"The genius of the AND vs. the tyranny of the OR"

You may have heard this quote from James Collins in the past, if not, let me introduce it to you. I heard Jim speak when I was with Alias|Wavefront (a Silicon Graphics Company) at an all hands meeting in Mountain View. This was just after his release of Built To Last. He is now best known for his book, Good To Great, which everyone should have on their shelf.

The quote again:

"The genius of the AND vs. the tyranny of the OR"

This stuck with me the first time I heard it that day in '95 and I have repeated it often, in fact today I mentioned it in a conversation with a prospect. He was thinking about various social media strategies that he wants to pull together and is struggling with making a decision. He was locked in the OR land - this OR this OR this OR this... that is a vicious cycle. What I love about this philosophy is it's liberating tone of voice. I suggested to him (after quoting the quote), that he enjoy some AND for a while and think about doing this AND that AND this AND that.

With this specific example, social media tools are becoming ubiquitous and in many cases free as well, so the barrier to entry to testing the waters would allow someone to try this one AND that one, rather than this OR that. Make sense?

I bet you have a lot of AND / OR discussions during the day, especially in this trying times. See if you can turn one of them around today and make it AND instead of OR.