The gearshift, p.2 : The Edge

It’s a shame that I posted a link earlier today to this post on CultureBy before making my daily rounds, as I think it to be a particularly intriguing read in light of this recent post by Richard Huntington on AdLiterate.

In the post, entitled Strategies from the Edge, Richard bemoans the trepidation of creatives for ideas that exist in the fringes of the accepted, and argues that these outlying areas of thought are the richest source for breakthrough ideas ( I paraphrase, perhaps with too much license ).

The Edge is where you find the behaviour or attitudes of a small number of people that might be made into the behaviour or attitudes of a large number of people. The Edge is where you find deeper insight because it is place you will uncover the real reason why people do some things and not others. The Edge is the place where the strategy everyone fears lives, the strategy that might just nail your problem.

It’s difficult to disagree.

In light, though, of Grant’s poignant piece I think it’s worth asking at this particular juncture: Does our emotional need to dwell / nest / return home pull us away from the edge at the very time we most need it? Much has been made of the nesting instincts of Americans (and others) in the aftermath of 9/11, and I’ll make no attempt to rehash it here. Certainly, though, we witnessed a return to safe, comfortable notions of home, family, and work - but also art, ideation and the creative process.

I realize, lest it be suggested otherwise, that safe is not anathema to the edge - but the correlation exists, to be certain.

More pragmatically: it could be readily suggested that the economic crisis(?) of recent weeks will drive those of us in the creative ( or, at least, creative-for-hire ) world back from the edge. Clients, eager to generate mildly positive results for fear of waste, will insist as much. We, eager to continue our own rides, will be tempted to capitulate. Concurrently, the well will begin to dry, as the fringes inevitably do, returning home to the safety of what provides. And all of this can / will / may happen at the very time when the edge is most necessary.

Surely those brave enough to have approached the edge despite these trends will find themselves riding the crest of the next surging modality.