And I couldn’t agree more. As a keen snapper, I have often managed to turn a mediocre picture into something approaching a little more than OK, with a good crop, border and frame.
But if there’s one picture that is terribly cropped, it has to be the whole climate change debate. I’m talking about the ‘normal’ person who attempts to engage with the subject, not a specialist, expert or relative of someone who knows someone who sits on the IPCC. It feels as if in trying to create a picture, or narrative, around climate change, we have consistently tried to cram everything into the frame. Every terrible detail. The result is a sea of information that is stultifying at best, utterly debilitating at worst.
When corporate players try to assuage consumer fears over climate change, we see this splurge of transparency, in an attempt to vindicate the company. It’s the corporate equivalent of ‘I didn’t touch the ball before it broke the window - I wasn’t even near the ball’ defence of a panicked 8-year old. Even better if there’s CCTV footage to pour over.
But isn’t this a lousy way to tell a story? A missed opportunity to engage people in a real, compelling narrative? Shouldn’t we frame it better? And shouldn’t we be brave enough to try to rebuild faith and trust, rather than just blanket transparency? If we are, then it needs less transparency, and more selective framing. Or cropping. Because at the end of the day, what we need to see is widescale, permanent, aspirational behaviour change - from everyone. And with the picture, in all its dismal detail, in front of us, a great bit of cropping and framing may be what we need to engage and be inspired.
This will require real bravery - trust and faith are weighty concepts and the abuse of either can be disastrous. But I really do not think there is a choice. Transparency is a knee-jerk reaction to a lack of trust, but it does not build trust. It simply assuages the frustration of distrust.
Faith, on the other hand, requires less than complete information - and an understanding that this is OK. We do not need to know everything - and actually do not want to. And as emotional, irrational creatures, we crave the comfort of well-placed faith.
So if the brands of tomorrow are to be built within communities, as parts of communities, and by communities, then these manifestations of corporate entities have to reflect a key component of community - to be trusted and to be rewarded with faith.
But you cannot build faith by overwhelming people with information, hoping that utter disclosure will garner trust. It may earn respect in the short term, but faith? No, this is where that large tricky picture needs to be carefully framed - framed to show the right story, to the right constituencies at the right time.
So my grandfather was maybe more right than he thought. He also said you should never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie. But that has to be a separate post…
G
