Getting my ducks in a row.

March 23rd, 2009 by Charlotte McCabe

Blame it on the great view of the pond from my office window. Or the vernal equinox. Or just sleep deprivation. But it struck me today that I’m a hooded merganser living in a mallard world.

Mergansers are diving ducks. They paddle around on the surface, making deep dives to find food. Mallards, on the other hand, are dabbling or puddle ducks (I’m not making this up!). They graze on surface vegetation, frequently “tipping up” so they can reach below the surface.

So where’s the analogy? Well, when I’ve been tasked with helping a client solve a marketing or communications challenge, I like to dive deep and gather as much data as I can. To ask a lot of questions and explore beneath the surface. To take the time to really think about solutions and their implications. To deliver, in a word—or, really, an acronym—ROI.

But we live in a hurry-up kind of world that requires quick actions and even quicker reactions. Communications channels are built more and more on less and less information (think about the evolution from Facebook profiles to Twitter tweets). Way too often, I fear we let the need for speed get in the way of our need to think.

Maybe it’s just two different ways of approaching the same problem, neither one more right or wrong than the other. But I’m going to stick with my deep dive approach. At least us diving ducks don’t spend our days with our tails in the air.

— Charlotte McCabe

This entry was posted by Charlotte McCabe on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Clients, Problem Solving, ROI, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.