Categories: Articles

Good Old Fashioned Values

If we use our traditional values in this now-digital world, we’re going to fall behind… faster.

I have the pleasure of speaking in front of audiences that are both large and small all over the world. This gives me a very unique perspective. In your day to day work, if your client does not agree with your strategy and direction (or/and if they think you’re simply crazy for suggesting it), more often than not their shaking of their heads is going to send you back to the drawing board. I get that from clients as much as the next agency owner, but the feeling is dramatically different when you’re on stage and you can feel that guttural reaction happen en masse . When I show an audience statistics of online usage, adoption of mobile, specific uses of YouTube to build audience or general Social Media quirkiness that generates a lot of attention, they shake their heads in a way that says, "I can’t believe this," "who has the time for this?" and/or "why would anyone do this?"

Your values are not THE values.

The same people who say that kids today don’t interact because all they do is text one another or update their Facebook status’ are completely missing the point. Every generation says this about the generation that comes after them. Our parents said the same thing about us using the phone or playing video games when we were growing up. This applies to privacy and this also applies to rights management. When everybody is sharing every detail of their life (in text, images, audio and video) with the world, the concept of privacy changes and evolves. When you can buy something digitally from a website or smartphone, the idea that something is sold based off of where you physically live seems a little ludicrous.

Our values have to adapt and change… rapidly.

We are not going to bend technology and innovation to our will. We are not going to bend technology and innovation to our traditional, good old fashioned values. We (the digital immigrants) have to change. We (the digital immigrants) have to accept that as the world does open up and as people do continue to share their information and find out about brands in new and interesting ways, our only hope for adaption is to open our eyes, ears and minds… and to stop shaking our heads in disbelief. Whenever that feeling of disbelief enters my mind and starts to make my head shake in that negative motion, I try to acknowledge it… and shut it down. It’s about thinking in an open way and be being able to adapt quicker.

How about you?

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.