Think Brick Sustainability Blog

The past 6 weeks in Australia have been terrible; in Northern NSW and Queesland there have been disatourous floods while in Victoria there have been devasting fires: the worst in living memory.

On top of this, we have the Global Financial Crisis that has had its greatest impact in Australia over the past 6 weeks as well with large numbers of workers made redundant. An interesting part of the commentary has been the references – always unintentional – to bricks.

Kevin Rudd has promised to rebuild the communities ‘brick by brick‘; real estate managers, finanical analysts and economists are talking about the benefits of ‘bricks and mortar‘ during these tough times; and further still are references to companies and even the emissions trading scheme that have ‘hit a brick wall’.

Unbeknown to many people, bricks are central to not only our houses, but our language.  As a metaphor, they convey security, strength, running into hard times, the process of building, home, comfort and ultimately peace. The story of the three little pigs is so obvious, yet so readily forgotten.

And despite what some may think, the relationship between everyday language and bricks actually makes selling bricks difficult.  Like water, or the security of our homes, we don’t miss bricks until we don’t have them.

That said, to sell bricks, we don’t always need the fancy footwork and marketing lingo: sometimes all we need to do is tap into an individual’s language. Why do they use the metaphor of a brick so much?

But a word of caution: now is not the time to talk to people who have lost so much as a part of these natural disasters about the benefits of brick. Instead we will work with the communities to literally re-build brick by brick and ensure all our communities are strong and secure for many years to come, regardless the challenge.