You’ll never guess what the word of 2023 is…
By Sarah
Last week, our Operations Manager, Melissa, sent a link to our “show-and-tell” Slack channel about Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 – a term for “something we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever”.
Forget the newest development in Taylor Swift’s relationship status, the latest travel trend you won’t believe – this is my clickbait.
So I clicked – and I laughed out loud.
“Authentic”.
It’s like they’ve been reading our emails. Listening to my latest skills share on how not to sound like an AI bot when writing. Sitting in the audience at the talk Anja and I gave at the ISMA conference. Authenticity is something we’ve been talking about non-stop.
As I said to the marketing staff from schools across South Africa: having gone through a global pandemic, the things people are craving are connection, community. Genuine human interactions. Meaning.
As marketers, this means that our job, more than ever before, involves the alchemy of reaching through people’s screens and forging connections that feel real.
How do we do that? Authenticity. It’s so interesting to see how telling your story in a way that’s true to you can make your audience feel seen.
It’s also interesting how trending language and ideas can filter through everything you read and listen to, landing in your brain as subtle little seeds so that when you have an idea that is obviously not entirely unique, it still feels all your own.
So, ok – we won’t claim to have started the “authentic” zeitgeist. But it is fair to say that it’s something we really believe in.
And in that spirit, let me say – it is with a mixture of gratitude, accomplishment and sheer relief that I find myself skidding into the start of the December holidays (almost, so close). It’s been a year full of curve-balls and challenges, but also, as I’ve watched our wonderful team show up again and again, a year of tenacity, generosity, victories, growth, vulnerability, insight, support – and moments when we have sat on team calls just crying with laughter.
I hope your own year has been peppered with the same joy, and that it seeps into the upcoming break like a squeeze of lemon in a crisply chilled G&T. (Can you hear the ice cubes clinking?)
Thank you for bringing us such wonderful, meaningful, exciting work. For being part of our network. For your own authenticity.
We look forward to what 2024 has in store! (I wonder what that word will be…)