What you want to achieve through the lens

What is really driving you? Today? This month? This year? Have grand ambitions and goals eroded to survival or keeping what you've got. Brands and people can easily lose their way when the conditions are difficult and the direction forward is hard to see. The irony is that tougher times demand even greater clarity and vision; a firmer grip on what's most important versus what's noise and a distraction.

Is your agency helping you achieve focus or adding to the fog? Are they helping you prioritise where to invest and where to cut? Do they bring a clear perspective or just more information?

Why not try adopting the attributes of a great SLR camera in the way you think. Zoom out to put things in context and literally see the big picture. Then zoom in to see and appreciate the detail. What view or depth of field feels right for you in making this decision or undertaking this piece of work? Do you need more light and illumination or do you need to act fast to capture the moment? Is there a way to automate this decision or should it always be on manual? If you made an album of your best decisions or the things you are most proud of - what would you include? Is there a common theme or narrative?

Sometimes achieving greater focus means thinking about focusing itself a little more.

Marketing and the art of conversation

The celebrated professor, historian and philosopher, Theodore Zeldin was on the Radio 4 Today programme last Friday extolling the virtues of proper serious conversation designed to discover what other people really think. He has sponsored a 'Feast of Conversation' weekend to encourage complete strangers to talk through a menu of conversation topics over a meal. The intention is to get well beyond small talk into big topics like: aspirations, anxieties, fears, desires, hope and despair.

Could this be applied to brands and the way they understand the individuals who buy from them or don't. Should brand managers or advertising planners sit down for a meal with customers or prospects and run through just such a conversation menu. It has the potential to reveal considerably more than the average "depth" interview and provides the ability to come at consumer motivations, attitudes and behaviours from quite oblique angles, which as the leading economist John Kay maintains in his new book, may well be the best way to find winning solutions. Food for thought. Quite literally in this instance.