Put an End to Terminal Thinking

Until we understand that stories are beginnings and not ends we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When a story is seen as an end and not a beginning, that is Terminal Thinking.)

Until media is made to be transmitted through the many to many, and to be changed in  transmission from each to each, gaining new meanings and giving birth to new possibilities, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When media is designed to stop at the consumer, that is Terminal Thinking.)

Until advertising gives way to earned loyalty, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (Advertising is Terminal Thinking.)

Until independent businesspeople learn that profitability and sustainability (and fun) lie in carefully cultivating opinionated customer communities and not in selling anonymous stuff to strangers, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When you don’t even care to learn and track your customers’ names, that’s Terminal Thinking.)

Until predatory monological brands are disappeared and replaced by responsive and sustainable dialogical brands that participate in symbiotic economics, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When your brand talks but doesn’t listen, that is Terminal Thinking.)

Until every live audience is also engaged as a cluster of networks, and each interpersonal event is understood (in part) as an entrepreneurial exercise in instant long-tail community-creation, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When customers or audience members are treated as atomic units and not as members of networked communities, that is Terminal Thinking.)

Until stories come to life as more than windows on the world and become (once again) doorways to personal empowerment and transformation, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When stories cannot be personalized that is Terminal Thinking.)

Until the 4th wall of the rectangular stage and of the rectangular page give way to the interplay of porous hybrid spaces, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (Wherever there is a 4th wall, there is Terminal Thinking.)

Until we abandon the fiction that beautiful and useful ideas are best treated as private property to be parceled out for a price, we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (Intellectual property is Terminal Thinking.)

Until kids are no longer taught from books but from life, and tests become tests of caring, and trying, and helping, and dreaming, and building instead of uniform regurgitations of rote writings, then we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (Standardized curricula and testing are Terminal Thinking.)

Until we no longer accept that it is OK for us to be actively and aggressively killing the living planet where we make our home, and instead choose to build a sustainable future for the children we love, then we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (If it ain’t reusable, remixable or recyclable, it’s the product of Terminal Thinking.)