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  • Courage, the Unknown and Igniting Movements

    Posted on November 9th, 2009 by Robbin and currently 4 commenting.

    Just a moment ago I fell down the stairs.

    It happened in the blink of an eye as I ran down our circular stairs at Brains on Fire. Trust me, it wasn’t pretty. (Maybe it’s not a good idea to go barefoot in wide legged pants.) I’m fine, a little bloody and bruised, but fine.

    But I have to tell you, it shook me. Seriously rattled me a bit.

    Everyday we do the simplest of things and sometimes we are tossed a loop.

    Like a fall we didn’t see coming. A phone call we weren’t expecting. And yet most of us don’t walk around fearing those unexpected setbacks. Instead we wake up and embrace the day.

    So is that fearlessness? IS the lack of fear — courage?

    I read somewhere this definition of courage. “Courage is the intentional pursuit of a worthy goal despite the perception of personal threat and uncertain outcome” (Pury & Woodard) Don’t you love that? Lots of us get up and do that every single day when you think about it.

    We have a lot of conversation around the halls of Brains on Fire about what kind of companies are best suited to ignite powerful, sustainable word of mouth movements. Here is one thing I believe with all every fiber in my soul (Do souls have fiber? See I told you the fall rattled me). Anyway here is what I believe; it takes a courageous company with courageous leaders. A company that is not easily discouraged about the occasional nay-sayer. A company that is in fact confident enough to embrace the nay-sayers and learn from them. A company that understands that redefining and supporting the passion conversations of their advocates will far outweigh any uncertainties.

    So. Who are the courageous companies and organizations you admire these days? And why.

    P.S. If you ever come for a visit. Walk very, very slowly down our stairs…

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  • http://www.distility.com 1day1brand

    Robbin,

    I’m glad you are ok. Those stairs look like a truly nasty tumble!

    Here at Distility we have an escalator. It is much safer. Although there was a power failure the other day and I was stuck on it for two hours. ;-)

    I get a little torn around these admiration questions. Some of the most admirable work is for some products that I now recognize to be crud. One example of such is work done here in Toronto by Dorritos and BBDO.

    They crowdsourced both the naming of a new flavour and a commercial at the same time. The whole project managed to avoid the worst parts of crowdsourcing and promote the best. They were super adaptive to both positive and negative criticism. They really took a leap on the whole concept and exceeded the expectations of their higher-ups.

    All the best,

    Axle

    Axle Davids | @1day1brand

  • http://www.abundatrade.com Tracy

    So glad you’re okay! It sucks that you took the tumble…but the pic of the stairs (your perspective was you were lying in there in pain?) is really cool. Silver lining to every cloud.