All forms of study and industry have their own theories and jargon. They mostly exist to provide knowledge shortcuts and play books, but part of their function is to exclude. If someone knows the industry jargon, we can be sure they value what we value. We can be sure they read what we read, and mostly there is a chance they believe what we believe.
As time goes by theories and jargon fall out of favour. They become old hat and not cool to reference. That’s also part of the game of being in touch with a community. It show’s whose invested in what we do and who is a fly by nighter. It’s important though that we don’t think this makes the old descriptor less true. Especially when it comes to business. Sure, new theories and knowledge emerge in science which render the old ideas incorrect. But many business philosophies are thousands of years old and aren’t about to change any time soon. I like to say that the Ancient Egyptians invented ‘lean’ methodology…. I can’t possibly imagine the pyramids being built any other way, surely they would have ran out of capital!
Last night the super Ben Rowe delivered a talk at PauseFest (A nerd web festival in Melbourne) using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. An older theory that doesn’t get much coverage these days. It doesn’t make it any less compelling and real though. It was one of the most insightful presentations I’ve seen in recent times and I loved that he mashed up the new world with an old theory.
The thing it pointed out to me was that it doesn’t matter so much which tool we use to do things, but how we apply it to create new meaning with our audience.
