The marketing, the sales work, the strategizing, even the execution — it’s all writing.

OK, it may not be all about the “writing,” but rather about the idea and the concept.   But that is still about great content and great writing.

Because if you can’t write it down succinctly and impact-fully, then you are not done developing the concept.  And if you’ve developed it so far that it can’t be contained in good, clean writing, then you have invented a private religion, not a concept to introduce to others for further development. Adopting it, or even understanding it, would require faith, which is in very short supply now.

And today when any issue (related or unrelated) is only one link away, whatever you’re pursuing is even more about great writing now than it ever has been. Why? Because the world is steadily converting what was once an intellectual supermarket stuffed with packaged goods (long shelf-life) into one never-ending “custom” aisle, where you can buy a little or a lot depending on your needs, plus you can mix and match things into the container of your choice (paper or plastic?).

Your buyers are trying to find the formula that will yield the package they used to buy before the world started turning to jello.   The plethora of choices is no longer the goal – it’s the right choice that is now the goal.

And this is not made any more comforting because the full range of human nature is at work everywhere.  Innovation is rarely in the obvious place, it tends to come from the fringes, at least from fringe-thinking, and in our long-tail world, there are some truly mind-bending fringes out where the light of everyday life doesn’t reach.

Which as I’m sure you see already —  is where great writing comes in.

  • Not because it forces a focus that imposes clarity
  • Not because it takes for granted a linear focus that aids understanding

It’s all about great writing because after all the team brainstorming, corporate strategizing, and happy-talk, great writing is what commits the ephemeral to the world of action.

ROI requires pragmatism. We’re a pragmatic species – we tend to do what works whether it’s elegant or not, whether it’s efficient or not, whether it advances some discipline nor not.

Writing pitches the tent of action.

Writing is the frame we temporarily put around stuff we need to take action on.

Writing is our way of nailing jello to a tree.  While no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy when many assumptions prove insubstantial, many conditions will be encountered that were unforeseen, but, with any luck, the sense of purpose and mission will be sufficient to win the day, or at least establish a beachhead.

Writing defines (albeit provisionally); writing strings together enough asterisks to provide a sense of continuous story (the way we’re wired to make sense of our world); great writing doesn’t reveal, it shapes.