When All Else Fails, Invest in Ideas

The photo below is of an ad for the CMA, an association of accountants who are "certified management accountants," like a CPA only with a different focus. Given the tough economic times, they're selling ideas as a last resort for businesses.  Not a bad idea, given how important ideas are to setting the rules of the game.  American bankers know and follow the CMA advice, since they have managed to transfer power and wealth represented in the trillions of dollars simply based on the idea the rest of society is dependent on the banks and that bankers are entitled to whatever they want.  I'm not sure if these are the ideas that CMA means, but then what other ideas could they be talking about? 

Last year CMA's ads (posted on buses and subways throughout the city of Toronto) were all about "creative" - making fun of the idea of "creative accounting".  That campaign pushed the same limits that this campaign does, making it hard to wonder if the campaign is an honest appeal to what accounting clients want: accountants who come up with ways of hiding realities, ideas for gaming the system, and ways to make something out of nothing.

The Battle of Stories Framework is the approach used by the United Workers, a human rights organization of low-wage workers in Baltimore, to tell its story and to get out its message.  Embedded within the stories are ideas about how society should be organized around meeting the needs of people, based on the human rights values of respect, dignity and sanctity of human life.  I've been thinking a lot about ideas lately, thanks in part to conversations with some of the people I work with in both Toronto and Baltimore.  My friend David sent me this link a few days ago to a great read on the role of ideas in shaping history and creating power. The article, written about ten years ago, talks a lot about the need for institutions to coordinate the work of developing history-shaping ideas and mobilizing those ideas to make a difference.

Cross posted at my blog.

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