Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The box is the box; standing outside of it gets you nowhere

High on any list of shopworn phrases is the demand to think outside the box.  It passes for high-level thinking in marketing and communication circles, and it is absolutely wrong-headed.  The box is what it is and no matter what anyone tells you, we all live and work inside of one.  Let's look at it from a business standpoint - consider your industry; that is the box in which you operate.  What you do inside that box, not outside, is what will separate you from the pack. 

Here's a simple illustration:  give 100 interior decorators identical 10 x 10 rooms; in other words, identical boxes.  Chances are extremely high that the end products will be 100 unique styles of design.  That is redesigning the box to fit your goals.  That is creativity.  Any artist can put something on a blank canvas; a more true test comes when a person is given limits within which to work. 

A former colleague of mine encapsulated the notion of creativity in a simple phrase:  it's not art, it's work.  And that is so true.  The notion of thinking "outside the box" emerged as a means of encouraging folks to think beyond their usual bounds.  Maybe it was a case of  being too clever by half; perhaps more plain-spoken terminology could have led to something other than a cliche.

As it is, the thought process is hardly revolutionary; so-called lateral thinking is about considering ideas and methods that are not immediately obvious and has been around for some time.  The trick is not what to call it but to actually do it.  This is where the box comes into play.  Consider the box to be the industry in which you are employed.  It's okay; every industry has parameters. 

Every widget does specific things and is used by specific people, often for specific functions.  But, inside the box is where you can change the perception of the widget and perhaps spark new markets.  Here's an example:  chocolate milk is being re-positioned as perhaps the ideal post-workout drink because of its protein-to-carb ratio.  Now, chocolate milk is hardly new but who thought of it as a drink for adults, especially for health-conscious adults?  The people behind the choco campaign are the same ones who came up with the "Got Milk?" messaging for the white stuff. 

It's thinking differently within the box.  Same applies to social media in a sense.  It is one more tool for professional communicators to use.  It's still communication; the message still has to be appealing and meaningful, but the idea remains to impart a message onto a prospect.  A slight difference is that social channels allow for interactivity, something lacking in legacy media.  Without a strong message, however, social media is simply one more lost opportunity.

So, stop worrying about the box itself and start focusing on how to rearrange what is in it.  Two decades ago, no home had the open floor plan concept.  Today, it is practically the industry standard.  The box, that would be the house, is largely unchanged.  What has happened inside it, however, is markedly different.  What are you doing to reshape your box?        




Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The company you keep

Friends are the people in your life who can call bullshit on you and make you laugh while they are doing it.  Everyone else is expendable. I am on week 4 of the great FaceBook experiment, the one in which I have unsubscribed from people whose postings make you wonder why they were friended in the first place. 

I love a vigorous debate, a healthy exercise in point/counter-point; I cannot stand attempts to dismiss someone's argument by attacking them personally or by relying on talking points.  Folks whose value judgments are based on whether something comes from an R or a D are not people with whom one can debate anything.  Ideas are either beneficial or harmful; they either promote liberty or diminish it; they either cost you money or they don't.  Yes, that is a black and white view of things but much in life is black and white. 

Nuance is another way of avoiding a decision or (gasp!) making a judgment, as if that is a bad thing.  Please.  People make judgments every day - in where they choose to live, with whom they associate, who they let their kids play with, the stores/restaurants they patronize, and so forth.  While all men may be created equal, they do not all remain that way.  Pretending otherwise is delusional but, at the same time, one should be able to explain the rationale for a judgment using something more than partisan affiliation as the calculus. 

For instance, the noise involving the Catholics and birth control.  The White House wants to require every employer who provides health insurance to cover the cost of birth control, of abortion, and of things like in-vitro fertilization.  Set aside for a moment that this is not govt's business at all; the extent of benefits are a private contract between employer and employee.  The interesting part is how the religious folks see this as a "war" on them.  They conveniently forget that, for the past several presidential elections, Catholics have voted Democrat.  Obama is a Democrat; Catholics supported him by a fair margin in ' 08.  Elections have consequences and not always the consequences you hope for.  When some of the most pro-life people on the planet vote the party that is not pro-life, it is difficult to take their protestations seriously.  But, I digress. 

FaceBook and other social media tools have the same effect on behavior as do tough times - they tend to reveal character.  People will post or tweet things that they would never say directly to another person.  That's not moral courage; it is a profile in cowardice.  These tools offer the opportunity to vent about anything anytime; they do not include a self-censoring button or a cooling off device that suggests you actually think about the words you just typed before making them public.  I am obviously right; how often has someone been forced to backtrack or apologize over a Twitter comment or FB post?  Makes you wonder how many friendships have been ruined over opinions that were best left unshared. 

I am headed to a multi-class high school reunion next month. Attendees will include people with whom I chat regularly and people whose opinions are no longer viewable.  The former will be just as fun in person; I am less sure about the latter but am reasonably sure that my diminishing tolerance for weapons-grade levels of stupid will not reverse course.  It could mean that some folks stop being even FB friends and that's okay.  Remember, your friends are the ones who make you laugh at yourself when calling you out, who do not get offended or take personally even your most foolish moments.  The other folks belong in the discard pile, just like that pair of pants from ten years ago that fits neither you nor the time.  

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Simplifying

It is quite likely the single best component of Facebook and utilizing it can have a profound effect on your blood pressure, if not your life.  It is the "unsubscribe" button.  Clicking on it means you no longer to tolerate the aimless meanderings and musings of some of your friends.  The epiphany for me came after an election in my former home state.  While I do not begrudge people their opinions or their political leanings, I cannot abide slavish devotion to party, gullibility if not ignorance, or posts that have zero grounding in fact. 

I love a good debate as much as anyone and, with some friends, it is actually possible.  We present our points of view without rancor, without personal attacks, without resorting to talking points.  Unfortunately, this approach is not universal. In fact, it may be the opposite of universal.  Maybe I have reached an age where the tolerance level on my stupid meter need recalibration, but I refuse to suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.  If you believe the problem with rising college tuition rates is the interest rate on student loans, we are unable to have a sensible discussion.  If you believe that a politician doing a 180 on a long-held view the day after a state votes on that issue is a profile in courage, there is nothing for us to say.  And if you are unable to breathe in and out without seeking divine assistance, wow. 

Clicking "unsubscribe" is, in a word, liberating.  Look, no one wants to be "that guy", the cranky old coot telling all the neighborhood kids to "get off my lawn", but I have reached the point where I demand certain things from people in order to consider them either friends or worthy debate partners.  First, you have to be consistent, meaning your position on an issue cannot change based on which party supports or opposes your viewpoint.  Partisan politics may  be the single-most destructive force in American rhetoric today.  It is breathtaking the number of people who wanted to try George Bush for war crimes based on a series of anti-terrorism measures put in place under his watch but do not bat an eye when Barrack Obama not only continues those policies but adds to them. 

Second, you have to come to the discussion with facts.  Not talking points, not bumper sticker slogans, not conspiracy theories.  Facts.  If technology has done nothing else, it has made it impossible for the truly interested person to be uninformed on any issue.  There are countless sources to peruse, both inclined to support your viewpoint and oppose it.  It is often worthwhile to look over a source that disagrees with you to see what substantive reasons, if any, are enumerated. 

Third, personal attacks are a discussion killer.  When you decide that the opposition is stupid, evil, motivated by sinister forces, or in any way driven by something other than a different point of view, you have not only lost the argument, you have forfeited the right to engage in it.  There is nothing to be gained by talking to people who take the ad hominem route and valuable time to lose. 

Today, the list of people from whom I will see thoughts, articles, opinions, or pictures is smaller than it was yesterday.  And, it feels pretty good.  People are entitled to their beliefs; however, they are not entitled to force others to listen to them or to agree with them.  I love a good debate as much as anyone and tuning these folks out means maximizing the chances of good debates by limiting the possibility of being sucked into pointless ones.  Many of you know what I am talking about - a friend posts something that is so out there that you can't help yourself.  You have to respond and you may spend an ensuing period of time wondering how your seemingly intelligent friend can be so obtuse.  It is a waste of time for you will find no answer.  In addition, you will lose respect for that individual and, in some cases, may wonder why you thought him/her a friend in the first place.  Simplify.  You will be glad you did. 

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Hardest Thing

Some truths are so self-evident that they give the term self-evident a bad rap.  One of those is recognizing that the hardest thing is getting started.  On whatever it is you want to do.  There are plenty of cliches to back that up:  a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, change happens when decide to change something, and so forth.  Same applies to writing, whether for a paper, a business proposal, a book, even a blog.  Ideas pass through; the rustling in the writer's brain is obvious.  But ideas are no good if no one puts them on paper.  Or computer screen.  If that necessary first step of committing thought to document is not performed.  And so here we are. 

Today is going to begin a more regular habit of participating with this forum.  Ironically, my entire professional career has been wrapped up in writing of one sort or another:  news stories, press releases, marketing and advertising copy, and most recently, communication audits as part of grad school assignments.  A good bit of idle time is consumed with it, too, whether arguing or connecting with friends on FaceBook, debating the issues of the day on a couple of politically-oriented sites, or bloviating about the fortunes of my alma mater for the upcoming football season.  Meanwhile this forum, which began about a year ago to coincide with my entry into graduate school, is only periodically taken out of the stall and out onto the track.  How silly.  I contribute thoughts to advance the aims of other people but neglect to do so regarding my own. 

So, where to begin.  This incarnation will go in multiple directions.  The genesis of the blog was influenced by two conditions:  being a decidedly non-traditional student in a very traditional setting and the discovery of my mother's path through dementia.  The latter was more difficult to write about because doing so entailed a re-living of circumstances that were not always pleasant.  Entries fell under the broad heading of "The Mary Tales" as my mother's name was Mary and you learn quickly that if you cannot laugh at some aspects of this disease, you will die nearly as torturous a death as the person afflicted with it. 

School was a different matter, beginning with the reality that I actually was old enough to be my classmates' father.  Add to that an unexpected discovery:  egos in academia are especially fragile, particularly when confronted by someone with practical (as in, for pay) experience in the subject being taught.  What I expected to be my greatest strength as a teaching assistant emerged as my biggest liability.  At least at Auburn.  Things are markedly different at Florida State.  Curiously, the folks I work with at FSU are PhD's; the ones at AU had only Master's.  There is probably a psychological explanation to the difference; maybe the PhD's are more secure in who they are.  Or maybe it was just me.  Regardless, the Auburn experiment ended with my mother's death and Florida has been home for nearly a year.  I lost some credits in the transfer but gained a great deal of peace of mind, some practical new work skills, and a classroom environment filled with other professionals.  Not to mention a shiny new condo near the bay and a couple of shades on my tan. 

Moving ahead, this will at times resemble a journal and, at other times, reflect on issues of the day.  I will strive to do less of the latter as there is no shortage of pundits already in play.  One more voice in the cacophony may not change much though I like to think that, on occasion, I bring a different perspective to light.  Morphing this blog requires some heavy mental lifting; do you realize how difficult it is to come to grips with the reality that while I may have an opinion, not everyone feels entitled to it?  As the comedian Ron White said in a performance when confronted by his wife about a difficult turn of events, "I had the right to remain silent.  And the ability."  Those two things make for a tremendous combination.  Actually, life is easier in not feeling the need to share and the holes in my tongue have almost healed.  That does not mean new ones will not be created but the goal is to keep the number to a minimum.  Instead, this space will become a repository for information with lasting value, lasting designed as longer than the typical news cycle.  We'll see how this goes.  But, the hardest thing has been done - I've started. 

Monday, May 7, 2012

The Death of Debate

Give someone enough time during a discussion and that individual will eventually reveal him/herself.  Chances are, the results will not be pretty.  I had that experience on Facebook over the weekend when some from my distant past turned out to be a walking, living, breathing caricature.  I have known people across the ideological spectrum, largely by necessity through my previous work in the media and, for the most part, discussions were spirited, civil, and often concluded by agreements to disagree.  This weekend's person, however, was one of those.  You know the type - a person who believes that if you hold an opposing point of view, you are uncultured, uneducated, and unworthy of further time.  Carry on the discussion long enough and condescension begins to seep through whatever points are being made.  Frankly, it is tiresome.

This discussion began with the other individual's posting of a picture that "corporations don't bleed".  I started to simply call bullshit but took a more civil approach in responding that such an assertion is wrong on its face.  Corporations are staffed by individuals who are impacted by the do-gooder rules govt imposes on them.  For some, corporations have become a favored whipping boy but, apparently, only certain corporations.   You  see, this name does not apply to smaller, locally-owned business, regardless of the fact that the vast majority are incorporated.  Corporations are much easier to villify if portrayed as nameless, faceless entities out to rape and pillage all corners of the world. 

It makes no different, at least not to that sparring partner, that corporations are responsible for virtually every convenience that we enjoy.  Every tool that has made our lives simpler, more efficient, and otherwise better is the result of some "corporation" that saw a market need and worked to fill it.  That these corporations act as such in pursuit of profit is not evil, it is how business works.  Then again, the dissenting opinion came from someone who works in a setting where job performance is immaterial, where market pressures and competition are non-existent, and where profit is a word tossed about with contempt.  I don't begrudge public sector employees their role in society; my late father was a college professor, a man of science whose work resulted in outcomes that benefitted farmers.  However, I do get a bit irritated with the self-righteousness of some who believe themselves entitled to criticizing the same private sector that makes their world richer, and not just in the material sense. 

After a couple of parries and thrusts, the inevitable occurred:  I was "instructed" to undertake certain reading, the type of which was almost as predictable as the outcome of the discussion.  Three authors were recommended, all of whom dislike capitalism and one of whom is an "eco-feminist", whatever the hell that is.  My response that perhaps the other person consider the likes of Friedman/Hayek/Smith went unignored.  After all, what fun is an ideological position when you are unwilling to see it challenged?  I can live with disagreements over issues; it is part of what makes life interesting.  What I cannot stand are snide, smug assertions that anyone holding a differing view is somehow beneath the time of the person making the initial point, no matter how ridiculous that initial point is. 

Over the span of a few posts and counter-posts, this one-time classmate devolved into one giant talking point, a caricature of everything you hear regarding people who dislike the private sector, who dislike business in general, and who don't seem to have much regard for the West.  It takes an immense lack of self-awareness to slam the very system that allows you to live in relative comfort and happiness.  I feel genuinely sorry for such people, for individuals whose default position is to blame their own culture for the sorry plight of others, for refusing to acknowledge that for all their inherent flaws, capitalism and free markets remain the single best path to individual liberty and prosperity.  Facts are stubborn things in that regard; the societies which are the most prosperous tend to be the most free and the ones with the most misery tend to be the most oppressive.  This malicious truth is more than some can bear, so the problem instead becomes the person uttering it.  In the weekend's discussion, that was me. 

Funny thing about Facebook.  People believe that they can post damn near anything and no one will question it, challenge it, or otherwise disagree with it.  Sorry, free speech does work that way.  You have the right to say it; you do not, however, have the corresponding right to be agreed with or even heard.  And, when you cannot defend your points without resorting to thinly-veiled personal attacks on the other individual's intelligence or character, you have lost.  I expected better, particularly from someone in academia, where logic and reasoning are supposed to be fundamental tools.  Then again, living in an ideological hothouse where your views are never challenged, never scrutinized, or never dissected leads breeds intellectual laziness that no number of fancy words, or cheap shots, can mask.