Friday, July 25, 2008

A riveting definition of impact

An online search of some business and innovation keywords led me to the following sentence used by a well-known organization to describe itself:
“Make a difference. Make History. Our products have captured the attention, imagination and loyalty of generations of diverse individuals since our founding over 150 years ago.”

Any organization that can claim to have such a rich cultural impact over a century and a half while also appealing to individuals to join and “make a difference” and “make history” must be quite impressive. I tried to guess what organization it was. I was way off. The above sentences came from a Levi-Strauss ad.

No disrespect to Levis or to the fashion industry but jeans were not the first thing I thought of when the search engine presented me with that sentence.

But then again, as the world has moved from local, customized artisanal production to mass production handled by global entities, the sheer size of these organizations does allow them to claim wide impact on the way people live. At large scale, whether clothing, food production, communications, transportation, retailing, or entertainment, a more efficient process or innovation in design can truly have an impact on millions of people.

The Levis ad later states that it had an impact on “activewear for women in the early 20th century” (could it have helped the passage of the 19th Amendment?) and led the “casual businesswear revolution of the 1990s” (would dotcom employees have worn suits instead?). If Levis thinks of itself in these terms, then why don’t more organizations appeal to individuals similarly?

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