A Public Debate with Jen Evans

[Update: July 13, Jen Evan's response added.]
[Update: July 17, Sean's response added.]
[Update: July 28, Jen wades back in.]

I recently had the pleasure of drinks with Jen Evans, founder and chief strategist of Sequentia Environics.  Many had spoken to me over the years of Jen, but amazingly we had never connected.  Let me just say that I now join what I believe to be a long list of people who admire her spirit, intensity and intelligence.

At one point in our laughter and exploration, Jen challenged me to a public debate.  Unlike some who might have done so in jest, Jen followed up with me on Twitter the next morning with the topic for said event.  I feel like I have been transported to an era of calling cards and pistol duels.  How totally awesome is that!?  Woot!

Jen, please feel free to email me your response and I will edit this post with your reply.  Or we can use the comments area.  Your call, my lady.  ;)

Jen Evans (via Twitter - abbreviations removed)

"I think marketing can and will evolve into something I like to call the virtuous cycle of empathetic marketing: what do people need from the products and services they buy?  How do we help them diagnose that in a way that adds real value and informs?  I believe in Drucker's vision of the function of the corporation and marketing, and I believe digital really allows that vision to happen. Discuss!"

My response

I must begin by challenging the initial question.  First, because your question affirms an unfair advantage upon you as your firm excels in converting people with a stated interest in a product or service into a sale.  But more importantly, I have to wonder if this is really the opportunity on the table both for our clients and for our respective agencies.

I would ask if the opportunity we are faced with is rather this: What is it that people value, need and want?  And what role can an organization, brand, product or service play in supporting and/or fulfilling these needs?

I get and agree that we live in a world of conspicuous consumption and that products and services (in addition to affiliation with a brand) become symbols of status (in North America at least).  And the opportunity for a luxury brand in this context is so rarely fully leveraged.

But we also live in a society where significant forces are at work that I will argue are transforming organizations and individuals.  These forces are not technological in nature (though they are enabled by such).  They are social and come from a shift in beliefs.  In its rawest form, the concepts of purpose and the role of passion has become more pronounced in our day to day lives.  The drive has always existed.  Only now there is this belief that we all have the right (or even need) to find and even define our individual purpose.

"I believe wholeheartedly that a new form of capitalism is emerging.  More stakeholders, (customers, employees, shareholders, and the larger community) want their businesses to ... have a purpose bigger than their product." 
   -  Mats Lederhausen, Investor and former McDonalds executive (source)

And because this is a debate, I will turn to Ms. Evan's named source, Mr. Drucker.  I will admit I have become quite a fan of Drucker over these past few hours as I had clearly misclassified him in my head.

Well before 1996, Peter saw a shift happening in business.  Organizations would no longer be a place that supplied meaning and value to the lives of their members by virtue of the organization's stated beliefs.

"All institutions, including governments, churches, universities, and so on, will become more interdependent, more market- and customer-driven." [source]

Drucker wasn't speaking just about changes in how we market our services.  He was talking about changes within the very organization and its relationship to its employees, partners and supply chains.

"We know that knowledge people have to be managed as if they were volunteers. They have expectations, self-confidence, and, above all, a network. And that gives them mobility, which is probably the greatest change in the human condition. A very short time ago, if you were the son of a peasant, you were going to be a peasant. Even in this country, social mobility was almost unknown. Now, every one of the young people I know has his or her resume in the bottom drawer, which no blue collar worker ever did."

And I think that if Drucker were alive today he would be talking about this shift in purpose and aligning organizations with the passions and activities of its customers, employees, partners, etc.  In fact, much of what I've been able to find about him seems to say he likely saw this coming far earlier and may indeed have talked about it.  I'm just getting up to speed on Drucker, sadly.

Over to you, Jen.  If you buy my re-framing of the question, then I would be very interested in where and how you see people expressing their search for purpose, passion and meaning and what opportunities this presents for organizations, brands, products and services.

Jen Evan's Reply (July 13):

Sean, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion as well and on our next meeting my only change in strategy will be to ply you and @interpretivist with multiple Perroni to weaken your thinking and resolve. I’m not above admitting it.

Having said that, I think your position is completely and utterly wrong. You see, I don’t believe in passion.

Passion is pre-eminent in an individualist mindset that I think has reached its apex/nadir in 21st century American politics, and is on the decline. The much bally-hooed search for personal fulfillment and passion, I think, has led to more destruction than any other single force in the West.

I think these are in many ways the most dangerous terms in modern society, and that passion is in fact killing us.

Much of consumer impulse, overacquisition and materialism, is tied up into ego, which is fed by passion and a highly developed sense of self. These destructive selfish influences create a drain on resources, create competition and envy, and cause people to always want more. This is not healthy nor sustainable. We live in cluttered homes with stuff we don’t need. We go after jobs and titles that make us a lot of money and boost our sense of self temporarily, but leave us miserable in the end. We make bad decisions about investments, resources, and much more because of ego. We start wars, we treat others poorly, all in sacrifice to this goal of personal fulfillment/passion/ego. I think we need to introduce a little nonattachment into the equation. And into the marketing equation as well.

I think the digital marketing experience, in the purest sense of marketing, in creating markets, can deliver better experiences and better decisions to people - if we focus on the outcome rather than the means to get there. We want people to have better experiences with the things they invest in and spend time with. We want people to select the right products and services and experiences – and careers, and volunteer roles, and so on. We need better information to make decisions. We want companies to have more successful technology rollouts; it’s better for everyone when things work properly, when products don’t have to be returned, when enterprise scale software implementations don’t get scuttled after hundreds of millions of dollars have been unsuccessfully spent. And the information is out there, and the explosion of digital allows us to collect, package and disseminate it in ways we never could before.

I do not believe in passion but I do believe in utility. I believe we are going to evolve – not entirely, but significantly -- away from interruptive marketing full of empty promises, toward usefulness and utility. I think this will take the form of structured information experiences delivered digitally to help people make informed objective decisions about the important things in their lives, be they work, family and friends, recreation, business or politics, along with things they own, and use every day. Imagine a pharmaceutical company surveying the families of thousands of subscribers of Alzheimers’ medication, and developing a three-year information guide to help families adjust and respond to a diagnosis, delivered as a plan in weekly information modules along with 24 hr support and monitoring. We have the collective knowledge to develop these kinds of tools. We now have the ability to efficiently capture, package and deliver it. And that is human, purposeful marketing that helps change people’s lives on a fundamental level. That is where we can get to, without having to look externally for bolt-on purpose or passion.

I am now going to take this to an entirely new level. I love the quote you selected:

"I believe wholeheartedly that a new form of capitalism is emerging.  More stakeholders, (customers, employees, shareholders, and the larger community) want their businesses to ... have a purpose bigger than their product." 
   -  Mats Lederhausen, Investor and former McDonalds executive

What I find most amazing about the entire discussion around purpose and meaning is that … we are having this dialogue as if these are things that we suddenly do externally. Businesses have a purpose bigger than their product. It’s called the quality of life of their employees, their employees’ families, and the quality of life of their customers.We have the ability to change lives and live lives of purpose every day within our sphere of influence: our workplaces, our families, the homeless guy at the corner, the new intern on her first day. Why aren’t we investing our energies in those places? Because it’s ego satisfying to find passion in big seemingly meaningful spectacular ego driving ways. We celebrate movies like The Blind Side  because that story is so exceptional (a privileged family takes a homeless boy into their home! holy cow!) that they made it into a movie, and that is just ... sad. Our purpose should be to reinvent ourselves from within, to focus on becoming kinder, less ego-driven workplaces, and kinder, less ego-driven people, kinder to each other and gentler on the resources we consume. We are individuals and we will never cease to be individuals, with strong egos and desires and passions already in place as part of our DNA.  I believe we need to try as much as we can to minimize that inner search for take our own desires out of the equation and focus on not passion, but selflessness and purpose.

My Reply (July 17)

Hey Jen,

I hate to break this to you.  But you are one of the most passionate people I now know.  Not only are you passionate, but you have this knack to collect the most passionate around you.  In fact, I would go so far as to blasphemy you in public.

"Jen Evans not only believes in passion, she practices it on a daily basis."
  - Sean Howard

But before I explain why I believe this to be so, let's recap where I believe we are in perfect, harmonious agreement.

I believe we are in agreement:

• On the opportunity to "help people make informed objective decisions about the important things in their lives" (I think digital will be like paper - one medium out of many)
• "Our purpose should be to reinvent ourselves from within, to focus on becoming kinder, less ego-driven workplaces, and kinder, less ego-driven people, kinder to each other and gentler on the resources we consume"
• "We go after jobs and titles that make us a lot of money and boost our sense of self temporarily, but leave us miserable in the end"
• "I believe we are going to evolve – not entirely, but significantly -- away from interruptive marketing full of empty promises, toward usefulness and utility"
• And the idea of the power of experience, content and utility when they are united to a measurable and positive outcome.

Back to your argument. 

I believe you may be confusing zeal with how I use the term passion.

Zeal being (according to Oxford) "great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective".  This doesn't sound so bad until we look at the root of the word.  It is from the Greek root Zelos.  The primary connotation of which is jealousy.  Eager desire.  And then we look at a zealot: "a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideal."

If I were to go through your argument and substitute zealousness in place of passion, then I would be in full agreement.  This type of emotion and encouraging it's growth have not led to good things and it could even be easily vilified as a key contributor to conspicuous consumption as well.

Passion is different to me.  And I can see where confusion comes in, as the definitions of this word are insanely broad.  Oxford has it as "an intense desire or enthusiasm for something" or "a thing arousing great enthusiasm."  Our dictionaries really suck.  It reads so similarly to Zeal.  With one caveat.  It's not about a cause that is always external.  And when I dig into the roots of the word, passio [latin] we find this idea of "suffering" and if we go all the way back to the Greek root of 'pathos', we find this sense of suffering and deep emotion.

It can be an all consuming fire.  It requires tempering.  On this, I certainly agree.  But I will argue later that it is not directly nor primarily responsible for the ills you attempt to connect to it.

I don't believe the search for passion is what has led to the inflation of ego and the drive for materialism.  I would argue that it is the inability to find real passion and purpose at a personal level that has enabled the ego to run rampant and has led to this yearning to be satisfied through rampant consumption.  I believe that the ego is actually checked by purpose and passion when these forces align.  And without alignment, the ego is easily fooled by zealots who would use and misappropriate a person's dreams, actions, etc.  Whether this zealot be a leader bent on world domination or the ex-head of GE.  :)

Let's go a bit zen for a moment.  I think we would both agree on the role purpose plays and that we both seek a world where individuals come to an understanding of their individual purpose and that this be a healthy force on the systems within which we live.  And clearly, it needs to be balanced and focused internally versus driven to achieve external signs of wealth and "greatness."

Assuming you are not running around screaming obscenities at me by this point, the potential agreement on purpose brings us to an interesting place.  Is there then a connection between passion and purpose?  I need to take a step back and turn to Jordan Peterson and his work to understand how we define and create meaning in the world.

His first tenet is that emotions do not function except in context to a goal.  As we move towards our goals, we feel good.  As we move away from our goals, we feel less good.  And each goal only exists within the context of a larger purpose.  Whether that purpose is to grow profits or help others.  And purpose only exists within the context of a social structure.  ie: our culture, a society or a company.  Which in itself lives inside a larger context.  Etc.

So Yes.  If you are a functioning member of society, passion and purpose are always connected.  But not always in a healthy way.

So what happens when we don't have internally set goals?  Let's assume we are excited to join a company that has a strong purpose.  We likely accept some of the goals that align with their purpose and this helps us feel good, have confidence and feel like a successful member of the organization.  But it doesn't stop there.  We also feel good about ourselves and our role in society.

But many corporations still live and die to drive materialism (or as they would put it - shareholder value).  Or they see purpose as the stability they bring their workers.  Stay focused on beating Pepsi.  What more do you need?

If we want to see a world where people have inner strength, then I would suggest we will want to find ways to connect individuals from the bottom up to passion and purpose and then align these individuals to organizations where the purpose and goals of the organization are not at extreme conflict with their personal beliefs.  Coke can still be focused on beating Pepsi.  Only now, the workers are allies in something bigger that is not about just driving consumption.

What's really neat is this is not just a philosophical debate.  Businesses are changing.  For Benefit (with profits) is emerging as a significant force.  For profit businesses are changing how they define their vision, purpose and objectives.  Often, they are doing so from the bottom up.  Allowing their employees to find and share in the passion, purpose and benefits.  Some of the most significant changes in business afoot today are around enabling mastery, autonomy and passion within the workforce at a positive, individual level.

Tom's Shoes.
Interface.
Google.

"The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive – our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose."  (Daniel Pink, Drive)

I wanted to make sure I got back to the idea of zeal.  And how a zealot is someone "who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideal."  I spent some time with this statement because I think that we are in a time of significant social change and this uncompromising attitude may be the single largest threat you and I both face in our quite similar missions to create a world that is not driven by materialism or blind external faith.

If there is anything that has led to war, it is sacred beliefs.  By sacred beliefs I do not necessarily mean religious, but rather any belief that is not subject to challenge.  These beliefs are at the core of all conflicts.  There is a great bit of work being done on sacred beliefs that I was reading about in the latest Scientific American Mind, July/August 2010.  Beliefs not subject to negotiation are what drive the political landscape, negotiations and conflicts of our present day.

At the end of your article you bring things back to something you are driven to accomplish which I believe is tied in with the empathic marketing you mention in the original challenge.  I am very interested in this idea and hope you will have a chance to elaborate further on it.

But I also promised you Rumi.  So I end with my dearest Coleman Barks translation.  It is about this search for selflessness and purpose you speak of, but from a vantage point of inner passion (at least to me).

The Center of the Fire

No more wine for me!
I'm past delighting in the thick red
and the clear white.

I'm thirsty for my own blood
as it moves into a field of action.

Draw the keenest blade you have
and strike, until the head circles
about the body.

Make a mountain of skulls like that.
Split me apart.

Don't stop at the mouth!
Don't listen to anything I say.
I must enter the center of the fire.

Fire is my child
but I must be consumed
and become fire.

Why is there crackling and smoke?
Because the firewood and the flames
are still talking:

"You are too dense. Go away!"
"You are too wavering. I have solid form."

In the blackness those two friends keep arguing.
Like a wanderer with no face.
Like the most powerful bird in existence
sitting on its perch, refusing to move.

What can I say to someone so curled up with wanting,
so constricted in his love?

Break your pitcher against a rock.
We don't need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.

We must drown, away from heroism,
and descriptions of heroism.

Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling
its body over it, like a bride her husband
for a cover to keep her warm.

(Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks.  Source)

Jen's Response (July 28)

So Sean, first of all, I love that Rumi. Reminded me of reading Ondaatje's the cinnamon peeler for the first time. Gorgeous. The kind of passage that transforms you as you read it. But I'm starting to wax poetic and we're here to talk about marketing. Er, passion. And the intersection of the two.

Yes, I have the passion. Whatever you call it: zeal, enthusiasm, passion, I have it. I am passionate about a lot of things. And as a business owner, I also have a passion for profitable growth. Really, I want my business to be not only successful, but game changing! Epic! World dominating! Paradigm shifting!

And therein lies the problem. I am very passionate. I start to become attached to the outcome of my passion, the end result. And that is where passion becomes dangerous: when we are compelled to defend it. The *instant* we become attached to some outcome of that passion, it starts controlling us. I love to paint becomes attachment to the idea of being a great painter (for all but the least ego-involved.) Or producing a masterpiece. The teachings of christ are amazing! becomes: we must follow them down to the last literal letter, and anyone who disagrees with us clearly has the wrong kind of passion, so let's get rid of 'em. And so on. Bringing it back to digital: how many ridiculously defensive blog posts and comments have you read where people will tear a strip off each other - off people they don't even know - just to win a point? Not that I'm judging, but ... Ego. Dumb, hungry, endlessly unsatisfied, defensive, selfish ego.

There is a great rudyard kipling quote: if you can meet with triumph and disaster/and treat those two impostors just the same. Think about that. Success and failure are the same. Passion-fed ego makes that perception almost impossible. We read too much of our perceived selves into it. Our industry is the same. We celebrate great cool clever campaigns and mock 'failures' (all descriptors subjective). We don't celebrate effectiveness and utility. We don't push for innovation. Why? Because we are attached, through reputation, or compensation, or yes, passion, to the status quo.  

So yes, I am passionate. And I now work very consciously, and with great difficulty and continual failure, to not be attached to that passion, to observe those passionate feelings, recognize them, but not be driven by them. You have to work really hard to not be attached to the idea of being better, smarter, or the smartest. Or the best. Because the ego will do just about anything, rationalize all kinds of behaviours and delusions, to make sure it gets satisfied. And when you start to really get into the idea of non-attachment ... Well, it's the thin end of the wedge that makes you start to question the validity of cartesian thinking and being. What if my thinking has nothing to do with my being and is in fact a false symptom? Chew on that one for a minute. But I digress. Once we get through marketing and poetry we can move on to philosophy .... But first let's tie this back to the task at hand.

Marketing comms and advertising have traditionally been blunt force bait and switch. I will appeal to your emotion/ego in order to get you to buy thing x. Does it actually do or make you feel that thing? By and large, no. In other words, we sell false promises based on perceived need: an agenda that is set by marketers. It's a hideous, clumsy way of matching consumer need to object. We've also made it very sophisticated, expensive and industrialized, an unrefined blunt object that manipulates emotion to achieve its goal. The promise is rarely delivered upon, if ever. We can do better. Then, it's about utility. It's about: how do we change. How do we use the collective knowledge we now have at our fingertips to make things better and deliver more meaningful experiences.  How do we use this incredible set of tools to learn more about each other, and communicate, and make improvements on a societal level as well? That takes non-attachment. That takes moving past advertising and selling a product and into true societal utility.


I don't think we are far off. I think it is a natural evolution given these amazing digital toolsets and datasets we can now pull together. Do I have a clue what it is going to look like? I have my ideas, yes, and they revolve around the impending realization companies are going to have soon: that they actually can do a really good job of talking to their customers and prospects, directly, themselves. Now, I have a lot invested in that reality happening, so I don't pretend to be objective or have all the answers, but I will say this: it looks nothing like it does right now. Old spice was a funny example of this. You saw a lot of advertisers saying, see? SEE? There's life in the old dog yet. And yes, the old spice campaign was fun. Fleeting. Ephemera. And we need that in the world. But is it anything new? Is it a really great example of the power of connection to change how we decide what we want and why? Not really. Funny though! And there will always be room for funny and shocking and engaging based on the mores of the time. But what we have here, the thing that is different and new,  is an opportunity to change what marketing is and what it accomplishes. From meaningless, to something that reflects and helps us better understand what it really, really means to be human.

And on that grandiose note, I await your rejoinder.