Frank and I were just marveling at how easy it is for history to morph into urban legend.
We just completed work on our first coffee table book, due out this summer, and the galleys are being proofed. Frank did much of the early research interviewing members of the American Jewelry Design Council on the origins of the group. He found several different printed references for how many were at the first meeting, who was there, who organized it, etc.
It seems everyone's recollection is different. We laugh about it because it took him over a dozen interviews, some reinterviews, to nail down what we think (hope) are the facts. Slippery memories are to blame as is the fact that at the time they didn't know what a momentous thing they were creating and it must not have seemed too important to document it.
This reminds me of another organization I work with which also needed continual clarification of it's founding days. Not everyone got the right credit in each version of the story. I know it wasn't malice that left some people or places out of the story --- but rather the fact that everyone has a different vantage point and a sloppy memory.
Let's say a magazine writer interviews the current president (or marketing director or oldest member, I'm not picking on anybody here!) who retells the story as they recollect it. OR how they understood it to be since they weren't even there. And one miswritten story gets passed down to someone else who retells it in an article in a slightly different way. OR shortens it to make it snappier or whatever. You get my point.
And why did all this revisionist history take place? Because in both instances there wasn't good documentation to begin with. So things get mixed in the retelling.
And WHY bring this up in our blog?????
Because it screamed out at me as a big DO THIS for every designer business.
I could also cite instances of:
- Designers not being able to protect a copyright because they didn't keep the original sketches (maybe because they were on a cocktail napkin?)
- Artist Statements that claim they won an award that never existed because they never saved any paperwork and they "think" it was called the "Women's Diamond Award" or some such!
- Partners who came in after the first initial years of uphill climbing but getting carried away with themselves in the flush years started claiming that "they created the business"
- A designer having a catch phrase for their business but it not catching on as a BRAND message because it's not written down anywhere or emphasized often in print
All of these examples underscore one of my Top Ten Tips to Success (of which there are 16!) :
YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM WHAT TO THINK
If you want your work described in a specific way, your technique explained accurately, your business philosophy conveyed to all ... then make sure it is written down and shared every way it can be. Most importantly on your website but in every press release (end each release with the same corporate statement of the business), on your brochures, press kits, etc.
Writers won't get it wrong if they have accurate source material. Customers are more likely to describe your work in the same way you do when you've given them the words often enough. And everyone will retell your story well if you give them one good one to start with. And never waiver.
Want to test the theory of propagating your own words? Google --- "Classically Distinctive" jewelry --- and see what designer has gotten it right.
