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Design

Seeing the Whole Picture


Seeing the Whole Picture

Developer Market News September 2002

In A.D. 1296, the foundation stone was laid for a new cathedral in Florence, Italy. The builders and the financiers (wealthy wool merchants) had a vision for what they wanted, which included a dome of greater size than had ever been constructed. The story is presented in marvelous detail by Ross King in his book, Brunelleschi's Dome (Penguin Books), and will be enjoyed by anyone interested in art, architecture, engineering, or history.

Constructing the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore would take 150 years. Progress was routinely interrupted by wars, and by the Black Death, which at one point claimed 80 percent of the residents of the city. What was remarkable, though, was not the time it took, but this fact: "Even the original planners of the dome had been unable to advise how their project might be completed: they merely expressed a touching faith that at some point in the future God might provide a solution."

In 1418, it finally became necessary to provide a workable design for the dome. The town fathers arranged for a competition to solve what seemed like an impossible situation. The winner was one Filippo Brunelleschi, who was not a carpenter or a mason, but a goldsmith and a clockmaker. His experience in those professions gave him a unique perspective on the challenges, and the result not only allowed the cathedral to be built — it revolutionized architecture.

Zip to the present: to the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, where three mathematicians have apparently solved the age-old problem of how to prove that a number is prime. The importance and complexity of this problem was effectively addressed in the July issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (see "Prime Numbers"), published just a few weeks prior to the actual solution emerging in India.

Assuming that the new theory holds water, we can look for a significant impact, particularly in the area of encryption. Those working in the field have been given revolutionary insights, just as Brunelleschi's insights opened the door to Renaissance architecture.

With marketing, we are subject to no such laws. Of course, we follow certain trends and guidelines so that results fall within predictable patterns, but at the end of the day we can really do whatever we want. Those who are aggressive innovators either become heroes or unemployed.

In planning media campaigns, we are still slicing and dicing everything up into separate categories for print, online, face-to-face, direct mail, direct e-mail, and so on. Is this still the best way to be doing things? I ask the question seriously, and without holding my own answer. What has worked for you, and what hasn't? How can we at CMP do a better job of helping you sell your products and services?
The construction of Santa Maria del Fiore involved the skilled labor of woodcutters, carpenters, stone cutters, masons, and manual laborers. The project may have been started on faith, but it was brought to successful completion by the vision of someone who understood how all the pieces needed to fit together, and who did not allow his imagination to be limited by tradition. The magnificent dome, finished in 1446, still dominates the Florentine skyline.


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