Creating cohesion

It is the duty of any creator to set the premise of ‘whole’, it is cohesion. The better the cohesion the longer the life of what is created. So far there is no issue. Yet in this day and age where can one create a system of cohesion? Microsoft is perhaps the best example of failure, yet they too had their moments of cohesion. Microsoft Office is clear evidence of that. The surface (or pro) is not. Apple created cohesion and it did so in an amazing way with the iPad. It has some shelf life yet the setting according to several people is “Without a keyboard the Surface Pro is really just a nice, and expensive, tablet.” A keyboard created to some extent the cohesion for a tablet. From version 2 till version 8, a massive currency wave of destabilisation. Apple has the iPad which lasted some a decade, now it has an ‘air’ label. The Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/22979828/apple-ipad-air-2022-review) gives us ‘APPLE IPAD AIR (2022) REVIEW: IT’S THE NICE ONE’ and that is it, Microsoft lost most of its cohesion overnight there and a keyboard will not save it. Cohesion in IP is close to everything. If you do not have a cornerstone from the very beginning you basically have nothing. That is how Microsoft lost the Surface war to Apple, the cloud war to Amazon, the console war to Sony and soon streamers too (Google and Amazon) and their one cornerstone (Office) which was iterated again and again is now a behemoth of applications and none of them can maintain the cohesion they once had. Optionally losing to Adobe, Google and Apple. All three with its own levels of cohesion. Adobe has the presentation and display edge, Google has the Free edge and therefor the easiest way of creating cohesion, that same option has Apple on its own devices. The two elements that Microsoft has (at present) is Excel, it is a true behemoth of cohesion and PowerPoint which is losing cohesion fast. One element they could not control. Meta was an unknown and it will sink its teeth in the cohesion that was once PowerPoint. It enables Adobe in a few ways, but it is the lack of innovation and the idea I am floating towards Google will enable Google to cut into PowerPoint to a much larger degree. PowerPoint will suffer there is no other way for it, it is the price of absent innovation. Real innovation! Not the innovation that Microsoft marketing claims it is. And my idea that evolved in mere hours will enable that course.

So only Excel remains. And yes there is no real way to counter it, Google does not have what it takes, Adobe does not have what it takes and neither does Apple. One element that defines the Microsoft office population. Cohesion was everything and it is most likely the only place where Microsoft has a serious amount of cohesion. And the Microsoft chihuahua can yap all it wants, I am not putting that IP here. Handing it over to Google for free (well almost) is just too rewarding and it will carry towards my other IP. You see, it is a way to create cohesion. To show the other where you (Microsoft) failed and illustrating it in simple ways. That is what marketing forgets, spin only gos so far, after that it is anyones game. Just like the Toronto Eaton Centre showed me clearly how malls will fail until they create true engagement with its audience, a setting that was made abundantly clear by players like Omnicom and TRO. It took me a few hours to create 8 pieces of IP. OK, granted only one is mostly mine, the other 7 are innovative patents now waiting to happen. And as you wonder what one has to do with the other the simple truth pushes forward there is a clear correlation and a clear connection between creating engagement and creating cohesion. Getting the people involved is how you get there, not capturing there data Mr Horton, also known as the new version of Horton hears a what? Yes, the Dr Seuss jokes are coming to town too. There lies the rub, Dr Seuss created cohesion with its readers, it was eccentric but it is there. That is what was needed, not the data.

Cohesion is often seen as unity through sameness (like water), so you can create unity, but that defats the purpose of engagement or you can relate to gel (like the gecko) and stick to anything and that is actually the most interesting kind. In my case it allowed me to create (in my mind) the Kraken torpedo (on February 27th) it does not destroy a submarine, it incapacitates it. It was adhesion not cohesion that created one, but both have similar paths and there we have the second key. Engagement is found in getting differences to work together or at least work in the same direction and form a new or structurally sound unity of differences. Some see it as a form of team building and it is, but it is not really the same. In a team the 11 elements (like football) all work towards the same goal (pun intended). In engagement we get 11 people to work in a similar directions according to their personal needs and desires. The engaging party will hope that they all move in their direction but it s not a given. More importantly, the individual scores are essential for the engager to find out if they are in a place to create cohesion and that is not the same, but the results could be stronger, a lot stronger. That is why engagement with your audience is essential in places like malls, or user requirements in software (games included) the latter part seems easier but it has its own challenges. That one element is what I think Microsoft forgot about and now that they lost cohesion and adhesion is not something they can rely on, that is the point where Adobe, Apple and Google can take over and carve the carcass (Microsoft Office) up. And it will happen until there is merely Excel left. When they find a way to overcome that too Microsoft will be done for. From Windows 95 it took 30 years for the cohesion to stop and we are almost there, what replaces it is anyones guess, perhaps some will grow up and see that there is no one ruler, it will be about personal preference. It might be that Adobe, Apple, and Google will work together and let the people decide what they like best. It might be the best path to create new instances of strong cohesion, but in the end it will be anyones guess. It is my personal view that Microsoft wanted to be everywhere and ended nowhere. I think it was better stated in Suckerpunch (2011) “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” I do not care either way Microsoft tried to bully gamers and one gamer (me) got mad and created options to cut them down to size. And the evidence was all over the place and it was evidence that was not created by me, marketing people a lot more clever than me set these tones. I merely used that springboard to set a new generation of adhesive cohesion through IP and I am not nearly done yet. The Victoria Secrets idea (read the articles of last week) is taking root in a few other places too. All based on evolved existing IP.