In 1982, British advertising legend Barbara Noakes wrote, “When the world zigs, zag” on a picture of (nearly) all white sheep.
And an iconic ad was born.
It’s something I’ve been sitting with quite a bit this week. For whatever reason, this week, I’ve found myself particularly bored, annoyed with, and ground down by the Current Hype Cycle™.
Right now, it’s AI. Before that, it was NFTs, Crypto, the Metaverse, and so on. There’s always some new Thing™ that’s getting pushed—some new technology that’s going to disrupt everything and changed the world. And yes, sometimes those things do, indeed, achieve the towering heights promised—Facebook, streaming, and the iPhone come to mind—but usually they don’t. (When was the last time you checked in with your digital twin in the Metaverse?)
In our careers and businesses and brands, we’re all trying to do something—trying to deliver for our clients, trying to grow our businesses, trying to get a promotion, whatever it may be. To me, these hype cycles always feel like headwinds—sometimes they’re strong, sometimes they’re weak, but they’re almost always blowing against you, encouraging you to call into question your methods for whatever it is you’re trying to do right now. I welcome change, but I, personally, would prefer to take change as it comes, rather than feel like a bunch of new technology from the future that may or may not actually ever matter is constantly getting blasted at me.
The hype can make it hard to know what’s real. Some people went all-in on NFTs and lost a fortune. They genuinely thought a revolutionary technology had come along, made a massive bet on that instinct, and paid a massive price. Same happened in the crypto space. As professional, consumers, citizens, and human beings, we do our best, but it’s hard to know what the future truly holds—and that gets even harder once that hype cycle starts up.
Is AI going to dramatically disrupt the American economy? Maybe. But maybe not.
Will cryptocurrency and blockchain technology more fully mainstream and become part of the average person’s daily life? Maybe. But maybe not.
Is there some new tech lurking just around the corner, waiting to wipe out entire industries in totally unforeseen ways? Maybe. But maybe not.
There’s just no way to know—and anyone who tells you there is is either caught up in the hype, or selling something.
So what are we to do?
Zag. When everybody zigs, zag. I mean it.
I’m a professional writer who opened a writing-focused brand strategy consultancy…at the very height of the generative A.I. craze. I am making a bet on the exact thing—writing—that everyone assumes generative A.I. will be first to kill.
Why? Because it’s authentic to me. It’s what I love and am good at. And beyond that, it’s something that’s rooted deeply in our humanity: communication. I’m placing a bet that, despite what the hype cycle says, A.I. will not, in fact, fundamentally transform how human beings connect with one another. It may impact it. It may integrate itself into it. It may even alter it permanently. But the odds would indicate that this very new, very flashy, very hype-y and not yet fully understood technology won’t, in fact, fundamentally revolutionize something that has been central to our human condition for thousands of years. It might. But it probably won’t.
In any industry, there are always hype cycles. There’s always some new technology that a bunch of people guarantee is going to come along and make your job irrelevant. Sometimes that’s genuinely true. No question. But usually, it isn’t—and beyond that (and this is the core idea here): it’s always better to embrace your authenticity than to try to outsmart the future.
If A.I. disrupts coding, there will still be coders—they’ll just be the really damn good coders who love what they do.
If it disrupts filmmaking, there will still be filmmakers—they’ll just be the really damn good filmmakers who genuinely love what they do.
If it disrupts publishing, there will still be authors—they’ll just be the really damn good authors who love what they do.
People get swept up in things. Human beings like being part of a large group of people on a mission, or with special information, or organized around a set of ideas. That’s how hype builds and builds and builds—more and more people parroting the same perspectives, the same predictions, the same party lines. Not necessarily because it’s true, but because it feels good to be in the in-group.
Sometimes those predictions pan out, sometimes they don’t. But no one knows for sure, and often the more grandiose the promise, the more likely it is to ultimately fall short. (The Segway was once the “transport of the future”)
So just go your own way. Do your own thing. Do it well, and with pride, and with your own bold authenticity on full display. Let your talents and your passions and your uniqueness be your calling card, and try not to get ground down by the hype cycle. There’s always another one, just around the corner.
When the world zigs, zag. It’s a big place. You’ll be okay.