Column: “How meaning builds value in business” at The Tennessean

An excerpt:

Value in business is inseparable from meaning. And yet we often talk about value as if it were simply a price point. As if you can take the jumbled landscape of sense memories, beauty, irrational fears, prized beliefs, aspirations, accomplishments, and everything else, roll it into a snowball of whatever size, and call it “price.” Only to watch it melt.

Meaning does not melt or shrink; meaning grows. When you start from an understanding of meaning, you can operate on wholly different dimensions. You can assess the value of a thing to someone based on what you understand of their desires. Based on they want and need, based on what they cherish, based on what they will fight for, walk away from, laugh at, cry at, share with strangers, and hide from friends. You can begin to see opportunities to add value to a thing based on how you deliver it, where you make it available, when you communicate about it, what you add in, what you leave out, what color you make it, what you call it, etc., etc.

Read the rest at the link:
http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2014/06/21/meaning-builds-value-business/11173739/