a big difference between “education” and teaching. Perhaps much like the difference between religion and spirituality, another big topic. One of my best teachers of philosophy used to say, “education is when information goes from the teachers notes to the students notes without going through either person’s head.” Very different from teaching and learning, and real communication.
It was possible, at Ball State University in Indiana, a teacher’s college and my alma mater, to receive a teaching degree with more credits in education than in the subject matter you were to teach.
All of these situations suggest a thought that goes something like this: form without content is meaningless; content without form is unintelligible.