Artisan THIS!

You may not have been aware of it, but you are now reading an artisan blog.

Now doesn’t that make you and this blog seem special? Well, actually, not really....

So what’s with this “artisan blog” claim? Realize that these VERY WORDS are being handcrafted by a “craft-artist” with more than 45 years' experience in the journalism!

If you do the math, you know I’m old. Artisans are often old — and exceedingly experienced.

I also wear bifocals. Artisans wear bifocals.

Now the truth. All blogs are artisanal, namely hand crafted. And so, apparently, is nearly everything else these days: bread, cheese, wine, gelato, coffee, tea, sausage, pottery, landscaping....

Why stop there? Why not artisan police, parents, clowns, thieves and politicians?

Face it, only robot-made or assembly-line produced goods and services aren’t “artisanal.”

It's pretty clear that the “artisan” explosion is marketing chicanery designed to raise prices in an increasingly desperate economy.

Interestingly enough, well educated, prosperous (smart?) folks seem most inclined to fall for this non-sense...perhaps because they can afford to. That may be the point. They can point to themselves as “successful” discriminating types who can afford “artisan” wine, cheese and hedge trimming.

It’s a form of what Thorstein Veblen called “conspicuous consumption.”

But when everything is “artisanal” the add-on snob-appeal vanishes.

That’s why companies like Mercedes Benz and Gucci protect their brands. The names have value. Imagine a plain brown-wrapper car that happened to have the Mercedes star plastered on it. How much more could that car be sold for? A lot, at least until the brand is cheapened by awareness or over use.

If everyone owned (or, in reality, leased) a Mercedes, a Mercedes wouldn’t be a Mercedes.

And that’s what’s happening to artisan: artisan bread, artisan cheese, artisan wine...and artisan blogs.

An artisan blog? Big deal.

Service: What's prestige have to do with it?

I just attended a training program for volunteer board members of a local non-profit. The organization has links to a national institution that offered the training.

The training covered a lot of ground: fund-raising, PR, volunteer recruitment, organizational vision, goals etc.

The topics were a familiar litany spiced with anecdotes and some refreshing, useful ideas.

Suddenly, in the middle of the presentation, a sentence stood out as odd — even troubling. It may hide a lesson, but I'm left to discover it for myself.

The sentence appeared in big, bold yellow letters at the bottom of a Power Point page. The trainer underscored it when she read it.

Success of the board relies on the program’s
ability to make it prestigious to serve.

My first reaction was to question whether I was in the right room.

Then I pondered the key word.

“Prestigious?” “Prestigious?”

I rolled it over in my mind.

Could a meaning of “prestigious” have escaped me?

Does the success of a group rely on the prestige associated with belonging to it?

Put another way, can a program be successful without generating prestige? Without bestowing prestige on those responsible for it?

Could the author of this Power Point “point’ have been reading too many Mercedes Benz ads?

“You’re a success. You deserve the prestige of a Mercedes.”

And what does the program sacrifice to "make it prestigious to serve"? The price of a Mercedes? Expensive retreats? Five-star meals?

Maybe I’m too old to understand all this. Could it be too late in life for me to be concerned about assuming prestige? If I have it (and I seriously doubt I do), I don’t want to know about it. It’s not relevant.

Maybe in my ego-formative youth, the trainer’s sentence would have been meaningful. The woman sitting next to me was young. I checked perceptions with her after meeting. The line hadn’t bothered her at all. It just seemed to state the obvious: “Success of the board relies on the program’s ability to make it prestigious to serve.”

What was obvious to her, escaped me. I even consider prestige off-putting, a barrier to be surmounted. It’s not good for anybody. Not those impressed by it; not those who seek it or have it. The last thing I want is to be on a board full of people who join it for prestige. Or overseeing a program that measures its success by making board positions "prestigious."

Things have become pretty simple for me. I want to use my remaining time to do the best I can for others.

So I came up with my own tag line for the bottom of the page is:

Success of the board relies on the program’s ability to inspire the best in its members, making their service worthwhile.

“Worthwhile” is light years from “prestige.”

Could I have come so far?