Every Day Counts. What are you wearing today?

Today, the New York Times had an article on the death of the office dress code. No news there. Ever since the hoodie was the dress code for the Facebook billionaires, office dress code was dead. For example, last year, I had a meeting in San Francisco with the lawyers for Facebook and sure enough they came into the meeting with blue-jeans and a hoodie. 

The Times has huge financial troubles because print advertising is sinking like a stone into a lake and digital readership is simply not keeping pace with the advertising gap created by the ripples. In other words, the Times article on dress code is not print worthy. Anyone with a eye can see the dress code has been changing for 15 years. Company policies have had to adjust to a uni-sex world and drop requirements for women's dress unless they do the same for men's dress. Some ancient company - circa 2010- dress codes required women to wear high heels, but not anymore unless the code applies to men too.

And ties are in the trash too, where they should be. Culturally we all must reassess our "believability" metric. A person with a blue suit and a red tie - the old IBM or Xerox sales person standard dress code -- is not necessarily smarter than a millennial in a grey hoodie and blue-jeans.

Many of us have a hard time leaving the old standards behind. I was asked to do a video interview the other day for a new digital magazine and I showed up in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie. It will take a decade for many people to stop associating dress with importance and leave cultural dress bias behind. Watch your TV. When the news anchors have on a hoodie, it will be okay to put yours on too and go out to a upscale restaurant or a magazine interview. On the other hand, the rumor of the death of the dress code may be a little pre-mature. Suits still outsell hoodies.

Change is inevitable and that is what makes every day count for something.