Secretly Using WOMBAT for Positive Impact

We create things for maximum impact. But is the impact positive or negative?

Move fast and break things

In 2019, Hemant Taneja wrote the following in a Harvard Business Review article, “The Era of ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ Is Over”:

“The technologies of tomorrow—genomics, blockchain, drones, AR/VR, 3D printing—will impact lives to an extent that will dwarf that of the technologies of the past ten years.”

Although not mentioned in the sentence above, Taneja subsequently references artificial intelligence—not as a technology, but as an underpinning of the others.

And the overall theme of the piece is a questioning of what all these things DO—and that it may not be good to break things. Destroying society may have an impact, but it’s a negative one. Can anyone think of any recent examples?

Which leads to keeping processes secret. But not all of them.

Bredemarket’s not-so-secret process

If you’ve ever read my CPA page, you may have noticed the phrase “before I write a word.”

Perhaps that’s the point where some people stopped reading the page. After all, Bredemarket provides writing services. Write stuff! Don’t wait.

And I do write stuff, creating a draft 0.5, sleeping on it, and only then creating a draft 1.

But there’s something that I do even before my draft 0.5.

“Before I write a word, I work with you to make sure that I understand your needs. I start by asking seven important questions. This ensures the best possible deliverable.”

In case you’re curious about those seven questions, you can read about them here. These questions certainly aren’t so secret, since I’ve talked about them for a long time. (There used to be six.)

But there’s something I’ve learned not to talk about.

Bredemarket’s secret process

I don’t want to reveal Bredemarket’s secret process, so I’m just going to call it WOMBAT. Not that WOMBAT is unique to Bredemarket; far from it. Many companies use WOMBAT.

And many companies don’t use WOMBAT. In fact, they abhor WOMBAT and call it stifling. (Emotion words. Geddit?)

But I’ve found over the years that if you don’t use WOMBAT, there’s a very good chance that you’ll break things.

And who catches hell? The consultant. “Why did you do what we asked you to do? Now look at the mess you made!”

So out of a sense of fear and self-preservation (geddit?), there are times that I’ve secretly used WOMBAT and not told my clients I’m doing it.

Because it helps my clients make an impact.

A positive one.

(Imagen 3)

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