Willie Nelson says that music hasn’t changed much in his lifetime. “It’s all music,” Nelson says. “You got so many notes and there’s so many words to throw in there, and you get different people mixing it up different ways. But you put it all together, and that’s music.”

Replace the word music with design. Design is the arranging of elements, just as music is the arrangement of notes. The way music is transferred between people has no doubt changed in Willie’s lifetime (e.g. iPod, MP3s, downloads). But, Willie isn’t trying to be anybody else but Willie Nelson. The way we distribute communications has changed too over the years (e.g. Internet, e-mail, Web sites) but we still read left to right, top to bottom.

Don’t let “the new ways” obstruct the goal of communicating simply with your audience, we’re still using the same notes. Find your company’s own unique voice, don’t worry about reinventing the wheel, communicate effectively and capture your companies own unique identity in the marketplace.