Science and The Art of Marketing

Let’s think for a minute about Ferraris or Porsches; you can look at those cars if you are a car aficionado and say that that car is a work of art, that car makes me gasp; that I can imagine dreaming of owning that car - even if I already have a car, I want that one instead.

So something happened there that was artistic, that was human; that was real.

But none of it would matter if the car didn’t run, none of it would matter if there weren’t 6 sigma levels of quality, none of it would matter if you couldn’t count on the car to get you where you were going.

So here’s the dichotomy: the dichotomy is we need people who will execute; we need people who will deliver on the promises we make.

My argument is that those people are significantly easier to find, that it is easier to measure that performance, that it is easier to count on that performance - than it is to do "the blue sky" - this might not work - "artistic effort".

I’m not minimizing it’s importance, it has to be there, you have to pay for it. And you have to pay a lot for it, because you’ll get what you pay for.

When we measure things and test things and cycle things and improve the quality of the work we make we are better able to make big promises and then go keep them.