Rob Campbell shared a really good take on WeWork and their downfall.
Reading Rob’s piece came on the back of reading a book called ‘Threescore and More’ by Alan Weiss.
Alan’s book is focused on helping people gain power and control their destiny as they get older and wiser.
The idea that I’d just finished working through in Alan’s book when I sat down to read Rob’s post was the idea of “process v. content”.
The short of it:
- Content changes: Right now we have AI everything. Before that it was DATA all the time.
- Processes are timeless: This is your approach to problem solving. I think Mark Ritson’s 2 processes for marketing are timeless. I think that my approach to strategy can help me figure out almost anything.
Rob writes about the need to have a certain pessimism around new ideas. Not because you want them to fail, but you don’t want to just accept them because they are new.
That’s a good way of approaching things.
You can get seduced by the new the same way you can be trapped by the old.
Both situations demand rigorous thinking.
How do you approach the challenge?
What is important?
What is unimportant?
Have you dealt with this before in a different form?
All of these questions can help you know whether or not a new idea is worth pursuing or if an old idea has outlived its usefulness.
Our challenge is to not fall into the trap of reactive thinking.
How do you do that?
Let me know in the strategy and marketing Slack channel I’ve started to build or by hitting reply and sending me a note.
Dave