How to avoid getting left behind with the dinosaurs and cooking the...

 the perfect Sunday Roast...Perhaps this little anecdote perfectly sums up what can easily happen to stymie progress in advertising/marketing or life generally.  And perhaps why youngsters in advertising to day find it difficult to step out and challenge the orthodoxy!   By the way forgive me if you have already heard it, it still is a good illustration as to why we have huge, and growing,  problems in advertising these days!The story as I was told it goes that a newly married man sees his wife trimming off the last few inches of a large joint of meat before she puts it in a baking tray for their Sunday lunch.Never having seen meat prepared this way he assumes that it is something to do with ensuring the meat is extra tasty so says nothing, however after a few weeks of seeing this he asks why his wife does it.She explains that this is how her mother taught her to roast the meat, she doesn't know what the secret is but there is a good reason for it!A few weeks later the couple are eating with the wife's parents and he asks his mother-in-law why she cuts the end off the meat before putting it in the roasting tin. She tells him that she doesn't know but that she remembers seeing her mother do it.So a few weeks later he gets the chance to ask his wife's Grandmother why she cuts the end off the meat, is this in fact the secret to a great roast?Her reply is simple, her husband always used to bring home a piece of meat that was far too big for the roasting dish so she always had to cut the end off to fit in the oven!So here's the thing, so often we do things just because we always have or worse, because other people always have. We don't stop to think about why we do things and ask ourselves if this is the best way. Often it used to be the best way but things have changed and we have never reviewed what we are doing.My advice is to question everything that you do and ask if this is the best way in the current circumstances and with the technology available. If you don't know then test different approaches and see if what you are doing is still the best approachAnd never be tempted NOT to do things just because nobody else does or because some body who has no experience but big opinions tells you that you shouldn't! Best of luck