Improving the economies of words

In the beginning of human expression, technically speaking, there was the pictogram. The marriage of image and meaning, irrespective of the degree of abstraction involved, is how communication can be kept “on record”. Where glances and body language cannot be preserved without comparatively extensive technology, words and pictures codify human history. In this sense, it is indeed appropriate that the 200th issue of Executive magazine entails a section on advertising. The endeavors of content communications and marketing communications are semantically subsumed under a shared term – media. Being both part of media, the economic relationship of marketing glorifications and critical reviews of the same stuff – products, news, opinions et cetera – is a perennial competition.  The truth of this competition is that media will have a prosperous future only if we can, on both sides, understand and practice our opposing approaches as a non-zero-sum game. Non-zero-sumness, as defined by