Make a Difference With 2040 Digital
2040 Digital is a full-service strategic solutions firm that helps you navigate today’s complex, constantly-evolving digital business environment. We are specialists in not-for-profits, B2B publishers, B2C publishers, associations, government and businesses in general.
Everything we do is geared to transforming your organization and fulfilling its potential in a dynamic and ever increasingly digital world.
We work with you to build a relevant narrative that singles you out in your market and target market sectors.
We are your partner in strengthening your brand, developing a sustainable business strategy, growing your revenues and engaging your key stakeholders.
Our work is based on trust, built on authenticity and powered through collaboration.
Digital environments are changing by the minute. It’s a dynamic, often confusing picture.
2040 Digital brings together the digital, analytical, technical, creative, and business assets that your organization needs to:
How We Work
There isn’t anything we do at 2040 Digital that is cookie cutter. We deliver powerful results, with solutions, strategies, and recommendations that are matched to your business, market, and customers. Learn More>
Current Issue of 2040's Ideas and Innovations Newsletter
Is Perception Everything?
Issue 39: January 20, 2022
Some say that we live in a simulation. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Matrix popularized ideas long held by some physicists and game theorists. Some say that we will be living in a parallel reality, a metaverse dramatized by Ender’s Game, Belle and Ready Player One, to mention only three pop culture narratives. There are plenty of thinkers and philosophers who believe that reality is how you perceive it; beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. So, what does any of this have to do with running an organization? A lot.
Perception Isn’t Universal
According to Christina Catenacci, ethics professor, “Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment. What one perceives can be substantially different from what another person perceives, and both can be very different than the actual objective reality. In fact, behavior is based on one’s perception of what reality is, not reality itself.” As for the workplace, “There are many factors that influence how something is perceived. Factors pertaining to the perceiver can involve the person’s attitudes, motives, interests, experience, and expectations. Contextual factors can involve time, work setting and social setting. Finally, factors related to the actual target can involve novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, and proximity,” she adds.
We often believe the way we think, act, and participate is consistent across all aspects of our perceived reality, personal or professional. However, our behavioral responses change depending on the situation or environment we are in. Our individual reality is comprised of how we interpret societal cues and norms, how we have learned to accord our behavior and actions, and the sum total of what we have previously experienced. Our reality is also informed by our interpretation of what we believe others believe and how they want us to act, communicate or behave.
