“If you feel overwhelmed and confused by the global predicament, you are on the right track. Global processes have become too complicated for any single person to understand. How then can we know the truth about the world, and avoid falling victim to propaganda and misinformation?”
“How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed, and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?”
– Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
After twenty-five years working for two of the most respected brands in the public relations and public affairs industry, I decided to launch my own firm, CSC. In the first of what I hope to be an ongoing series of commentaries, I wanted to share my answer to a question I explored before leaping with blind exuberance into the entrepreneurial abyss: what is the central idea behind CSC*, what inspired me to do it and why do I think some 21st century clients may be drawn to it?
Every beginning is a story
CSC’s beginning is nothing more than the founder’s aspiration: to convene a unique roundtable of diverse consultants who are focused on delivering excellent work. It’s that simple. CSC will seek to work with consultant-partners (who actually do client work as well as manage the business) who are experts in their fields, and who are passionate about creating carefully considered and beautifully executed communication solutions designed to help our clients manage change — the only true constant in any organization.
CSC’s origin story begins with a clear vision for an ending, not the ending, just an ending: CSC is a sustainable and independent partnership where it’s all about what we deliver. Partners lead every client engagement. CSC delicately balances growth and profitability and purpose-driven work. CSC applies a multi-disciplinary approach to client challenges and CSC has a purpose linked to its own sustainability: to support our clients as they manage change, to help our communities become more resilient to change, and to provide our partners and associates with a roundtable for discussing, debating, exploring, and managing change with rigor, clarity and creativity.
I would be humbled and supremely gratified with such an ending. But we are not anywhere near the end. This is only CSC’s beginning.
CSC: Diverse Perspectives
What initially attracted me to the PR industry back in 1992 was the opportunity to work for diverse clients on a broad range of challenges. I had just finished graduate school and thought that, as my first job out, the industry would be a mere stepping stone for something else: it turned out to be an intellectually interesting and rewarding career that provided continuous learning opportunities from my clients and my peers at every step along the way.
In the pharma space, I launched products at a time of heightened patient activism and calls for greater transparency in prescription drug pricing. In the consumer space, I worked for heavily regulated industries that were trying to differentiate themselves as responsible marketers. In tech, I worked with a powerhouse brand that was trying to establish itself as a true innovator in Latin America. In the public sector, I was on the team that pitched and won the introduction of the new, counterfeit-resistant twenty-dollar bill. And in the social sector space, I consulted with some of the most prominent foundations and social services organizations in the world. These engagements presented fascinating challenges that benefited from a multi-disciplinary approach to their issues: political and organizational analysis, economics, primary and secondary research, policy analysis, and consumer and marketing insights from social science research.
It was the multi-disciplinary nature of these engagements early on in my career that kept me intellectually interested in the work and they allowed for a practical application of my graduate school work in public affairs. It was exciting to develop a communications portfolio consisting of some of the most challenging brands and complex issues of the day and there was never a dull moment. It is this same multi-disciplinary mindset and approach that will define our work at CSC.
I chose Yuval Noah Harari’s quotes above to set a tone for this essay for two reasons: first, if you’ve read him, then you very quickly discovered that he doesn’t just stick to history. He is a historian who draws from evolutionary psychology, philosophy, sociology and economics. He wrestles with some of the most interesting and complex questions facing us today by breaking through his academic silo and weaving in other disciplines that — collectively — provide a richer and more nuanced explanation of who we are, what motivates us and what are the questions that need to be asked as we head into the unknown.
Second, Harari writes beautifully and clearly about our need for stories. It seems we are all hard-wired to want a story, to be part of a story and to tell a story that might help explain our “age of bewilderment.” The stories we will continue to tell — about our brands, our organizations, and our culture — will benefit from the same multi-disciplinary approach he applies to his own work.
At CSC we apply an multi-disciplinary approach to explore and devise the most effective communication approaches and, in so doing, we aspire to create “designed communication” – communication that is informed by the diverse perspectives of our consultant-partners, carefully considered, and with a very specific impact in mind.
How might brands in the private- public- and social-sector communicate more effectively in the 21st century? This is a question that we will continue to explore at CSC. And it appeals to my own curiosity and interests.
CSC: Designed Communication
Designed communication is not a product or a methodology. It’s really a statement about the kind of work we would be proud of.
When I think of the phrase “designed communication” several things come to mind:
First, there is the implicit idea that CSC will focus on the quality of the work. Our intention is to produce the best work possible for our clients and ourselves. And this is why our partner and future partners will lead the work.
Second, designed communication will be carefully considered, deliberate, calculated even. All too often, we quickly jump into storytelling mode for our clients (or tactical programming) without really exploring the hearts and minds of the people we are trying to reach with some foundational premise in mind or “model for change.” Designed communication is a reminder that we must pause to do just that.
Third, designed communication implies that there is a clear intention to aim with precision. Whether taking our cues from primary research, from social science literature, or from engaging with a subset of the very individuals we are trying to engage — designed communication aims for more carefully crafted storytelling.
And finally, designed communication suggests something about design as well — the elegance in the packaging or the execution. In an increasingly visual, digital and multimedia driven communication ecosystem, beautiful design makes a difference. Beautiful design can be breathtaking.
Designed communication is an aspiration for the kind of work we want to deliver — measured, precise, creative and, in the best case, even elegant work.
Communicator-Partners Lead and Do
Finally, a brief word about the people CSC wants to attract and work with. CSC’s consultant-partners are exactly that: each of us is responsible for doing the work, for providing communication consulting to our clients and for owning our work. Each of us is also responsible for building the business and leading projects that are personally challenging and interesting and also profitable for the firm as a whole. CSC’s consultant-partners believe in and care about the partnership. They will have been carefully chosen for their ability to win the trust of their clients, the pride they’ve taken in their work, and their willingness to embrace the responsibilities inherent in a roundtable structure: passionate commitment to sustain and nourish the whole in exchange for a seat at the table and equity in the brand.
This is my aspiration.
*And why “CSC”?
CSC. Crosby Street. Consultants. It’s where the idea for the business started. It’s a street in NYC’s Soho neighborhood that has come to represent constant change. From an urban dessert in the 70s, a thriving artist community which up until fairly recently included Bowie’s recording studio, to what it has currently become — a surprisingly distinct block bound by Chinatown, Little Italy and SOHO — Crosby Street represents an ever-changing and re-imagined New York that I have come to love.
Crosby is also what I chose to name my non-human companion, a beautiful and gentle black lab. CSC couldn’t ask for a more perfect mascot: a gentle giant with a relentless focus on the present (especially if food is involved), a curious creature, a failed graduate of Guiding Eyes, but a resilient one, who perhaps believed (wishful thinking) that sharing his life with a human on Crosby Street was worth failing the test for.