Meaningful Distinction...

(This picture hangs in my office -- its from IKEA)

I like this picture for a couple of reasons but the one that really drew my eye is the way the yellow taxi cabs stand out among the black & white in the rest of the picture. It sets them a part and makes them easily distinguishable in a very crowded and busy photo. It is the polar opposite of the "Where's Waldo" photo books (which i still like) and on a totally separate playing field from the "Magic Eye" photo books that made you have vertigo just to see the hidden picture (which i still like as well bc of the challenge & intrigue).

Recently i started reading a book called "Chief Culture Officer" by Grant McCracken (for a link see the section "Pages I'm Currently Turning") and i highly recommend it. In one section he talks about how Nike started distinguishing themselves from their competition through advertisements on TV. One in particular was the Nike "Tag" commercial where complete strangers in a big city played tag making a routine life more "playful and less predictable." This type of ad showed transcendence from being merely about "sports performance" or "shoes" and took us to an entirely new place in our minds and emotions. This was different, this was not just an ordinary advertising campaign.

Nike created "meaningful distinction" -- a term coined by Theodore Levitt of Harvard Business School. Of course Nike is not the only company to do this successfully, i am sure you can stop and think of a few more "giants" that have done this well.

I say all of that to get to my question: "Are you creating meaningful distinction with your life?" Distinction from what or for what you might ask? Good return question.

And i would follow up with another question: "What do you want to be meaningfully distinguished from?" Is it from another company/organization you compete against? Is it from co-workers and their performance levels/abilities? Is it from other guys/girls out there on the dating scene?

Or is it just with the overall value of your life and your efforts with it? Does your life stand out -- in a good way? Not for the sake of ego and self-promotion but for the sake of making a positive impact.

Are you creating meaningful distinction? Its a question worth asking...but more importantly its a question worth answering.

(This picture hangs in the office of Mike Vandermark -- yet another great example of meaningful distinction)