As we continue with our introductory series, I’d like to highlight a couple of organizations that are incredibly focused on their purpose. They tend not to get distracted, and as a result are very effective in what they do.
The first is Apple. Love them or hate them, they are a galvanizing force in the technology and media industries. However, there are lots of technology/media companies, so what is it that makes Apple so different? I think it’s that Apple is obsessively focused on removing the hurdles to using technology. They aren’t just interested in making gizmos. They’re interested in making the complex simple and usable.
This bleeds into everything that they do. They are relentless in their pursuit of usability. They strip away anything in their products deemed unnecessary. They do the same with their marketing (their campaigns have characters or products against white backgrounds. Doesn’t get much simpler than this). This is what it means for a company to be aligned to its purpose and values.
Apple went a step further though and started awakening followers. First it was people who sought to communicate clearly – graphic designers, filmmakers, and other creatives. Then other people began to catch on that there was a better way to use technology. Now Apple has such momentum behind them that their computer platform continues to gain market share in the middle of a recession, and they absolutely dominate the media delivery industry. And it seems as though anyone who uses Apple products becomes a walking endorsement – because they have caught the vision of what Apple is about.
Compassion International does a great job of being aligned as well. They are involved in a library of activities – HIV/AIDS relief, Malaria intervention, education, etc. However, everything they talk about relates to child sponsorship. The idea is to tie sponsors to children through relationship. They give you a picture of your child. Communication is fostered. Compassion even arranges trips for sponsors to meet their children – including places like Ethiopia and Bangladesh. They are completely aligned to give children the best chance of survival possible. And they are really good at it.
However, there are other child sponsorship organizations who are also very good at what they do – specifically, World Vision and Christian Children’s Fund. In the 1990’s Compassion realized they needed to find a unique group of followers. It took them two years before the idea dawned to draw in Christian youth through iconic Christian musicians. Now they have an adult population that have become advocates for the organzation. Their followers now awaken other followers.
We’ve been on a discovery process of our own with Red Fridge Media. First, it was a video production company. Then it got broader to encompass most every media. Then it shifted to a marketing company. And then I had an “Ah-Ha!” moment, when I realized that what we were doing wasn’t at all what I had originally set out to do. My reason for making media and telling stories was to help missionaries, ministries, and churches communicate better. But it wasn’t just to communicate better, but to communicate differently. And if we were going to do this on any sort of scale, there was no way we were going to be able to that on our own.
So, we shifted things yet again, this time making Red Fridge Media subordinate to the larger vision – awakening followers (hence this site). Do we still make media and tell stories? Absolutely. But we’d much rather make media and tell stories that help you make media and tell stories. It feels far better to be doing things this way, becuase we’re finally in line with our purpose: teaching and providing tools to missions-driven people that help them to awaken followers.
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