"I is what I is, and I'm not changin" - sickly sweet sugar can seem dark and bitter - when burnt!

Where in God's name should I start with the mess becoming known as the Paula Deen racism scandal? It may well become known more as the perfect teaching material in communications/branding/advertising courses on how to take a polished brand and bury it - in a mere shake of a lamb's tail. 

This is a story with a lot to discuss but I shall do my very best to get down to the heart of the matter as quickly and as briefly as possible. For more background or to get a sense of who Paula Deen is or is not, please watch the video above to inform your opinion and draw your own conclusions. 

From the kick-off, let's get one thing straight here: even though I can hear all the wannabe PR experts and communications sheep bleating on about how we all have our own personal brand, yak yak, we are in fact talking about two different sub-species here. You have your own private individual working for an employer who is the brand, and you have your self-made empire builders where the individual and the brand are coincident. One and the same, in effect.

Paula Deen belongs to the latter category, obviously. A woman from the deep south who built a considerable empire around her comfort food offerings laced with fat and sugar, the belly of which expanded rapidly to include TV shows, book deals, product sponsorships and various other business deals common to those known as the face of their own famous brand. A sweet'n'sassy southan belle who did rather well for herself for about 66 years or so - until this week. 

Out of the blue, in smooth calm waters being navigated with ease came a firestorm that spread across the mirrored surface of the water like it was oil, and the flames raged until apparently nothing was left of the brand except for the famous face itself. Suddenly it looked like an empty shell, with all the sugar and cream and sweetness soured, and a blacker bitter juice oozed from where those famous blue eyes used to shine. 

To cut a long story short, Deen admitted using the "N" word in her past, and also was accused of being a racist by a former employee, and it's now been verified that she once waxed lyrical about arranging a "true Southan" wedding that included servants of colour wearing certain little outfits. I will leave it to y'all to argue over whether this makes her an out-and-out racist or simply an old broad stained by the ways of earlier times and who might still be (discreetly) living in the past. 

You know, no matter how polished, sickly sweet or even manufactured a public image is, ya just never know what's going on inside the massaged exterior. For sure one can dispense with the sickly sweet sticky goo right away; no one gets to the top of the tree by being Mr. Nice Guy, or even Mrs. Sweet Cheeks - building a business empire the like of Deen's requires a certain degree of ruthlessness and ruthless ambition that in my opinion does not (often) correlate with being nice.

A desire to be #1 is what usually drives the empire, and one does not get to the top of the tree without trampling on some slower climbers on the way up. Hell, one usually has to physically kick some people off the tree altogether, especially if they are your biggest threats to making it. In general, I trust more those who clearly aren't hiding anything, say, like a Gordon Ramsay, than some sugary sweet angel with big blue eyes and a supposedly even bigger heart. 

It would be no shock at all to hear some employee saying that Gordon is an a**hole (because he often is on "Hell's Kitchen") but at least you know that "what I is, is what I is": he admits it, publicly, and so there's no dirt to dig for, generally speaking. But the squeaky clean sugar-filled sweet queens can rarely be real - I mean, come on, we are humanoids, not angels, and no humanoids are that nice, right?! 

I haven't met one CEO or company president who is not almost totally self-obsessed with themselves and their own personal wealth - in fact, they are trained to not give a flying f**k about anyone else or anything other than the bottom line! So why should Deen be any different, simply because she serves up sugary sticky smarm as part and parcel of her CEO role and company products?

But we are talking racism here, and that's something else. I cannot help but have an underlying feeling though, that the overwhelming media reaction to such apparent storms in a teacup is often laced with some equally overwhelming hypocrisy. In other words, I bet you that some of the talking heads who rose up in an equal fashion against Tiger Woods philandering ways were people who have had affairs themselves. Do we really think that all these brands that have dumped Paula Deen are run by people who never said or did anything remotely racist, sexist, discriminatory or offensive in a major way?

Between you and I, anyone claiming that racism in America (or anywhere else for that matter) has evaporated is simply living a lie - it is not dead and is alive and well, in America. Naturally, it is more acute in some states than others, but in general, anyone over 45 today grew up in times where it was not uncommon to hear things that Deen has admitted saying or thinking. I went to a school where all sorts of religion-based and sexual orientation-based slurs were just an everyday thing, and you were told to grow up and get over it, if it bothered you. It doesn't make it right though, but we are only slightly removed from those times. Sadly. 

What I find interesting in the media reaction to such affairs is the sub-text. I honestly do not think that American business and media are so easily offended or squeaky clean. Au contraire, in fact, but, and it's a big but, the key is not getting caught. We might suspect you are racist, or sexist, or anti-gay, but as long as you have that clean cut TV image well polished, we will throw tens of millions at you. However, the second that someone from your past steps forward and gives us even a smidgen of dirt, we will rise up like a multi-headed serpent and do our best to eradicate you.

Even while Deen was tearfully thanking some of her sponsors for remaining loyal, they were in their boardrooms planning their exit. The Food Network, Smithfield Foods, Sears, Target, Walmart, Ballantine and even Amazon (!) have since walked, with QVC putting her on pause - until they walk, too. I saw a PR expert on the "Today" show saying that he felt it was a sinking ship, from day one, and I felt he was exaggerating a little - but mere  days later all the rats were jumping off the deck, in absolute horror.

So what am I saying exactly? Well, I do think that the reaction of media and sponsors is somewhat hypocritical in a fashion. The second you run into even a little trouble, they run. Not because none of them have ever made a mistake or shown bad judgement, but rather that they don't want their brand affected by it all, and while you can think whatever you want, the golden rule is that you cannot say what you think, because then we have no choice but to disown you. So if you get caught saying it, you must accept the consequences that will involve deconstruction of everything that you have built - starting with that massaged and polished public image. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of Deen's. I was not impressed with her promotion of fat-heavy sugar-laden "food" to the American public, even claiming that it was good for you on many an occasion, and all the while she was herself a secret diabetic. She hid that for almost three years, which comes across as terribly hypocritical, not least given that she inked a deal with Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company, which somehow almost vindicated her choices as healthy. 

Her performance on the "Today" show (and of course it was a performance) was not convincing either. It was the ultimate bad combo: the smug, self-satisfied, sanctimonious Lauer and yet another easy target on the chair to scold. I found her tears to be very dry throughout, and I was forced to agree with our Matt that they seemingly appeared to be as much over getting caught, and the financial bleeding that resulted, than having said the nasty words themselves. 

What I want to know is how far back in one's past is legitimate material to use against someone and "destroy" them once they have made something of themselves? Is it fair to quote someone thirty years later and have that comment bring their business empire crumbling to the ground? If we are so eager to appear fair and unbiased and evolved that we will speak out against injustice, then why are we so keen to ruin a person and/or not be willing to believe that they have since been educated/have evolved and that they genuinely regret it? 

Are we totally willing to jump on the bandwagon and condemn, in spite of our own sins of a similar nature, and at the same time be completely unwilling to either try to understand or forgive? Is it appropriate to target them for destruction for something they said/did thirty years ago which was typical of that time, but has only since become anathema? If the bulk of those pointing the finger at Deen are God-fearing religious types (which is likely to be the case) then why is it okay to point that finger with the crowd but not show any compassion nor forgiveness? 

These are important questions I feel, and we will not get to the answers today. Right now, Deen is toast, and we ain't talking French toast, let me tell ya! More like dry, burnt toast with none of the sugary, fatty trimmings. Better for the waistline and more appropriate for an exposed diabetic. My God, who would ever have thought one could use the term "exposed diabetic"?! Although there are some supporters lining up outside her restaurants to show support, they are the minority and anyone with a famous face has exited her circumference faster than a rat running up a drainpipe. 

It's a very lonely fall from massive (figuratively or otherwise) TV and media presence to being a source of disdain for the millions who paid for you to get to where you were, and who now celebrate your disappearance. It always comes back to whether one regrets what was said, or whether one regrets more having been caught. Only Deen knows what her truth is, but up until now, she is not doing a very good job of persuading anyone that it is not the latter aspect that is the source of her greatest pain.

As we all got taught as kids, beware that nice man or lady pushing some gooey, sticky, sickly sugary mix at you with a big smile, telling you it's okay and there's nothing to be afraid of - why we get taught that is because when something looks too good to be true, it usually is. Given the massive spread of diabetes and metabolic syndrome in North America, getting Paula Deen's rather irresponsible recipes off the TV screens and magazines might just turn out to be the positve hiding below the surface of that other "N" word - the negative! - Kevin Mc

1984? In 2013, even Big Brother gets to blow the whistle!

 

What a week it's been! Where would I start? It was one of those weeks where things just kept popping up, one after the other, and I realized that I could write a whole blog about any one of them, but in the end decided to lump them all together and save us all some time. We'll see whether I can actually achieve that or end up getting to over a dozen paragraps just on my first topic, which is usually the case!

 

First up, there's the Edward Snowden affair. This is the guy who was so infuriated at Amerika Inc.'s (i.e. Washington's ) "architecture of oppression" that he decided to use his position at the NSA to leak classified information to the world. It's somewhat reminiscent of the whole Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks fiasco, where the army private leaked abundant quantities of diplomatic cables to the always hungry jaws of the beast created by a certain Julian Assange.

 

Given that Mr. Assange remains holed up (i.e. effectively in prison, already) in the Ecuadorean Embassy in good old London town, I guess Snowden felt that the world needed another whistleblower to celebrate. Well, it might be more accurate to say that a lot of the rest of the world celebrates it, but I doubt that North America or Great Britain do. Snowden is riding a wave of attention that derives from and is fed by a larger wave of anti-American sentiment in certain regions of the world.

 

It's not an exaggeration to say that in spite of (or actually because of?!) America's efforts to stabilize an increasingly volatile Middle East, the perception that they are only interested in oil (which translates in effect as interest only in themselves) pervades the globe and greases the wheels of an international network of anti-Americanism. When Americans, such as an army private (Manning) or an NSA employee (Snowden) defect and spill the beans on Amerika Inc., the reverberations and impact are much greater.

 

When an American turns on Amerika Inc. the international network rejoices, even while smiling for photo ops and shaking Obama's hand. You don't think Hong Kong, China, Russia, Cuba, Ecuador are all smiling wryly at this story? They appear to be, and that smiling is mild compared to the ribald laughter in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and North Korea, among others. Collectively, this network is rather intimidating and their reach and preach is spreading ever farther afield.

 

It is very clear that Hong Kong did not expedite the extradition of Snowden as needed, and in fact let China further influence them to let Snowden flee when the noose was tightening. The fact that Moscow was the next safe harbour was hardly surprising, given that Putin is known for getting a kick out of being a thorn in Amerika's side, even while doing business with it. It is highly ironic though that while being a total hardliner on dissidence in his own country (remember the Russian punk band (Pussy Riot) who were jailed for public dissidence?), he is playing hardball with allowing Amerika to get its hands on its most infamous dissident!

 

But while Russia has allowed Snowden safe harbour from the American authorities, it is a transient one, and Putin clearly wants to do the "hand-off" to another rogue nation, and not actually grant the American dissident refugee status on red Russian soil. So Putin is allowing him airport time for now, while he decides where he is going next. Presumably he will hit Cuba next, en route to Ecuador, which after the Assange affair seems to be his potential final resting place. Maybe.

 

Inside the protected (and apparently spying) fortress and powers of Amerika Inc., Snowden is essentially already guilty of being a traitor who should be charged with treason, which ex-Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't shy to underline. It's also ironic that many accused ol' Dick of being guilty of more or less a different version of the same accusation (i.e. treason), via lining his own purse at the expense of Amerika Inc. by being a key player in going to war in Iraq on the basis of a supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that they knew didn't actually exist. I wouldn't believe a word the guy says, so him calling someone else a traitor means nothing to me.

 

However, when you work for a security-related or military-affiliated agency, and you decide to expose what in effect are national secrets (however low on the totem pole of state security they may be) on international TV, then by and large, de facto, you are indeed guilty of treason. Whether it was done in this case for a brief fifteen minutes of fame (Julian Assange he is not) or out of a much publicized sense of "doing what is right" is entirely irrelevant. Whether you commit a crime out of spite or out of your own sense of justice - it doesn't matter - you will always be found guilty as a matter of law.

 

What happens next remains to be seen, but it's great entertainment and beats the you-know-what out of any other daytime drama on the box. The fact that Snowden has some laptops and hard drives in his possession might be what truly has Amerika Inc. nervously monitoring the channels that Snowden claims are wide open inside the fortress. I guess you only have to say "Julian" and "Edward" and "Ecuador" and "secrets" in the same phone call and lo and behold, you will be paid a sudden visit from Amerika Inc?

 

Anyway, to begin with, is anyone really surprised that after 911, Amerika Inc. decided to monitor us all? It's no secret for example, that in the recent Boston Marathon bombings, the authorities used the latest facial recognition software to identify suspects. Or that in a few cases of recent interception of teenagers with guns and bombs stashed  for use in their schools, it wasn't explained how they had been mariaculously pinpointed. Big Brother of 1984 is alive and well in 2013, and he's only growing and getting stronger every year!

 

Oh my, it looks like a case of "oops, I did it again!" and in fact I have written an entire blog around just one of my subjects this week, and so I am afraid that Paula Deen, George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin and Aaron Hernandez will all have to wait - my audience is very patient but I will not test that patience with a 3-4 page blog. I can hear the sighs of relief all around the globe already!

 

On that note, on this particularly grey rainy Friday, I shall procure a mug of my new Palermo Passion Exquisite Dark Roast, retire to my mezzanine study, and ponder on what information I may have access to that could get me my fifteen minutes of fame. But you know, I already get that from my loyal readers in over 20 countries in the world - and at least until today - it comes with no risk of being separated from my beloved dark roast and armchair, in which case I shall simply continue to express my thoughts on the EU blog instead! ;) - Kevin Mc

 

 

 

 

Crossing the fine line between life and death - and changing from mere man to superman!

More or less around this time last year, we commented on a certain Nik Wallenda and his heroic crossing of Niagara Falls on a tightrope - Just another day in the office! - all the way from the USA over to Canada surrounded by mist and spray, and the swirling waters a few hundred feet below. It was an awe-inspiring achievement and one which rightly crowned him as the "King of the High Wire". 

Last night, on a windy night in Arizona, he became the first human to cross the Grand Canyon on that high wire, in an unbelievably tension-filled half an hour where I think we all realized at one moment of another, that he could be mere seconds away from death. To say that what he did requires some balls (excuse the expression!) would be a bit like saying that Niagara Falls necessitates some water. Gross understatement!

Let's clear one thing up right away, as the naysayers have already begun to claim that the stunt was inappropriately billed - the gorge that he crossed was in fact Little Colorado Gorge in a tribal park on the land of the Navajo nation, and was not in fact in what is known as the Grand Canyon National Park itself. Such an act would not actually be permitted by the park's management, but the Navajo Nation gave Wallenda and the Discovery Channel to use the gorge for the crossing. 

My question on this is quite clear, and is meant to be entirely rhetorical - does anyone actually care? What the guy did is so far beyond the ability and comprehension of us "normal" people, us mere mortals if you prefer, that I don't care whether it was strictly on the park or off the park. The guy crossed a canyon above a 1500 foot drop to certain death below on a two inch wide steel wire that was being perturbed by winds and vibrations, with no safety harness or net!  

It was amazing to me that he was able to carry out actual conversation during this act, although at one point he told his dad over the line - "I don't want to talk to anyone right now, Dad" - as both Willie Geist and Natalie Morales of NBC's "Today" show were expected to communicate with him during his walk. I felt that this was a little crazy, and I was glad that even they decided to let it go and let him get on with business. There was simply too much at stake.

The fact that he and his dad were able to go back and forth also seems incredible to me, as any distraction could have proved fatal, but it seemed to comfort him that his dad commented on how well he was doing, and that the winds were not beyond levels he had mastered before, and so on. Again, the tension did show when he curtly informed his father - "I don't need to be told how long I have been up here, dad...." - and in an inverse moment towards the end where Wallenda was already clearly celebrating and thanking friends/co-workers instead of Jesus (as he did throughout), his dad got curt and informed him "you aren't done yet, so get back your focus and finish the job". 

For both to be so cool, calm and collected under such enormous pressure with the ever-present possibility of a long, deathly plunge into the Little Colorado river below was amazing to witness, on live TV. The pendulums swinging below him, the wire oscillating under his feet, the optical illusions he had to work through which were evident even on monitors, and the winds swirling about him, all contributed to a nerve-wracking 22 minutes and 54 seconds of what can only be called the ultimate TV drama!

He praised Jesus throughout his walk over to the other side, and after seeing him make it, hell, he almost made a believer out of me! I loved seeing how he began to trot along those last few feet, bursting with joy that he had made it, but I felt that he already knew he had made it once he past the three quarter's mark and began thanking humans not Jesus! It was something to witness.

Once more, Nik Wallenda has become a hero and firmly underlined his title as King of the Tightrope, and inspired millions all over the globe by so doing, again. He really is living proof that even us mere mortals are capaable of achieving almost anything if we put our minds to it and dedicate our lives to achieving it.  

It doesn't matter what it is, we can do it. If a guy can cross a gorge on a two-inch wide wire that is 1500 feet above a certain instant death, then why can't we achieve much more modest goals? The answer is that we can, and we must refuse to let laziness, apathy, lack of confidence and all sorts of excuses get in our way. As with almost anything in life, it all comes down to dedication, hard work, and yes, of course, a modicum of natural talent, and then, well, anything is possible. 

Nik, you are an unbelievable example of how hard work and focus can turn even us mere mortals into modern day superhumans (quite appropriate under a supermoon!) and superheroes, and you continue to inpsire us all. I heard a whisper that you now intend to walk from one skyscraper to another in downtown New York City, and I can't imagine one reason why that will not be something that we will all get to witness - I think you could probably do it tomorrow if pushed!

So, after being suitably inspired, I think I should now apply my focus, work ethic and a modicum of natural talent into producing the ultimate dark chocolate milk foam-topped King's Pyramid Dark Roast, all the way from Egypt. If I pull that off, it will serve as a good way to begin the day and then I can head out to try and lay down a few more bricks into the building of my own particular version of greatness. Thanks, Nik!  - Kevin Mc

To work or not to work - not a question for this cat!

As I sat down at the table of the EU outdoors office this morning, I suddenly felt a sensation of how great it was to be at home on a lovely sunny Saturday, and outside in Sonic's private kingdom where he roamed and hunted as king of the urban jungle. Sonic? That's the furry guy pictured above in one of his favorite spots out here - one of two EU macho mascots who ruled with an iron fist, errr, paw!

It's probably a combination of the bad weather recently and having been very busy at work that made me feel so lucky to be out at my table, almost as if I hadn't been here in months. It got me thinking on the subject of how much importance we place on work, and how totally dominating it basically always is in almost everyone's lives. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and more - we go to work. Why? Or why exactly?

The obvious answer is money, of course. I might vouchsafe that a healthy (is it?!) 90% (or more) of people who I know state quite clearly that they do their jobs primarily and principally for the money. Cold hard cash is what we need to pay the bills, and this means we work to generate that cold hard cash. The percentage of people who would leave their jobs if they won the lottery is probably much closer to 100 than 90, which sort of underllines the point that it's always about the money. 

But as much as I sat here thinking about how great it would be to be able to come out here on a Monday morning and doodle on my blog over coffee instead of drinking coffee en route to an office, I simultaneously realized that the feeling I had (and have) this morning would simply not be there if I was free to be here every morning. That would become the new norm, and the sense of freedom I feel on a Saturday would evaporate quicker than the steam from my Costa Rica deepest dark royal roast. 

Ergo, we go to work to pay the bills, and then society dictates that by and large we get the weekends to ourselves to finally taste some freedom again, and boy does it taste good. Then Sunday afternoon rolls into the station, out of nowhere, from the very back of our minds on a Friday night over dinner, all the way to that familiar sound of the carriages whizzing by on the tracks, and thoughts of tomorrow and work converting the magic of the weekend into the misery of Monday.

Now that's one physicochemical conversion that many could do without! But one has to get to a place where one realizes that this is looking at it all wrong. Yes, it is true that basically from the age where we are capable of walking and talking, we are shepherded off into the cold, cruel reality of life very quickly: by being forced to wake up when we don't want to, to bathe when we don't want to, to put on respectable clothes we don't feel comfy in, and then forced out to some public place (prison-like) where we get incarcerated until mid-afternoon at the earliest. This is our early life.

That early life tends to simply turn into the extension of that phase, where the rules change a bit but the lesson is essentially the same. Yes, we know, we don't want to go to work either, it's not just you, but no one has a choice, if they want to have a life, so suck it up and get over it. Daycare became primary school became high school became college became a job. Then the die is cast and that's it until you retire, or die, whichever comes first. 

But you know, work has a much more significant role in our existence than we often think. The stories of lottery winners don't really apply (although they can) because for them it's not just a quiestion of not having to work, but also that they have enough cash to buy and do all sorts of things to camouflage the boredom of being free all the time. But what about a typical life, lived at the same level as today's salary allows, but with the money coming in without having to work for it? So, your very same lifestyle as today, but you are free to live it seven days a week with no office on Monday mornings. 

It's funny, but it suddenly seems overwhelmingly boring to me. When everyday is a Saturday, what are you supposed to do? Especially with all your buddies at work! Yes, you could catch up on car repairs, fixing that broken door, etcetc. but eventually it would come back to the same thing - purpose. One can never underestimate the purpose of a life, and work surely gives us some sense of real worth and purpose. I might suggest that it makes an enormous difference in fact. Given how much time we spend at work every year, and what it provides for, I think work is understandably important and something to be proud of - our self-confidence depends on it to a large extent.

Yes, as a society we may tend to place too much importance in what we do as work, but it is undeniably a key aspect of the accumulated definition of who we are as people. I cannot help but feel that if we switched it around so that we went to the office on Saturday and Sunday, and were home Monday-Friday, we might actually be looking forward to the office on Friday nights. Yes, I said looking forward to work on a Friday night! Wild!

So, I think the key is maybe a shorter work week. There are so many unemployed today and various social programs are stretched to the limit, so I feel that work sharing is going to become more common in the future, in some types of jobs. Work four days, get three off. Maybe we would return more refreshed after the "weekend" and enjoy it more? Who knows? 

But of course, as I come to the close, there is one key element that I have not alluded to as yet. Almost certainly, the most important aspect of how work can be combined into a fulfilling and happy life is the potential in us to find something to do that we actually love doing, and we get paid for it - what a concept! Jumping out of bed with a smile on a Monday morning, and rushing off to the office full of beans (make that coffee beans!) and ready to go and have a great day - now that's the way to go!

I know that not everyone is lucky enough to get paid for doing what they love to do, but one should try as hard as one can to get there. Or to find a way to love doing what might be quite mundane, task-wise, but challenging oneself each day to do it better, faster, cheaper, and so on. Taking a real interest in the company and employer tather than just clocking in and clocking out, while being checked out most of the time. It really is the case that the more you put in, the more you tend to get back out of it. 

When I head off to the laboratory (which is one of my offices!) on a Monday morning, leaving a home that I feel comfortable in, with my health intact and my job waiting for me? Well, I always remind myself that I have won the lottery, already, the real one, and the other lottery is only about the money and nothing else. A healthy day's work provides purpose, self-respect and a level of pride in achievement: something with which no mountain of money could ever compete. Work is a benefit and a gift, after all!

Money only pays the bills, but it's in work that we find a higher purpose in the elaboration of our huge potential. Every day. On that note, and given how I started this post, well, the sun is beaming down on the table and I feel that I have earned some downtime under it - curled up like the furry devil himself - for a solid Saturday midday power nap - ah, now that's what I call real life - on a Saturday! ;)  - Kevin Mc

A dying breed: the soon-to-be extinct social media guru species!

How many social media "gurus" are out there, ready to explain to you what it's all about, how to initiate it, maintain it, and how to make it all work for you? An infinite number, it seems. But how many so-called social media "gurus" does it take to get you off your backside and actually doing it?

Exactly! A very finite number indeed. That number being zero. None. Zilch. We read a really funny yet quite accurate definition of the creature known as the "undergrowth-dwelling lesser-spotted social media guru" recently, and so will share it here for illumination.

"Social Media Guru: A term used to assign imaginary expertise in a nascent communications field to an individual with little to no real world business experience and the professional integrity of a bowl of banana pudding."

Hilarious. Perhaps there might be a smidgen of exaggeration in there but overall it is pretty bloody close to the bull's eye. The problem with social media is that it actually has itself created a self-serving forum for all of these so-called and self-professed "gurus"; the great majority of whom know nothing about social media that is not inside the godamn guidelines and help tools and forums of those media themselves. Like they say here in Montreal: "C'est ridicule!"

 

The saddest thing about the emergence of this new species is that there are so many of them, alongside so many more who apparently prefer to listen to their bleating, rather than going onto Twitter, for example, and reading the extensive guidelines, troubleshooting and help forum sections. Maybe after that, engaging one's brain, and getting down to creating some engaging content oneself, instead of asking/paying another to tell you what to think and say.

What makes me laugh regularly is the overtly serious tone often applied to the subject matter, which I find truly ridiculous. Read my lips, people. Okay then, read my type, people! Social media and its money-spinning offshoot, social media marketing, ain't no brain surgery, nor dentistry, or building a car, or even cutting your hair. It's fooling around on your computer or hand-held device, and even when dealing with business, it's meant to be fun! Forget the finger-pointing eyebrows-raised marketer telling you to smarten up! What's next? You want someone to tell you the best way to take your shower each morning, or best grocery store practices for the time-challenged business person?

 

Even more risible than the social media "guru" are the social media marketing "wannabes" who push social media tools at you/your company, but for a fee, because (a) they are in the business of communications, and, (b) they have read and claim to be au fait with the law as laid down by one or two of these "gurus". Trust me, any professional communications service provider who needs a social media "guru" to tell them how to tell you how to use social media is just another sheep, following trends. Even then, that usually occurs only after their own period of initial panic and splashing (in the shallow end) over social media in marketing.

People don't like change, and resist it with a passion, especially if they are over 40-45. So there are all these companies being run by the 45+ gang, who went white when the CEO started banging the table for social media and marketing, and what did they do? Raced off to pay ridiculous amounts of money to companies being run by other 45+ year old people, who, even in the marketing business, also felt daily nausea at this horrific new trend.

And what did they do? Jumped online to find some social media "gurus" to tell daddy what to do, charge him for the advice, and then that charge could be nicely transferred back onto the client in the fee for being "introduced" to social media. It is quite, quite hilarious. A bunch of sheep all being led around by the new species now known as "socio mediaphobicus gurubilis".

You only have to look at the typical media agency's own use (can usually be read as "lack of use", "misuse" or even "abuse") of social media to run a mile before even thinking of spending a penny on them. They come into your office a-spouting "words of wisdom" from some of the aforementioned species' musings, and bang your table telling you that you have to move, now. Then when they are gone, no one bothers to look at their website to discover that they are not even using the tools that they are telling you are essential for modern marketing, even though they are professional marketers!

If they are indeed using social media, and you look closely enough, you can readily detect that they have been on there for a mere hot minute, and their timeline status screams "neophytes".  Ýes. "We've been in communications for over 15 years! We know what we are talking about!" In the biz for 15 years, and they have 129 likes on the company Facebook page? Outrageous!

Who is worse? The lazy old farts who would sooner pay than think or the old farts that wolf down "guru" words over luncheon, and then regurgitate them back up onto your boardroom table for afternoon tea, even repeating some of the same tired old mistakes? Well, if our "guru" said it, it must be the truth, right? Wrong, in many cases! Professionally speaking, one is worse than the other, but the bottom line is the same: both entities are sheep who are being pushed around by trends and peer pressure. Neither appears capable of truly independent thinking, intellectual analysis or action. They merely copy, or even clone. Social media are collectively an incredibly individualistic pursuit, or should be; there are no ten commandments and the "gurus" have rarely been sanctioned by anyone other than the face in their own bathroom mirrors.

It is great to see that science has been impacting marketing of late. Not least because once some serious science gets involved, it will weed out the weak. Your typical marketing is far from being an intellectual exercise, that's for sure! Similarly, basic social media use is far from being an intellectual exercise, dear friends, and frankly, if your sons and daughters are doing it, and probably doing it well, therein lies the bottom line. If your 16 year old child is a prince of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Pinterest, Instagram and Googleworld, then why would you even consider handing over tens of thousands to some other 16 year old's mom or dad to do social media (marketing) for you?

It's free. It's easy. It's fun. A PhD in physics it ain't. So what to do? Commit! Place garlic cloves all around your office door and computers, to ward off the "guru" species, close your door, get off your backside, put it back down into the chair at your desk, and begin a social media adventure. Hell, you might even have fun!

Of course, once things evolve, and you truly want to leverage your social media presence and branding to increase sales, that might be a time to spend on doing so, but do it with an outfit which has a proven track record of achieving just that. Science has caught up to marketing, so you can actually ask for the analytics on various social media performance metrics for other clients, to see what that agency can or cannot do for you, Don't take anyone's word for it: demand to see the numbers, charts and data. Go with a team that clearly knows what they are talking about, backed up by that data!

We feel quite blessed here at Evergreen Umbrella. Luckily we are one of those species that is totally immune to infection by the "socio mediaphobicus gurubilis" parasite, and our bullshit detector is super-sensitive to those who might try to use our success-to-date as one source of additional revenue streams for them. If the day ever comes where EU would pay another to handle social media for us, well, that would mean that Kevin Mc must have passed away. We can't see that happening anytime soon, especially as the world needs him so badly; and while he might be "away" on occasion working on a new book in a castle in Ireland, we are confident that he will be back, often, and for a very long time to come! He's our very own (but real deal) social media guru, and the nicest thing is that he neither claims it nor even seems to know it. Hallelujah! - EU

Evolving by eliminating - it's human nature!

A question one hears often about the whole creationism versus evolution debate is: if we have evolved from apes then how come they stopped evolving?! Are they actually more intelligent than we all thought, and once they managed to create humanoids and spread them throughout the planet, they sighed and went into retirement with no further interest in doing it again? A bit like man going to the moon. Been there, done that, yawn.

But it is an interesting question, and in the absence of the ultimate "missing link" being excavated tomorrow, it continues to come up. However, unless you never heard of that nasty acronym, DNA, and think of it as mere smoke and mirrors, then it is essentially impossible to deny our intimate relationship to the great beasts that came before. As Darwin always believed, the forceful scythe of evolution will exert its effect and carve out a better version of what preceded it - given time, favourable environment and sufficient resources.  

The mystery over why great apes stopped evolving into "us" doesn't seem that complicated to me.  First off, at some point, due to a collusion of advantageous circumstances, we split off from the apes at an evolutionary crossroads of sorts known as speciation, whereby a distinct new species evolved from its precursor. To this day we do not know precisely what it was that permitted this new branch to form on the tree of life, but we cannot rule out that some of it happened by geographical/environmental good luck. In other words, what might have transpired in one region of Africa might not have been repeated in other parts of the country. 

One fascinating aspect of how we appear to have evolved from more primitive relatives concerns social behaviour and fire. This has not changed that much in millions of years, which the millions of barbecues currently grilling slabs of raw meat bear witness to - we love to get together outside and cook on an open fire! From what is known about our evolution, it appears to have been when our ancestors discovered fire that everything changed. 

Why? Well, let's get to the more obvious point first. Whether it happened by accident or by a spark of early human-like genius, some bright spark threw their piece of a carcass onto the fire, and discovered that the meat was tastier and much more tender than the raw version. Bingo! The effect that this had on our development appears to have been a staggering one. Can you imagine why?

Well, all of a sudden, and keep Darwin's evolutionary scythe in mind, the need for such power in the jaws and teeth was obviated when the meat was juicy and tender. Unquestionably, over time, this led to changes in the maxillofacial skeleton: jaw size and maximum force were significantly reduced. This had an incredibly profound effect on the development of early hominids (as opposed to humanoids!) because with much less evolutionary pressure applied on the jaw, it meant that skull size (and therefore brain cavity) was increased. 

It seems perfectly obvious now that I write it, but it would never have occurred to me had I not read it myself. I guess it truly underlines the saying that "you are what you eat"! So, smaller facial muscles and jaws allowed the brain to take a major leap forward, and nothing would be the same again. Scientists have even determined that a mutation in the sequence of one gene, MHC-16 (a gene involved in muscle development), some 2-3 million years ago, seems to have been central to this development of increased skull cavity and brain size. 

Another take on this whole story is that it was as much the social behaviour that was part and parcel of cooking meat on an open fire (Friday night barbecue, gang?!) that played a major role in our evolution. It's impossible to imagine exactly what type of interactions occurred but maybe something about community building or joining forces and eating together seemed to be favourable for all? Social interaction is a major part of survival for many, many species, and to this day humans benefit from social contact among those close to them, even while fighting other members of the species farther afield. 

In any case, some combination of local environment, the appearance of fire, dietary improvements and changes in the jaw/skull size ratio led to a more truly evolved creature. I could be cynical and say that as far as we are aware, none of the great apes are sitting around cooking meat at campfires today, due to a key environmental factor being missing for such development, therefore there are no new early hominids. But that's a bit too easy, and is probably far from the real reason. 

You know, in many ways it is pretty accurate to say that the most deadly creature on the planet, is, well, wait for it - mankind. We have raped and pillaged, and colonised, and taken, and eliminated anything in our way on the journey. There's a line of thought (hardly a stretch) which suggests that early mankind was ruthless in eliminating its closest competitors - those bigger-jawed dumbass beasts that came to steal our food. It is entirely believable that our ancestors cleaned out their surroundings in order to survive and then spread out to spread the word. Go west, young man!  

We have eliminated so many species from the planet in the interests of our own survival, whether it was direct (food supply) or indirect via optimising the planet for our continued growth and evolution. If that ruined ecosystems or the ozone layer or polar ice caps, well, that's life, right? Had we discovered a violent species on the moon which threatened us, what would we have done? Back then, we would almost certainly have eliminated it, too. 

Modern man has devastated the natural ecosystem of species even close to extinction, so it's hardly surprising that apes no longer can evolve into hominids given that their natural environment of days gone by effectively no longer exists. The mere presence of man on the planet has made the jungles less safe places to be - for the animals! That expanding presence probably does represent a negative stress in the jungle, one which was absent earlier in evolution.  

In other words, not long after speciation occurred and we became slack-jawed but big-brained hominids, we eliminated our closest relatives, and the right combinations of favourable circumstances never occurred again. It's even believed that man eliminated Neanderthal man, some 40,000 years ago, and humans have since manipulated the planet in ways that are not strictly evolutionary, which has wreaked havoc on the Earth. But if one looks at it as a result of our increased cranial size and brain capacity, and it is all about survival of the fittest, then it will all go down in future history books as part of the ruthless evolutionary process.

But not everyone is as convinced as me, and to each their own. In fact, it's grey cold and wet here again, making it a perfect day to go squatch hunting with the gang of "Finding Bigfoot" - however, the closest they have gotten so far is finding big feet - their own! I wonder why? ;)  - Kevin Mc

Paradox - the side effects of social media overdose make us unsociable people!

Being a scientist, quite naturally I have a certain affinity for shelves nicely stocked with bottles full of liquids of all possible colours and chemistries - it was a sight that filled me full of fascination as a child, and it did not fade very much with time. However, in this particular case, the dispensary shelves are lined with a very different repertoire of tools of the trade, collectively known as social media. Step into my apothecary, y'all!

To say that our world has been transformed forever by the emergence of the internet, the smartphones that carry it which are now effectively portable computers, and the pervasion (invasion?) of global brand names such as Facebook and Google, would not be understatement. At least not if you are under 50. Social media is no longer restricted to facilitating communication among individuals, but it has been hijacked by business big and small, as a marketing tool. 

I say "invasion?" above simply because there is most definitely a virality (no pun intended) in its ever-increasing reach, and we have more or less gotten to the point where we no longer sit and watch a movie on TV or read a good book without frequent interruptions/distractions from the online world. Yes, there are those who turn the phone or netbook off to avoid being disturbed, but again, that's less common in anyone below 40. God forbid we miss something that happens in the world, all because of that freaking film!

It must be something hardwired in to social media itself or even inside our own heads that leads to the addictiveness of social media. I think it is the latter - there's just something so "of the moment" that makes us feel we cannot afford to miss a thing, and we need to be first to hear of the earthquake or explosion so we can post it on our own social media sites and appear cool. I don't know why that should confer coolness on one, though. 

Ditto the celebrities who take to the airwaves following any disastrous event and tweet "Wow! I was just there!" or "I was supposed to be on that plane!" - all in rather weak attempts to make the disaster somehow theirs, making it more significant because it almost touched them, and they are so important. Right? Wrong. But we all love to believe that everyone is listening to us, and that we matter, so we push it out there to the world. As I have said before, for many the real function of social media is to create an online persona that shows the world how you live and what matters to you - whether anyone cares or not. That's the point, right?

I don't think it has got very much to do with communication, per se, anymore. In fact, social media have made us occasionally incredibly anti-social indeed; we are all so busy staring at screens and typing furiously that I don't think we could remember a face on the train once our feet hit the platform again. As for actually communicating on the train, and God forbid, actually speaking to someone sitting next to you, well, that would be so rare an event that someone would hit the red button and the train would screech to a halt with security chasing you down through the carriages!

When it comes to using social media for personal or business use, I feel that common sense should rule. Rule #1 being - forget about listening to any so-called "social media gurus" or "community management experts". By and large these types are hacks who failed at something else and morphed into that, and particularly in the early days of business using social media, some of these "gurus" made a killing while advising practises and expenses they would not (and did not) sanction in their own companies! Greater than 90% of the time, not least because there basically are no rules, the advice is little different from what you can glean on the user guidelines of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Use your brains, people!

So Rule #1, don't listen to anyone. Rule #2, do listen to yourself and to your common sense. Social media and the people who supposedly are running it (in individual businesses) follow a sheep-like mentality. You must stick with the pack, follow the leader(s) and don't stand out too much - kind of like going back to high school, if you will. But all that sheep can do is follow. Trust me, the brains behind the Apple, the Google, the Facebook and the rest, didn't get to where they are today by being a follower. God, no. They innovate, regularly. They don't listen to fear. They are not afraid to stand out, and they refuse to believe "impossible". They lead, not follow. 

Your own social media approach should be to use the tools that are available and where the audience exists (no point in trying to reinvent their wheel) but exploiting your own unique style and individual originality, and follow your instincts. If it feels right, do it, and if it feels weird, don't. Be exuberant, be provocative, be stimulating, and don't let anyone tell you how to do it better. Why? Because they ain't you, that's why! The most important thing is having something to say, and saying it better and/or differently than anyone else. They are your thoughts, so no one should be able to crank them out onto type more accurately than yourself. 

Rule #3 then, don't be a sheep. Don't follow the pack. Don't salivate over some either self-appointed leader (the dreaded lesser-spotted sociomediagurupolis beast) nor even some famous face who has done it all, and very well. One of the surest signs of personal weakness is salivating over some billionaire on Twitter or Facebook or a blog. Why? Well, first off, they don't care and probably "see" 100,000 posts a day of that nature, and no shocker, they don't even read 'em! Secondly, you are joining the pack and being a sheep, by heaping further praise on a global superstar, who has no need for it, but worse, you are pushing their brand way more than you are your own. Duh.

No one is going to think you are a brilliant mind, because you think that Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg is very talented, for example. Push your brand, not someone else's. Don't try to align with someone who is so far beyond you, in an attempt to somehow gain credibility. It actually has the opposite effect - you come across as desperate and/or as a sycophant and ass-kisser. Stand up, stand out and stand firm - no one else can be you, and your original content comes from within and belongs to you and only you. If you have something interesting/significant to say, keep talking and eventually they will come. It won't be quick nor easy, but nothing worth having ever is.

Rule #4 would be having the insight to use social media for only as much as is needed to achieve certain goals, and then turning away from it. No, you do not have to be present on four or five different social media sites/tools in order to survive. Choose wisely and use your choices well; if one or two focused efforts work better than five or six sites diluting the message - fine. Yes, you can be on Facebook and not on Twitter - it's allowed. There are no rules, remember?! I would vouchsafe that one amazing Facebook page or one brilliant blog beat the you-know-what out of someone struggling to maintain an overweight social media repertoire, and failing at it. 

I could go on at even greater length, but I think we will close it out with Rule #5, which is, be an individual, celebrate your unique content, and then switch it off. Part of being a rounded individual and one who wishes to be a social individual means that (perhaps ironically) you have to turn social media off and return to the real world  "of the moment", and interacting and living with those within ten feet of you. The permanence of your circumference should never be overestimated, because it isn't or won't be (permanent) - it is sadly transient, like life itself. We need to go back to being able to avoid constant bombardment and invasion of our personal time and even our privacy by the pervasiveness of social media.

News does not evaporate in a few hours, even if the media might want us to believe that, but in general, the earthquake of tonight will remain the earthquake of tomorrow, and if Barack Obama continues drone strikes in Pakistan today, well, you will still be hearing about it the next day. Is it really worth hearing the incessant buzzing and vibrating of your smartphone during a great movie or dinner with family/friends, just so you apparently won't miss a thing? Even if by peering all evening into the phone you are actually missing out on those closest to you? It is paradoxical, and somewhat ridiculous at the same time. Maybe it should be called unsociable media?!

Now then, I have been at this for quite a while, so definitely could use a Brazilian rainforest deep tropical dark roast espresso from my dispensary shelves, and, uhmm, I better get back to my smartphone and see what y'all have caused me to miss! ;)  - Kevin Mc