Here’s the latest from David:

We had two futurologists as guests at the New Brand Tribalism  event that we ran last year. I’d never met one before and had to remain very focussed to resist the temptation to do the lame ‘futurologists are like buses’ joke.  When I asked one what he did he gave me a fascinating answer*¹. His job (passion actually) was to think about what the future holds and then help people and companies prepare themselves, their products and their organisations for that future. How cool is that? …and you get to have an ‘ology’ in your job title.

Seriously though, how many people do you meet who concern themselves with the past more than the future? All CVs and most recruitment discussions focus on the past and most change management issues revolve around clinging to what ‘was’ rather than any specific resistance to ‘what could be’.

Leaders should be very sensitive to this when planning and implementing organisational change, but at the same time you can’t live your life or lead your organisation by looking back. It’s like trying to drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror*². 

So ask yourself every day, ‘am I being a historian*³  or a futurologist on this matter?’ I’m with the ‘ologists’ every time and will misuse an old retail acronym to keep reminding me…WIGIG (when it’s gone – it’s gone!).

 *¹ Fascinating in this sense felt like being slapped across the face by half a turbot that you’d been carrying around all your life without realising.

*² Now I realise that I don’t need to add ‘don’t try this at home’ but a law suit is a law suit at the end of the day so please don’t try this at home or away for that matter.

*³ Ok, whilst we are on the subject of law suits, I would like to declare that Rambutan has nothing against historians and hopes that no historians were hurt in the reading of this blog.

Although David has been extremely busy recently with Rambutan’s growing success story he’s managed to find a bit of time to continue his involvement with NBT and write an article that was published in Connections Magazine.

If you’d like to have a look to see how cerebral David can be, (along with a fantastic trainer and facilitator of course!), have a quick peek here.

Happy reading!

Wednesday 4th November was the official launch day of New Brand Tribalism (NBT).  Over a 100 guests, representing companies ranging from premiership football clubs to solicitors, arrived at London’s Floridita to be inspired by the NBT model.

Throughout the day constant reference to actual real life events highlighted the compelling case for NBT with the humorous and informative presentations from;

• Prof Jonathan Schroder
• Tim Pointer – HR Director at Diesel
• Sue Yell – HR Director at Iceland
• Tanya Channing – HR Director Burger King
• Lynne Arrowsmith – Head of Internal Brand, Communication and Culture at Orange
• Steve Harrington – Social Media
• Rohit Talwar – Future Beliefs

It became clear that tribalism is out there, it’s happening now and successful organisations are planning their future around developing their own tribe.

From a poll of all guests, 93% believed that NBT was the answer when asked the question “How might you go about getting everyone in your organisation to share your belief about the challenges you face and your solution.”

At 15:55 on Wednesday 4th November 2009 David Scott closed the day and OPENED THE TRIBE.

Comments from guests were;

“I’m inspired”
“I feel so energised”
“if I take this back will I get fired?”
“amazing, I really need to think this through”
“count me in”

Join the tribe now at http://www.newbrandtribalism.com/ and help shape the future.

Our exciting foray into New Brand Tribalism, with our friends at The Alternative, is gaining momentum and on the 4th November at a Central London venue (to be confirmed), we will be formally launching it to the world.  We’ve been testing our model with professionals and academics and so we’re very confident it is both useful and unique.  At this event we will share the latest thought, leadership and research around the topic.  This will include presentations from;

• Lynne Arrowsmith – Head of Internal Communications, Brand and Culture at Orange
• Tim Pointer – Head of Human Resources Director at Diesel
• Sue Yell – Human Resource Director at Iceland

We are not charging for this ‘Tribal Gathering’ and it literally includes a free lunch!  If you would like to come along as our guest then please give David a call.  See our ‘get in touch’ page for his telephone and email address.