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September 1, 2011

“A Business Is Only As Good As Its Conversations”

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[Screenshot of the Racks­pace client page etc.]

Now this is exci­ting: Dedi­ca­ted gaping­void client pages.

Here’s the first one: For my favo­rite Texan client, Racks­pace. All the car­toons I’ve done for them on a sin­gle page, easy to find at the URL rackspace.gapingvoid.com.

AND… they’re all in high-rez. WHICH MEANS, any­body at Racks­pace (or any­body someh­were else), can click on the image, down­load the high-rez ver­sion, print it out and stick it on the wall of their cubicle or office or door or wherever.

Ins­tant cube gre­na­des. Exactly.

And we’ll soon be doing like­wise for gapingvoid’s other clients: HP, Dewar’s Whisky, Intel etc etc.

Like I said a few days ago, my work doesn’t belong in art galle­ries, it belongs in office cubic­les. And this makes the lat­ter REALLY easy for peo­ple. Sure, if they’d rather have a sig­ned print that cost money, they can do that easily enough, as well… but FREE has its place, too.

Early on, we (i.e. the entire gaping­void team– Me, Jason, Laura, Sam etc) noti­ced that a busi­ness is only as good as the con­ver­sa­tions it has with peo­ple, both inside and outside the orga­ni­za­tion [i.e. clas­sic Clue­train parlance].

Ergo, that means there MUST be a mar­ket for art i.e. social objects that could start these right kinds of con­ver­sa­tion. Quod Erat Demostrandum.

To us, this wasn’t roc­ket science, this was ALL com­mon sense. And so we built a busi­ness around it…

So now the next ques­tion is, of course, how are YOUR con­ver­sa­tions coming along? How can they be impro­ved? CAN they actually be impro­ved? Serious question.

Tags: Rackspace, rackspace.gapingvoid.com

6 Responses to ““A Business Is Only As Good As Its Conversations””

1. Kathy Sierra says:

   September 1, 2011 at 2:04 PM

   Love the dedi­ca­ted client pages… it’s a gift for all of us.

   Wee disa­gree­ment around this sta­te­ment, though:
   “noti­ced that a busi­ness is only as good as the con­ver­sa­tions it has with people”.

   My same old tweak here — it may be less about the con­ver­sa­tions IT (the busi­ness) has with peo­ple and more about the con­ver­sa­tions it *ins­pi­res* peo­ple to have, period. Unless you mean “con­ver­sa­tion” metapho­ri­cally. I don’t have actual con­ver­sa­tions with many of the busi­nes­ses that mat­ter most to me (in fact, most of the con­ver­sa­tions i have with busi­nes­ses are for tech sup­port), but those busi­nes­ses have been the direct and indi­rect cause of con­ver­sa­tions I have with others.

   To me, a Social Object dri­ves inte­rac­tions. Many of the most-loved and much-discussed films, for exam­ple, were crea­ted by peo­ple we never have con­ver­sa­tions with directly. But they do, of course, “speak” to us. (not to men­tion that they are also “lis­te­ning” to us through audience and cri­tic feed­back, etc.)

   Reply
   • Hugh MacLeod says:

     September 1, 2011 at 2:17 PM

     Hey Kathy,

     “It may be less about the con­ver­sa­tions IT (the busi­ness) has with peo­ple and more about the con­ver­sa­tions it *ins­pi­res* peo­ple to have, period.”

     Totally. But I would inc­lude that in the “con­ver­sa­tions it has with other peo­ple” ecosystem.

     But what’s a little bit of seman­tics bet­ween friends

     Reply
2. Curt Claeys says:

   September 1, 2011 at 2:41 PM

   Dear Hugh,

   Thank you very much for put­ting the high-resolution car­toons for racks­pace online!!

   Your site, your car­toons, your reflec­tions on busi­ness and life are an ins­pi­ra­tion. I use some of them, com­bi­ned with other insights, in the chan­ge­ma­na­ge­ment of our organisation.

   Keep up the good work!

   Yours Sin­ce­rely,

   Curt Claeys
   Belgium

   Reply
3. SL Clark says:

   September 1, 2011 at 3:31 PM

   Thank you Hugh,

   The very word “Enron” became a social object. Being ins­pi­ra­tio­nal is a fabu­lous Con­ser­va­tory of Flo­wers result, but kee­ping ones boots cow­pie free is the vital con­ver­sa­tions lac­king in America’s field of dreams today.

   “Game The Sys­tem” should never have become a posi­tive soun­ding attribute.

   I believe Social Objects can ins­pire ethics. The hard part as noted, can the con­ver­sa­tions be impro­ved? I have my doubts; the com­pass is bro­ken, pie­ces missing.

   Reply
4. ?A Business Is Only As Good As Its Conversations? | gapingvoid | jennifervalliqa says:

   September 3, 2011 at 10:26 PM

   […] Source: http://gapingvoid.com/2011/09/01/clients/ […]

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5. Finance blogger wisdom: changed thinking | Abnormal Returns says:

   June 11, 2012 at 7:55 AM

   […] Tom Brakke (the research puzzle): Not even a pos­ting, but just the title of one:  “A busi­ness is only as good as its conversations.” — Hugh MacLeod. […]

   Reply