The Present Indicative, 4 November 2025
My Current Mood: Electing Exposition
“...there’s a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.” Stephen King, On Writing
In academic writing, at some point close to the beginning of your monograph, you need to posit your hypothesis. The problem and your evidence-based solution. Same goes for business writing. Put the bottom line that motivates action right at the top of your memo, and then organize the reasons why thereafter (in descending order of importance).
In creative writing we try not to be so obvious. Authors can get away with a chapter of backstory if it helps contextualize the narrative, but screenwriters have to put explanation in the mouths of their characters if they don’t cheat with a Morgan Freeman/Sigourney Weaver/Ron Howard narrator or a running Star Wars scroll.
In his memoir titled On Writing, Stephen King explains the value of “Show, don’t tell.” Well, he doesn’t state it that obviously, because he does not want to be a hypocrite to his own advice. He shows through example how effective writing communicates more than the sum of the words used to craft the narrative. My opening quote is about as close as King gets to telling you the literary secret. Great stories show you their truth, they don’t tell it. You go on the journey with the characters and reach the climax and conclusion by the truth in their choices.
But despite a preference in fiction (and Zen Buddhism) for the events to unfold based on the characters’ choices, we sometimes need to be told why we’re doing something and how we’re getting somewhere. Some kind of declaration that frees us from past assumptions. And so for this fourth publication of The Present Indicative, we’re going to explain the framework that sits behind the construction of our podcast, The Future Indicative.
We hold these truths to be self-evident…
In Part 1 of the inaugural episode of The Future Indicative, I asserted that all business, no matter the vertical or direction of its revenue (for profit or charity) must provide value to its customer base by tying its products and services to the actual needs of a customer. No brainer, right? Answering the question of need by delivering meaning provides value. And that should be the business of every business. But looking back over my time as a ham-and-egger, I’ve witnessed and worked with organizations who could not do the math of Need + Delivered Meaning = Value.
If we can trust the internet, Galileo Galilei said something to the effect of “The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” Probably in Italian. Well, the laws of business are written by the hands of man in the same language, and a lot of MBAs are failing at it. A lot of non-MBAs are also failing, but at least they didn’t waste their money on tuition that gave them a piece of paper and not that formula. N + DM = V.
…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
Now, it’s possible they did learn this formula, but are incentivized to forget it. In Part 2 of the inaugural episode of The Future Indicative, my very smart guest Matthew Josefowicz was focused on customer value:
A lot of times you can lose sight of customer value and customer needs as you focus on growth imperatives, or as you focus on operating efficiency, and you can start to sacrifice customer experience for better profitability or product portfolio expansion, or something that you think is going to lead to growth.
And both of those are important. It’s important to keep growing your product portfolio and to keep improving your efficiency to the degree that you can. But when they come at the expense of customer value, that’s kind of the beginning of the end because unless you are selling something with a tremendous amount of lock-in where the customer really doesn’t have alternatives. As soon as they start to feel like they’re not your priority anymore, it’s very easy for them to go elsewhere.
So putting it in terms that Galileo could understand:
Growth(Efficiency) - Delivered Meaning = -Value * Customer
Where the variable of Customer = 0 because you lost them. Good luck getting them back.
…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
The Future Indicative is a podcast on the trends, technologies, personalities, and narratives of business, delivered in two manageable auditory bite-sized pieces. To digest big ideas in short timeframes you need an organizing principle. Mine is called the Four S in Business.
You spell the word business with the letter S three times, but it takes four of them for a business to be in business:
SPECIALIZE: What is this?
SELL: Who needs this?
SECURE: What can disrupt this?
SCALE: How do we expand this?
Every business must address these four categories, some sooner than others, but all of them to discover, deliver, defend, and diversify what defines customer value. I could have called it the Four D in Business, but there’s no D in the word business, so there you go. Each episode examines a trend and topic of business, by interviewing a personality (or two), and producing a narrative that speaks for me to you.
It is my hope we can cover a lot of verticals, functions, questions, and answers both here and in the podcast, but I’m doing it by myself to establish the first S: SPECIALIZE. As I learn about your needs I’ll deliver what I think is meaningful, and I’ll work with you to ensure it provides value. I hope you’ll consider me a new guard for your future security.
Speaking of which, it’s Election Day here in America. Mostly local elections, but don’t let that escape your notice. As was noted by David Harbour on Instagram, “The mayor from Jaws is still the mayor in Jaws 2. Be sure to vote in your local elections.” For those out of Southington, CT, my friend Dave Scott is running for the Planning & Zoning Commission. I’m not sure his position on sharks at the beaches and summer tax dollars because Southington is landlocked, but I know he’s running because if you want something done right (or left), you’ve got to do it yourself. Plus he’s a hawk on apple fritters.
In Related News…
The Future Indicative is here! My podcast on the trends, technologies, personalities, and narratives of business! Episode Two is on the business function of Marketing, and I talk to Megan Heuer about the necessary revolution in the role marketing must play in the 21st-century product delivering value to the 21st-century customer. If you ever wanted to know what I think marketing should be, THIS. IS. IT. Thank you for listening!
The Future Indicative, Ep 2 Part 1
The Future Indicative, Ep 2 Part 2
Enjoy!
Alex Effgen