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August 16, 2004
The roots of change
Webster's definition of "conservative":
Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
Inside conservative organizations, marketing professionals often simmer with quiet exasperation as a change-averse culture and its extensive top-down control mechanisms focus internally rather than externally. The conservative organization has a three-ring binder full of responses for anything that challenges its traditional thinking:
* Stay the course.
* Don't fix what isn't broken.
* Ignore all critics.
* We don't have time.
* Keep out anything foreign to us (actual or metaphorical).
* Destroy anyone who opposes us or our way of thinking.
The opposite of conservative isn't necessarily liberal; it's forward. That's why ChangeThis seems so promising: It's the opposite of conservative. Launched by Seth Godin and a sharp team of change agents, ChangeThis solicits and distributes manifestos that outline a future of how the world could be better.
We were pleasingly tickled when Seth and his ChangeThis group asked us to contribute a manifesto for their launch.
For business, it's about the future, not the past.
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