Language is a virus

Or, Brand is infectious

How could I ask for a better explanation of brand and how brand affects your decisions at work. Below is courtesy David Burrowes, my friend and colleague, responding to a "what is the problem with our software?" question on an internal alias. The brand message is infecting us all, internal and external to Sun. We haven't really changed anything, we've just clarified Sun's message and position. But it is infectious. It really is.

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But, at the end of the day, I think Sun has to stop spending all its time looking so intensely at our competition. It is crucial to be aware of where the bar is, but we've got to walk our own path. And what path is that? I'm pretty enthusiastic about the new "branding" effort. Have you been following the talk about "sharing" and the "participation age" and "the digital divide" in the press? These are being positioned as the nucleus around which our organization is trying to re-energize itself. Sure, on the one hand they're just marketing hype. On the other hand, they really do point in a novel direction that no other company is going. So, this is our voice and vision. These are things that make me feel good about being part of Sun (to the point that I'm willing to bet on them even if it kills the company in the effort). This also serves a pragmatic purpose for me. It is a weak argument to come into a design meeting and say "We should do it like Z because Mac/Windows/Whatever does it that way". It is so easy to shoot that down. How much more effective it is to say "We should do it like Z because Sun wants to close the digital divide, and many folks on the other side of that divide have not been using Unix for 20 years." That is, I can make an argument based on what Sun's visions, values and goals are, not based on those of our competitors. Our interface issues seem like they are a Gordian knot. We've tried to untangle it, but it has only gotten more tangled. That knot may just be from too many people trying to do too many contradictory things. If we all aim ourselves in roughly the same direction (as pointed to by all the 'branding' stuff), the knot may undo itself. So, I'd say: the best thing you can do (at this moment) about our interface problems is to start talking about our vision and goals with your coworkers. Have extended arguments over lunch about what it means to "share", or how open sourcing Solaris is or isn't consistent with "the participation age". Make these ideas part of your daily thinking, so that when you go to solve some design problem, you are doing it from the position of Sun's current values.

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Posted by brucelee [General] ( June 15, 2005 09:42 AM ) Permalink