I get tons of well-meaning advice, very often unsolicited, from generous people encouraging me to engage with them in ‘conversations’ about strategy. Usually this boils down to having to pay them, which a. shows how well most email is targeted as I’m strictly #notabuyer and b. And if I needed a strategy I would likely make one up if I was asked. Mostly at the moment I format slide decks.

And while ruminating on that, another more gnomic one from an odd gmail account popped up and simply ran, as plain text;

“Greetings, Many groups have married the processes for internal decision making around the objectives of technology groups and business goals. All aspects of business are influenced by this development.”

This one was particularly interesting, as it offered nothing more. No clickbait link. No dodgy ‘download our invoice’ button. I could easily imagine it as hieroglyphs on the side of the counting house in Middle Kingdom period. A sort of standard to accounting practice type of declamation - ‘Warning! Heed my advice!’ My hunch was also ‘oh, hello ChatGPT’, didn’t take you long to chip in.

That aside, as these little typed diversions are usually more (hopefully) reflective and find something positive from the encounter, I set to wondering about the things that drive businesses and their brands - and the effectiveness, usefulness or differnce choosing between fads, trends or strategies.

I’m guessing most organisations would say they use strategy first. But the issue often times with them is how badly they translate into something everyone can really understand, as being useful or usable to them. 

The gnomic language of strategy can often fall face-flat, tripping over enigmatic hyperbole or being ambiguous to the point of pointlessness. No-one really buys the strategy except the very few people in the organisation that commission it. Everyone else just wants to know how best to do the job they have. And brand strategies rarely do more than flirt with the means of nurturing culture.

But trends, they don’t seem to have much of a problem catch on (and boy, when they do…) When I trip across something the cool kids have hoped that I wouldn’t, the language is totally different. It seems powered by something most business really don’t often have, or if they do, it’s not a really healthy on - a culture. There’s an energy there that most places don’t have a hope of possessing. 

But trends are useful, as a strategy. Anyone can ‘forecast’ a trend. And, as ‘a general direction in which something is developing or changing’ - or that you want to have it perceived as such, establishing trends is helpful with what you make and want to sell.

Fads are something most business like to avoid. No-one wants to be a one-hit wonder or the flash in the pan. Todays news, tomorrows chip wrapper (for those old enough to remember having chips wrapped in actual newspapers. Yum. Hygiene.)

But fads are also interesting as a strategy. Who can’t resisst ‘an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived’? Fads might be a craze, but they’re crazy effective. And fads are what people want to buy.

Yes, there’s a real danger of chasing every fad. That’s not what business does. It finds One Good Thing and sticks at it. But it’s hard for people to follow the stricture that sounds great in the investor statement and earnings reports but which is unable to spiral out more general ‘trends’ that others can catch, or better still get grabbing for.

Now, quickly, before I veer into one of those shite ’10 things you didn’t know you didn’t know you knew’ about some topic or other, or prognosticate that a trend is better than a fad is worse than a strategy, maybe there needs to be room in your plan for a bit of all three? 

I predict there’s a plan that could really catch on ;)