Vox, And Veritas

There's much to think about in The Support Economy, with which I'm spending some beach time this afternoon (it's February in Southern California, after all). The book's wealth of insights and analyses encourage, if nothing else, a critical reassessment of business practices you might take for granted both in your personal and professional life. With attention to things like voice,

With the expression of voice one names the world, turning otherwise chaotic experience into something that can be known and understood. In this way the exercise of voice is a way of creating meaning and imbuing experience with a sense of purpose and choice.

and identity,

One of the most important ongoing organized processes in modern life is the establishment and maintenance of identity. As sociologist Peter Burke observes, it involves behaviors, thoughts and feelings in a "continuously operating, self-adjusting feedback loop."

the authors analyze economic realities that businesses ignore at their peril. The underlying messages call to mind another author's observations: "The audience is listening -- for a heartbeat." And their hearing can tell the real thing from the recording: "[F]orget faux-hip; when suits get cute, everybody reaches for the barf bag."