Differentiated isn’t different

different and differentiated are different

 
Great businesses are differentiated. Not different – differentiated. Most corporate buzzwords are to communication what leeches are to healthcare, but the word differentiated is, well, different. It’s a bona-fide linguistic contribution, brought to you, amazingly, by the same brain-dead white-collar collective that popularized “synergy” and “holistic.” The distinction between different and differentiated is often overlooked. To be different is to be unique. To be differentiated is to be unique to the customer. 

Here’s how that plays out in action. One evening in college I waltzed out of my house, my heart set on a $1 slice of pizza. Hardly had I turned a corner when a bearpaw of a hand lifted me into the air by my collar. “Got him!” I heard as I dangled helplessly. I quickly surmised that I was being apprehended by a crew of unruly meatheads who had mistaken me for someone else, someone who, allegedly, had menaced these men earlier in the night but fled before the issue could be resolved with gentlemanly violence. Clearly this was a misunderstanding. I quickly explained to my would-be assailants that I was puny and cowardly and self-evidently incapable of masculine aggression. “That doesn’t matter,” the brute responded. He threw me headfirst into a bush of thorns and delivered his boot forcefully into my tuchus. As I brushed the leaves off my head I reflected on a valuable lesson. I felt I was unique from all the other guys on campus, my own person. To my aggressors, though, I was completely interchangeable with my peers. They sought vengeance, not justice. Punishing the wrong culprit made them feel as good as punishing the right one. You see, while I may have been different, I wasn’t differentiated. This same concept applies in business.

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Πηγή: moneylemma.com