You know Colum McCann, the writer? The New York Times wrote a piece on him in last Sunday's magazine and it reported about an organization that McCann helped found, Narrative4. The organization "brings together kids from different places – sometimes directly contentious places, sometimes just places with their own hardships – and how over a span of days the kids pair off, one from each place, and exchange the story that most defines who they are. At the end of their time together, they tell the stories to the larger group, taking on the persona of their partner – an exercise, McCann said, in "radical empathy.""
I love this. Imagine an agency that embraces "radical empathy"? Imagine this exercise being part of the criteria to join an agency? Imagine an agency that is serious about its ability to tell the right story to a consumer?
I wish I came up with "radical empathy." Hopefully, I'll have plenty of opportunities to borrow it. And if I ever forget to give Colum McCann credit, let this be my admission of his ownership.
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