The Meaning Expert™ Newsletter, Issue #1: Purpose versus Meaning in Business

What is the difference and why the only way to achieve purpose leads through meaning

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of The Meaning Expert™ Newsletter where I explore the big topics of today and what they mean for the future of brands, marketing, innovation, sustainability, leadership and business management in general.

My ambition with this project is to bring in the missing piece of knowledge so we can create a better future with business — by changing how we think about business, how it generates value and for whom — to add more meaning in people’s lives. We have the data, we have the information, we have the insights, we have the research. What we don’t have is a holistic understanding: the real sense and meaning of what things truly mean in a larger context of our fast-evolving human existence today.

This is true especially now after COVID which has accelerated our transition to the new Humanistic Paradigm where we are collectively rethinking who we are, what we want out of our consumption, out of brands and business, out of our work, and our own lives. This sudden surge in the need for meaning is touching all facets of business, as any business is primarily a human and social discipline. Business is human, and so the value it creates must be too.

This newsletter — the same as my work — is devoted to rethinking and reimagining the fundamental building blocks of business from the perspective of meaning and human value. It is only when we zoom out of the details, boxes, verticals, silos, business functions and individual disciplines we have fragmented the whole industry into that we begin to see the tapestry of meaning behind it. Here, on a higher level, we can connect the dots and see the real meaning of things in their actual context.

But this is not just about curious inquiry; this is existential. It is about creating a better shared future by using the immense creative and social power of business and brands constructively in our lives. We need to start…