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How can semiotics gain more traction in solving business problems?
Semiotics is about scanning the intrinsic systems of culture and understanding that invisible net running through our society, business ecosystems and political landscapes like a thin red line. Semioticians are those, who can see the line and trace it back to the original cause through reading and understanding signals and symptoms of cultural change. It’s the cultural systems thinking for business. We’re the hackers of cultural systems allowing others to see where the real value is. This way, we can become the hackers of value creation & growth for businesses. Currently, I am developing to a new concept of ‘Meaning Architecture’ – the cultural systems thinking for businesses, which looks at brands and organisations as living organisms and holistic systems of interlocked meanings.
Meaning Architecture is to Semiotics what Choice Architecture is to Behavioural Science – it takes the theory and contextualises it to solve the most apparent and pressing business problems. Just that where CA looks at the inherent decision-making fallacies and cognitive biases, MA looks at the structure of meaning around a particular business problem to understand and solve it in context. There are many interesting overlaps and potential synergies that can be found in business, whether it’s optimizing communication streams and messaging for the clients, transforming customer journeys and organisational cultures, aligning meaning and sense in signage & coding or their cultural adaptations or adding the extra cultural lens/layer to complex behavioural challenges and client briefs.