Red book…

I came across one of my old red books yesterday, the red books where I kept my notes on and about the flotsam and jetsam of the world I used to live in.

Looking through them at the words and thoughts that are scribbled down, page after page, I wonder these days what it all meant. Who were these people with names that sounded as if Lewis Carroll had invented them just so he could write nonsense verse?

Snalune… I ask you?

Custom video seemed so important back then, a key to the future, a way of surviving in an ever-changing on-line world. Sitting in meeting after meeting, listening to so-called experts talking crap and nonsense about customer journey, value propositions, success criteria... they seemed to talk endlessly without going anywhere.

Looking at that page now it simply looks like a lot of stock phrases made by somebody who really had no clue about how to do anything but make calming noises – new realism, sales and marketing driven, adapt quickly, there-there let me kiss it better.

Looking back, whilst the sentiment of the words seemed right I must have known at the time that the reality was never going to happen. That’s probably why I quoted Amelia Earhart in a note on the page – ‘The best way to do it is to do it.’ Pity that they didn’t.

Still, even doing it couldn’t stop Amelia from disappearing.