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The Dark Side of Work to Come

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If one wants to be a pessimist about the future of work, there is no shortage of opportunities to nurture one’s paranoia. A compelling new work by Lynda Gratton—The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here—could feed your dark fears. But she also shines considerable light on them, showing the way out, and the way towards a fulfilling future. If, that is, we can follow our better angels.

Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, where she leads over 50 global companies in the Future of Work Consortium. She has been praised by the Economist, hailed by the Times, and lauded by the Financial Times.  She certainly tones up our joint neighbourhood of Primrose Hill.

Drivers of the Dark Future

Gratton outlines five forces that will shape the future pattern of work:

  • Technology (think 5 billion people, digitized knowledge, ubiquitous cloud).
  • Globalisation (think continued bubbles and crashes, a regional underclass, the world becoming urban, frugal innovation).
  • Longevity and demography (think Gen Y, increasing longevity, aging boomers growing old poor, global migration).
  • Society (think growing distrust of institutions, the decline of happiness, rearranged families)
  • Energy resources (think rising energy prices, environmental catastrophes displacing people, a culture of sustainability emerging).

There are good sides of all the above as well; but let’s stay on the dark side of  work for a bit. Think increasing fragmentation (a three minute world, dominated by overload and time compression), isolation (the genesis of loneliness) and exclusion (the new poor). (Remember A Clockwork Orange, anyone?)

Bring In the Light

But she also holds up the bright possibility of a crafted future – co-creation (where people across the world are ever more willing and able to link up and share ideas and energy), social engagement (the rise of empathy and balance) and micro-entrepreneurship (crafting creative lives).

If we are to reach the bright possibilities of this crafted future, we need to bring about three shifts:

1. From shallow generalist (knows a little about a lot) to serial master (has in-depth knowledge and competences in many domains).

To get here, three career paths will be of particular importance – grassroots advocacy, social entrepreneurship, and micro-entrepreneurship.

Future career trajectories will be defined by a series of bell-shaped curves in which energy and the accumulation of resources grow and then plateau, only to grow again. She urges us to ‘slide and morph’ transferring knowledge and skills from one specialism to another.

2. From isolated competitor to innovative connector.

‘One of the marvellous opportunities of the coming decades of work will be to build our social capital in a way that was never possible in the past. With 5 billion people connected to each other in an increasingly participative way, the possibilities are endless.’

Gratton sees three key future network-types:

  • The posse; the small group of people we use as a sounding board, people we call on quickly for a tough call to make, a really challenging problem to be solve or a complex task to get underway.
  • The big ideas crowd; the group of hundreds, often friends of friends, ready to make a connection, support our innovation.
  • The regenerative community; ‘the real people whom we meet frequently, with whom we laugh, share a meal, tell stories and relax’, crucial to our emotional well-being, and our protection against the possible isolation and loneliness of the dark side.

How can we best build these networks? Mainly by our capacity to build reciprocity and trust, deep mutual understanding and ways to attract other people to us.

3. From voracious consumer to impassioned producer.

The trend toward seeing work as a place of productive experiences rather than simply an activity that has pay as its key driver of motivation.

Work for Whom?

Cui bono? Gratton invites three groups in particular to consider the implications of these three shifts:

1. Children. ‘What will you do with your long, productive lives?…Your life will not simply have education at the beginning, with work in the middle and retirement at the end. Instead, you can expect to experience a mosaic that has education and development woven through it….Much of your work will be spent working with people virtually, and so one of the challenges  you face is how to create deep friendships with a small group of people in a sustainable way.’

2. Business leaders. ‘Globalisation will add new markets and intensify competition; work hierarchies will morph into more organic forms; talented  employees will want adult-adult mutual relationships; people will place greater emphasis on meaningful developmental work in a mosaic that has sabbaticals; and throughout it all, sources of competitive advantage will derive from the capacity to build co-operative relationships across various eco-systems.’

3. Government leaders. ‘ Governments’ willingness to support high-quality educational and cultural institutions will play a key role in attracting people with high value skills who will increasingly choose to cluster near each other….While ever more prevalent transparency and sharing of information will only serve to exacerbate the current decrease in citizens’ trust in institutions….. Gen Z’s will want to work into their 70’s and 80’s, and it will be a priority for government s to find ways to support these aspirations.’

If Professor Gratton is right, it’s clear that empathy, reciprocity and trust will figure significantly in both personal and organisational successes of the future.  But tellingly, these are currently under-developed capabilities.

It is those traits—empathy, reciprocity, trust—which probably hold the key to which side of Professor Gratton’s predictions for the future of work will take hold—the Dark Side, or our better angels.

Real People, Real Trust: A Learning Consultant’s Approach to Leadership

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Heber Sambucetti is a senior learning consultant with Accenture, working routinely with some of Accenture’s most seasoned executives. Find out what Heber sees as the distinguishing traits of a trusted advisor, and learn how he has successfully turned the most challenging relationships into prosperous ones.

Foundations

Heber (pronounced EH-ver) and I met in 2010 when I led a Being a Trusted Advisor program for the team he works with. I was immediately struck by his candor, caring, and professionalism.

I began my Real People, Real Trust interview with Heber in the same way I’ve done in the past, asking, “What does it take to be a trusted advisor?” Heber’s immediate response was remarkably similar to Anna Dutton’s; he said, “Above all else, you need to be sincere and genuine.”

Heber continued, “That’s the only way you can create the right type of environment for a business relationship to prosper. You need to come with a pure intent to help others, and truly care about the person across from you.

“Secondly, don’t be afraid to bring emotions to the business environment. That’s a necessary element to create a certain level of intimacy—and by that I mean a sense of familiarity, closeness, and an understanding of each other. That way, not only do people see who you really are, but it makes it possible for you to ask the tough questions and deal with the tough stuff when it counts. If someone’s angry, you should be able to address that—as in, ‘What’s got you angry? I sense frustration.’ Sometimes people are afraid to explore this side of things. Validating other people is important. Sticking to the task only gets you so far.

“Those are your foundational pieces—the genuineness, the pure intent, and focusing on more than just the tasks at hand. And then you need to be able to consistently deliver whatever it is you’ve agreed upon, and bring something better for their business. That requires understanding what success is for them. And don’t forget about what you care about too. If it’s a one-way relationship it will never work.”

Fighting Fires

During our conversation, I discovered that Heber was a firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician in a prior life—something I never would have guessed, having interacted with him exclusively in a corporate environment. I asked him what parallels he saw between the world of consulting and the business of saving lives.

“In the fire department, I really learned first-hand the importance of establishing an environment of trust. When you feel like you’re part of a family, then you don’t want to let the family down, and you genuinely care about people you’re helping. You’re taught how to bring the best of yourself every day. The consequences of failure are extreme—your team member or a citizen loses a life. There is an unwritten rule that you all go in and you all come out; you don’t leave anyone behind.

“Sure, the stakes are different in business—mistakes in the corporate world won’t cost a life, no matter what the pressures you may feel inwardly, and I remind my team of that every day. But I still live by all those principles: be of service and always give it your best.”

Surviving the Heat

I asked Heber if he had a “proudest moment”—a time when he knew something important had shifted in a relationship.

“Once I turned a relationship from the individual being incredibly chastising and critical of everything—someone much more senior than me—to that person being a champion and educator. One day, after a series of interactions, I just had to lay it on the table. I said, ‘If you want to make me feel like sh** and perspire every time I talk to you, then you’re on target. But here’s the thing: I think I can learn from you. It’s true I don’t know everything, and we have a common goal of success with this project, so I need you to teach me instead of criticizing me.’ The person was taken by complete surprise and the relationship took a dramatic turn for the better. It was an intense moment. I ran out of deodorant. But I just had to say what was there.”

Heber then made a point to speak about taking responsibility for relationships gone wrong.

“When a relationship isn’t working, it’s easy to approach it from the perspective that you’re not doing anything and this person is beating you down. The question I always ask myself is, what am I doing to make the relationship better—or worse? What’s my piece to own? How have I let it fester? Holding yourself and others accountable are keys to relationships that work.”

Best Advice: You Snooze You Lose

I asked Heber for his best advice for someone who’s trying to increase trust in a relationship.

“First, ask yourself why you want to improve the relationship with that person; what’s in it for you. Always ask why. If the answer is, ‘Because I need to make my numbers and have them sign on the dotted line,’ think again. Would you want someone to approach you that way? No. OK, then try again from a different perspective. Put yourself in their shoes.

“Most people have a gut feel for what others are thinking and feeling, they’ve just hit the snooze button on it. They don’t want to look at it—it’s too raw, too emotional, too difficult, so snooze it is. And then they’re surrounded by alarm clocks all on snooze. That’s not sustainable.

“This applies personally as well as professionally. If I ever hit the snooze button with my son, he tells me right away. Children have a magical way of reminding you straight out that you’ve hit snooze—‘You promised me we’d play soccer, Dad.’ ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ ‘That’s what you said yesterday, Dad.’

“So I do what I can to minimize how many snooze buttons I have in life.”

Warming the Heart

Heber’s approach to building relationships reminds me of Heber: straight up, wise, humorous, warmhearted.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to have the Hebers of the world to keep me honest and out of danger.

Connect with Heber on LinkedIn.

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The Real People, Real Trust series offers an insider view into the challenges, successes, and make-it-or-break-it moments of people from all corners of the world who are leading with trust. Check out our prior posts: read about Chip Grizzard, a CEO You Should Know; Ralph Catillo: How One Account Executive Stands Apart; and Anna Dutton: A Fresh Perspective on Sales Operations.

How YOU Can Raise Trust in Your Organization

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We’re pleased to announce the release of our latest eBook: People Behaving Badly: How YOU Can Raise Trust in Your Organization.

It’s the fourth in the new Trusted Advisor Fieldbook series by Charles H. Green and Andrea P. Howe.

Each eBook provides a snapshot of content from The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, which is jam-packed with practical, hands-on strategies to dramatically improve your results in sales, relationship management, and organizational performance.

People Behaving Badly: How YOU Can Raise Trust in Your Organization reveals:

  • The three steps to constructive confrontation
  • What to do when constructive confrontation doesn’t work
  • When to walk away

P.S. Did you miss out on Volume 1, 2, or 3 of The Fieldbook eBook series? Get them while they’re still available:

  1. 15 Ways to Build Trust…Fast!
  2. How to Sell to the C-Suite
  3. Six Risks You Should Take to Build Trust

Take a look and let us know what you think.

In Netflix We Trust

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This post is not about piling on Netflix (or its new spin off, Quikster). You can read elsewhere about the movie rental company’s bad decisions, their business prospects, or—more entertainingly—their Twitter handle being owned by a ‘Pot-smoking Elmo.”  Ditto for parsing Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ apology.

What I want to talk about is: How Fast Is Your Mirror?

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Dorian Gray had a picture that told him the truth about his age.  Snow White’s Queen possessed a magic mirror that told the truth about her beauty. But what kind of mirror do we have for a bonehead moment?

Over time, some of us come to recognize some of our errors. Sometimes.  (Lifelong denial is not uncommon.)  But if you’re a business leader, the pressure is enormous to get it right, right away.

The pressure is worse today. When Johnson & Johnson became the poster child for responsible behavior during the Tylenol scare in 1982, we forget that several days passed before the national recall. Yet Netflix felt it had to apologize overnight for its moves.

What kind of mirror can tell us overnight that a way of doing business, a major decision, an unchallenged assumption was dead, flat wrong?  And what sort of mirror is good enough to convince us overnight?

Who can reverse their self-consciousness overnight after being hit in the face with a bucket of icy reality-water?

How fast is your mirror?

Does it Take Time? Or Objectivity?

There’s a saying that ‘time takes time.’ Meaning, the passage of time is required for some shifts to take place, and there’s no hurrying it.

Remember when Michael Richards (Kramer of Seinfeld fame) went racially ballistic in a totally offensive comedy routine?  That was November 20, 2006. Later that night he went back on stage to apologize, and two days later was doing a hastily-arranged public apology on the David Letterman show—which, as I recall, was in some ways more acutely embarrassing than the incident itself.

He could have benefited from more time.  Watching sausage-making destroys the appetite for sausage.

On the other hand, if the end-game is revised perspective, maybe there’s a better way than to watch paint dry and the hands on the clock turn.  Maybe your truth-mirror is another person—someone you can trust.

I don’t know Reed Hastings, and I don’t know if anyone on his management team could have told him his decision was flawed—more interestingly, that his apology was half-baked.  Remember, Netflix stock may have dropped from 300 a few months ago, but Hastings had brought it there from 20 less than 10 years ago.  Whoever wouldst play Hastings’ mirror role had better have a lot of gravitas.

Who’s Your Mirror?

If the proverbial hits the fan, whom do you call? If the world suddenly is telling you you’re a bozo and that just makes you’re even more convinced you’re right–to whom would you listen to tell you otherwise?  The wrong answer would be “no one.”

Who’s your mirror?

 

Story Time: An Unexpected Way to Recover Lost Trust

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When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on specific ways to lead with trust. Today’s anecdote zeroes in on an unexpected way to recover lost trust and appease an unhappy client: listening.

A New Anthology

Our upcoming book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness. In the coming months, we’ll share a selection of stories from the new book with you.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on listening. It vividly demonstrates the value of hearing someone out, resisting the temptation to problem-solve too quickly, and being willing to always do what’s in your client’s best interests—even if that means letting go of the work assignment.

From the Front Lines: Listening to Recover Trust

Catherine Gregory, Senior Principal at SRA International in its Touchstone Consulting Group in Washington, DC, tells a story of the business value of listening.

“I had a team of four working on a long-term project with an important client who especially valued seeing the same faces year after year. In the course of three months, the entire team turned over. I had to deliver the bad news as each team member departed.

“After several turnovers, my client vented to me his frustration. I listened, and then listened some more, as he expressed his concerns and aggravation. He concluded with, ‘I know you are doing all you can. I just had to get that out.’ He was still unhappy and we were able to move forward together.

“Once things were stable with the team, I brought up the possibility of phasing out our support and letting him phase in a contractor who he felt would be more reliable. He didn’t want anyone else; he wanted our team.

“This experience proved to me without a doubt that listening is a critical business skill, and a way to recover trust in the face of challenging circumstances.”

—Catherine Gregory (Senior Principal, SRA International, Touchstone Consulting Group, Washington, DC)

Who in your life is waiting for you to give them a good listening to?

Now Presenting…Four Experts on Powerful Presentations

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I’ve been giving business presentations for nearly 20 years. The more I do it, the more I appreciate just how hard it is to do it really well. Today’s blog post features four resources to help with various aspects of speaking and presenting. Please add your favorites!

Get it Together

The same ol’ same ol’ approach to designing your presentation may not be getting the results you want. Nick Morgan (@DrNickMorgan) shares 5 Quick Ways to Organize a Speech.

Nick says:

“Too many people structure their presentations by pulling together slides and then assembling them like a deck of cards, in what seems like an OK order.  That usually means that no one except the presenter can divine where the speech is headed.

“That’s a bad idea.

“At the heart of a successful presentation is a clear structure.  Which one should you use?  The best structure for what you’re trying to do depends on the nature of your talk.“

Nick then shares five possible situations in the organizational world for which you might be called upon to present, with a suggested outline for each.

Present with Presence

Sims Wyeth (@simswyeth) writes regularly about a variety of delivery techniques like pausing as a presentation skill.

Sims says:

“Taking time to think when you’re on stage makes you more interesting to watch. It gives you presence and gravitas. It fills your body with a mysterious power-electric activity under the skin.”

Who doesn’t want a little mysterious power-electric activity under the skin!

(By the way, I recently signed up for Sims’ weekly Presentation Pointers and am really enjoying them. They are brief, insightful, and usable—a great combination.)

The One “Thing” to Avoid

Patricia Fripp (@PFripp) writes about the importance of being deliberate with the words we choose in How to Sound Intelligent in a Speech or Sales Presentation.

Patricia says:

“The one thing you should always avoid when you speak is—“thing.” What a fuzzy, flabby, non-specific word! Never be vague if you want to be believed. Use exact, precise words—words with power and value.”

Yes, ma’am.

Kill the Presentation Altogether

You wouldn’t treat a job interview like a sales presentation, complete with 40-slide deck, would you? S. Anthony Iannarino (@iannarino) turns our traditional ideas of how to conduct a sales call upside down in You Think You Are Presenting. You Are Being Interviewed.

Anthony says:

“Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you absolutely must present your company using your standard slide deck and when you must share some basic history. Even then, that presentation should not dominate your time with your dream client.

“Your dream client considers you a candidate for hire. They are considering making you part of their team and giving your responsibility for some outcome. The reason they need a dialogue instead of a monologue is because they are trying to get to know you. They are trying to make a good decision.”

Goodbye presenting, hello listening.

Acceptance Is an Active Act

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Usually “acceptance” means giving in to some over-powering force–grudgingly.  Active acceptance is not part of the basic toolkit of trust, but it belongs in the advanced course. If you can learn to actively accept, you will gain unheard-of levels of trust.  Not to mention, you’ll be a lot happier.

Accepting a Smoker

My wife-at-the-time helped me quit smoking by accepting me as a smoker. She told me that while she wanted me to be healthy and live a long life, she more wanted me to live my life on my terms, and she’d do everything to help me with that.

“If you want to smoke in the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, whatever,” she said, “It’s OK.”  She once rerouted a joint long plane trip into two so I could get off and have less time without a cigarette.  (Hey I was hooked).

About two weeks after she made that offer, I quit on my own.

Acceptance is Not Defeat

Don’t confuse acceptance with surrender under protest.  It’s not giving in.  It’s not something you do as a last resort.  And if you’re “accepting” with fingers crossed, eyes rolled, and resentments intact—that’s something else entirely.

Acceptance is a positive. It’s an affirmation of the other party.  It’s a commitment to support them, despite some fairly significant differences in world-view. Acceptance goes beyond “tolerance”—it’s a statement of the other’s legitimacy in the world.

If it’s a client or a buyer that you’re accepting, it means acknowledging them as equals, and not as parties whom you succeed or fail in selling to or persuading to do your will.

Acceptance is Paradoxical

Much like trust, when you accept another, odd things happen. Accepting someone’s foibles–as my wife did mine–often results in a reciprocating counter-offer from the other party. Unless, that is, you were secretly trying to get that result, in which case you jinxed the deal.

The best way to change someone is, sometimes, to give up trying to change them, and to change yourself instead.  Specifically, to change your attachment to achieving your change.

Don’t ask yourself, “Who needs changing?” or “Who needs to get better at accepting?”

Instead, ask yourself, “Whom do I need to accept?”

The September Trust Matters Review

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Trust Equation

Kristi Hedges applies the Trust Equation to Oprah, explaining how Oprah hits each part of it.

Is it lack of trust that causes problems between China and the EU? China’s Fu Ying thinks so.

Barbara Kimmel looks into how trustworthy companies perform compared to the overal market.  Cold hard dollars perform.

Historian Kenneth Davis puts our current societal lack of trust in historical perspective.  Does history teach that there hope for America?  Read and find out.

Kristi Hedges (again) offers concrete advice on how to win over someone who doesn’t trust you.

Dr. Bjornstrom investigated the effect of trusting your neighbours on health.  It’s what you probably expect, but what’s interesting is the effect of money on trust.

Scott M. Fulton III discusses the effects of hackers attacks on the company that issues SSL certificates, the anchor of trust in the web.

Paul Zak thinks Oxytocin, the “empathy” molecule, could be the key to restoring trust in our world.  Is a chemical the solution to global trust issues?

Fourty-three percent of people won’t tell their doctors about symptoms of depression.  It’s a trust issue, but perhaps not the one you think.

Anthony Iannarino writes about how to deal with customers who have been burned by other salespeople, possibly from your company.  They don’t trust you: how do you change that?

The Trust Matters Review highlights the best articles and posts on trust our research has turned up in the last month.

For a live stream of our trust research, follow our team on Twitter: @CharlesHGreen, @AndreaPHowe, @StewartMHirsch, and @SandyStyer.

If you’d like to share a great article about trust, let us know on Twitter or in the comments here.

For more links to outstanding articles on trust, see:

 

SEO and Content-free Content

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I had a delightful Notting Hill lunch this spring with Sonja Jefferson, of Valuable Content fame. I suggested the word “content” itself, in an era of content farms, sounds content-neutral, even content-free. Hence the challenge:

How to think about quality content in a content-challenging age?

Sonja herself offers insights in Are You Content With the Word ‘Content?’

Harvesting Content in an Age of Content Farms

First, some background. We all like to believe quality (or art, truth, beauty, love) is its own reward.  Unfortunately, living costs money.  And it’s nice if your labor of love can pay the rent. Enter SEO (Search Engine Optimization), a way to have your baby pay for itself.

If you think search doesn’t drive buying behavior big time, think again. Your fantastic content will only attract buyers if they can find it. Hence the classic tug of war between art and advertising, pathos and product placement, literature and mailing lists.

Google et al are not stupid; they won’t let you just pile key words onto a blog and earn high ratings. But the robo-marketers are no dummies either.

Richard MacManus wrote two years ago in The Age of Mega-Content Sites:

…to succeed in the content business on the Web, you should pump out hundreds of pages of content every day – preferably thousands.

The two main players in what became known as the “content farm” business—Answers.com and Demand Media—used either user-generated content or cheap free-lancers.  Basically, they wrote vacuous “articles” containing key words that then increased the search ranking of sites using those words.  (Remember those ads on CNBC and Bloomberg offering to raise your search results, “without paying a penny for clicks?”  Content farms).

If that formula sounds familiar, think Reality TV, term papers for sale, or even automated article-writing software. You no longer have to wait eons for a monkey to type Hamlet; a virtual monkey can concoct a simulated Hamlet, Cliff Notes version, right now.  It’s literary carpet-bombing; blitzing the world with what looks like meaningful words, which are in truth full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Last year, Google’s famed (in some circles) Panda algorithm upped the ante by taking on the most egregious offenses, aiming at extremely low levels of originality.  Suddenly, some big names got caught with their SEO pants down.

We’ve always been in a world where art and commerce coexist uncomfortably. But the tools of commerce have been so radically increased in recent years that we are now re-defining an old word: content.

Content Then, Content Now

Journey back just 9 years. I searched (Google) for the term “content” from all web sources from 9/1/2001 and 9/1/2002.  Here are the top five entries:

The Web Content Style Guide
www.gerrymcgovern.com/web_content_style_guide.html
“The Web Content Style Guide is a valuable resource for anyone involved in creating content for the Web.” …

The Model>Content Standard:Summary
www.intime.uni.edu/model/content/cont.html
The content of education is, of course, of extreme importance to the future of our society. Fortunately, in recent years, content standards have been developed for …

CityDesk – Introducing CityDesk 2.0
www.fogcreek.com/citydesk/
Usability guru Joel Spolsky and the team at Fog Creek Software have created a stunningly easy to use content management system that runs on Windows. …

Reading in the Content Areas: Strategies for Success, Education…
www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/12
Rather, content teachers should understand that the difference between successful and unsuccessful readers is the ability to effectively apply strategies to …

Wood Equilibrium Moisture Content Table And Calculator
www.csgnetwork.com/emctablecalc.html
Apr 1, 2002 – Wood Equilibrium Moisture Content Calculator, included is a table of data.

Here are today’s top 8, by comparison:

Content – Define Content at Dictionary.com

Content – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Content (media) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Content – definition of content by the Free Online Dictionary

Questionable Content

Content » News [Cory Doctorow]

Generated content, automatic numbering, and lists

Content Marketing in a Blink: The Content Grid v2 [Infographic …

Content Then was a term used in specific contexts: water content, web writing style, educational content.  The term “content” simply did not appear without an adjectival phrase to give it contextual meaning: the content of education, the content of a dictionary, the content of a movie (“content management system” was the exception). “Content” had no meaning absent the adjective that bounded it. Context added meaning.

Content Now is unleashed. It has become a standalone noun, needing no modifier.  The assumption—and it’s true enough—is that content is now widely transferrable across containers.

Indeed, the boundaries between books and eBooks and CDs and screenplays and movies and cellphone ads is blurred beyond recognition.  And so we need a word to describe that which remains constant across all contexts.

“Content” has become that word. It is the least common denominator of what seeps across platforms. I’m no semiotician, so I’ll say this metaphorically:

What remains as “content” is the first derivative of a symbol.

Sorry, I know that’s pretty abstract. How about this:  “content” loses something in translation when it becomes un-anchored from context.  It leaves us with zero-content content.

Zero-Content Content

Shared mass cultural references, shards of musical hooks and riffs, Kato Kaelin and Paris Hilton; these are examples of “content” freed from context. Famous for being famous; out of context; sound bites; Pavlovian triggers. Symbols which have become famous for being symbols.

Think of a Tolstoy novel moving to a made-for-TV movie, to a trivia question on a quiz show, to a re-tweet of an aggregator’s inclusion of a “Best of Talk Soup” special about quiz shows.

Repurposing content is like pinging on an old analog tape recorder—the sound signal degrades after several bounced tracks, and keeps on degrading. Except in this case, it’s the “meaning” signal.

It’s what happens when bloggers—and hey I’ll be the first to admit it’s a constant temptation—let the siren call of SEO turn a message into “content” so it can fill up an empty space, rather than make the message speak for itself.

Is it any wonder that we like the old “content” better than the new stuff? Opie on Andy Griffith had more meaning than Snookie on Jersey Shore, and we know it.

Monkeys may still have trouble writing Hamlet. But when monkeys write everything Hamlet-related that shows up on a Google search about Hamlet—and nobody cares about “the original”—well, Houston, we have a problem.  A problem of meaning.

“Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio,” said Hamlet. You can tag “Yorick,” you can index “Horatio,” you can even hyperlink “alas,” but it won’t get you one step closer to Shakespeare’s meaning.

Content minus context means no meaning.

Content Now isn’t free–it’s loose.

Putting the Meaning back in Content

It’s not hopeless.  You yourself can help.

Sonja Jefferson’s thoughts in Are You Content With the Word ‘Content?’ are right on.  Her definition of “content” includes:

…the unique message you shape for your clients and customers. For your business it’s a body of work that will define what you do.

That definition of content insists on uniqueness at the client level, and on meaningfulness.  That’s precisely right.  Absent such meaning, “content” is just fodder for robo-marketing, a kissing cousin to spam.

What can you do to help? I welcome your thoughts.  Here are a few to prime the pump:

  • Don’t just produce content—say something.
  • If your content doesn’t have a message, it’s just content.
  • Don’t be content with “just content.”
  • Content is less than the sum of the words; meaning is greater.
  • When you write, speak or sing; do it with a particular real person in mind.

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Oops, one of our service providers had a hiccup last week on the “Advertising” post:

“You may have experienced links…incorrectly redirecting to a page that you didn’t designate from Tuesday, September 6th at 5pm PT through Wednesday, September 7th at approximately 10:00 am PT. This was due to an incorrect database update on our part. On top of it, the link re-directed to an anti-phishing website which probably added concern and confusion to the problem. We want to personally say that we’re sorry for this incident.”–our service provider, NetResults.

Trusted Advisor Associates is Finally on Facebook

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We’ve gone and done it.

Trusted Advisor Associates is on Facebook.

We wanted to take the time to officially announce our “big opening” on Facebook. Even with the release of Google+, Facebook is still a great source for building a community within social media.

And that’s precisely what we want to continue to do.

In addition to Trust Matters, Twitter, and Google+, we’re expanding our breadth and giving out useful thoughts, advice and tips on trust in business, society and life.

On Facebook we’ve already started a few running themes and topics that distinguish our presence from what we deliver on Trust Matters.  Some new items you’ll see:

  • Trust, Treps and Twenty-somethings: new advice and information for entrepreneurs and small business-owners
  • Trust Us, It’s Good: great new recommendations spanning the arts
  • Trust-related articles, tips and advice—direct from the horse’s mouth (hint: that means from our talented team here at TAA).

So, go ahead, Like Us on Facebook today.

And, by liking our page, you will also be entered to win a copy of Charles H. Green and Andrea P. Howe’s new book The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 31, 2011).