These are great thoughts.

I recently heard John Seely Brown declare the death of equilibrium as an economic concept, and if he’s right it will be a very important thing for organizations to not only to buttress themselves against paradox, but to create structures that can flex and adapt to the push and pull of contradictions, like earthquake architecture for organizations. Can resilient brands become vehicles for this important new organizational virtue?

I wanted to explore your unifying brand idea. Because, though I think you are right that certain kinds of ideas, like brands, need a particular integrity, I also think there are examples of “brands” that are strong enough envelopes to contain not only paradox, but even contradiction.

Think of the word democracy as a test case. I think that this “brand” of political ideal/system is sufficiently plastic that is has contained paradox and contradictions, both historical and conceptual, and yet retained a strong and resilient identity over time. I grant that it may prove an exception, but maybe there’s something interesting we can learn from the exception?

How about Canada as a brand? Quebec? I wonder if it may not be important in these cases to engineer a tolerance for tensions, political/cultural/linguistic, into their brand ideas.

I guess I am wondering whether a brand can be both a unifying idea and pluralistic at the same time?

So if nuanced thinking that can accommodate apparent contradictions is for grown-ups, all those pop business books promising simple truths for success are written for… ?