Today a news article circulated about reCAPTCHA, the annoying system where you type the illegible word to prove you’re not a robot.

Turns out they’re pulling those words from out-of-print or rare books for the google books project. And humans all around the world (whenever they confirm they aren’t a robot) are actually doing what technology cannot to digitise those texts.

I’m amazed at how much good will I feel toward this annoying little process now, where before there was only rage at how illegible the words were. I’m so impressed that I might even consider this company if I ever need that kind of service, whereas before the ‘bad design’ or ‘poor pixellation’ would have had me avoid them.

This is the power of why.

It may not change the facts of a situation, but a clear ‘why’ changes attitudes, it changes perception, it changes the way people engage with you and what you’re offering. Better yet, if people can understand their place in the ‘why’ they’ll be more willing to be personally inconvenienced to align their mission with yours.

Thanks reCAPTCHA PR team for the great reminder of the importance of articulating our ‘why’.