If I could master a language other than the one I'm currently attempting (that would be English, by the way) it would be Latin.

Mandarin Chinese is a close second but that would be primarily for economic reasons. Latin would be for romantic prowess and scholarly erudition -- an example being that the word erudition comes from the Latin eruditus, past participle of erudire, which is "to instruct or train" (based on rudis "rude or untrained") -- you know, useful stuff like that. Poets, academics and the wonderful folks who name body parts -- both human and celestial -- have long used Latin to be terribly impressive.

The Latin term that has impressed me lately is "corpus callosum" -- which loosely translated means tough, hard skinned body, although said translation has nothing whatsoever to do with my interest in it. What does -- and if you were a neurosurgeon you'd know this plus be making a heck of a lot more money than I'm raking in -- is that the corpus callosum is the broad band of nerve fibers that joins the right and left hemispheres of our brains.

The key word in that last sentence is "joins" and it's why I'll be using this bundle of nerve fibers from an organ I know embarrassingly little about in order to make this point: to get to better creative expression and solutions, we need to let go of branding people as either "right brain" or "left brain" and accept the idea that a group of diverse people will apply their one brain -- the analytical and creative -- to engage in the creative process in order to more consistently and successfully navigate an increasingly complex communications landscape.

I'm not a neuroscientist. The studying, talent and intelligence got in the way. Despite that fact, I've been able to sift through a fair amount of research from the neuroscience community that has proven -- well, enough to rationalize my argument anyway -- that the "differences" between left and right are really very subtle. Basically, each of us is both "left brained" and "right brained," and we have the ability to play in both the creative and logical sandboxes. Unfortunately, there have been so many pop psychology books and business self-help dissertations that have reinforced the idea that we are all either one or the other and that neither really can comprehend what the other is thinking.

Many of us have been in meetings where the following phrases were probably uttered: "That's for the creative types to figure out" or "he/she is just a suit." The first is a cop-out, and the second is arrogantly dismissive. Everybody needs to ante up. If speaking to consumers in a more relevant and authentic way is the goal, then you can no longer excuse yourself from contributing creatively any more than you can excuse others from joining in the dialogue.

From my personal experience it's been interesting to get the two to mesh together, walls between departments (not to mention between agency and client) need to be torn down and turf wars quelled. Scale obviously plays a role in that happening. Best practices that involve such words as "fluid" or "nimble" are easier to accomplish in an organization of 50 as opposed to a corporation of 500 or more ingrained with stagnated legacy systems.

The phrase "kitchen table" has been employed quite a bit lately in a variety of industries. It references the gathering of the family, in this case all the different disciplines your company espouses, around the communal piece of furniture -- it really does help to provide food and, yes, M&M's count as food -- to discuss the best way to creatively take advantage of a marketing/communication opportunity or challenge.

The corpus callosum also represents the joining theory in two other important ways. The first has to do with inclusion and whom we invite to the dialogue. James Surowiecki, who writes a popular financial column for the New Yorker, is the author of a book called "The Wisdom of Crowds." In it he argues that good information and expertise can come from many sources -- it's why the Internet and more specifically Google works so well -- and that to rely on a single expert to make decisions often leads to unsatisfactory results. Rather, it's better to gather many thoughts and ideas from the group dynamic. That group should include creative and analytical, liberal and conservative, urban and rural, men and women, American and National League -- you get the idea -- all joined by a metaphorical corpus callosum running between.

Diversity leads to solutions that have been explored and attacked from many angles. He argues against the "excessive faith in the single decision maker" no matter how intelligent he or she may be. For two reasons: 1. They're human and therefore fallible -- groups tend to expose miscalculations and errors more consistently; and 2. How many true visionaries are out there really? There are only so many Albert Einsteins and Martin Luther King Jr.s.

The second way in which the corpus callosum represents the joining theory is about serendipity. Dr. Safi Bahcall, who is the president and chief executive officer of Synta Pharmaceuticals, has spoken about the dearth of serendipity in the pharmaceuticals industry because of the heavy bureaucratic and legal processes that have suffocated the progress of new drugs in clinical development.

Serendipity in medicine brought about aspirin, novocaine and, yes, Viagra. They all came about because of happy accidents. Not too many happy accidents happen in a vacuum. Serendipity thrives in an environment in which disparate groups and legacy systems are joined together. You orchestrate a little controlled chaos, and new ways to creatively solve marketing and communications issues will begin to surface.

For too long the marketing/advertising industry -- along with the entertainment field -- has focused on interrupting the consumer and dictating when and where their content will be viewed. The game has changed to one where successful marketers join in the conversations and, if they're really good, start them.

Witness the brand that has surfaced in the last year and a half called Barack Obama. Regardless of political affiliation, politicians of every stripe will be adopting the blueprint Mr. Obama has created for harnessing the new media mix of a social networking, user-driven digital environment combined with the traditional avenues to speak to people.

A combination that would work well for your brand's corpus callosum.