Roses and thorns.
A few weeks ago my wife heard a news clip about the Obama family ritual of talking about their “roses and thorns” at dinner. We thought it was a great idea and have been doing the same thing every night at the Ho dinner table too.
On the surface, it’s an innocent little ritual, but I’ve realised that it has begun to colour how I think about my day, my actions and myself.
- The knowledge that I will need to report both the highs and lows of my day has, on a number of occasions, prompted me to balance out a particularly thorny day by doing something that qualifies as a rose.
- In the process of talking about my day, I realise it’s important as a parent to try to find the hidden roses and to teach my kids to cherish all the good things in their days whether large or small.
- I now actively work to make sure I can present my day as having more roses than thorns. If I can’t affect what happens during the day I can affect my memory of that day which is probably just as important.
- All of the above are tangibly making me more positive and optimistic (although I’m pretty sure my colleagues around the ZJ table will disagree). In fact, I think it’s difficult to participate in this ritual without that happening.
All of this make roses and thorns an incredibly powerful idea for me. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s shaping my behaviour and my values. So what’s the learning marketers can take from this?
I’ll leave rituals aside for now as their relvance to brands has been covered at length in wide variety of places. But dissecting roses and thorns leaves me with a small set of dynamics at work in this specific example that might lend themselves to being generalised across other uses.
There may be other ways to model this, but for me roses and thorns has 4 different things at work which all add up to its power.
- It is a simple framework for organising information or data
- I am encouraged to measure my day against this framework
- There is complete transparency to how I’m doing within my family
- There is a reporting event built into every day that makes it always top of mind
It seems to me that these are principles that could be applied to a number of situations or problems. Additionally, many of these are things that technology is great at automating. Anyone got any thoughts or examples of this happening already?
brian Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pmhere’s a quick one – Facebook? For committed and diligent posters/friends, it definitely covers off against the simple organizing and reporting immedicacy criteria. As for transparency – it would seem to have to be a given if the concept of “friend” is to have legs. (At least there has to be a high degree of homology within the friend “persona” construct.) The only piece that seems a stretch for FB is the “measurement” criteria. Perhaps the quantity or trajectory of “friend adds” – as who wants to be friends with a whinger?
Great anecdote about meal time, the value of discussion and how communication as a shared experience creates bonds, community and in a very real sense, constitutes how we create identity. Yeah -exactly what great brands (should) do.
Rob Beeson Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 4:54 pmI want to thank you for sharing this with us as it has finally given me a concrete use for twitter. New to the microbloging scene I was feeling lost and without purpose. Now I have a simple preface to my tweets: Rose or Thorn.
I hope that this framework will give me the same sense of optimism that it gave you. I also hope that it will help the sense of peer accountability that I felt I have lacked recently.
Thanks
Pedro Daltro Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 6:15 pmAdrian, is always a pleasure to come here and read what goes in your mind. If my english were better I could write lines and lines about all the stuff i’ve learned here. And a few other lines to thank you for all you have been shared with us. Good dinner for the Ho family.
The best wishes from Brazil.
gucci Says:
June 1st, 2010 at 2:05 am“Well , the view of the passage is totally correct ,your details is really reasonable and you guy give us valuable informative post, I totally agree the standpoint of upstairs. I often surfing on this forum when I m free and I find there are so much good information we can learn in brfinder.net this forum!
Nike air force Says:
June 1st, 2010 at 4:43 amHere products xx, has fashion model, superior quality and service, cheap price and updates quickly.I support strongly always! I want to buy XX, Original I hesitate to select which style more better.Hope your unique recommends.
air jordan 8 Says:
June 1st, 2010 at 7:03 amIt looks good,I have learn a recruit!
Recently,I found an excellent online store, the XX are completely various, good quality and cheap price,it’s worth buying! http://www.globalcommuni-cation.com/
gucci Says:
June 4th, 2010 at 1:15 amWell , the view of the passage is totally correct ,your details is really reasonable and you guy give us valuable informative post, I totally agree the standpoint of upstairs. I often surfing on this forum when I m free and I find there are so much good information we can learn in this forum! http://www.brfinder.net/
prada outlet Says:
June 7th, 2010 at 1:53 amHhe article’s content rich variety which make us move for our mood after reading this article. surprise, here you will find what you want! Recently, I found some wedsites which commodity is research-laboratory colorful of fashion. Such as that worth you to see. Believe me these websites won’t let you down.