Thinking Like a Genius

It's been so long between posts because Blogger lost me for a while. They just found me again. I enjoyed this article about alternative thoughtways. Read the entire article here.

Thinking like a Genius

The first and last thing demanded of genius is the love of truth Goethe

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future." The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history." 1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!) Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

A Feast of Words

I do love me some good words.

Now that summer is here, it's time for all good logophiles (word lovers) and logomaniacs (word lunatics) to show off their buff vocabularies.

Are your verbal muscles a tad flaccid? Feeling a bit oligophrenic (mentally deficient)? Not to worry. I'm a personal grandiloquence trainer, and I'm going to pump you up. So grab your bottle of Evian (did you know that's naive spelled backward?) and follow me on a power-word walk through the world of current events.

From Boston.com.

Here's an interesting phenomenon. Cities and states are sponsoring citizen bloggers to extoll their glorious Chamber-of-Commerce F&B to the blogosphere.

Last month, Pennsylvania's tourism site, http://visitpa.com, launched six blogs written by "real people" taking road trips across the state. Accompanied by digital photos and videos, the diaries cover such diverse pursuits as antique shopping, mountain biking and attending a NASCAR event. The authors -- a family of four, a history buff and a Harley-Davidson rider among them -- receive $1,000 for each of three journeys they'll write about this summer.

I'd do that. Sounds like fun. Bum around all summer long, blog a bit, cash checks. Works for me. Nu?

Go to MIT Without Leaving Town

MIT has always been famous for attracting some of the best and brightest. They load their students with a stellar education, then turn them loose to become some of our more interesting people.

Now the riff raff (we know who we are), can audit MIT courses for free. I heard about this a while back, and promptly forgot all about it until running across a link on del.icio.us (which, in case you haven't discovered it for yourself, is a remarkable social bookmarking site that for me, has triggered interests I never knew I had).

MIT OpenCourseWare offers an incredible array of online courses well suited to the lifelong learner. Subjects that caught my eye included:

• Anthropology
• Architecture
• Grain and Cognitive Sciences
• Comparative Media Studies
• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Studies
• Economics
• Foreign Languages and Literatures
• History
• Linguistics and Philosophy
• Literature
• Media Arts and Sciences
• Ocean Engineering
• Political Science
• Science, Technology and Society
• Urban Studies and Planning
• Women's Studies

Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and who knows how many individual donors, (one alum, Jon Gruber, gave a cool million), MIT has published 1100 courses as a gift to the world.

So what, you might ask, does this have to do with advertising and marketing? Beats me, but I intend to find out.

More David Sedaris

According to my late Uncle Ron, three makes a collection. This makes my third post of a New Yorker article by David Sedaris, thus making it an official collection. Enjoy. I know I did.

A bit of visual relief.

Appealing to Human Potential as a Marketing Principle

Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid.com delves deep into the human psyche and applies it to branding.

We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.

Product benefit doesn't excite us. Belief in humanity and human potential excites us.

Think less about what your product does, and think more about human potential.

What statement about humanity does your product make?

The bigger the statement, the bigger the idea, the bigger your brand will become.

It’s no longer just enough for people to believe that your product does what it says on the label. They want to believe in you and what you do. And they’ll go elsewhere if they don’t.

It’s not enough for the customer to love your product. They have to love your proccess as well.

People are not just getting more demanding as consumers, they are getting more demanding as spiritual entities. Branding is a spiritual exercise. These are The New Realities, this is the Spiritual Republic we now live in.

The soul cannot be outsourced. Either get with the program or hire a consultant in Extinction Management. No vision, no business. Your life from now on pivots squarely on your vision of human potential.

I just love Hugh's insistence that spiritual transcendence should become a functioning marketing principle. How wonderful would it be if every time someone tried to get us to buy something, they appealed to our higher selves? What if the Enrons and Tycos of our recent history became distant object lessons, replaced by corporations full of transparent integrity and commitment to the higher good?

Of course, your better people have always done this. The more spiritually evolved naturally work from a place of integrity and apply it to every aspect of their lives. These people are also highly attractive because they appeal to what is whole and wholesome within.

That said, I don't think transcendence will be a universally demanding marketing principle for quite some time. That's because people are so very human: often self-centered, shallow, materialistic, greedy and opportunistic.

In fact, the Pareto Law is probably at work here as in everything else. That's the 80/20 rule, where 20 percent of any given group delivers 80 percent of the goods.

For the sake of argument, let's say that 20 percent of marketing folks will be responsible for 80 percent of the vision, at least for the time being. What happens to the other 80 percent? Will they go the way of the dodo as Hugh suggests? Or will they continue to ply their trade, seduced by human nature into shining big honking spotlights on the good stuff and burying the nasty side effects in six point type because that tends to work pretty well?

Or will they learn to manipulate things so they appear to have passion, integrity and wisdom? I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question.

I think Hugh MacLeod is on the growing tip. His advice is quite good, even if most of of the world has some serious evolving to do to catch up. Appealing to what is whole, wholesome and genuine is not only a much more resonant way to have conversations with the people you hope will buy the very good thing you are selling, but it is a much more satisfying way to make a living.

Do we then become something other than a slave? Or are we just chained to a higher master?

"Your Name Here" Conquers Space, Trains Pets, Makes Friends, Reshapes Economy, Enhances Romance and Delivers a Smoother Shave

I've done my share of spec work, but it never occured to me to create a turnkey piece of work that would bring a stop to all that nonsense of coming up with new ideas for every last company and every last product.

But "Your Name Here" is the first and last word in one-size-fits-all spec work. Created in 1960, this industrial film short was designed to be a bang up sales film for virtually any product. All it needs is just a wee bit of editing to make it a whiz bang sales tool for "Your Product."

The producers promise "you are about to witness history in the making." That's a big promise, but I think they deliver.

First things first, of course. Nothing is sold unless there is, if not a real need, at least a perceived need, right? Since this was made without any specific product in mind, the producers of "Your Name Here" take us back to prehistory to make the case that the need has always been great!

A uniquely costumed trip through time ensues, beginning with a cave dweller, followed by a Greek, a Viking (I think--the costuming is a bit uncertain) and on to a debonair swashbuckler from the Romantic Age, complete with a ostrich-plumed hat. This is the windup that establishes that throughout time, all of humanity has been missing an elusive something. "Your Product"!

Cut to John and Mary, our modern malcontents, complaining they have drifted apart because they don't have that "one thing" they need for a better life.

Poor John and Mary, the very picture of ennui in twin beds.

But, wait! There is hope. The dedicated scientists from "Your Name Here" have discovered the secret that has "baffled man for ages."

That's right. "Your Product ," made by "Your Name Here," is transforming the lives of millions by, no kidding:

• reshaping the economy
• breaking the boundaries of time
• conquering space itself
• helping people enjoy recreation
• making pets more obedient
• helping people make friends
• making travel more enjoyable
• growing bigger crops
• giving greater smoking satisfaction
• strengthening our national defense
• keeping romance from "fading away"
• helping men enjoy a smoother shave

"Your Product" has "bettered humanity for all time and will never be forgotten." Just like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, (use Robert E. Lee if desired), Franklin Delano Roosevelt and (use Dwight D. Eisenhower if desired). "Your Name Here's" president's image follows as part of a logical sequence, a parade of unparalleled humanitarian greatness.

Cut back to our friends, John and Mary. John bursts through the door, unhinged with glee. He beams as he announces to dear Mary, that he's not a lowly shipping clerk anymore. Thanks to "Your Product," he's been promoted to Chairman of the Board! Boy howdy, that must be some good stuff.

Happiness reigns. "Your Name Here" is now "the living symbol of our national heritage." Final image? An American flag, flying proudly in a hearty wind.

After you've wiped a tear and cleared the lump in your throat, click through to "Your Name Here," to sample a host of tender morsels. I especially recommend the scene between two coonskin capped frontiersman. It explains so much about the rugged determination and stick-to-it-tive-ness that has made us the America we are today.

[Note: check out this film's mothersite, Prelinger Archives. It's an incredible library of streaming videos from every era.]

Attack of the 50 ft. PR woman

Attack of the 50 ft. PR woman, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

Time for a bit of illustration.

More on Corporate Blogging

I ran across a white paper full of good advice about business blogging. click here for the PDF file. This is a subject that is not going to go away. Via Jeneane Sessum at Allied, a great blog to spend time with. She got it from Content Factor, her employer, as it turns out. Think maybe she wrote it? She's certainly got the stripes.

Blogs Will Change Your Business

This article on Business Week's website is a comprehensive look at blogs and their potential to impact business in powerful ways. For instance,

. . . 40 new [blogs are created] every day that could be talking about your business, engaging your employees, or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush.

Give the paranoids their due. The overwhelming majority of the information the world spews out every day is digital -- photos from camera phones, PowerPoint presentations, government filings, billions and billions of e-mails, even digital phone messages. With a couple of clicks, every one of these items can be broadcast into the blogosphere by anyone with an Internet hookup -- or even a cell phone. If it's scandalous, a poisonous e-mail from a CEO, for example, or torture pictures from a prison camp, others link to it in a flash. And here's the killer: Blog posts linger on the Web forever.

Yet not all the news is scary. Ideas circulate as fast as scandal. Potential customers are out there, sniffing around for deals and partners. While you may be putting it off, you can bet that your competitors are exploring ways to harvest new ideas from blogs, sprinkle ads into them, and yes, find out what you and other competitors are up to.

This is a must-read for anyone doubting the impact and importance of the blogosphere on business.

Addicted to Learning

One of my favorite sites is Creating Passionate Users. There are several contributors, but Kathy Sierra is particularly insightful and inspiring. Her latest post, is all about the fun of mastering something new.

Remember, learning is like a drug to the brain (actually, it is a drug). The best user experiences--combined with a clear path to greater expertise and the promise of more time in flow--are like a healthier, happier form of crack.

She reminded me why I love what I do so much. As a writer, I am constantly learning. Doing this within the discipline of strategic thinking and creative execution adds another dimension that keeps my work constantly challenging.

As a college student, I was addicted to learning. A good liberal arts education prepares you for a lifetime of learning because it trains you to make connections (the core skill behind the conceptual process). For me, it really was a "healthier, happier form of crack."

Becoming a writer was a natural extension of the academic experience. I can lose myself in researching and integrating vast amounts of new information. The work of interpreting that knowledge into effective, engaging communication is often pure joy for me.

If, as Hugh MacLeod says, creativity is when work and play are the same thing, then combining creativity with the total immersion of mastering new information has to be the most rewarding way to make a living.

Hello to Bello

Anyone with a computer is faced with the delightful task of choosing fonts for word processing, correspondence and the like. Those of us in the creative business understand the importance of typography to effective communication as well as aesthetics.

For instance, have you ever noticed that many direct mail letters use a typewriter font despite the fact that letters haven't been typewritten in ages? It's because through years of testing, direct marketers know that the Courier font has an authority quotient that's entirely independent of the content. Font choice can be driven by much more than good looks alone.

That said, Bello is good looking. Bello is a heavy looking new script font created by a European type foundry named Underware that recently won a best new ''display font'' award from the Type Directors Club. As the name suggests, display fonts look best when used in headlines rather than body copy.

Reminiscent of the lettering in old hand-painted signs, Bello has a fun retro look that takes full advantage of its digital origins. Unlike the old days, when fonts were created on metal plates, digital fonts have advantages that actually make them closer in look to calligraphy. The New York Times explains:

One tricky thing about script fonts is that in actual handwriting, the form of one letter might be affected by the letter next to it. Interestingly, Bello uses a digital format called OpenType, which, among other things, makes just such adjustments. As you type the word ''Bello,'' for example, the second ''l'' looks different from the first. Helmling suggests this may be exactly what people find attractive about Bello and other script fonts. It's not just the appeal of ''handwritten flavor,'' as he puts it, in a digital age. It's the way that technology allows users to harness those comforting imperfections perfectly.

Anxious to see what all the fuss is about? Until it gets archived, you can read the The New York Times Magazine article about Bello here.

Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak

Newsweek has an online exclusive, "Attack of the Weasel Words," a review of Death Sentences: How Clichés, Weasel Words and Management-Speak are Strangling Public Language, by Australian author, Don Watson.

As a writer, one of my jobs is to scour any document until it is entirely free of what Watson calls weasel words. I think the people who use this jargon believe they're sounding smart. The fact is, they're sounding unintelligible and needlessly obtuse. An example from Watsons book is a fine example"

Just as the skill and processes are not compartmentalized in the creation process, the evaluation of outcomes will occur against a background of understanding that separation of outcomes into discrete components is subordinate to the evaluation of the total process as a comprehensive outcome.”

Is there anyone on the planet who knows what that paragraph means? If someone does, they need not call me, but should consider calling the nearest linquistic therapist for an urgent appointment.

CBS Blog

CBS may have missed the cable bandwagon, but they're making sure they catch the blog train.

[CBS announces] . . . "Public Eye," a new blog that will create a candid and robust dialogue between CBS News journalists and the public -- a move unprecedented among CBS's peers in broadcast and cable television journalism. "Public Eye" will be edited by veteran reporter and media writer Vaughn Ververs, most recently editor of The Hotline, a daily Web briefing on politics published by the National Journal. Ververs will serve as the conduit between the public and CBS News to take viewers and users inside the news gathering, production and decision-making process via the use of original video and outtakes, interviews with correspondents and producers, and input from independent experts, among other methods. "Public Eye" will debut by late summer.

Looks like a great way to start a conversation. How long before the others follow suit?

Language is a virus

Language is a virus is a new way to play with words that's clean fun for the whole family.

My bad

From yesterday's post:

But what if a company's truth isn't their best story? There are some famous failures in the headlines lately whose truth, let's just say, didn't so much set them free as set them up.

Robert Scoble or Shel Israel (I'm not sure which) left a comment pointing out that it sounds like I'm recommending a well-crafted lie if the truth doesn't make you look so hot. Well. Hot damn. Sure does look that way, doesn't it. Is it too late to take it back? Honest, that's not what I meant to say.

Here's what I meant to say, which unfortunately, stayed locked in my head in my urgency to get a belated post published. Companies like Adelphia and Enron were the quintessential truth-isn't-their-best-story companies. Their truth set them free, alright. Free to go to a fiery afterlife. But that was only after the truth was finally pried from their cold and greedy, wizened claws. Their truth brought down entire corporations and countless innocents along with them. Their dishonesty was so deep that no blog was going to cure what ailed them.

It was a throw-off line that could have been a marvelous opportunity to discuss the importance of telling the truth especially when it's not pretty. An opportunity I'll take now because blogging is the ideal vehicle for proactively (I just hate that word, but it works here) dealing with problems in a disarmingly public way by owning up to your company's shortcomings in front of God and everybody.

This is counter-intuitive to old-style business models. In fact, one of the traditional functions of pr is to make bad things go away with minimum damage.

But cast your mind into the misty future to contemplate a world where a company screws up and says so on its tell-the-truth blog. How much more would you trust that company than one who avoids confronting mistakes until forced to, or responds with a traditional public relations damage control campaign?

Don't you kind of like them already?

The truth. What a radical idea.

Thanks, Robert or Shel at Naked Conversations. You saved me from myself and gave me a story to tell on myself . . . thankfully before anyone could tell it on me.

Blog or die?

Cover your eyes if you don't want to read yet another post about how the world of advertising is changing once and evermore.

The world of advertising is changing once and evermore. Buying up acres of print or hours of airtime isn't your ticket to the top anymore. Print and broadcast will still have their place, but they're not the finish line anymore.

More and more companies are clued in to this and are launching blogs because they are simply the smartest way to reach the folks who might buy what you have to offer. If the content is compelling, if the tone is individual, if there's a willingness to tell the truth, blogging is the easiest, cheapest way to develop a relationship with the folks who are, or who might become, your customers.

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel over at Naked Conversations, a seminal blog about "how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers," don't mince words. Blog or Die. They got some flack for using hyperbole and in the version I've linked to, they've qualified that statement, but not by much.

In a nutshell:

I believe, blogging will fundamentally change communications from what it is today to something less controlled and more credible. It has already begun to do so, at a phenomenal rate, and at a time when many industries are dealing with broken business models. For example, traditional publishing--newspapers, magazines and books are all dealing with issues of reduced profitability. Blogging didn't break their models--the Internet contributed by fragmenting news distribution and by siphoning off ad revenues. . . .

(snip)

. . . businesses who ignore blogging will go the way of the blacksmith who ignored the automobile. A century ago, some blacksmiths reinvented themselves to become auto dealers. Others started promoting horseback riding as recreation sports, founded boarding stables or pioneered early race tracks. Others just kept on doing what they were doing and slowly, steadily, and in the end, silently died.

This will be a hard transition for a lot of companies to make because they're accustomed to 100 percent control. Blogging isn't about control. It's about having faith that the truth is the best story you have to tell.

But what if a company's truth isn't their best story? There are some famous failures in the headlines lately whose truth, let's just say, didn't so much set them free as set them up. Blogging can tell your truth, make a company human, engage in conversation, invite feedback, do everything a press release does, but with a human voice.

It's planning season for a lot of industries. Ahem.

business speak, again.

5 Business Email cliches I'm sick of Posted by condour at 09:33 PM April 10, 2005

1. let's touch base

   What's the metaphor here? You might think baseball, but let's face it: in baseball two people who touch the same base at the same time are generally on opposing teams. If you were going to use an baseball metaphor, it'd be "go out to the mound." But this raises the uncomfortable question of which party is manager and which is the pitcher. (hint: if you're talking to someone who you can fire, you're not the pitcher)

   Maybe it's from cricket.
   
   

2. And we'll go from there

   This means nothing. It's essentially saying, "I don't want to think any farther ahead than Tuesday in this email, but I want you to think I have a plan hidden up my sleeve." Nixon probably used this construction in Telexes to the Joint chiefs of staff between 1969 and 1973.

3. I just wanted to...

   Weak construction that has no business being in the past tense. Do you no longer want to? Why just? This construction is appropriate if you have to tell Blofeld you let James Bond escape. When you're writing to Ted from accounts receivable, it's toadying.
   

4. If you could... that would be great

   This little gem, made famous from Office Space, goes one step beyond "I just wanted to" and uses the subjunctive. Which reduces your order or request to a Disney heroine's wistful introductory musical number. If I could find Prince Charming, maybe I could escape the cruel clutches of my stepmother. If you could attach the excel document from the March budgeting meeting, you wouldn't be a moron. The rest of the universe would look the same.

5. Going Forward

   First, let me say that I don't object to this because of the spatial metaphor. I just don't like the fact that the spatial metaphor assumes we're all going in the same direction. Sort of like the word "Enterprise." It's a goddamn business, not a spaceship.

   "From now on" works fine, saves a syllable.

Forehead goes for $15,000 on e-bay.

I've been preaching about the ongoing decline of old school advertising. I've been on my pulpit calling for repentence followed by an innovative "born again" marketing and advertising paradigm. The old ways aren't working like they used to, which presents a wonderful opportunity for innovative thinkers to help redefine the business.

But lawdy, lawdy, say this ain't it.

A woman in Utah has been tattoed with name of a casino tattooed smack dab in the middle of her forehead in return for $15,000 to send her son to a private school. Apparently his grades were slipping in public school and Karolyne Smith offered her forehead on e-bay to be used as a walking billboard.

Crass commercialism has reached a new low. You must give her credit though. This is innnovative thinking. It strikes me as wrong, but I can't pinl down why it's so wrong.

• It was her idea.
  
• She was certainly being selfless.
  
• The casino bought the space fair and square.
  
• Her son will be able to attend a private school for at least one year.
  
  
  
  
  

It's ironic that just a few years ago, NPR's All Things Considered aired an April Fool's prank about a young man who had a logo tattooed somewhere prominently. It was a brilliant piece of social satire that at the time struck me as patently absurd..

We live in strange times.

Spam Blogging Comes Into Its Own

The friendly folks over at The Republic of Geektronica point out an interesting phenomena: the spam blog.

Blogspot, which hosts this blog, is 100% free to anyone, and spammers have learned they can play. A real live human has to set up the blog, but after that, a computer can automatically create and post links (usually for pharmaceuticals, p0rn and casino sites), that game the Google ranking system by artificially creating "linked-to" spidering data.

Google's algorithm is based on how many times a site is linked to. The more links, the higher the Google rank, ergo, the more blogs with links to some annoying purveyor, the more business likely to come their way. What's more, Geektronica says you usually can't even tell it's a phony blog until you try to leave a comment.

It's easy enough to cruise Blogspot by clicking "Next Blog" in the upper right hand corner of any Blogspot blog (including this one). It's a completely random internet experience that will take you places you'd never otherwise discover, including, apparently, drugs, dirty pictures and online gambling. It takes surfing to another level altogether.

Pretty clever, doncha think?

In Honor of Independence Day

Blogging will be light over the holiday weekend. I will be contemplating the suchness of freedom, the honor of citizenship and the practical application of community stewardship in third millennium America.

I will also be celebrating my June bugs' birthdays (Jack is 14 and Ellen, 20) with barbecued pork steaks, manna-from-heaven baked beans and Aunt Lucy's Poppy Seed Cake.

To honor this most patriotic of holidays (although Memorial Day gives me goosebumps), here is a link to a collection of firework package artwork.

Like a lot of commercial art, this is a genre that has gone underappreciated for much too long. Artists have to eat, too, and have been lending their talent to commercial endeavors without many kudos. Appreciate away thanks to a heads up via BoingBoing.

Have a great holiday everyone.

Twinsumers

Trendwatching is onto something with enormous implications for marketing folks. It's what they call the "Twinsumer."

More and more, people aren't listening to traditional advertising because, frankly, they don't have to. They can get better info from people just like themselves. That's the key. People just like themselves.

In a nutshell:

. . . customers increasingly rely on purchasing advice from fellow consumers they don't personally know, yet who are eerily likeminded. It's yet another nail in the coffin of traditional marketing, if not an opportunity for forward thinking marketers.

It's yet another affirmation of the whole Clue Train-Hughtrain phenomenon.

What does a forward thinking marketer do? Find new ways to engage in conversations with real people. Be really, really good. The twinsumer phenomena will spot a phony a mile off.

The old approaches are still part of the mix, but the ground has shifted.

Stop Selling, Start Telling

I don't ever want to "sell" another thing as long as I live. Haven't we all been sold too much?

The hideously effective science of low-down, cyncial manipulation of human frailty is not quite dead yet. I was reading an article written by a direct response copywriter (whose anonymity I will protect out of hope for his future redemption), who claims that award-winning advertising does not, categorically, net results; that ads written by traditional ad agencies are generally untested and no one knows if they really work or not. He prefaced his comments with admiration for National Enquirer's winning combination of outrageous headlines and appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It's a common kind of reverse snobbery among direct marketing creatives that goes something like this: sure, the fancy big-agency creatives get the glory, dress in Prada, get the shiny awards and the attention, but what we do works and we can prove it. Like any of your better conceits, there's some truth to it. But there's more to the story.

Awards don't need to be bad for sales. I've worked at agencies, large and small, writing award-winning ads that worked brilliantly (with proven sales figures behind the claim). Others were just award-winning, maybe not so brilliant. I've also worked for dedicated direct marketing agencies, where every emotional thrum was calculated to its most minutely measured nuance. I've also managed to do award-winning, measurably-effective DM work of which I'm proud. Some of it? Not so proud.

A fairly well-kept secret among many traditional ad agencies and their clients is that what gets created "just feels right" to both parties with little empirical evidence for its efficacy. On the other hand, too much traditional direct marketing is unconcerned with delight, cleverness, wit, or anything that distracts from the sales pitch. I sound like I'm arguing against success, but stick with me. I'm arguing against cynical manipulation without regard to the greater good. I'm arguing against hard-sell arm twisting that preys on the vulnerabilities of the aged, poor, or gullible to sell a not-so-good product. Don't sell me because you can. Tell me how my life can be better.

It's wrong to know what works and know what's right and not have a match. With any God-given gift, it is up to each individual to use it wisely, and kindly. That leaves a big playing field with lots of fine choices to be made.

Cynical exploitation is being outed more often because there is much less hiding to be done. Electronica gets the truth out at record speed these days and any nastiness will inevitably seep through even the most carefully crafted p.r. job.

The real question is this. What stories do I want to spend my life telling? Who is making life better? Who works harder and better and with joy? Who truly cares? Whose passion shines through?

My passion is not to sell, but to tell passionate stories worthy of the breath and ink and life I put into them. Passionate commitment to the greater good doesn't involve "selling." It involves meaningful communication, telling stories, having conversations, and bringing something better to greater attention. Pandering manipulation in butt fugly. I'm looking forward to the day when the smarmy sensationalism of tabloid headlines is replaced with invitingly clear stories, told with wit, charm and spirit.

Read Clue Train. Read HughTrain. They represent some fairly insistent evidence of intelligent life within advertising and marketing. It's a hopeful time to be in the business. It had to happen, though. Some of the best, most creative people I've ever known are in some aspect of marketing. Life can only beat a good person down for so long before their innate goodness pushes back with a new way to think about things.

Good reasons not to blog

The people over at Red Couch have thought a lot about the ins and outs of blogging for business. They have some timely wisdom on why a company should choose not to blog. Among them,

• Blogs will fail in cultures that have a public-be-damned attitude, such as has been demonstrated by senior officials at all too many companies. The list is longer than the usually mentioned gangs at Tyco, WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia and their wily consultants.
• Cheesy companies, with cheesy products and disdain or contempt for their customers should not blog.
• Companies who disdain or mistreat their employees, such as diamond miners, rubber plantation owners or “employers” who tether children to workbenches.
• Companies who intend to victimize customers and supporters, such as fraudulent charities, Ponsi and pyramid schemers as well as con artists should not blog.
• Outfits whose stock in trade is secrecy.

It's an interesting article on many levels. By giving blogging its due as just another vehicle for communication, Red Couch is on the blog bandwagon. If your business can stand the light of day, blogging is as useful as the press release--maybe even moreso.

Steve Jobs

I talk a lot about passion. I just plain love it. Passion has driven all of the great successes of my life.

Steve Jobs recently gave a commencement address at Stanford in which he spoke of finding what you love. That's passion. It's a remarkable read I highly recommend.

We've all heard that everything happens for a reason, even our biggest failures and heartbreaks. Jobs talks about that, too. Here's a man who got fired from his own company and has come to realize it was a blessing.

Click through. It's really worth the read.

It's what you say, and how you say it.

Mary Engel of Strong Copywritingpointed out a great UK Guardian article about the wisdom of clever and playful writing in engaging customers. Too often, fear eliminates the very thing that would make marketing sing--and deliver spectacular results.

Ever wondered why there's so much awful advertising? That's why. Fear. Fear is the enemy of good things, pretty much across the board.

Finally, Empirical Wisdom Behind Conversational Writing

I've been finding Hugh MacLeod endlessly fascinating. Reading his blog is quite an education in the way the world is going. Today, I was reading January's archive and came across this little nugget of wisdom. The point is one I've made repeatedly, but the reasoning behind it is new to me, but eminently sensible.

Interesting stuff from Kathy at Headrush. Her day job includes writing books on brain behavior:

When you lecture or write using conversational language, your user's brain thinks it's in a REAL conversation!

In other words, if you use conversational language, the listener/reader's brain still thinks it has to hold up its end, so it pays more attention. It really is that simple, and that powerful (at least if you really want to help users pay attention and remember your message).

and

If you're using formal language in a lecture, learning book (or marketing message, for that matter), you're worrying about how people perceive YOU. If you're thinking only about the USERS, on the other hand, you're probably using more conversational language.

Which is why most marketingspeak is so utterly dreadful. Technically, it's trying to sell you something. Non-technically, it's telling you to go #@%& yourself.

There it is: scientific justification for having a human voice when telling stories about companies. This is a scary thing to so many and I've never really understood why. One of life's persistent questions.

More from Kathy from Headrush. This girl has got it going on.

If you want to create passionate users, spend time around passionate users.

Even better, spend time around others who are also trying to inspire passion in others. There's plenty of brain research that explains why you should surround yourself with passionate, energetic people and stay away from the, "This job would be great if it weren't for the frickin' USERS" people. If you want to be more creative, spend time around more creative people. Better problem solving? Spend time with those who spend more time looking for solutions than complaining about problems.

Tom and Katie, Lindsay Lohan, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, &tc.

Just trying to build traffic, folks.

Blogvertising

Hugh MacLeod has begun an interesting conversation on what he calls "blogvertising," which is what he calls his day job.

For blogs to be a successful marketing tool, they have to maintain a unique and engaging personal voice, honesty and enthusiasm. In a blog, a fake is easy to spot. For blogvertising to work, a marriage of kindred spirits would be essential. A writer without real affection for a company's corporate culture, industry and product wouldn't be able to sustain authentic enthusiasm over the long haul a blog represents.

I think I've just established a new criterion for new business focus. Could I blog for them?