Semantic Argument

Over-complicating the simple and oversimplifying the complex

Rob — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:24:54 +0000

I’ve been doing some competitive research lately, and for once it’s not for a client. It’s for my own company (the one that now employs me), which means I’m examining brand consulting firms and other shops that do basically what we do but maybe call it something different. (Which, by the way, is a plague [...]

Thinking different

Rob — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:58:06 +0000

In my last post I wrote about the strategist’s role of finding the compelling idea within an organization and stripping away the rest, and made an admittedly highfalutin’ comparison to Michelangelo’s statement that the sculptor’s task is to find the statue hidden inside every block of marble. No one’s saying brand strategy or corporate ID design [...]

Throwing out the bathwater

Rob — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:49:54 +0000

I just read a nice post on a blog called MisEntropy. The post is a reaction to the Forbes.com article entitled “The Man Who Predicts the Medals,” about an economist named Daniel Johnson who has predicted medal counts over the past five Olympics with 94% accuracy. The accuracy is impressive, but more interesting is Johnson’s [...]