Making Quality Job 1
Plan. Build. Dream. Repeat.
08
02 Cover Story.......................................................Letting Go of
the Next Big Thing
06 Feature.................................................................................Get Real
10 Tactics........................................Strategies You Can Use
13 On the Record with..................Chris Bondy, Ph.D.
September 2021 milkshake 1
04
AS MARKETERS, WE HAVE TO
EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY AS
PART OF OUR BRAND PROMISE
AND LET OUR COMMUNITIES
KNOW THAT WE ARE
CONFIDENT IN A CONFUSING
WORLD.
Publisher
Paul Hudson
Editorial & Creative Direction
Conduit, Inc.: www.conduit-inc.com
Art Director
Jeremy Moyler
Contributors
Michael J. Pallerino
Maria Soldner
Milkshake is published bimonthly by Hudson
Printing Company, ©2021. All rights reserved.
For more information, contact milkshake@
hudsonprinting.com
www.hudsonprinting.com
EMBRACING
UNCERTAINTY
iven the overwhelming anxiety and fear that we’ve felt
over the last year and a half, it is no wonder that there is
a bit of reticence these days. We have some hesitancy
about moving forward, mostly due to an overall fatigue
of change. We’ve simply had so much of our lives altered
due to the pandemic. We have homeschooled our kids,
Zoomed ourselves senseless, and been socially isolated.
We’ve given up much of what we held dear and we learned to live in
ways we could never have imagined. The changes we have undergone
have zapped our energy, but yet we have persevered.
People found new routines and new workarounds. We navigated
our way through and have discovered that we have a responsibility to
each other and that we care about each other. In turn, we have had
the remarkable opportunity to reprioritize and to adopt a new way
of thinking with respect to our clients and the corresponding macro-environment.
Regardless of the anxiety that everyone feels, we need a new mindset
of living with uncertainty. It is possible that we have been changed
forever and that we now find ourselves in a fluid, complex new reality
with uncertainty at every turn.
We are essentially walking into the unknown and there is no way
around that. And as marketers, we have to embrace uncertainty as
part of our brand promise and let our communities know that we are
confident in a confusing world and that our relationship with them is
what sustains us.
We cannot play it safe and be successful. When we’re confronted with
the fogginess of an unknown, unmapped reality, all we can do is the next
right thing. We have to take the next step again and again. As marketers
of successful businesses, we have to acknowledge and embrace the
inherent uncertainty in the heart of life. And we have to have a new
level of creativity and believe that new possibilities will be found in the
darkness.
Enjoy our latest edition, which includes a wonderful cover story
entitled “Letting Go of the Next Big Thing.” It is a great piece on why
brand maintenance matters more than innovation. And while it seems
risky not to focus on innovation, embracing risk is where enrichment will
be found.
All the best,
Paul Hudson
/www.conduit-inc.com
/www.hudsonprinting.com
