“Great” has become meaningless.

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Great

If you were to believe everything that anyone has said to you over the past day or week, let alone years, everything we do is great! According to the English language, we are all the same in actions and deeds. We have been assured by friends, family, colleagues and employers that all we do is bathed in greatness. We must all be great. I must be great; and so must my work.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster, the adjective great suggests great work is above average and of superior quality, and I am an important, distinguished and superior person.

Remarkable, perhaps the next step is divinity, immortality is assured!

Professional marketers and marketing communications specialists take much care in crafting copy that is meaningful, reflecting truth and ethics. Words matter. Why is it then that words do not matter in our everyday communications? As leaders, employers, colleagues and mentors, why have we become lazy in expressing what we really mean? If a body of work has value and is expressing creativity that has lasting value, can we not express it so? Must we relegate the value to being great? I tend to believe we have become lethargic in expressing our senses and knowledge.

And being described as a great gal or guy should be an assessment of a collective in the context of time. Mother Teresa is considered a great person: historians have recorded Alexander as great; and Richard Branson probably is a great entrepreneur. The lifetime accomplishments of most pale in comparison of history’s Greats. Occasionally, we produce valuable work that may have outstanding value, but is it great, truthfully?

Grant Lee, CPM

Grant Lee, CPM

Marketing Strategies and Tactics

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