Once again on February 12, we celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday.

And Abe Lincoln’s.

Two of the greatest men of the 19th Century, born on the same day in the same year. Who’s your favorite? Cast your vote, below.

Darwin did not “discover” evolution, by the way. That idea was well accepted decades before him. Heck, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin wrote a book about it. Charlie D’s contribution was the breakthrough that explained the mechanism that made it happen. Natural selection caused species to evolve, and that turned on light bulbs among the scientific elites of the world. His 1859 book was a revolutionary new way to look at life on Earth.

Later thinkers, up to this day, keep learning how this mechanism also helps explain the evolution of languages, how social changes sweep through a culture, how memes spread across the Internet, why we need a different flu shot every year, and much more.

We’ve spent our time and energy exploring how your organization should adapt to the fast-changing digital landscape. Your brand must, repeat must, be among the “fittest” in your category to avoid the fate of the dodo. Or the LP > 8-track > cassette > CD > DVD > streaming.

Did you know more than 99.9% of all the species who have ever existed are extinct? It’s not unusual. The clock is ticking for the black rhinoceros, the whooping crane, the record store, the Chichewa language, the Yellow Pages, the television set.

So we have pictures of Darwin all over our website, and Darwin’s finches are pictured on the back of our business cards. We show him as a member of our team in new business proposals as a mentor. Not that we’re slighting Lincoln, mind you, who’s revered here in Illinois, but we deliver insights into adaptation that apply to branding. Thanks, Charlie. Those insights are of practical value to any brand whose marketing ROI has hit a plateau.

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