The Noise and The Signal

An ode to frugality

The Noise

Don't you find we live in noise?

Noise outside, in our heads, in front of our eyes.

Noise in our bodies, in our infrastructures, in what we are being told.

Noise noise noise.

We got used to it, this noise.

But since Covid, and now with iA, it grew into something else.

We notice it a lot more.

And it tires us, when it doesn't piss us off.

It tires us so much that it tarnishes and diminishes the precious things that made us.

Instead of creating, we started validating.

Instead of being intentional, we forced ourselves to pierce through the noise.

Be it for humans, for brands, for companies or entire countries.

Too. Much. Noise.

And in this noise, we got lost.

We often ask the question of what is important, trying to decipher the message.

And we are told that everything is.

That it depends on the context. But again, is the context not this omnipresent noise?

We are told it is a question of identity.

Maybe it is.

Or maybe we've been living in this noise for so many decades that we became it. That it became the identity of humans, communication, structure and flows.

We injected values in the noise.

The message was less clear so we sprinkled it with values, hoping it would improve understanding of the said message.

It helped with association and identification, validation, but it did not make the understanding or the message any clearer.

And the iA came in and it became deafening.

iA did bring some sort of clarity in a violent change to order. Jobs, people without jobs, futur of companies who will run with one third of the humans, making the humans turn to self employment. iA did make it clear everything was about to change.

And strangely, this made us identify the noise even more.

We started asking ourselves what this noise was exactly, and how we could get out of it.

What is noise?

Scientifically, noise is an information that exists, but does not contribute to survival or development. Hence why in nature there is no noise.

Now I hear you coming to me saying: Oh but it does! I've been in a forest in spring and it was full of noise!

Well no, it wasn't. It was full of signals.

Different signals, belonging to different species, living in a shared ecosystem.

So what's a signal?

I'll give it to you clearly: a signal is an information that is essential to life, contributes to life, survival, growth and adaptation.

Signals carry values, inherently and naturally. It is conducive to life.

Analogies

We have to come to the truth that we got use to live in noise, to make noise.

Different colour noises, different types of noises, but still, it is noise.

Noise is an organisation, a company that uses buzz words to tell the story of its blurry vision to its employees.

Noise is a brand that has all benefits, talks to everyone, all year long, everywhere. A brand that offers the same as competition, but different, so it says.

Signal could be a C-suite with a clear vision, communicating transparently with its employees and offering them the autonomy to serve this vision how it sees fit.

Signal could be a clear cut and strong brand positioning. One you could call blunt and bold. A clear message, specific benefits shared and created with a specific knowledge and attention.

What would a signal based society look like, if it dropped the noise?

How would a company looked like if it used signals at every single layer and funnel?

Is your company communicating with noise and grand gestures? Or is it sending signals and nurturing its ecosystem?

For signals have a set of values at the opposite of noise.

Noise carries fight, violent effort, talking (a lot of), confusion, complexity, lack of beauty, stagnation.

Signals carry care, listening, clarity, simplicity, beauty, innovation, adaptability.