connection

I originally wrote today's post for the CXPA blog and have modified it slightly since then.

Simon Sinek said: A community is a group of people who agree to grow together. I think that describes the customer experience profession, and especially the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), quite well.

When Henry Ford started his company in 1903, he did more than just create a car or an assembly line (neither of which he actually invented). What he did was establish an entirely new form of organization, culminating in the vertically integrated River Rouge complex that was completed in 1928.

America's collective grief over the death of Steve Jobs is entering the next phase of what has become a somewhat common experience of fantasy community that I'm calling a Diana Moment, which goes something like this:

Twitter is expanding its staff and its efforts to communicate with the world, and in doing so is turning to a lot of the tried-and-true structures and approaches that its 140-character service helped destroy. The changes beg a few questions, most notably why?

One of the beauties of David Gauntlett's Making is Connecting is the way it develops a fundamentally simple idea with successive layers of richness and power. The cover captures the kernel of the book: the core thesis that making (with hands and brain, resourcefully) is connecting (in terms of relationships, meaning, learning); the context that extends from scissors and thread to YouTube; and the ethos of the personal, handmade artefact captured in the stylish smudge that subverts the sleek sans-serif typeface.

Some may have scratched their heads a bit when I announced a little over a year ago that I was joining a "PR firm", especially since I've never worked formally in the field. But I think the recent news of Edelman making the Advertising Age "A-List" and specifically some of Richard Edelman's comments both in the video and article do a nice job of articulating why I moved into the direction I did.