Saved by Keely Adler
Epics vs. Lore
The common feature in the work of these emerging thinkers is the centrality of lore, as in folklore, the lore of a fictional extended universe, or more pertinently, the water-cooler lore of an organization, in the framing of the traditional concerns of management and organizational theory. Lore, you might say is the feedstock of both stories and wo... See more
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
Lore is something you witness, and attempt to shape as it emerges, if it emerges, not something you design and execute. You cannot, for instance, set out to write an origin myth. At least not one that will work as lore (though it may work as part of a grift). You can only recognize and institutionalize one.
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
Severin Matusek and added
An implication that creates the sharp contrast to traditional marketing is that lore cannot be engineered in the same way marketing can be. While you can shape lore as it emerges, it is a matter of subtle gardening and curation. You do not go around trying to invent brand names, logos, and brand-identity postures for emerging lore. You are not pump... See more
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
I stumbled across a key insight that may or may not have been spotted before: lorecraft is the evil twin of marketing.
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
t is also tempting to dismiss this kind of thing as non-rigorous solipsism, but that would be a bad mistake. Lorecraft does rely on rigorous argumentation and empirical-phenomenological grounding. In fact it is much more grounded and empiricist than traditional management thinking, with its arsenal of unacknowledged myth-and-ceremony cognitive tool... See more
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
But there’s a really compelling alternate hypothesis — lorecraft is how you design and manage organizations where all the dull and boring stuff is increasingly being automated away, and what’s left of management and leadership functions is increasingly just the interesting and hard to automate stuff.
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Alex Wittenberg added
Then it hit me: lorecraft is a natural and adaptive intellectual response to the automation of vast swathes of managerial/leadership functions, and organizational processes. You end up doing more of what the machines don’t.
Venkatesh Rao • Lands of Lorecraft
Severin Matusek added