This is what great minds come up with?

There's been a lot of changes recently for the company I work for. At the beginning of October, we had to move from our happy little office of about 80 people into the great big mothership containing about 1700 people. We also lost our status as a fully seperate company and are now truly part of the parent company. Everyone got new email addresses, we had to remove certain words from official documents, etc etc. To add to the whole facelift, we got a new logo and a slogan. The logo we've known about for awhile, it was part of a bunch of time and money being spent on "rebranding" the company. Hardly anyone likes the new logo. We went from a rather distinguished, yet not old-fashioned logo to a candy-coloured modern "logo" that is really just doing designer-y things with the name, there's no picture to it anymore.

What was less touted, but first spotted on a poster in our building advertising the company, was a slogan to go with this new logo. This brilliant new slogan that they've paid we-don't-want-to-know-how-much for? "Great minds don't think alike." The creativity and originality that oozes out of that one... I see what they're getting at, the idea that the people in our company think outside the box, they are creative and, well, original and all those things that these slogan people weren't. But it has that big "don't" in there that I think carries too much negativity, and I think the logic in the statement (if there is any) seems to lead to the conclusion that if great minds don't think alike, they can never agree, so there's just a lot of butting of heads going on. All in all, not too positive.

Then I return from holiday this week to find a complimentary pen on my desk (to celebrate the new logo) with a business card-like thing attached, on which is printed the new logo and an extended version of the slogan. What, you may think, could they add to make the slogan even more brilliant? The extended version: "Great mind don't think alike... be a great mind." Oy. It brings to mind the whole Life of Brian "Think for yourselves! You are individuals!" "Yes, we are individuals," joke. And this is supposed to market our shining creativity...