Love him or loathe him? Marketing Uber-guru? Megalomaniac on meth?
Whatever your take on Tom Peters, if you're directly involved in shaping Corporate or Brand destinies, it'd truly be a shame to ignore him.
I don't suggest buying into most, or even much, of Tom's brilliant insights / bravura bullshit (whichever side of the dance-floor you're on), but personally, I find so many of his observations, supported by evidence or not, to be invaluable provocations.
Captain Obvious, at times? Captain Recycle at others? Sure. But, whatever else he may be, our Tom is a provocateur par excellence.
And, whether one is CEO, CFO, Global Marketing VP, `Creative Director of the World' (yeah, I actually worked with a guy fuggtard enough to have that on his card), Brand Manager, Agency Planner, Researcher...whatever...we should all hunger to be provoked daily.
Provoked to think again, to look - to see - anew. Provoked to suspend disbelief; to strive for relevant originality and positive change.
You know the feeling one can get on vacation, particularly when visiting someplace for the first time?
Duh. No,I'm not talking about getting lashed or the tantric sex even; I'm thinking rather 'bout the way one's sensory circuits can feel as if all the controls have suddenly been set to `Max'.
Sights poke sticks in our eyes for attention; sounds seem amplified, more diverse, more competitive; odours are more pronounced, more complex; tastes...err...taste like tastes: our pallette orgasms.
We're alive. Plugged in, switched on, alert and vital.
In contrast, our `normal daily lives' can seem as if we've been in cold storage, left to the mercy of Hal to press `Defrost'.
Am I right or am I right? Don't play the retard.
Wouldn't it be neat if we could somehow feel that plugged in, switched on, alert and vital, as we faced each new day's schedule?
Whether that centred on crafting copy, enhancing an NPD programme, revising a research plan, re-vitalising an ailing Brand / Love-mark, re-Visioning the future of our `Global Corporation' or just...making some positive impact in one way or another!
Yeah, Captain Obvious strikes again. It would be great - it should be great - but truth is we don't usually feel like we're on vacation when we're `working'. We're not that plugged in, switched on, alert or vital.
Because we're not provoked enough.
But, what if one developed the habit of deliberately injecting novel sensory input into one's daily life: seeking out fresh stimuli each day, actively provoking one's brain, then trusting that brain to make its own connections between those novel inputs and the particular task at hand?
We explore novel connections all the time in pre-planned Creativity workshops, in coherent NPD programmes, in our Brand Atomics / Brand-futuring exercises, even in our Focus Groups, right?
So, why not similarly explore novel connections by and for oneself? For free. Daily.
Which brings me, not so neatly, back to Tom Peters. Tom Peters is loud, passionate, prolific and provocative.
Sure, for some, he smudges the lines between analysis, assertion and anecdote a tad too readily; sure, his day-glo slides often look as if they were compiled forty years ago by Marshall McLuhan having a bad trip.
Geddoverit. For, warts and all, Tom is not merely a great provocateur he's also a great sharer and avid `blogger'.
So, if you are even vaguely tempted to get out of the mental ice-box, interested in taking an exotic vacation before the next `working day' begins, you could do a lot worse than pay a visit to Tom Peter's site before retiring to your bed each night.
Dive randomly into any one of the many pools of ideas freely accessible there; then swim through the links to other people's pools, let your brain do a few lengths in each. Make it a habit to take a random dip each day.
Do it with no clothes on!
Just do it. Tick.
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