Gapingvoid Culture Design Group

We can’t always control a brand, an idea, a reality… but we can often have just as much influence by controlling the space around it: https://bit.ly/4wBWH5z

“In God We Trust” is a meme. So is the Nike swoosh. So was “Yes We Can.” And so is “Make America Great Again.” The tool is neutral, but the intent isn't. What's different now is the delivery system. With the invention of social media and the internet, anyone can spread a meme into people's pockets, literally. Russia and China figured this out. And now Iran.  For his newsletter, They Stand Corrected, Josh Levs spoke with our CEO Jason Korman about how this new “memetic warfare” works: https://bit.ly/486OrQE Does it scare you? Excite you? How do we all feel about memes being used as modern propaganda?

It’s tempting to ruthlessly cut anything that seems even remotely inefficient, anything that might slow us down. But before we do, it’s worth asking: What if one of those inefficiencies is actually our biggest advantage? What if the frills are the whole point? Full blog: http://bit.ly/4wA9iGm

The whole resume industry is built to help candidates look correctly sized. The right keywords. The right gaps explained. The right shape for the role. Everyone optimizing to be the doll that fits. David Ogilvy was not hiring dolls that fit. He was hiring people his managers found slightly alarming. People who were too much for the role on paper. This is the part the resume can’t help us with. There is no field for larger than life So our advice is to STOP doing what everybody else does and stop trying to fit. Work on something that matters to you. Find your mission. Find something worth doing. Find a problem worth solving. Build the thing. Read the rest of the blog: https://bit.ly/4dyVmUF #gapingvoid

Happy 100th, David. You’ve informed, educated, and entertained millions of us. Our worldviews are better because of your work. And thanks, Lord Reith, for believing something so passionately and instilling it so deeply that giants like David could stand on it. Link for the David-inspired blog: https://bit.ly/3RHoOjJ #gapingvoid

CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei spends almost half his time on culture, not tech. He's doing the modern day version of what French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry encouraged leaders to do: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” See how: https://bit.ly/49JvzYu #gapingvoid

Nothing could ever replace Spirit Airlines’ spirit (ha), but someone is bound to take its place. The airline most likely to inherit Spirit’s customers won’t necessarily be the one with the cheapest seats or the slickest ad campaigns, it’ll be the one that showed up when people were stranded, stressed, and vulnerable. Because in the end, customers rarely remember who marketed to them the loudest. But they will remember who helped them get home. @United @JetBlue @americanairlines @delta @frontier @southwest eyes are on you! Read the full blog: https://bit.ly/49gVAyc #gapingvoid

Thank you to everyone who joined Rory Sutherland and Jason Korman for HR Alchemy at Gartner C-level Communities’ Executive Summit. Today’s conversation explored a different model for culture change: Culture is not a set of values hanging on a wall. It is a designable system that shapes how people behave, communicate, and make decisions every day. Some of the themes we unpacked: → why language is the DNA of culture → how rituals reinforce behavior → why behavior change requires relentless socialization, not one-time messaging → how leaders can design environments where the right behaviors spread naturally Thank you for the thoughtful questions throughout the session. If you want to keep the conversation going, comment below or send us a DM.

Culture behaves somewhat like gravity. Invisible. Constant. Shaping our reality whether we realize it or not. Tomorrow, Rory Sutherland and Jason Korman take the stage at Gartner C-level Communities’ Executive Summit to help CHROs harness the power of culture within their organizations.

Artists like to reinvent themselves. It’s what they do. Compare the Beatles’ music and the way they dressed between the early 1960s versus 1970. Or how David Bowie changed his musical direction, his look and even his persona every couple of years like clockwork. Ditto peak Madonna. And we saw it again recently at Coachella, with Justin Bieber headlining via a stripped down, minimalist, almost austere performance, devoid of all the teenybop razzle dazzle of his earlier career. The big story turned out to be not so much about Justin’s appearance per se, but people’s reaction to it. It was very mixed. Some fans loved it, some fans just scratched their heads. Both are reacting to the current culture. Culture is organic, it’s a living thing. It must regenerate itself, or it dies. Read on: https://bit.ly/4cTjMsG #gapingvoid