Famous Last Words… Think Before You Speak

It would have been wise if John McWhorter, the renowned linguist, political commentator, lecturer, and blogger had taken his own advice from the title of one of his most recent posts: think before you speak.

McWhorter’s post for thedaily.com, last weekend was a controversial piece that in 842 words upended decades worth of linguistic study and knowledge. If we are to assume that different peoples speaking different languages perceive the world through different prisms, he argues, then the so-called “loser” of that arrangement -- the one with a subpar understanding of a given concept, be it love, hate, length of time, etc., etc. is doomed to inferiority.

“Before we celebrate this as showing that people…experience life in a dramatically different way than we do, we should consider that to embrace the idea of language differences as shaping perception in any radical way…denigrates the cognitive abilities of billions of the world’s human beings,” he says.

But ultimately, it’s McWhorter’s analysis that denigrates people, not the beauty and diversity of human perception. In fact, one could argue, that McWhorter’s all-or-nothing lens through which he views language is highly Amerocentric –that winner-take-all mentality that lay at the cornerstone of political beliefs like Manifest Destiny, rugged individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and today very much resembles Monday night football.

Does this mean Americans view the world in two-dimensional, linear constructs. I do believe that. But that in no way implies that every non-American can’t view the world the same way if they so desired, and says nothing about different cultures, speaking different languages and their cognitive ability. The fact that IQs tend to rise in developed nations speaks –in whatever language you choose – to the power of opportunity, education and experience. It also suggests that most humans regardless of where live, have similar amounts of latent brainpower.

As PR agencies like mine continue adding new clients from across the globe, communication differences will undoubtedly create challenges in translating one idea and concept into another language and cultural context. I don’t know about you, but diminishing our clients’ cognitive abilities doesn’t sound like a good place to start.

Embracing difference, championing our linguistic uniqueness, and working with our clients to “get the message right” seems to me a far better approach.

Print’s Death March, Again

Here we go again. Another article predicting the end of print media, or to be more precise, referring to its now sunset years. A recent post called Editorial Exit on the Future of Media blog, joins a chorus of naysayers predicting the end of the traditional newsroom and dismantling of old school media.

But are we talking about a sunset or merely a solar eclipse?

Without question the last five years (and even 10 years) have not been kind to a host of traditional media. Web 2.0 (or are we nearly 3.0?), running lightening fast, interactive sites and “iWeb” – the Internet’s mobile revolution – is enjoying double-digit percentage growth.

But referring to the present time period as traditional media’s sunset years is premature at best, and dead wrong at worst. In its annual report on American Journalism, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, highlights some quite positive news hinting that the worst of traditional media’s die off has ended. Newspapers, once a bulwark for the communications industry, saw its weekday circulation numbers contract by 5 percent in 2010. While not fantastic, the losses in 2009 were twice that. In revenue terms the picture looked even brighter at cable news, network television and local news outlets as all three saw growth. Certainly, traditional media’s influence has shrunk from a global superpower to a component of an increasingly diverse set of communications outlets, including web sites, mobile apps, blogs, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages.

The bottom line: Record stores still exist, vinyl can still be purchased, and the “paperless office” has yet to fully mature. Traditional media may no longer be king, but it’s still serving in the king’s court.

Lose The Word INNOVATION And Focus On What Really Counts: DELIVERING

“Avoid clichés like the plague,” is thrown about frequently in journalism and media circles as it is at ThinkInk. Like a well-worn record, or maybe I should update my own tired imagery to something like an endlessly re-tweeted tweet, clichés usually succeed in getting their point across, but not without the listener rolling their eyes over yet another hackneyed phrase. Too much use with too little care and the force behind the words is totally lost.

In today’s schizoid re-invent-the-wheel-every-day atmosphere – from wordy ways to jump start the job market, to long-winded debates over the commonsense logic of having the US government meet its debt obligations (yawn) – even the word “innovation” has lost much of its sparkle, according to Jack Springman, author and growth strategies consultant in a recent Harvard Business Review blog post.

His advice to readers: jettison the word “innovation” from their business vocabulary. Doing so, he says, refocuses a company’s attention on delivering quality to its customers, not the manufacture of buzzwords directed inward at corporate higher-ups.

While so deliberately discarding a word sounds a little sophomoric, kind of like having a “no-cursing” change jar to dissuade poor language (which definitely hasn’t worked at our agency – we simply love a good swear), Springman is nevertheless on to something. While doing research for his piece, a search of the term “innovation” on the HBR site came up with 4,700 results. Perform a similar Google search for “innovation” and “business” and you end up with 423,000,000 hits. Clearly the term innovation has, wait for it….. had its day in the sun.

Innovation, like guru, and expert, among countless other words, is a term that should be used like salt in a recipe, sparingly and with extreme care to not scuttle the dish. PR and communications firms should also take note Springman’s advice. I don’t know if innovation should be completely excised from our corporate lexicon, but a timeout is certainly in order.