Imagine No Delusions
We Baby Boomers had beautiful dreams back in the '60s and '70s, but we didn't do much about them. It was enough back in those days just to “Visualize World Peace” and sing wistfully about a brighter tomorrow. Remember John Lennon's song, Imagine?
Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
But dreaming didn't change the world. We don't all live in a yellow submarine.
Those who have heard me explain Society's 40-year Pendulum will recall my conviction that we're in the third year of a new generational cycle that will be remembered for its small-but-effective actions rather than its grand-but-impotent dreams. This new worldview is clearly communicated in the recent movie, Batman Begins, when Bruce Wayne's childhood friend says to him, “It's not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you.”
Two weeks ago I made my famous Pendulum presentation to the good folks of Procter and Gamble at their world headquarters in Cincinnati. They loved it; said it explained a lot of weird phenomena they're seeing. Last week I presented it to the senior execs of Clear Channel Communications. They, too, were deeply moved. I'll be doing it one more time on October 15 at the Wizard Academy Reunion and Open House in Austin. Are you coming?
Remember what I'm about to tell you: 2006 and 2007 will be years in which the world of advertising changes in tumultuous ways. You can ride these waves of change to the far horizon or you can attempt to tread water, stay where you are, and fight the undertow. I'll be talking about these coming changes on October 15 as well.
Free the Beagle.
Roy H. Williams
GREAT NEWS: How to Write Powerfully and Clearly is a new, 12-week, online course at Wizard Academy in which a dozen of your individual homework assignments will receive detailed, personal feedback. You'll be sent a textbook, be given specific reading assignments, and have weekly deadlines in which to complete your work. Upon graduation, you'll be able to write cleaner, tighter, punchier ads, memos, news stories and sermons. Class sizes are limited. The first will begin in October. I'd sign up today if I were you.
Note to the Cognoscenti – Dr. Jerre Levy of MIT has an interesting theory that the left brain maps spatial information into a temporal order, while the right brain maps temporal information onto a spatial order. “Understanding” largely consists in the translation of information between the temporal ordering and the spatial one – resulting in a sort of stereoscopic depth-cognition. The superiority of the right brain in emotional matters reflects the fact that emotions, like music, are temporal in nature and their articulation requires the temporal-on-spatial mapping that is the specialty of the right. To put it succinctly, Space is mapped in Time in the left brain. Time is mapped in Space in the Right. If you recall your Magical Worlds sessions on thought particles and dimensional realities, her theory makes perfect sense. Aroo! Arooo-Arooooo! – RHW