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Start With The Words.

Enter One Word - a digital epistolary romance that examines, deconstructs, and reinvents the received language of business and marketing.

laraeastburn

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Feb 25

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"There's really no such thing as a funnel," I say again on a sales call. "There MIGHT be a COLANDER." ⁣
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"Funnel" is shorthand at best. It's the word businesses use to mean the 'path' (or 'journey') a potential client takes from learning about a product/service to the of purchase.⁣
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At worst, "funnel" is jargon. A phrase so overused it's been emptied of any meaning at all. A word we use when we don't actually know what we're talking about. ⁣
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Today "funnel" is employed as a one-word placeholder for a series of automated systems prescribed to lead a client along the aforementioned 'journey' with the least possible effort.⁣
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In our digital world, it signifies an iterative FORMULA - a series of processes, a series of mouse clicks - that ends with the typing of a credit card number & clicking the 'submit' button.⁣
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Hence, the funnel has now also often come to mean whatever is necessary to guide the consumer to arrive at that final click. In this way, the funnel is still forced to consider - to the degree required to arouse & amplify - the motivations of the human behind the clicking. Enter the age of deep-dive psychology into creating and amplifying human desire. ⁣
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I plunged willingly down a veritable rabbit hole researching ol' St. Elmo Lewis. I'm more than a little obsessed, maybe even be a bit smitten. This dude was EPIC.⁣
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He was the first (documented) person to think about the customer's experience in consuming - attempting to define the emotional states one goes through when contemplating a purchase.⁣
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For the first theoretician of advertising, the customer was so important that he amended what followers later called the AIDA formula (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) to include (by 1911) SATISFACTION.⁣
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In other words, for the first modern post-Snake-Oil-Era advertisers, & for decades after them, the end of the funnel was not the purchase, but the customer's HAPPINESS with the purchase.⁣
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Now that's a whole different funnel, ain't it? I'd wager it doesn't look like a funnel AT ALL.⁣
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#speakhumanwintheinternet⁣
#adsthatmatter⁣
#marketwithmeaning ⁣
#responsiblemarketing ⁣
#sustainablemarketing⁣
#startwiththewords⁣
#businesslinguistics⁣
#oneword

laraeastburn

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Feb 4

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Y'all ... I am an insatiable fan of speculative fiction. My Kindle and I have been chewing through tomes for years. In 2013, in an effort to weed out the shoot-em-up space operas that didn't do it for me, I started reading (mostly) woman and non-binary scifi authors. Ah, much better.

While diving into the worlds and words of these, I, like many white folk, stumbled unawares into the mind of Octavia Butler. She was the first black scifi author I'd ever read ... and I was BLOWN AWAY. These were themes that I desperately wanted - nay, needed - in my reading. I completed her oeuvre over a year or so.

And then took it on as a mission to read and immerse myself in every single speculative fiction ever written by a black woman. That led me of course to the incomparable NK Jemisin. Then to the mind-blowing work of Nnedi Okorafor (@nnediokorafor). And next to the magic of Nalo Hopkinson (@nalohop).

I have spent the last 4 years with these 4 authors (and the YA from Tomi Adayemi @tomiadeyemi). Black American, Carribean, and African Speculative fiction actively shape and inform my worldview. In ways that introduce me to worlds new-to-me both here on this planet, in this time - and in those they imagine.

As I wrap up Okorafor's latest, I'm making my list for 2021 (and likely much beyond). And what a list it is! Check it:

Tananarive Due @tananarivedue
Andrea Hairston
Karen Lord @drkarenlord
Nisi Shawl
Rivers Solomon @rivers.solomon
Nicky Drayden @nickydrayden
Jennifer Marie Brissett @jennifermariebrissett
Bethany C. Morrow @bcmorrow

Put some #afrofuturism into your #blackhistorymonth, OK? Pick up any one of these authors and prepare to have your world rocked. And, in the words of NK Jemisin, "How Long Til Black FUTURE Month?"

#startwiththewords
#oneword
#blackfuturemonth

laraeastburn

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Jan 30

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Well here's a word that's been on my shit list for quite some time. Mainly because it's SOOOO masculine, keeping close company with the testosterone-filled verbs that always make my eyes roll - y'know, dominate/destroy/eradicate ...

I was in my first feminist theory course when I first began learning about how patriarchal structures were designed to pit women against one another. My reaction went something like, "Well, fuck that!" 'Cause, y'know, I'm super classy.

Bam. I resolved to NEVER again compete with another human outside of Scrabble (where I clearly rule, so board games don't count).

When, in my 14-years of running an adult-sized hula hoop business, there was an explosion of other hoop makers, that resistance to competition came in handy. Each of us was working to spread the joy of hooping to more people. Why would I want to compete with them? Instead I focused on improving my product, expanding the way you could use it, and excelling at customer service.

Along the way, I got really, really good at Facebook Ads. So I hosted 2 conferences for all hoop makers where we shared what we learned throughout the years about running and marketing a hooping business.

And that's how my current business was born. The way from there to here (truly finding my calling as an ads expert who helps wonderfully weird businesses do their thang) for me was by REFUSING TO COMPETE.

In English (early 1600s), it's pretty much always meant rivalry. But its Latin root didn't mean that at all. Rather, competere meant to "strive together" - (com- with, and petere, strive/aim). Its likely earliest meanings were in sports and even in war - as in the coming together to fight a common adversary.

So, once upon a time, "competition" meant to work together towards a common goal.

We are right now, right here COMPETING - 'striving together' - in the Latin sense of the term on several fronts.

Americans are competing for the soul of our country. Conservationists are competing for the future of our planet. Advocates for equity are competing for how the most vulnerable of our populations will be treated going forward.

But competition in our businesses? Not for me.
#startwiththewords

laraeastburn

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Jan 7

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In the wake of yesterday's white supremacist insurrection in the U.S., 'supremacy' is the word I want to re-examine today. And yes, it has everything to do with the language of business.

In English 'supremacy' has meant 'white supremacy' in one way or another from the moment England claimed its first overseas territories.

Supremacy technically means - the condition of being highest in rank, authority or power. It literally signifies DOMINION. CONTROL.

But it has almost never been used in exactly that way.

In English, 'supremacy' refers exclusively to God and/or the Pope. Until 1534. When it is officially used to transfer power to - and in defense of - the English monarch as head of church and state.

And then promptly after in the late 1500s in defense of its first claims overseas, where overt economic plundering begins to be translated as 'bringing civilization' to 'lesser peoples.'

By 1684, that defense is actively and exuberantly extended to "scientific" justifications (now called scientific racism) for institutional, colonial racism in the forms of physical anthropology - and a host of pseudo-disciplines that culminate in eugenics.

In other words ... "supremacy" NEVER appears in our language to declare power. It is the word men use after power is secure in order to justify power gained through economic, religious, or military force.

So in my estimation, the claim of supremacy can never have meant 'inherent superiority.' If it did, it could not be threatened.

Rather, supremacy means "We're in control and we want to stay that way."

Fuck White Supremacy.
That's the word, bird.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#adsthatmatter
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#sustainablemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#oneword

laraeastburn

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Dec 31

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Truth #1. Ads are essential to the sustainable health of a business. They are how people know what we've created and why.

Truth #2. Ads are content that we ask others to consume without their consent.

Let's reconcile these two truths.

Let's make ads that are beneficial to businesses AND the humans they serve.

Yep - at the same time.

Let's make ads that matter.

We make ads that don't behave like ads.
We say what's true.
We create messaging and media that reflect the spectrum of human experience.
We amplify hope, not pain.
Whenever possible, we entertain!

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#sustainablemarketing
#adsthatmatter

laraeastburn

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Dec 29

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A little too on-the-nose as we prepare to 'bye felicia' the weirdest year ever?

Nah.

It's one of the oldest words known to humankind.

Because the signifier "NEW" is as old as language itself, it has quite a story to tell. Imagine ... that you are an early human in a small, isolated community. Everything is new. You venture a little outside your known territory and find a plant, an animal, a rock formation that is completely and absolutely different from everything you know.

In that context, "new" is an important word. It means dangerous. It means 'approach with caution.' It signifies, literally, 'something we haven't encountered before.'

And it means experimentation. Someone's going to have to figure out if you can touch it, eat it, use it.

But here's the important part - that still applies today. 'New' is an adjective we ascribe to something that is unknown to the speaker - NOT something that didn't actually exist before.

And that's where the confusion begins.

Because today, when we use the word 'new,' we think we mean, "something not previously in existence."

But that's not what we're saying at ALL.

Rather, the adjective is added to indicate added VALUE that is due to its new cognitive ownership.

In other words ... 'new' often signifies immediate and impending ASSIMILATION. It means we can easily fit this-strange-and-new-to-us-thing into the framework of what we already know. It also implies that we will make it better by doing so.

Because the things that we CAN'T easily assimilate are not called new. Nope. We call those things FOREIGN.

NEW just means NEW TO YOU.

That's the word, bird.

👉 Want more word-adventures? Link in bio! #startwiththewords
#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#businesslinguistics
#oneword

laraeastburn

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Dec 27

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The next word is about to drop. Don't miss it!

One Word is a series to examine, deconstruct, and reinvent the received language of business. #startwiththewords

https://laraeastburn.com/oneword (Link in bio)

laraeastburn

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Dec 10

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This word's odd story starts WAY back in ancient Greece. Where TOXON meant "bow," as in the weapon that shoots an arrow. The poisoned arrows used in hunting and war were called TOXIKON (bow) PHARMAKON (drug).

The two-word phrase (bow + drug) meant "archer's drug." But it gets shortened with time. SO when it makes the jump to Early Latin, it's the "toxicum" (bow) part that makes the leap.

And that's not even the weirdest part.

I mean, how do we get from "bow," to "poisonous," to a term that is today used to mean "harmful" in ALL kinds of ways - especially in terms of human behavior?

It's a hard term to pin down because it's covering a lot of ground. For example, originally, "poison" always indicated a drink, a tonic, a potion. In French, "enherber" specifically indicated a dangerous plant. But "toxic" ends up being a catchall in our language.

When "toxic" shows up in Early English (1890) - it belongs exclusively to the fields of medicine and biochemistry. Plants are toxic. Chemicals are toxic. Water can be toxic.

But not people. Not behavior. Not, that is, until 1974.

As far as I can tell, the (at the time best-selling) book, "Be The Person You Were Meant To Be" (Dr. Jerry A Greenwald, 1974), is 'ground zero,' as it were, for toxic behavioralism.

The author, a Gestalt therapist, uses terminology that is firmly rooted in Gestalt theory itself. People grow through taking in an idea or experience and discovering whether it is nourishing (and thus make it a part of themselves) or toxic (reject it).

There's no question that after this wide publication, the term "toxic" takes root and firmly finds its place in the popular lexicon.

So ... what can we take from this word's truly odd journey? I can't help but appreciate the word's origin in the bow. As in, harm done by one person to another. The 'archer's drug.'

Though "toxic" still retains its biochemical senses (as in toxic air, waste, environment, etc), I can't help but think its Ancient Greek roots are telling indeed.

It's the word we have for the harm we do one another.

👉 Want more word-adventures? Link in bio! #startwiththewords

laraeastburn

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Nov 19

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The word "client" is ancient, y'all. And like many things that old, its journey from there to here is a reflection of our own as societies.

PART ONE: ANCIENT (ACCESS TO POWER) - Its oldest known root meant 'to lean' - a sense that Latin carried into the Roman Empire's system of patronage. The patronus (patron) provided (financial, physical, legal, or social) protection in exchange for the services of their cliens (clients).

Not one-to-one, these relationships functioned as a NETWORK (clientela) of social interdependency.

Still, right from the start, "client" is part of a hierarchical classification, signaling one of the earliest economies to impose order on society according to social access (power).

And yep, it's colonial as all get-out. As Rome extended its reach, it used the patronage system to define itself politically, its national conquests now "client-states." It is the likely foundation of Europe's feudal system. And as Europe colonized, the patron-client system forcibly replaced the indigenous hierarchies of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with increasing degrees of cruelty.
(Parts 2 & 3 continued in comments ...) #startwiththewords

laraeastburn

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Nov 11

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The word 'platform' is a TRIP! It begins simply enough - literally, a flat surface. But specifically, one that is constructed, built - and thus, raised in some fashion.

And so it goes, unchanged, for hundreds of years, even unto today. From railroad platforms to the system upon which the entire online world has been coded. It is the framework upon which other things are built.

And it is also the raised surface from which one speaks one's mind - the pulpit, the podium, the witness box, the soapbox, the stage - and now, the Twitter, the FB, the 'gram.

In 1803, though, the word takes on additional meaning. It begins to mean not just where you physically stand, but where you stand in your beliefs. Suddenly, the same word is used for the raised surface itself AND what you say while you're standing on it.

Since etymology will generally refer to temporal origins in terms of mid-17th century or 1540s, I thought 1803 was pretty damn specific for that shift - and it's specifically tied to US politics.

So ... why 1803? The US presidential election of 1800 offers up a lot of clues. It was a hotly contested (and oddly, familiar right now) MESS. This was the first election to usher in a two-party race for the white-wig-in-chief, a serious effort to influence the electoral college ... and it got nasty, y'all!

To prep the field for his run, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend "a profession of my political faith." And then 'platform' is off like a rocket.

And just like that, the SAME word connotes both the position you speak and the position from which you speak it. It's kinda neat, right? One word now combines a physical and philosophical stand.

To "stand up," means to "stand for."

👉 Want more word-adventures? I invite you to "One Word" - a digital epistolary romance that examines, deconstructs, and reinvents the received language of business and marketing.

https://www.laraeastburn.com/oneword/

#speakhumanwintheinternet #marketwithmeaning #responsiblemarketing #startwiththewords #businesslinguistics #oneword

laraeastburn

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Oct 30

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Engage - what a deceptively simple word! Today, we use it casually in business. We want to "engage followers." Engagement in marketing has become a measure of adept messaging - a METRIC.

But the word "engage" may hold much more power - and intention - than we realize!

For more than two centuries, the term in English (and French & proto-German before that) meant to offer one's word - or life - as assurance. A binding by oath, a pledge, a vow, a bond.

So what path did the verb "engage" take from there to here? And what does it have to tell us?

During the 17th century, the word begins to be used to define other words - each of which describes an immutable attachment of one person to another.
It comes to indicate an encounter between people that binds them together physically, financially, or spiritually - for better or worse.

By the early 1700s, one "engages" in fighting, combat, and battle. We "engage" in bets, business and employment. And, of course, in marital unions. Even when "engaging" in conversation, the word indicates an intermingling of lives. An "enmeshing."

Then, like so much else during the Industrial Revolution, it takes on mechanical connotations. We "engage" the gears. Later, we "engage" the clutch of a car. And my beloved Star Trek captains "engage" the warp drive 🙂.

One might assume today's engagement-as-metric is heir to that mechanical sense. To "engage" on social media indicates clicking a Like button, pushing play on a video, or commenting with an emoji or a few quick words.

But what if we endeavored to think of engaging our audiences as something much closer to the word's origin?

What if 'to engage' became for us an _intentional_ encounter? One rife with the potential to intermingle the lives of the humans on both sides of the screen. An entreaty, an invitation to ... well, bond!

👉 Want more word-adventures? I invite you to "One Word" - a digital epistolary romance that examines, deconstructs, and reinvents the received language of business and marketing.

https://www.laraeastburn.com/oneword/

#speakhumanwintheinternet #marketwithmeaning #responsiblemarketing #startwiththewords #businesslinguistics #oneword

laraeastburn

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Oct 7

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October 2009. That's the very first instance I can find that mentions "call to action" in the sense of a short phrase used to get a consumer to perform a single, commercial action.

The now-ubiquitous marketing term, then, would this month be a mere 11 years old. Before that, "call to action" was nearly always used as a rallying plea to a cause for social justice or good.

It was a TITLE for a work, book, chapter or speech calling for social change - not the underlined, hyperlinked, closing two words of a sales pitch.

The first instance I can locate in all of the 400 billion documents of the @internetarchive that uses the phrase is in 1837: "An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States, Issued by an Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women." The phrase picks up in frequency throughout the 20th century, reaching a fever-pitch in the late 80s and 90s, almost always to raise awareness and influence public opinion & legislation for matters of social and global reform.

The CTA solidifies itself as a marketing term at the height of blogging in the mid-2000s. It's introduced in terms of 'web design' and 'user experience.' And shortened to the acronym we all know today in its first uses.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#calltoaction

laraeastburn

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Sep 18

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Y'all . . . the word 'female' makes me G R O A N.

(Outside a conversation about biology, at least. I mean, that Radiolab podcast where I learned birds don't have penises was fascinating).

The definition of the word 'female' is not complicated. But the way we use it sure as hell is.

"Female" has always been a biological term. It's proto-indoeuropean root literally translates as "she who suckles." Today, the Cambridge dictionary lists it as "the sex of an organism who can bear young or produce eggs."

By 1660, the word is already in use to describe the "receiving" end of mechanical components, parts & coupling. The connection is called "mating."

Puts the term "female CEO" and "female [insert any noun that denotes a human] in a whole different light, right? I find it utterly bizarre to refer to the (potential) reproductive system and/or genitalia of the head of a company - Or anyone.

It's fucking W E I R D.

"Female Entrepreneur" or "Female President" should sound as outlandish as "Woman Manatee." And not just because 'woman' isn't technically, grammatically an adjective. It's because you'd be saying "egg-producing entrepreneur."

I don't know exactly how I feel about 'woman' as an adjective yet. But it doesn't make me cringe like 'female' does. Personally, I'd just like to see headlines go more like this:

❌ Bose names its first female CEO ❌
✔️ Bose picks new CEO: former Pitney-Bowes exec, Lila Snyder ✔️

Bonus kicker:
The word FEMALE has NOTHING to do with the word MALE.
Etymologically, they are completely different words with wholly separate roots: FEMINA - MASLE
But they were so often written closely together that by the 14th century, femella "morphed" to more closely resemble the word "male." In a sense, the word's original form was altered - ABSORBED even - by its 'male' counterpart.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#feministmarketing #feministbusiness

laraeastburn

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Sep 17

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laraeastburn

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Sep 14

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It is not enough to identify (and wag our fingers at) the words that stand between us and what we truly want to say. I propose, too, that it is not enough to look for their alternates.

If our voices are to escape the received language of business- and the military-industrial-religious complex it perpetuates - we will require both new words and words radically repurposed.

Each one an act of creation.

It is a concept artists know well. Take Rita Ackerman's "Fire By Days," a painting series based on only two colors (neither of them red) and a single composition. Or Jamaican Brushy One String @brushy1string - a blues & reggae sensation with 3 albums recorded on a guitar 'missing" 5 strings.

In my own work in facebook & instagram ads, the restrictions number in the many hundreds - and change almost daily. Nearly every new guideline created to thwart those who attempt to exploit the platform. And each one requiring us to get blissfully more creative.

CONSTRAINT, today indicates a limitation or restriction. But its linguistic ancestry (from late 14c Old French, constreinte) meant "distress, oppression."

Necessity - oh, mother of invention!
From the constraints of language unusable ... a linguistic freedom.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#oneword

laraeastburn

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Sep 10

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Worth qualifiers simultaneously appeal to our fear that we're not good enough AND our desire to not feel that way.

'Are you serious about your business/life?"
"Do you deserve this content/solution?"

They present a reductive, binary and imaginary choice: Are you average or extraordinary? Are you special/worthy or not?

They don't ask, 'is this right for you?' They ask, 'are you good enough for this?'

And they'll make SURE you put others down on the way to recognizing your inherent value. Because in order for you to be deserving in this binary, there has to be someone who is not.

*You're not getting high-paying clients because they're SO not ready to recognize your brilliance. Ditch those 'bad,' 'time-wasting,' 'cheap,' 'unqualified' clients and get paid what you're worth.*

*YOU are serious about your business, right? Those other people who aren't succeeding are lazy, quasi-committed hobbyists.*

*You deserve this product. Everybody else doesn't value themselves, poor things.*

Worth qualifiers ask us to identify with the winner in a winner/loser binary.

But the only winner in a scenario where self-love and self-worth are readily available with the flick of a credit card ... is inevitably the predatory sales tactic itself.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics
#worthqualifiers

laraeastburn

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Sep 9

Open

The formula, system & secret promise to remove the realities of uncertainty, risk, and the unknown for businesses. For customers, they remove choice & agency.

In marketing & business, we tend to look to how things are already done - the norms. We want to know what works. We want to avoid pain. We want to get it 'right' the first time.

So, in our uncertainty, we look for & respond to what the 'successful' present to us as a sure-fire formula, guaranteed system … or the ever-elusive secret.

Those messages come to us a "received language," an infinitely repeated - but largely unexamined - "vocabulary for success."

This post begins a series to examine, deconstruct, and reinvent the linguistic norms in business & marketing.

👉 Who benefits from this discourse? Who is left out and what is forgotten?

Our linguistic inheritance: A Military-Industrial-Religious Complex

Military: Relies on a hyper-masculine narrative of superiority & domination.

Industrial: Guarantees infallibility through low-effort, automated perfection.

Religious: Delivers promises of magical transformation, gifts, wealth & success.

#speakhumanwintheinternet
#marketwithmeaning
#responsiblemarketing
#startwiththewords
#businesslinguistics

Speak Human, Win The Internet.

We exercise responsibility in marketing through linguistic precision, social awareness, and radical inclusivity. Lara Eastburn is a Facebook & Instagram Ads specialist for smaller business & non-profits.