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Conventional Wisdom

August 15, 2010 By 13 Comments



Conventional wisdom tells us new businesses shouldn’t take risks.

Conventional wisdom tells us to adhere to the Four P’s of Marketing.

Conventional wisdom makes us tell children they should be seen and not heard.

Conventional wisdom tells us not to fix what isn’t broke.

But conventional wisdom also told us that flight was a pipe dream. Conventional wisdom also told us the earth was flat. Conventional wisdom has led us into wars based on lies.

Conventional wisdom is fine. But unconventional wisdom? That’s where the possibilities lie.

How wise are you?

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Kapil Apshankar

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew ... . It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."

These words from The Last Bow go very well with the unconventional versus conventional wisdom battles, Danny.

For yesterday's unconventional wisdom becomes today's conventional wisdom. So too, today's conventional wisdom will fade into obsolescence one day.

East winds keep coming, bringing changes with them. Conventional wisdom runs the business, unconventional wisdom seeks new possibilities and fuels the potential.

And now, we can safely replace "wisdom" with "media"- and still make meaningful sense of what comes out.

After all, it is the healthy battle of the conventional with the unconventional that challenges status quo, isn't it?

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Akash Sharma

Hi Danny,Conventional wisdom is everywhere in the real world, where everyone seeks tangibility, practicality out of any idea that pops out finally dumping it all together.
Guess what, the best place to be is not in the so called real world but in communities(Like Danny Brown's Comments Area :)) where people give and take proper feedback to make better things everyday, that's probably the secret of social media success. Thanks for sharing...

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Danny

Ha, flattery will get you everywhere, Akash ;-)

The thing is, conventional wisdom definitely has its place. But more often than not, it's unconventional wisdom that sets new boundaries and keeps us moving forward.

Just ask someone like Richard Branson... ;-)

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Kapil Apshankar

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew ... . It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."

These words from The Last Bow go very well with the unconventional versus conventional wisdom battles, Danny.

For yesterday's unconventional wisdom becomes today's conventional wisdom. So too, today's conventional wisdom will fade into obsolescence one day.

East winds keep coming, bringing changes with them. Conventional wisdom runs the business, unconventional wisdom seeks new possibilities and fuels the potential.

And now, we can safely replace "wisdom" with "media"- and still make meaningful sense of what comes out.

After all, it is the healthy battle of the conventional with the unconventional that challenges status quo, isn't it?

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like
Akash Sharma

Hi Danny,Conventional wisdom is everywhere in the real world, where everyone seeks tangibility, practicality out of any idea that pops out finally dumping it all together.
Guess what, the best place to be is not in the so called real world but in communities(Like Danny Brown's Comments Area :)) where people give and take proper feedback to make better things everyday, that's probably the secret of social media success. Thanks for sharing...

share
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  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
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Danny

Ha, flattery will get you everywhere, Akash ;-)

The thing is, conventional wisdom definitely has its place. But more often than not, it's unconventional wisdom that sets new boundaries and keeps us moving forward.

Just ask someone like Richard Branson... ;-)

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Sam Schuurman

Hi Danny

I really do like this....although I'd like to think that the real lesson of the Four P's is not that there are only four components of the marketing mix but that you can't market in isolation. If you change one element e.g. Price - it effects other things. Just my take...

Hope all is going well with Bonsai etc

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Danny

Couldn't agree more, Sam, and another reason to be flexible when it comes to any perceived way of doing things.

Stick to something rigidly and you limit both your success and adaptability. And if we can't adapt...

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Mark Harai

Conventional wisdom is for those who prefer to live in a box...

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Ari Herzog

I disagree.

Conventional wisdom is not unlike conventional media. You can rant and rave all you want about new media, but conventional media is not going away tomorrow for the simple reason it shouldn't go away because its people can do things new media can't, and it serves a large percentage of the population that doesn't understand new media.

Ditto for conventional wisdom vs new, or unconventional, wisdom.

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Danny

So what can "conventional wisdom" do that "unconventional wisdom" can't, Ari? The media analogy doesn't really fit here; not sure of the comparison.

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Ari Herzog

Sure it works.

You wrote, "Conventional wisdom makes us tell children they should be seen and not heard."

Replace "conventional wisdom" with "new media" and replace "children" with "customers." How's that not an accurate analogy?

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Danny

Customers shouldn't be heard? That's a new one. ;-)

Conventional wisdom has its limits. You act in a certain way; you work to a certain pattern. Unconventional wisdom takes all that's great about conventional wisdom - and it is; the post doesn't say otherwise - and expands on it.

So to your point of old media/new media and what can and can't be done, unconventional can do things conventional can't. Boundaries don't exist. Well, except legal ones...

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Ari Herzog

Err, uhh, I wish you had an edit function.

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Danny

Customers shouldn't be heard? That's a new one. ;-)

Conventional wisdom has its limits. You act in a certain way; you work to a certain pattern. Unconventional wisdom takes all that's great about conventional wisdom - and it is; the post doesn't say otherwise - and expands on it.

So to your point of old media/new media and what can and can't be done, unconventional can do things conventional can't. Boundaries don't exist. Well, except legal ones...

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Trackbacks

  1. Tweets that mention New Conventional Wisdom -- Topsy.com says:
    August 15, 2010 at 10:01 am

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by JulieWalraven, mo' stash, Vinoth Chandar, AllThingsM, SocialMedio and others. SocialMedio said: Conventional Wisdom http://bit.ly/9ba3Lj [...]