A Magical Profession
Read this excerpt from JK Rowling's commencement address at Harvard…You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
Ahh, there it is … "Imagination is the capacity that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared."
In a sense, isn't that the mark of a great marketer? Doesn't a truly great marketer study the human experience of others? Doesn't he or she use all powers of imagination to stimulate that experience, to make it different in some magical way?
I haven't written a Potter book. I don't have Rowling's imagination. But I do try to stretch my imagination every day that I'm a marketer. That to me is the excitement – and yes, the magic – of our profession.
