The anti-marketing alphabet reaches... X

Having done Z and Y, it's now the turn of the third impossible letter of the alphabet - X.

There are not that many business words that begin with an X unless you start to think extremely laterally and include Greek words like XYSTUS, XYSTON and XEBEC (portico, spear and sailing ship) into the picture. All most definitely could be used in a wacky business funnel, pie, iceberg or cone, but I prefer, for once, to stay on the path of reason.

What about Generation X? Or would that be cheating because there's also a Generation Y and a Z? I think not because I'm a bit desperate and Generation X people are the epitome of all that is anti-marketing. Really.

OK... so, where are we coming from this time? Well, Generation X babies were roughly born between the mid-60s and the late-70s just after the baby-boomer generation. They typically form the generation which which symbolises the break up of the family unit, less adult supervision and quickie divorces. So, lots of walking out through your family xysti and into the hills without looking back! if you were born in this period, then you are a troubled and very postmodernist soul! This is also the first generation which was dominated by a screen of some sort. Not quite the computer screen as yet, but certainly the television. It has also been dubbed the MTV generation.

People like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are Generation Xers - classic entrepreneurial anti-marketeers who did everything wrong and yet somehow succeeded. This is indeed the age when traditional thinking was first seriously questioned and what I like to call a postmodernist attitude to life came to the fore - the ability to think out-of-the-box, take the risky route, prod people with your xyston and generally do the opposite to what sane people would advise. Now I'm not saying that all Generation Xers are like this, but they certainly had more tools available to start trying to break a few moulds. I won't harp on anymore about Generation Xers except to say that this generation laid the foundation stones for the computer age and everything that we now take for granted.

Other Xs -

I was going to talk about the X-Factor, but my toes curl up in my shoes every time I think of Simon Cowell - not quite an X but pretty close. Incidentally, the lovely Amanda is most definitely an X. Moving briskly on... there's also the number of times I've heard business people use the term X-Factor in presentations as a precursor to a list of USPs which are not that U. So, let's ignore X-Factor.

Incidentally, I also read an online article recently about new age entrepreneurs being labelled the 'X-Men of Business'. Again, a lot of toe-curling especially in this age of sexism - X-People is much better.

Phew - so there you have it, the letter X safely despatched and we can move our xebec into less choppy waters with W next up.

And finally, if you can think of any good Xs then please let me know. I am always fascinated by this sort of thing.

More on this if you copy and paste this:

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/adrian-liley/the-anti-marketeers-handbook-directors-cut/paperback/product-166jzkq8.html