Language and Culture Lead the Way in 2020 and Beyond

There is much money to be made in predicting the future. The business world has no shortage of self-proclaimed "futurists" who promise year after year to peer into their crystal ball and pinpoint what will be relevant to a given brand or industry.

I have found the "prediction economy" is primarily driven by what ails most of our business thinking: a commitment to short-term blips, rather than identifying long-term, and sometimes seemingly disconnected moves in culture. Our shared reality as humans can't be distilled to a top five, 10, or even 50 list of "what's coming next." A more complex perspective will show that the foundation for what is vital in 2020 might have been built in previous years. There is comfort in the "beginning and end," as defined by a calendar, but culture doesn't work that way. Culture is complex, and it is certainly not linear.

Looking back, 2016 was a year of incredible social turmoil. The results of the U.S. presidential election, coupled with Brexit, signaled a global seismic shift in perceived norms. Today, the fallout from those events is everywhere.

At that time, I asserted that language, in meaning and use, would take center stage and would be vital to our understanding of how the world was developing. In 2020, the premise underlying the importance of language has not changed. If anything, it is more intense. We create and shape our reality through our shared understanding of language. Language, in turn, shapes our culture, which is how we express our shared values. If 2020 is to have a prevailing theme, it will be how we use our vast resources to truly understand the world around us.

Recent years have seen at least two patterns become more dominant: first, data being used as the primary tool to generate insights in business; and, second, general erosion in language and meaning. In response, we need a reclamation project to save culture. Data might be heralded as the "new oil," but that analogy is flawed, and several brands are already looking to strike a complete balance in their marketing mix.

We are beginning to see pushback on attempts to negate language and debase its inherent meaning. The realization that casual acquaintances are not friends, the weaponization of data as a business model, and the lack of privacy protection have led to an erosion of the public trust in companies such as Facebook. Likes do not equal engagement, so does engagement in the way it is perceived by brands matter? Even Instagram has come to grips with the negative repercussions of "like culture" and has begun to phase likes off the platform entirely.

Making sense of the world around us requires leaning into complexity, rather than falling back on increasingly ineffective and simple tropes. The past decade has been relatively reckless regarding centering a meaningful human experience.

Flipping the script regarding our language might sound easy, but it is an extremely powerful shaper of perception. What does it look and feel like if the normalized language used in business settings referred to us all as human beings or people rather than consumers? We are more than a collection of our transactional urges.

Any language that diminishes our humanity must be actively and thoughtfully replaced with language that centers it. Even though our language choices might feel benign due to the invisible nature of our communication, our choices contain a significant distillation of our values.

Joy > Happiness

The idea of happiness, for example, has become just another tool in the marketing arsenal. Happiness is marketed as just the right mix of brand choices, experiences, and Instagram filters. A tweak here, a Peloton there, and we can reach this state of happy self-actualization. The human condition is far messier.

Happiness is a brand objective, while joy is an expression of values. Joy encompasses a totality of experiences — one of which can be happiness, but doesn't have to be — and includes a range of emotions because it is part of the active process of living.

Compassion > Empathy

Brands attempt to use empathy to make an emotional connection with potential customers. Brands are seeking connection, and emotive storytelling is part of the mix to resonate with individuals. Empathy is valuable — it offers a chance for a shared perspective — but compassion incorporates action through a desire to help.

Compassion drives activism, and we are seeing a rise in employee activism, as workers attempt to pressure their organizations into living up to their values. Compassion is a necessary shift toward making values more than a statement and giving them meaning through action.

Justice > Purpose

Purpose continues to grow and become a significant part of the brand story. I wrote how purpose would become the focus in influencer marketing, saying, "Purpose and power as significant elements in the influence landscape can reshape the current conversations happening on the marketing level." Purpose must combine with justice to be effective.

John Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance," as a working theory of justice, is especially helpful; it asks us to contemplate what world we would build if we didn't know our place in it. Diversity and inclusion, employment practices, and workplace culture would all benefit immensely from a justice-centered approach.

Community > Audience

True communities can only be built by shared values and embracing collective action. A community can only flourish if its members feel safe and validated. These components not only allow members to express themselves, but also to hold each other accountable and grow through ritual. Brands are focused primarily on establishing an audience that does not have these capacities, so consumers are fleeting at best, as they migrate from one hot thing to another.

Will 2020 be the year we see the focus on language and culture come into sharper focus? I believe that's the case because humans desperately want to make sense of the world we inhabit, and we can only do that through our culture, language, and shared values.

Meaningful shifts in culture don't start or stop with the calendar, so pay attention to where language is accelerating. That is where the opportunity will be to make a meaningful impact.

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