As I learned through my undergraduate education, ages ago, reframing is one of the more powerful methodologies one can apply to many aspects of our life.

During my recent time as a father, when my son observes an experience that is sudden and out of the ordinary, it can be framed either as scary or as surprising. We can look at a glass as half empty or as half full and we go about our daily lives with a certain lens that frames our interpretation. The amazing thing is that, as a species capable of abstract thought, we can also change this lens and therefore reframe our understanding of the world around us.

Marketers, lawyers, politicians, economists and, yes, software developers, among many others have been making careers of a reframing practice. Naturally, they are going to take what I just said and take a position on it and I hope you do too.

David Spurr’s book “Rhetoric of Empire” has been recently surfacing as an interpretation model to which I’ve been applying everything from the latest election cycle, to Natural Language Processing (NLP) used in chatbots, and brand relationships to consumers. In addition to being a fascinating read, Spurr defines colonization as “a form of self-inscription onto the lives of a people who are conceived of as an extension of the landscape.”

As a strategist, marketer and business person who is passionate about user experience (UX) design, application of this colonization lens finds me in an ironic cognitive dissonance. On one hand, it explains some of the work I do as I strive to create consumer products that align with client stakeholder demands in a healthcare environment, and on the other, a more personal level, a polarization at times with my passion to surface and deliver immense, ground-breaking value to the lives our product touches.

Sure, and if you read more of Spurr, I can manifest symbolism and metaphor to propagate this cycle of colonization, but, ironically, there is power in reframing the conversation. How can we, as sophisticated marketers, with a abundant array of technological solutions at our fingertips, and other professionals within the reframing space begin to acknowledge the complexity of the task before us and embrace our role within it?

Where does this leave us?

While my journey through reframing is my own, the conclusion I’ve come to is the imperative to listen. Listen to your stakeholders and don’t treat them “as an extension of the landscape” (Spurr): clients, internal, suppliers market, and consumer. Their problem isn’t always how they describe it because they also have their own lens, so ask more questions and listen.

Sure my son will grow to interpret situations and his reaction to them in his own way, and I will continue to provide to him various methods for framing and reframing his experiences. One of the great joys I have is to listen to him describe his days and hopes for the future.