alumni Stories: Howard Drakes
This month, we have 22 questions for Brand The Change Academy alumni Howard Drakes. Howard comes from South-Africa, cradle of mankind, where the oldest stories in the world originate. Throughout his career, Howard has looked for ways to unlock the true power of story, first through journalism, and then through marketing. Though some of his experiences left him a little jaded, it has not extinguished his optimism that stories, given time and through the right context, have the power to move hearts. It’s no surprise that his 22 answers are each stories of their own. Read them without rushing, and let them simmer and sink in.
Working on the road
1. What's the story of your name?
iStòria is the name I work under– From ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía): to inquire/ask, to examine or observe, to record, an account of what has been learned.
2. Name one thing that you love about the place where you live.
I was once told that eGoli (Johannesburg) is the centre of the world. The largest human-made forest on Earth. It is one of the only megacities that is not located on a river or port. This is the City of Gold - established in 1886 following the discovery of the precious metal in the hills of the Witwatersrand (the ridge of white waters). This is one of the few surviving gold rush towns and that hunger, that hustle, still reverberates among the city’s diverse people.
3. What problem in the world keeps you up at night?
Only one? Disconnection. Disconnection from self, from each other, and from the totality of life.
Also, all the unfinished stories…
4. What inspires you to get out of bed in the morning?
Me at my wedding doing the traditional Zeibekiko which, unlike much of the set-pattern Greek dances, is an improvised dance in which the dancer expresses their feelings - joy, sadness, love, loss. People from the circle often throw flowers and break plates during the dance and even light whiskey on the floor for them to dance through. It is also referred to as the drunk man's dance as they are usually somewhat inebriated, which was definitely the case that night!
I love the word inspiration and everything it seeks to signify, but find the experience of it is mostly fleeting. Maybe the moments that take your breath away need to be like that. Otherwise, they would either overwhelm you or fade away.
I’m driven by optimism. I understand this as the unwavering "belief that good ultimately will prevail in the world", which, I think, was expressed by Emerson in the 1840s – “The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism”.
It is a commitment to continue despite having every reason to give up. It’s a terminal condition, but necessary, I think. Those days when it is tough to get out of bed I am reminded of the journey that inspired Long Walk to Freedom.
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.”
5. What is the big change you want to see in the world?
Connection. To self, to others, to the rhythms of and the totality of life.
I think that would be a good start. When you feel connected to something you approach with care, you temper your ego, you nurture, you serve, behave abundantly, you take less to get more. Good stories, in my experience, play an important role in this.
The world-famous South-African Braai (meat grilling), an occasion that brings people together.
6. How are you working towards that change in your own way?
Jung said we teach that which we most have to learn. Bastard! I come from the “Cradle of Humankind”, what we believe to be the birthplace of all humanity. This also happens to be a land that gave the concepts of Apartheid (separateness) and Ubuntu (togetherness) to the world. That context has laid a claim on me.
Life is an ebb and flow of navigating dis- and connection, contrast and contradiction – be-longing to belonging. Not sure that this is a problem to be solved as much as an invitation towards balance? Walk this wonderful rocky road on a daily basis with differing outcomes…
7. If you were a car brand, which brand would you be and why?
A custom skorokoro, meaning a very old or banged up car. Not just any custom though, a creation of those, often derogatorily, called “bush mechanics” – those who work along the side of roads or in workshops that lack sophisticated or specialised equipment.
Using makeshift and recycled parts, ancient and fabricated tools, whatever is at their disposal, I admire their problem-solving creativity, innovation, disregard for rules, and sheer doggedness as they squeeze more out of everything they have and get impossible wrecks back on the road again and again.
8. What is the biggest branding mistake you ever made?
Only one! The most damaging, I think, is overpromising and underdelivering. Making unrealistic commitments to clients because you feel you need to, out of wanting to please, or just plain guilt. This tends to happen when the client doesn’t really know what they want, when there is a lack of direction, lack of familiarity and trust, in the absence of a good brief and good communication, or because of impossible expectations.
This often has to do with deadlines. A horrible concept that should never have been allowed to become mainstream. If memory serves its origins are in the prisons camps of the American Civil War in reference to the boundaries of these camps which prisoners were not allowed to cross or they were shot! How can a “dead line” be a worthy end goal? Perhaps that it is why I struggled in journalism where time is most often a limitation or luxury. But the absence of time generally results in lack of true understanding and appreciation of context. A good grasp of context, I find, is a key that unlocks many doors.
Sometimes good work – especially good story – just needs time. That then becomes the test between deadline and done. It is not as simple as that, but I have worked on projects that were forced across the line only to end up being ok versus being given space to become amazing. In the immediacy of the world now, the drive to be out there, ever present, fast, first, a lot that is out there is very underwhelming and, in the noise, the really great stuff tends to get drowned out, becomes hard to find, or is obscured.
Time is our most precious resource but is something that I think is approached rather poorly. Many years ago a friend and I spent a week in rural Venda (northern South Africa) doing a story on musangwe (traditional bare-fist fighting). After one of the matches we were sitting under the mango trees drinking beer at a tavern when I made eye-contact with an elder. Our eyes met again and again. His gaze was a little unsettling. After some time I bought him a beer and went over to greet.
“Where you from!” he asked me a little gruffly.
“Johannesburg,” I said sheepishly.
He rolled his eyes and made some unflattering comments about the city and its people before this:
“You know the problem with you city people? It’s like you think time is running away, you are always chasing after it…”
Then a long pause, the kind rural elders are so masterful at.
“Here in Venda we respect time. We wait for it to come to us…”
9. Can you say more about this notion of time?
Seth Godin wrote a blog about “fake deadlines” which speaks somewhat to this train of thought – rigidity versus flexibility, emphasis on destination/outcome over journey/process, the absence of honesty and trust. He touches on something when talking about how we often “invent a date before we actually need something to arrive”. This suggests a focus that becomes more about arriving at a future point in time than what we are actually trying to achieve.
It happens too infrequently, but my best engagements are when a client(s) and I sit down and, after an honest conversation there is mutual agreement: “We don’t know…?”. The point of departure then becomes a shared journey of exploration and discovery. This removes the pressure of the mindsets of briefs, scope, deadline, deliverables, ROI, and so on. What tends to happen along the way is that a relationship develops and that initial ideas and assumptions give way to clarity, creativity, concepts, stories, co-creation, possibility and opportunity, and then mutually agreeable ways forward.
For me, this is the difference between transaction and transformation. When the focus is on the transactional we often lose sight of those transformative things and moments that present themselves but ask of us that we slow down, or stop, or change direction, whatever. And by transformation I don’t mean big bang and fireworks moments, instead, transformation is slow, incremental, gradual like a flower that is pollinated and then slowly becomes a fruit. When thinking about the fruit at the end of something we forget that it’s a journey that takes many months.
"When thinking about the fruit at the end of something we forget that it’s a journey that takes many months. I once heard someone talk about the difference between closing a sale and opening a relationship which speaks to this very nicely."
“Slack enables systems to function with more efficiency. That’s because unavoidable delays and errors compound in a system that doesn’t have enough buffer space.
But fake deadlines don’t solve this problem. Fake deadlines exist when we can’t trust others (or ourselves) to be clear about our progress or prioritize honestly. So we invent a date before we actually need something to arrive.
The challenge is that fake deadlines compound…Instead, we have the chance to build in appropriate slack, get our priorities straight and keep our promises.”
-Seth Godin
10. What is your biggest branding success?
This links back to time.
About eight or so years ago I had been thinking about ways to get out of journalism as it seemed like a bad place for a good story. Having done a bit of work in marketing – maybe a worse place to do good storytelling – I was feeling jaded. Was around about this time I started thinking about the word story and what it really means in thought and in practice.
In both journalism and marketing, there was a lot of use of the word but it felt more like lipservice like we had stopped thinking about the story, about its essence, its heartbeat. I was in the process of putting together a concept document which was an attempt to understand what I wanted to do, what I thought was missing, and how to combine the best of journalism, the needs of marketing, with the magic of story into some kind of offering.
During this process, I was asked to edit the annual report of one pillar of our current president’s foundation that works with hundreds of public schools across the country. What I met was a document full of numbers, stats, and nameless pictures of smiling faces. Our public education system is seriously lacking so the need is greater than great. The figures were hugely impressive, but afterwards, I did not feel like I had a better understanding of or feeling of connection to the people who were in need of this work. I put this to the communications team.
The response was simple but terrifying:
“What do you suggest?”
Feeling on the spot, the suggestion was: myself and a photographer friend, a 3-school pilot, and a week in each school where we stayed in the community. I knew we could find a great story because we had been doing it for some time together, but I had no idea how we were going to do it.
It was a gift. The foundation gave us the tools, the time, and the space to go and explore. On both sides, it was an exercise in faith. What resulted was a project that slowly grew and evolved over a year and a half, that changed with time and stories, and finally resulted in a beautiful coffee table book called Chalkboard Futures. There was nothing in those early days that pointed to such an outcome.
About two weeks ago the photographer (Bram Lammers) and I visited one of the schools in a so-called disadvantaged township – Stinkwater (smelly water) – after 6 years. Back in 2015 we met a brother and sister, Thato and Lebogang, who were living with their widowed mother and young siblings in a broken-down house with no water or electricity at the edge of the village. They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth after losing their father. By every accepted measurement standard they were among the poorest of the poor in the most unequal society on Earth. But there was something in their eyes. It was definitely not poverty.
Two weeks ago I blinked hard when pulling up outside the house that Thato is building for the woman who sacrificed so much for him and his brothers and sisters. Even their former principal missed the house trying to find it one day, such is the transformation! Thato is in the navy and just started a new degree while his sister is final year civil engineering.
Lebogang says when she starts earning she will go and do the degree she always dreamed of – veterinary science. Back then the world seemed to have stacked the odds firmly against them, now they have the pencil in hand and are writing their today and tomorrows the way they want to.
Interestingly, their principal, Mr Mpofu, made a prediction back in 2015: "In 5 to 10 years we want to see these shacks in our communities changed into proper houses, and it will be these kids who do this. Education will be the tool that will allow them to do this." We were able to be a part of this village for a moment and that is the kind of privilege that is rare and hard to quantify.
11. what is the true work of story?
I’m really in the business of asking questions. It is questions that open the doors to stories. Those stories then feed more questions which open up other stories and more doors, and so on.
Some time back I developed a brief obsession with the work of Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York – particularly that day he chose to post a quote with the photo of the woman all in green which birthed the whole thing. Listening to many interviews and talks with him, I was curious about how he curates the environment, sets up the conditions for conversation.
As he says, the magic is in the moment, the exchange, the places that questions and stories transport us. When the moment is over, it is over. Then, he explains, comes the hard task of trying to recreate or, at the very least, capture some of that magic so that others may have a window to glimpse it. Those of us who follow his work will always be audience to the incomplete, the actual story/experience of what happened.
That really resonates. Often the final story feels incomplete, as if there is so much that has evaded description. The story behind the story, the story of the story, is often more than can ever be described, sometimes it is even more magical than the story itself.
I once did a couple-day story workshop with storyteller from the US. The icebreaker on day one was an exercise in Ernest Hemingway's six-word story concept – “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”. We were asked to write our lives, personal essence, what we bring to the world, as a six-word story. That was hard, but, after 20 minutes, when we held them up on our chests and walked around the room to “meet” each other it set such a wonderfully personal, intimate tone for the days that followed.
For me it was: “Information a destination! Story, the journey…”
12. What the world’s best story?
“Once upon a time…”
13. What would you love to figure out about brand building that you still can't quite master?
I have never liked the word “brand” as it has come to be used. Not sure I will ever be able to move beyond my perception of brand as fire and metal scarring the skins of creatures as a mark of property, so that others may know that “this is mine”. Going back further in history along this train of thought, “criminals” were branded as a way of permanently marking their past actions.
I’d love to move beyond this limiting story and better integrate story work into the bigger brand building process…
14. Biggest branding challenge?
How to work with others so that the “brand” better represents who they are and not an attempt to sound like everyone else or burn a mark on the world?
15. Which brand is totally overrated?
Only one! For me, most of the ones that are in your face all the time, the ones you can’t escape even if you want to, the ones that force the message on you, that pay to dominate your attention, your feeds, even when their offer is irrelevant to you.
For me the world is riddled with brands that talk AT you and very, very few that talk TO you. Part of the problem is the technology and media that is falling far short of the promise of being social. The model is pervasive now, but my sense is that younger generations will force the change by voting with their feet, or fingers? I hope so anyway.
16. What brand should finally get the attention it deserves?
Not a brand but a fingerprint? A brand of walking, literally… The “Ultimate Walk for Humanity”.
1 000 of kilometres. 9 countries. No passport. A unique fingerprint. 1000s of people. 1 mission. In 2004 Miyere ole Miyandazi left Nairobi, Kenya, on foot headed to Cape Town, South Africa, as his part in the protests around the lapsing of the 100-year Anglo-Maasai Agreement which forced the nomads into marginal reserves and dealt a blow to their culture and way of life.
In this time, and after, he crossed borders with a fingerprint and stories, met 1000s who hosted and welcomed him, who found resonance and saw hope in the purpose of this journey – to shine a light on the mental and physical borders that separate humanity. The journey, necessarily, also walked into the lion’s den of officialdom, paper rule and paper booklets and paper money, deportation, violence, kidnapping, and detention without trial when the request for identification was met with a fingerprint.
Significantly, a walking protest led to the idea of the Ultimate Walk for Humanity. As I understand it, this is about the responsibility each of us have to interrogate, wrestle with, and move beyond all of those “borders” – heritage and culture, race, gender, class, religion, nationality, sexuality, and so on – that build walls around and between our shared humanity.
“The intention that I was setting off with from the beginning was very clear. That walking was the best way to show the potential for peaceful coexistence, the spirit that is evoked in communities and individuals when walking. When one is able to take a step towards another person’s house, whatever time it may be, it is a gesture towards learning and understanding, towards touching the best that is in people.
…
I was not walking sponsored by corporates or governed by a formalized schedule where everything was prearranged. I had moved away from this way of thinking. My goal was to open up that human kindness and demonstrate that this is alive in people by making them the ones who would support and make successful this journey. There was clarity in my intention for the journey, my destination, but I had no idea of the details of what would happen in between. How I would be fed, where I would find shelter, the people and experiences I would meet, the land and my ancestors would take care of that.”
From: The Divorce – A diary of a journey by a native soul in Africa, on foot.
In 2011 I went to walk for 5 days with Miyere to look for a story. I was totally lost at the time. We spent 2 months together, walked an incredible journey – physically, mentally, spiritually – and then wrote a book in a rural village. What struck me deepest was how easy it was for us to walk into an unfamiliar town at the end of the day and connect with total strangers to find food, shelter, companionship, and genuine connection. In the early days, there were many times I told myself the story “There is no way”, only for us to find a way.
The Ultimate Walk for Humanity, for me, asks crucial questions about how we have chosen to order the world as humankind and demonstrates what might be possible if we removed the “borders” that get in the way of us finding each other. The most beautiful part is that this potential was demonstrated and proven by the simple act of walking! In the time of virus, of fear, isolation, separateness, conflict, this is story, a brand, that offers us a narrative of connection.
Learn more about the Ultimate Walk for Humanity in this interview with Miyere by Kim Winter,
17. Who is your biggest changemaker hero?
I have met many, many heroes – single mothers, elders, school children, principals, chiefs, community leaders, brothers and sisters, so-called murderers, former gangsters, prisoners, even street children – on the way, each making an incredible change in their immediate surrounding with little more than doggedness, passion, and hope. These people, unfortunately, are those who get, at best, little and, more often, no attention.
“Humanity can be divided into a minority of people who can do a lot with a little and a majority who can do a little with a lot.”
The saddest part about this is that I have probably learnt more about life from then then I could ever offer in return, and yet they are generally cast as “poor”, “disadvantaged”, “beneficiaries”, always somehow in need. This is the trap of language. If we language people, places, things in certain ways then we can only see and understand them according to those lenses. In the world of narrative therapy they talk about “the word creates the world”.
Story is often about who we were, who we are, who we wish to become. It is always unique but also completely universal. It is through these ordinary-extra people that I have seen this logic play out so many times in so many wonderful ways. I think these are my ideal “customers” because they are doing, and they are doing not for the attention and publicity but because they are driven to make a contribution and change, most often for the benefit of others.
I once heard someone ask, in the marketing context, would you choose 10.000 likes or 1 moved heart. The point, I think, was to gauge what your measurement of success is because to answer either/or requires very different approaches.
18. Business is/can be a force for good. Agree or disagree?
Not sure we have a choice anymore? Given where humanity has pushed itself and the planet, it has to be…
19. If you could give someone or something one million dollars in services from the best brand builders in the world, who would you give it to and what would you want them to do with it?
Money, I think, creates more problems than it solves. Ntjantja Ned, an activist, former social worker, and special human being, who has served people in the most difficult of environments during and after Apartheid, once told me that “money doesn’t solve problems, people solve problems”. I would rather connect people and see what magic they can come up with, then, if the need is there, look at what resources might be necessary.
20. We always say it takes a village to build a brand. Who is in your village - who is supporting you?
My wife and kids. My wife has put up with the crazy ideas, the time apart, the moments when I’m on my knees after having the sh$t kicked out in failure. She has looked at me with crossed arms and a shaking head many, many times but has never looked with eyes that say “I give up on you”.
My kids are incubating me as a storyteller when I put them to bed at night. They inspire me to create and tell stories, they offer an unconditional stage, they listen with hungry ears, and if there is judgement to be made on the quality of the telling it is momentary and never personal. I have done courses before, read books, studied formulas, all these things fall short in comparison!
This time in the evening has made me reflect so much on the words we use, how we language things, how this shapes worlds, ways of thinking, what we see and what we do – how unhealthy narratives/stories, to paraphrase Ben Okri, and storytellers can make the world sick. Kids mirror of our best and worst so give us opportunity to get climb to greater heights or descend into ruin.
If one day I am able to have a platform to tell the stories I want in the way I want to, a big part is because of them!
I would also have to say uMama Gcina Mhlope, a master storyteller who was born into the traditional, oral storytelling culture and who has taken her gifts and perspective (context) to the world. She inspires on many levels because she has not made a huge personae or business out herself as the teller, instead, she works in service of story knowing the power it has to awaken and enliven others, its generative potential.
She has also given me the words that got me closest I need to get to a Why: “People always ask me Gcina – ‘Why story?’ – and the answer is always the same, I tell stories to wake up stories in others…”
I would also be very dishonest if I didn’t mention a brother, friend, and photographer, Bram Lammers. Without him, many of the journeys into story would have been lonely and incomplete – he being the eyes while I was the ears. We have worked together many, many times over many years. Some of our crazy ideas have never seen the light of day, but they have taken us to the most interesting places where we have been blessed and changed by the most interesting stories of ordinary extra people.
His gentle way of listening to the world with the eyes inspires - it is a reminder to look with curiosity, an invitation to observe with empathy, a caution to take only when the dance is shared. Remember, this is someone’s life you are dealing with!
Powerhouse South African songstress Mam'Busi Mhlongo performs at Bushfire 2009, less than a year before succumbing to cancer.
Photo by Bram Lammers.
In 2009 we travelled to eSwatini (Swaziland) to do a story on the Bushfire Festival. The organisers liked his photographs so much he has been an official photographer ever since.
21. If you and your co-founder split up, and a judge ordered one of you to keep the product and one of you to keep the brand, which would you choose?
Sometimes I want to divorce my co-founder on a daily basis! He thinks too much like me, looks too much like me, and reminds me of all the things I need to get better at. If I could divorce him, I would, but I fear that would leave me half of what I am and make the rest of the choir feel lonely…
22. Where do we go to find out more about you and your work?
LinkedIn is really the only place I have spent time or energy. I was once told I have the attention span of an ashtray? Not sure if that means long or short? I enjoy the coddiwomple approach to communication online – to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.
I love to stumble upon a sentence, a post, a conversation, an idea, a person or project, a story in a moment, as it grabs, and then feed that urge to respond, write, or share generously. Not sure this has any measurable business impact or ROI, but I love that spontaneity, the inspired urge to create something right now because it feels right.
It is a bit like the dying art of letter writing – the thought that leads to the moment, the solitude, the choice place and paper, the wellspring of things that move the pen, the conscious process of putting it all together, then sending it off with love: “Here, I made this just for you…”