2: Call to adventure
Disruption from within is better than disruption from without.
The love letter continues — a call to adventure
During the odyssey of the renaissance of Georg Sörman, my love letter to Mum has evolved and taken different shapes. In later iterations, the reinvention strategy for Aktiebolaget Georg Sörman — established in 1916 by my great-grandfather — was co-developed with my mother, Birgitta Sörman-Nilsson, and my father, Lars-Olof Nilsson, who at the time of writing jointly own this business; and their team of 11 staff. In its first iteration, the love letter took the form of my Global Executive MBA thesis, and was put to the test by some of the brightest professors and peers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the London School of Economics, the Indian Institute of Management, and the University of Sydney Business School.
The love letter, unfortunately by necessity and serious examination, took on a tone of tough love. When I began to write it in late 2012, the situation was already severe. For nearly a decade Mum had been injecting her life savings into keeping the unsustainable business model, which she ‘inherited' from her father, alive. But the love letter also issued a call to adventure for Mum and her team. The analysis showed some slight hopes for the future, on certain premises. For example, the strategy we ultimately developed, and which we termed ‘Georg Sörman 100' courtesy of the centenary celebrations in 2016, focused on the combination of ‘timely technology and timeless traditions', and had to be followed and executed meticulously. We wouldn't be throwing out the analogue baby with the bathwater — useful traditions would be emphasised, and non-useful remnants would be discarded. By applying the best thinking and the most psychologically astute models on change management, external forces and disruption from the likes of John Kotter, Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen, we co-created the strategy with input from the owners (Mum and Dad), from the board (Mum and Dad), from the executive (Mum and Dad, again, this really does sound like a family business, right?), and the team of eleven staff. We mapped the psychometric strengths and capabilities of the team, built ‘blue ocean strategy' canvases, and engaged a brand strategist with two Cannes Lions to her name to modernise the visual identity of the brand. The fact that our brand strategist — Hema Patel — was (and is) also a cherished ex-girlfriend of mine, and a close friend of the family would, I believed, create trust and buy-in the reinvention. And, of course, it was also the only economically viable choice, because we were granted much-needed ‘mate's rates' for services my mum, majority owner, could otherwise ill afford. (More on Hema's impact later in the book.)
My mum's curiosity had been sparked during that fateful walk in the forest in 2012, when we agreed that I would put my mind to solving her business problems with her. The love letter evolved into a strategic form, and then into a book form, and the story of Georg Sörman and Mum's challenges started gaining international traction and media attention. All of a sudden, Swedish, English, Australian and American media outlets were curiously following the story of Georg Sörman's reinvention plan. As with any vision and plan, inspiration is important, as is execution. Mum has a knack for ignition and execution and, while strategy is not her strong suit, our dialogues led us to believe that I as the futurist could represent strategy, and she as the operator could represent execution. Part of the strategy had involved digging up old photos, stories, fabrics, archives and collections of Georg Sörman, and as we found out more about the origins, provenance and inspiration for the brand, this re-ignited Mum's curiosity in going on a quest into the future — a quest that would combine the best of timelessness and timeliness.
The fabric of adventure
It is 12 March, 2016, and I am racing down the mountain in my Norrøna and Atomic gear in Lech Zürs am Arlberg, Austria, with my metrosexual crew of Swedish skiing enthusiasts. Each year, we travel somewhere in the Alps for a week of downhill adventures and fresh air — and then carb offset all the health benefits of outdoor activities with beer and central European le montagnard (mountain) food. Depending on their level of skiing ambition, some members of the crew have longer lunches with more Stuben beer and schnitzel, while others carve up the mountain for longer. I belong in the latter category, and am also the geek-in-residence, which means I am responsible for recording both the geocontextual and health data on Trace Snow (to make us feel better about our after-ski bar tabs), as well as shooting films and photos of our epic adventures — which I then turn into an action edit for the inner circle.
What enables this action/adventure filming is a product from a company that understands the hero's journey (or the journeys of overzealous amateurs like us). With the GoPro Hero strapped to my helmet, I am able to effortlessly capture snow-capped peaks, powder, carving turns, and some epically silly tumbles. At the press of a button I am either recording with the fish-eye lens or not. I am either snapping a photo or not, and for extreme sports, or laymen's adventures among middle-aged men, this allows me and my mates to feel like Alberto Tomba for a few days, and have a good laugh at our memories of the day we hit top speeds of 86.6 kph in Lech Zurs, in 2016 (see figure 2.1, overleaf.)
Figure 2.1: Lech Zurs run, with top speed of 86.6 kph
Source: Trace Snow by AlpineReplay, Inc.
The GoPro symbolises the success of brands that excel at digital storytelling. In March 2014, I keynoted at our client Sitecore's annual Digital Trendspot conference in London. The theme that year was ‘The Art of Digital Storytelling', and the storytelling and themes of the event were based on classic stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and The Three Little Pigs, and how those stories (and hero's journeys) could be enabled — digitally. And while in the good old days brands might have thought of themselves as the hero coming to our rescue, increasingly, brands with foresight are starting to realise that they are the mentors, not the heroes. And that they need to inspire, guide and call upon us as consumers and clients to step up to the plate and become heroes.
In the wake of the collapse of traditional film producers and camera manufacturers, GoPro took a bold step in launching its digital camera. They did understand the Zeitgeist of our times, though, and decided to re-engineer the Kodak moment for the 21st century. Several things enabled their success, but one of the key aspects was elevating the user to the status of a hero, and turning us all into the directors of our own adventure and hero's journey (incidentally using this terminology in the naming of their device — GoPro Hero). All of a sudden, surfers strapped GoPro Heroes to their boards, triathletes mounted them on their bikes, skydivers wrapped them around their arms, and snowboarders attached them to their helmets. Without a viewfinder, filming your environment became effortless — or, seamless — and the unedited documentary style of recording turned you and your mates into the slightly tipsy mountaineers conquering some of the toughest slopes (the blue ones, of course) in the Vorarlberg Alps.
Storytelling as content marketing
The success of GoPro is partly that it is in the digital memories business, but also that it, unlike Nokia, had its finger on the pulse of the times, in that it tapped the narcissism, or urge to connect, among its clients, and their love of adventure. It thus staged a call to adventure — urging people to explore, to grow themselves, to go beyond their comfort zones, and to get creative while doing so. And their marketing campaigns and brand positioning around their core product, the Hero, are all about capturing and directing your own hero's or heroine's journey. While they may not necessarily play the active role of the mentor, they have built a platform for sharing extreme footage and amplifying user-generated content, to enable forms of peer-to-peer mentoring. And through their own content marketing, via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, often created by fans for fans, they know that hero moments can go viral courtesy of their community. And they have flipped the conversation away from being focused on themselves, so that just like their lens, which is focused on what you see and experience — mountain tops, river valleys, friends (see figure 2.2) — they have become a companion on your journey.
Figure 2.2: the crew of Swedish skiing enthusiasts
GoPro is also highly adept at showcasing how adaptive the product is, highlighting in what areas of life it can fit and where it can document moments of heroism. And while they use a digital multichannel strategy, they also know which channel best lends itself to its action-oriented content (YouTube) where they actively engage in dialogue with their fans and community. GoPro not only shares videos, but also often goes to the source and story behind the video, sharing these details with its community, again driving the transparency and social aspect of the brand, making the community feel like GoPro is even more relatable. All this means the GoPro Hero becomes an accessory to your life and adventure, and to your global nomadism, challenges and obstacles. Ironically, by it taking a true client-first perspective, it has built a huge brand following as a result.
Turning the tables, in a positive way, and showcasing your clients and their stories of adventure is not just limited to brands like GoPro born in the digital age, however. On my 21st birthday I received a nice Swiss Army knife from my friends Mark and Evan, inscribed with a ‘Happy 21st, Anders'. The knife was made by the heritage Swiss brand Victorinox. This brand, not unlike GoPro, produces an accessory that is highly functional and well thought through. The Swiss Army knife is nowadays so accepted it is a must-pack item on every camping trip, and a ‘Doomsday Prepper' essential. It is much more than a spork, and its compactness and ingenuity packs a lot of punch. From opening cans, to slicing bread, to fixing car engines, to opening beer bottles, to cleaning your newly caught trout, the Swiss Army knife can do a lot of things. It can also be creatively used in non-intended ways by innovative heroes, and for its centenary Victorinox decided to highlight such customer stories on their storytelling platform. They made a call to adventure and action, asking their customers to contribute stories about how Victorinox products had helped them in sticky situations. Carl Elsener, CEO of Victorinox, stated at the launch of the digital platform for this heritage brand that:
As a representative of the fourth generation of the Elsener family, I grew up with countless stories by and about Victorinox. As children, we shared in the thrill of our knives being allowed to come along on expeditions to the Himalayas, the North Pole or even to the moon.
Later I realised that all the stories are a gracious thank you for our commitment to functionality, quality, innovation and design. They also show that Victorinox products are close to our customers' hearts. They rely on them. They have become lifelong companions.
With this in mind their inbound content and content marketing strategies focused on user-generated stories, which then provided their products with various archetypes. For example, the archetype of the ‘helper', seen in the story of a passenger on a train who became a hero, thanks to his Victorinox pocket knife; the ‘guardian' is another, seen in the story of a businessman who won a major contract thanks to his Victorinox travel bag; and the ‘companion', seen in the story about a tourist who, without hotel accommodation, survived an icy cold night in Stockholm thanks to his Victorinox jacket. (See www.victorinox.com/global/en/Customer-Stories/cms/stories for more.)
Whether it is with video cameras, multi-purpose knives or fabrics, brands like Victorinox, and kindred spirits like Private White V.C., Filson and Barbour, are able to partner with their clients and empower them to be adventurous or everyday heroes. They have understood that the call to adventure and the art of storytelling are key in a world where every brand now must think as media and entertainment brands, and where you get to play the role of hero. One of the key questions for the future is how the digital and the physical aspects, tradition and technology, the timelessness of story and timeliness of the medium can be interwoven.
This call to adventure was what was enticing my mother, and in a way my love letter to her was the ‘inciting incident' that got her started on her heroine's journey. In GoPro parlance, we were just yet to see whether she was going to strap the camera to her helmet and start climbing the mountain.
Tradition killed the radio star
For better or for worse, all business is local. The problem with this is that we are now living in a global economy and local eccentricities, unless well branded and communicated, can stand in the way of innovation, commercial success and the sustainability of tradition. That's right — local tradition and identity as a mindset could kill the sustainability of local tradition as a commercial enterprise. This is the irony, right? That by being so focused on identity, inheritance, family and the sense of place, those very things we treasure most run the risk of forever being lost. Because of this internal, and quite egocentric (you could even say arrogant) perspective, external competition, start-ups and customer-centric brands are perfectly positioned to disrupt you from your slumber.
At this stage, if you get caught out sleeping, it is likely to be too late. The early bird catches the worm, as it were. And ‘early' here doesn't refer to who got up early 100 years ago; it pertains to who got up inspired, motivated and creative this morning. As a result, the question remains how heritage brands can stay relevant after being introspective for so long. And beyond this question of gaining commercial nous, can cultural language, legacy and traditional wisdom endure, if new forms of media, channels and amplification are ignored or discarded by brand owners and their leadership? Language loss, whether in business or in anthropology, is depressing because it decreases diversity, independence and variety of thought. And as a result of the loss of unique expression, cultures and lifestyles wither away.
I remember reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel while I was at university. In the book, Diamond argues that the three primary reasons the Europeans colonised large parts of the world (and not the other way around), and were successful in their market takeovers, were guns, germs and steel. That is, having better weapons, carrying germs (and partial immunity), and mastering steel and production were the primary competitive factors and differentiators. Over time, these led to huge inequalities, loss of diversity, genocide and victor's histories. In today's digital landscape, we stand on the precipice of a similar battle of civilisations, where old meets new. Where slow meets fast.
Language loss and the loss of wisdom
Let's look at language diversity as an example. According to Russ Rymer's National Geographic article ‘Vanishing Languages', one language dies every 14 days, which means that by the end of next century, half of the world's 7000 languages will be extinct. Every two weeks, thus, a culture, a tradition, a way of seeing the world disappears. The whispers of elders will not be echoed by future generations. Nursery rhymes forever lost. Ancient knowledge of flora and fauna fading into oblivion. Rites of passage evanescing with the departing souls of the isolates who carry the last echoes of a way of life.
Imagine the solitude of being the last native speaker and sole survivor of an ancient tongue, with nobody to share it with. As Russ Rymer describes it in his article, ‘with each speaker's death, another vital artery has been severed'. Rymer argues that the ‘tongues, least spoken, still have much to say', and that the loss of biodiversity and species is an apt analogy for the loss of language. In other words, we lose our diverse richness as a human species as a result of language loss, and the replacement of ‘long tail linguistics' by homogenous, conquering, colonial language behemoths like Spanish and English. In his article, Rymer points out that external linguists and anthropologists cannot ‘save' languages from dissipating, but that salvation must come from within the imperilled cultures. Many languages die out because they are only verbal, and have no alphabet, and as such no written record. Some linguists and anthropologists argue that interventionist methods like creating alphabets, compiling a dictionary, or teaching native speakers to write has the effect of changing or influencing the language, and thus argue for the more hands-off approach of only recording a lexicon and grammar before the language is lost forever. The ‘laissez faire' approach might appeal to those who believe in the old adage that ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink', and that change has to begin within. There is a lot of merit to this argument — we can't impose a willingness to save the language, and the method for doing so, on these speakers. Change needs to come from within, even if external forces may nudge us into seeing that adaption is a must for cultural and language survival. And when the rate of external change trumps the rate of internal change, adaptation and transformation, minority ways of seeing and speaking the world are in dire straits. Just like small businesses and cultures, and like that at Georg Sörman.
At the same time as laissez faire anthropologists have an important point in their non-interventionist stance, National Geographic is working closely with indigenous tribes around the world to help maintain, revitalise and record languages. Through the ‘Enduring Voices' project, and using technology like video, audio, modern camera equipment and basic publishing tools, minorities across the world are now capturing oral and cultural traditions to ensure future generations can pass on the richness of ancient cultures. This is an important and urgent quest, given the rate at which languages are disappearing.
In other words, modern technology is giving relevance to ancient worldviews and customs. Amazing, huh?! In this way, unique perspectives on life, past, present and future may be maintained. For example, in the Tuvan language (235 000 speakers) on the steppes of Russia, the word songgaar means both ‘go back' and ‘the future', while the word burungaar means ‘go forward' and ‘the past' — because the Tuvans believe that the past is located in front of you, and the future is located behind you, as you cannot see it yet, while the past has already been witnessed with your own eyes. In Cmiique Iitom, the native tongue of the Seri in Mexico, the phrase hant iiha cöhacomxoj means the ‘ones who have been told the ancient things'.
And understanding the ancient things can have modern scientific application. There is some science to the art of language, after all. For example, Seri call one sea turtle moosni hant cooit, or ‘green turtle that descends', for its habit of seasonally hibernating on the sea floor, where the traditional fishermen were able to capture them. According to a 1976 Science article: ‘We were skeptical when we first learned from the Seri Indians of Sonora, Mexico, that some Chelonia are partially buried on the sea floor during the colder months … however, the Seri have proved to be highly reliable informants.' And, of course, traditional knowledge of plants and herbs, as passed down through language, can have modern pharmaceutical application. For example, Australia's Aboriginal peoples traditionally used tea-tree and eucalyptus oils for healing, and these are now commonly used in modern medicines. (For more on this, see the article, ‘Top 10 Aboriginal bush medicines', available on the Australian Geographic website. For global applications of traditional medicines, including treatments for malaria and asthma, see ‘Traditional medicine for modern times: Facts and figures', available on the SciDevNet website.)
Language lost is a data loss of massive proportion, and often we have no cloud to back it up. This scares me enormously — and beyond the loss we suffer as humanity, imagine the emotional toll of losing your expressiveness and feeling like you let your elders and the spirits of past generations down. Tragic.
So beyond technology, what is required for cultural identity, as codified by language, to survive? Firstly, of course, we need a willingness to record and map the language. But secondly and equally importantly, we need a deep pride in the language itself. Without this pride — cross-generationally — a language will not endure, and certainly will not be rejuvenated. The pride cannot just be focused on the past, though, because languages are living things and can adapt with modern circumstance, as native tongues that add native descriptions of modern technologies like cars point out. For example, a Seri car muffler is called ihíisaxim an hant yaait, or ‘into which the breathing descends'. But without the central ingredients of pride, cross-generational collaboration and technology, many of these minority languages will continue to disappear on the downward slope to linguistic monocultures. This feels like a terrible shame, given that the technology for cultural inheritance and codification exist. Darwinism will do the remaining work of sidelining lost languages to the dustbins of history, where we apply post-mortems and ‘the benefit of hindsight' to ‘wish' something had been done earlier. For sure, something could have been done earlier. Unfortunately, pride in identity and fluidity in technology adoption don't always go hand in hand. Trust me, I know from personal experience.
When do people change?
So, when do people change? Often, when it is too late — a very unsustainable proposition indeed. But when the rate of external change, whatever that may be, trumps the rate of internal change, adaptation and innovation, we find ourselves in dire straits. And while some may say, ‘Live and let die', and bow to creative destruction or hail the idea of Digital Darwinism, even though I am a futurist, I also believe that there is a way for tradition to live on. And let us make no mistakes about it. Not all traditions are empowering or useful. Far from it. Whether it be female genital mutilation, the KKK, or orthodox beliefs about the flat world, traditions and unquestioned beliefs must be questioned and challenged. But, of course, in a post-Enlightenment age, and in the spirit of freedom of expression, dual obligation exists among listeners and speakers. Listeners must be tolerant and open to a diversity of ideas. This doesn't mean that we have to accept them, or that we must abstain from proving them wrong. If it is true that the best ideas and memes survive, a robust discourse will surely shine a light on mistaken beliefs or opinions. But I also believe an inherent obligation rests on those cultural flag-bearers who are at risk of extinction — an obligation to ensure that certain languages and modes of expression can live on. This often involves a certain level of openness to new forms of media, and reimagining the idea of identity. In other words, they need to listen to the call to adventure these new forms and ideas are offering. In this sense, Mum's curiosity for going on a journey together into the future was probably motivated as much by necessity and pure survival instinct as it was by any notion of self-actualisation. Whatever the motivation, the idea of cross-generational collaboration, and the prospect of a future for the family business beyond the third generation, the last acolyte, meant that Birgitta started dreaming of a better future for Georg Sörman.