Free flying song birds

Yesterday Kevin Roberts added a post to his blog: How to surf the Attraction Economy. (thanks for Mike Sansone for the link). Roberts is CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi. I've not read any of his books, so the ideas in his post are new to me. What he's saying about the future of marketing/advertising applies to eLearning as well. His propositions "shook my cognitive tree" about the digital natives, The Long Tail, pulling for the learner, free range chickens and the role of storytelling in the emerging economy. He even explained his forecast with a taxonomy! Yesterday was a big day for my "finding it in my blog reader"!Roberts implies that literacy is changing from print to sight, sound and motion (sisomo). The message is lost if it's not in a story. The message is forgotten if it's not something people want to watch over and over.

Roberts sees a progression from products to trademarks, trademarks to brands. brands to Lovemarks. Consumers are more creative and passionate about their purchases. When the provider combines love and respect for the consumer, the positive effects are staggering. Pulling off that combination requires a significant loss: no ego and no silos of expertise.

The Long Tail model emphasizes small affinity groups "finding" a match to their unique needs of the moment and preferences. Roberts sees that model misses out on how much "sharing of their finds" is occurring. The find is small but the sharing is big. This gives an added to dimension to the ways that learning can become viral and benefit from network effects.

Rather than picturing the learners feeding on a free range, Roberts has inspired a new picture. Imagine the learners are song birds. Rather than feeding on "content" to survive, they are singing as they thrive. They are soaring with the feeling of being loved and respected. Their passion is uncontainable. They are sharing their joy by singing exuberantly. They are a moving picture of sights, sounds and emotion. Let see if eLearning can play along with that invitation.

Technorati tags: Kevin Roberts, sisomo, eLearning, The Long Tail