In professional work - certainly in the arts and graphics - 99% of people have zero courage. They blow with the wind.
George LoisRead
The business world worships mediocrity. Officially we revere free enterprise, initiative and individuality. Unofficially we fear it.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that while society publicly praises individualism and initiative, in practice, it tends to favor conformity and mediocrity.
George Lois highlights a paradox in the business world where, despite the celebrated values of free enterprise and creativity, there exists a deep-rooted fear of true originality and boldness. This fear leads to the veneration of mediocrity, as those who stick to the norm are often favored over those who dare to be different, creating a culture that stifles innovation and true individual expression.
In practice
This quote would be fitting for a business seminar focused on creativity and innovation.
In professional work - certainly in the arts and graphics - 99% of people have zero courage. They blow with the wind.
You can't test great advertising. You can only test the mediocre. Not that I don't care about demographics. You have to understand who you're going after.
Truly great images make all the other millions of images you look at unimportant. You gotta look at an image and understand it in a nanosecond.
In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction.
I've done truth to power all my life. It's got me into trouble, but who cares?
I don't design. I get what I think is a big idea, and I put the idea down. I'm not a designer. I'm a communicator.
I think any company should compete on the quality of their products, their prices, the novelty they can produce, their services, because that would be fair competition.
I may be a businessman in that I set up and run companies for profit, but when I try to plan ahead and dream up new products and new companies, I'm an idealist.
Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don't rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That's your job.
No young kid growing up dreams of someday becoming a businessman. He wants to be a fireman, a sponsored athlete or a forest ranger The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welchs of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values.
Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values - and sticking to them - requires real guts.
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.