Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Blurred Lines Examples


Enterprise thinking.
Sustainable business development necessarily takes the view that all of the broader systems in which they operate must be brought within the management construct. The basic rationale is that it makes no odds if your business is sustainable if it exists within a system that is not. You would still be on course for an iceberg which is perhaps the wrong metaphor. But conversely this new holistic approach allows bigger and better perspectives. Customers and clients become partners and stakeholders that can lead to more productive relationships e.g collaborative projects where products can be developed and brought to market in new ways. Blurred lines between the company, the consumer, the client, the supplier and the environment multiplies the benefits for all stakeholders.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Blurred lines thinking...



...was set up as an organizing thought for this blog but I can’t remember ever explaining it. Blurred lines thinking is the idea that the best way to try and understand the way that something works or why it is this or that, is by applying the principle that it is in some way part of a bigger picture or framework that ties it to the rest of everything. In other words like an artist who is trying to resolve one small area of a painting, clarity can come by stepping backwards and then backwards again.   Each time bigger and more general systems can be viewed in an increasingly coherent image. In blurred lines thinking the individual brush strokes can always blur into a bigger image no matter what sphere of life, science or culture you are studying.

The father of blurred lines thinking has to be Einstein. The foresight that allows you to link things as remote as (E)nery and (M)ass as part of one silky fabric seems easier to imagine if you start from the point of view that everything on some level is part of the same stuff. Then the possibility of space and time being connected might lead more easily to an understanding of ‘spacetime.’

Zoom in a few thousand levels closer to the surface of things and its also the reason why marketing services jobs can benefit from an interest in all things that relate to the human condition. Plus its also a thousand times more interesting that way. So have a problem about brand relationships then read about relativity; on one level they have to be well... related.

Examples to follow...