The age of isms.

Something Mark Zuckerberg said made me beat the alarm clock, by a good few hours. He said young people are smarter. I have to admit, they are, in some areas. And they are not, in some areas. 

What he said doesn’t bother me, in the ad business we get that all the time. From a cultural aspect, it doesn’t surprise me. We do live in an age of isms. Sexism, terrorism, escapism, scepticism, Trumpism, cynicism, extremism, activism, veganism, and yes, ageism. 

Each time I give a talk now the first thing I ask is for the robots in the room to raise their artificial and intelligent arms. Not a single one goes up.

The problem is that every person in the room is a human being. (I guess I don’t appeal to robots.) 

The point is rather simple. People buy stuff. Not robots. People. With all their strengths, weaknesses, foibles, inconsistencies, perfections, imperfections, absurdities, emotions, beliefs, opinions, action, inaction, brilliance, or lack of it. People. Who hate everything from Brussels sprouts to Brexit. And love everything from Brussels sprouts to Brexit. People. Who can’t always be explained and analysed completely by research and data. 

Sometimes, the only way you can truly understand them is to have lived with them and observed them for a rather long time.

And that’s where age can make a profound difference. Older folk are ‘smarter’ when it comes to people. We have lived with them longer, observed them with greater depth, and got to know how they feel, what they think and believe. 

Unless you have lived long enough to have experienced many of these human traits and emotions, or had experience with them, you can’t possibly know how to connect with each and every one of them, which is still the essence of great communication.

So sorry Mark, you have lived with algorithms for so long you have forgotten this other species called humans.