(The Philippine Star) Updated May 29, 2011 12:00 AM
I had a wonderful time speaking at the General
Membership Meeting of the Philippine Marketing Association Wednesday of
this week. The officers were gracious, the audience was responsive, and I
learned a lot from the other resource speakers invited to the occasion.
Marketing professionals are extremely dynamic. They are creative and
most eager to learn. I guess this is not only the demand of their craft,
but this is actually the demand of the times.
I’ve realized that the reason why I get so many invitations to speak
to existing corporate clients and partners (i.e. distributors even
vendors), as well as prospects, (i.e. potential buyers, procurement
officers) from a vast range of industries like energy, food, technology,
real estate, banks and many others, is simply because people today are
hungry
for learning. And they’re not just looking for information; they are
seriously searching for knowledge that would inspire them towards
action.
There was a time when cocktails ruled! Events would center on
entertainers and politicians; an economist or two would give a talk, but
that would be the gist of the marketing event. This is no longer the
case today.
Today, people want to invest their time on events that would add
value to the way they do business and that would improve their personal
lives. This new, heightened demand on learning has not only brought me
to all the major cities of our country; it has also given me the
opportunity to do training abroad.
To say that the quest for knowledge is essential today for business
and personal success is a grave understatement. But would knowledge
alone guarantee sustainable success?
Without knowledge as an entry level, one is doomed to oblivion and
obscurity. Knowledge is like a garden - if it’s not cultivated, it
cannot be harvested.
But most people do not live their lives according to what they
know. Just look around you. Many know the Ten Commandments, but they
don’t obey it. In fact, some super creative people converted the Ten
Commandments into the Ten Suggestions, and live by the 11th one, the
favorite of philandering spouses and corrupt officials who get caught:
“When caught, thou shall deny and deny until you die.”
Another proof that people don’t live their lives according to what
they know is the fact that many motorists know the traffic rules yet
they violate it. An American speaker friend of mine once said, “Filipino
motorists are the most courageous drivers in the world. They’re not
afraid to die.”
Most people live their lives not according to what they know, but
according to what they’ve learned. People learn through a continuous,
repetitive, persistent and conscious doing, until they develop habits.
One futurist claims that 85% of all human knowledge didn’t exist
before 1964. When you take this claim seriously, you’d understand how
uncertain life is. What we used to know is now challenged by new
technology. And because new technology is continuously being developed
and improved on, whatever new knowledge we acquire will constantly be
challenged, driving the necessity to relentlessly learn new things. This
can be very disorienting, especially to those who are not in the know.
And then there are those who claim to know but in reality do not. It
is said that people who know the most, know they know so little, while
people who know nothing want to take all day to tell you all about it.
Having knowledge is well, but learning, relearning and most important
unlearning is crucial. The great Italian astronomer and physicist
Galileo Galilei says, “I have never met a man so ignorant that I
couldn’t learn something from him.”
Most people today recognize the importance of learning. That’s why
today, entertainment has to be educational, and education has to be
entertaining. People want something that will cater both to the cerebral
and the emotional.
I learn so much from marketing professionals. And I’m amazed with
what they know. We may not all be marketers, but we ought to develop of a
love and drive for constant learning. Eric Hoffer says, “In times of
change, the learner will inherit the earth, while the learned are
beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.”
God has equipped us with a wonderful mind to learn. And thus we should.
No comments:
Post a Comment