June 12, 2009 1 Comment

Top Ten

Most folks who know me know that I’m a BIG fan of the number three.

In fact, I should write a post about the number three. I think I’ll do that. Stay tuned.

Three is the perfect number. It is nature. It is morning, noon, and night. It is breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is the perfect triangle. The triune God. It is the Hegelian dialectic – thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. It is even Obamaesque. Check out his non-state of the union address to Congress in January. What did he talk about? Three things: education, energy, and health care. Fact is that THREE is the number for just about every speech, sermon, or presentation structure. But I’m going to write a post about three so I’ll stop now.

And talk about ten.

Now that’s an interesting number. Ten most wanted. Ten commandments. Top ten. A “perfect” ten. Ten is a bit odd in that it is associated both with the divine (God’s commandments) and the deplorable (FBI’s ten most wanted). It is associated with children (Sesame Street) and sports (Big Ten).

So it is in that spirit that I call attention to two “10” pieces I saw recently.

First is the “10” is Lon Safko’s “The Ten Commandments of Blogging“. Interesting. I thought everyone was on Twitter now and had abandoned their WordPress platform. Pretty good stuff. I don’t do all of them. Then again, I can’t say that I keep all of the REAL ten commandments. But I like Lon’s approach. Note that he saved the best to last. Be creative. Have fun.

Second is Graham Charleton’s top ten social media pr screw ups on eConsultancy. These are certainly the most famous. I do take issue with a couple of them. Personally, I thought Domino’s strategy in responding to the employee video was pretty good. They certainly couldn’t be blamed for having a couple of goof-ball employees out of the tens of thousands that they hire. And the fact that they responded in the same media as the source (YouTube) was pretty smart. Lots of folks would have gone straight to Good Morning America or something stupid like that.

But I guess he needed ten. That’s that other nice thing about three. There’s only three of them.

June 7, 2009 No comments

Finding Out that Your Professor Was a Spy

The name sounded so familiar. It was the Walter that threw me off. I didn’t know any Walter Meyers.

Ever find out something about someone way after you knew them that really threw you for a loop? More to the point, find out something that was happening to someone way back when and you NEVER knew what he or she was going through?

Welcome Kendall Meyers, the newly discovered Cuban spy.

Kendall was my European Studies professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Now I find out he was a spy. Not only that, it appears that we was being “turned” – isn’t that what they call it? – right when I was studying and working with him back in the early 1980s.

My, my, my.

spy-vs-spy-without-bombs-775529 Here’s how I rememer Kendall.

He had a more-than-slight resemblance of Donald Sutherland. He was tall and lanky and bearded. He spoke in well-rounded words with a certain intensity and glee that got young minds excited. He was extremely curious with a razor-sharp logicians’ reckoning that meant you had better thought a few moves ahead if you were going to make a challenge. I remember him to be kind, but firm. He didn’t hide his liberal views (this was the first Reagan Administration) but I didn’t find him militant or bitter — only challenging. He’d be the guy who’d have that “challenge authority” bumper sticker on his car.

He loved the Zebra Lounge off Mass Ave. which he would constantly remind us has the best pizza / beer combination in Washington DC.

But most of all I remember his curiosity and his emotion. He was the type of instructor (I can’t remember whether he was working on his PhD or had just finished with David Calleo) that would ask you why you thought something and seemed to really be interested in the answer you gave. He would be the one to say “I’m curious why you say that.” But he’d also be the one who’d as passionately simply say that the conclusion you’ve come to is wrong. And say that with a zeal and conviction — but no malice! – that betrayed a passion in convictions.

That was the Kendall I knew at SAIS.

I had plenty of professors at SAIS that I suspected as a spy. But I suspected them all of working for the CIA.

How odd that Kendall would be Castro’s eyes and ears in Washington.

Books and covers. A reminder of all the secrets we keep.

May 26, 2009 No comments

Quote of the Day

Folks who have followed the JuiceBar know that I’ve a love/hate relationship with social media.

I love it. It is wild, dynamic, open, refreshing, democratic, transparent, exciting … and just plain fun.

I hate it. It is elusive, confounding, over-hyped, out-of-control and overwhelming.

So here’s my quote of the day from Brian Mazzaferri, the lead singer of I Fight Dragons from a great story by Walin Wong of the Chicago Tribune.

“There’s so many things you can do online that make you feel you’re doing something, when in reality you’re doing nothing.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought the same.

Then something happens. You get curious.

And you say to yourself … log on one more time!

May 22, 2009 No comments

Democracy and Social Media

I’m trying to connect the dots on a couple of stories that appeared today in the Washington Post.

The first was about the wolf shirt phenomenon on Amazon. Mike Musgrove writes about how CollegeHumor.com and bloggers gamed the system to make an otherwise hideous t-shirt one of the top purchases on Amazon.

This type of online rabble-rousing appears to be catching on more than ever over the past year, said Tim Hwang, the organizer of ROFLCon, a convention dedicated to celebrating Internet memes. After all, another Web-based prank crossed over into the real world just last month when a 21-year-old college student, known by the online moniker “m00t,” sailed to the top of Time’s “most influential person” list in an online poll, beating out the likes of President Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Gathering nearly 17 million votes, the world’s “most influential” person is the founder of another jokey Web culture site, 4chan.org, whose proprietor is known offline by the name Christopher Poole.

So we know that the social media stuff can be gamed. No big deal. Just like in the old days! Back then it was Hearst and yellow journalism. Now it is some folks getting a good laugh.

Parenthetically, I’ll take the latter over the former.

Then – later in the A section – which is pretty much the entire serious news part of the Washington Post these days — there’s a story about how the Obama Administration is remaking the U.S. government’s online presence.

US.gov meet Amazon.com.

Don’t tell the CollegeHumor.com folks. We all might be trading tax dollars for wolf t-shirts.

Government meets social media. This is a good thing, right?

May 18, 2009 2 Comments

Buddy can you spare a Viagra?

First we had the Hyundai ads.

Buy the car and if you lose your job they’ll take the car back.

They used to call that “reposession”. I guess they now call that marketing.

Then Ford followed suit. They did one better. Buy the truck and they’ll let you hold off on payments for awhile (then they’ll take the truck back!).

Mortgage companies, banks, and insurance companies have also gotten into the act. “If you’re in trouble, call us,” they say and we’ll work out a deal. The not-so-subtle marketing message is one of empathy. We feel your pain.

viagra Now comes Pfizer.

According to reports, if you’re a guy and you lose your job they’ll float you a year’s worth of Viagra. Yup. Sound both salacious and stupid? I thought so.

Wait! It gets worse. For the cars, trucks, banks, etc., this recession marketing effort was all about getting people to do something they otherwise wouldn’t do.

Warren Holstein notes that part of the strategy appears to be an effort to keep folks from switching brands or going to god-forsaken generics. Better to give something away for a little while to maintain brand loyalty in tough times than risk people wandering off and looking for some alternative.

Because hard times shouldn’t mean the end to hard times.

At least there’s no chance of repossession.

May 15, 2009 No comments

Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day

I spent Mother’s Day day with my mother in Arkansas.

She is 86-years-young and lives there just five minutes from my brother’s house.

ggparoushmomdale My brother and I spent the day with her rummaging through boxes of pictures. The bulk were on modern Kodak paper.

But there was a box or two of thick, hard and very brownish ones. Then there were these clear and shiny black and white ones about the size of a postage stamp.

We made it a project. My bother manned the computer. I sorted through the photos and cycled them through the scanner. And while they were being moved from decades old sepia and paper to digits and pixels we’d have them up on a big plasma screen while Mom would look and explain the story behind each.

[The one here was one of her favorites. That’s her in the middle with her brother. Grandpa Rousch just got finished reading her “Peter Rabbit.”]

All mothers are saints.

Not!

The “all mothers are saints” thing is a myth. I have heard enough stories from my social worker wife to know that is not true. Some people are lucky and have mothers that teach them how to encourage, nurture, support, cherish, and love. Others do not.

I am one of the lucky ones.

Born of humble mid-western farming stock, my mother combines a rock-hard work ethic with purity of love and caring that is all to hard to find in a modern life. She is a reminder that old-fashioned is a compliment. That simplicity and virtue is not only attainable, but something that can and should guide your life. Most of all, she reminds me of what it means to be a parent and care for family.

And funny thing is. She never told me any of this. She just did it.

Thanks, Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day.

April 20, 2009 1 Comment

What Letter is Your Recovery?

Just when you thought you were out of the worst of it … Bam! Another 200+ point drop.

I’m telling you this economic stuff is driving folks crazy.

One of my favorite subjects of discussion is what “letter” the economy will resemble over the coming months. This has been the focus of discussion of everyone from AARP to SeekingAlpha to Blogs.com to MutualFundSmarts.

Letters First, there is the “V” shaped recovery. The one we all want. Straight down and straight up.

Then there is the “U” shaped recovery. The one more likely. Straight down, suffer for awhile, and then go back up.

Now comes the really bad letters of the alphabet.

The “W” shaped recovery. As if we haven’t had enough of Ws already. Sort of a bipolar recovery. You go broke. Make money. Go broke again. Make money. Suffer. Enjoy. Suffer. Enjoy.

Finally there is the dreaded “L” shaped recovery. You decend into hell and stay there. Hopefully over time you’ll learn to enjoy it.

We need a new monogram.

April 1, 2009 No comments

Toxic Assets and Economic Schizophrenia

Anybody else find the phrase “toxic assets” strange?

Asset is a good thing. Right? You’re supposed to accumulate them. They are a point of pride. You show them off. You can take them to the bank. People require them for loans — ok, for a while they didn’t — which leads us to the “toxic” part.

Toxic. Not good. Don’t drink. Stay away. Will kill. Or if not kill, at least send to the emergency room. And you’ll have some disease that only Dr. House can cure.

So how can there be toxic assets?

This, I believe, is the topic of the iceberg of economic schizophrenia that has begun to bleed its way through American society.

Things are awful. But they’re also ok. You need to conserve, scrimp and save. But not too much. This is all terrible. But it is all good. We’re going broke. But we’re going back to old fashioned values.

We’re losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every month, home values continue to drop with no end in site. Meanwhile the President’s approval rating is high and there’s been a sharp increase in consumer confidence.

I remember a quote that a cultural anthropologist friend of mine used to cite from an interview he did with a housewife during the recession of the early 1980s …

“Things are getting better … sometimes for the worse!”

Now people are saying the same thing in reverse.

“Things are getting worse … sometimes for the better!”

March 15, 2009 No comments

Vortexes, Email and Remembering the Sabbath Day

It is Sunday. So before going any further, grab the nearest Bible and check out Exodus 20 (or simply click it). Check out verse eight.

Now hold that thought.

About two hours ago my plane touched down, returning from several days visiting beautiful Sedona, Arizona.

Knowing that I was there, my boss asked be about the famous Sedona “vortexes”. Don’t know what a vortex is? Well, other than it being what happens to your toilet water when you flush, neither did I.

So here’s the official definition according to the reliable Sedona-based Center for New Age (that stuff is big out there …)

A vortex is the funnel shape created by the motion of spiraling energy. The vortexes in Sedona are swirling centers of subtle energy coming out from the surface of the earth. They characterize Sedona as a spiritual power center. (Although the plural form of vortex” is generally “vortices,” in Sedona, “vortexes” is used.) The energy is not exactly electricity or magnetism, although it does leave a slight measurable residual magnetism in the places where it is strongest.

So there you go. A motion of spiraling energy. That was me this weekend.

And we (my wife and I) managed to wallow in several vortexes.

I wasn’t planning to write about this on the JuiceBar until I got home and cranked up my laptop. As usual, during the flight home — a hefty 4.5 hours — I pulled up Outlook and slogged through screen after screen of emails. In so doing I must have sent emails to dozens of colleagues which accumulated in my “outbox” folder. So when I got home around 4 pm, powered up the laptop, hooked up the wireless, and launched Outlook … a spew of thirtysome emails when spinning out through email clients all over the planet.

Now here’s the sad part. Within five minutes I had a dozen responses.

A dozen in five minutes — not so special. A dozen in five minutes at 4:15 on a Sunday afternoon — a sad thing indeed.

So keeping Exodus 20:8 in mind, here’s what I wrote to my boss about my vortex experiences in Arizona.

On the vortex front, we (my wife and I) went to several. We climbed all over the Bell Rock vortex. Then circled it and the Courthouse Butte. We interacted with the airport vortex. I’m told it is a male vortex so I was particularly interested in that one. We saw twisted juniper trees. We saw wonderful vistas. We saw a lot of other people “our age” checking out vortexes as well.

I can’t say that I felt anything much … save a slight case of vertigo as we scrambled three quarters up the top of Bell Rock. I suspect there’s something to that. People mistaking an earthly energy field for a well reasoned and genetically sound survival instinct that recognizes that the human species neither has wings nor lizards feet. This is particularly important when you are looking down a thousand foot precipice from a eighteen inch footpath.

All in all, I am glad that people believe in vortexes. It suggests a recognition that there is something outside of ourselves that is bigger (and better!) than we are.

I believe that to be true. My Sunday sermon from Phoenix airport.

Next post — the metaphor of the month.

Stay tuned.

February 24, 2009 1 Comment

Assessing Brand Obama: The “Dog Year” Presidency

Recently I was asked to provide thought and commentary on President Obama’s first one hundred days in office. The discussion takes place in Boston at an advisory board meeting this Friday.

I thought I’d use the Juice Bar as a handy note pad to jot down thoughts and float some trial balloons.

Let’s start with the unusual. Typically people do that last. You know … tell a joke, set the stage, identify the commonalities, cite historical precedent, and then wind it all up with a handful of pithy observations and quotable quotes that are supposed to get people to say “hmm … never looked at it that way …” (Or if you’re the cynical sort (like me) the close often seems to be trying to get people to say “damn … that’s one smart guy!” … but I digress)

So for this first foray, let’s discard all the presentation foreplay and do what my friend Bink Garrison suggests and “start backwards.”

Let’s start with questions … questions that have been nagging me ever since I was given this assignment … and questions that suggest a conclusion or two about what is making the Obama presidency different.

Today’s questions is …

Where did the time go?

As I said, the topic suggested for this panel is “Obama’s First One Hundred Days.” Notice something odd about that?

Yup. You’re right! President Obama is not close to being in office one hundred days. I haven’t had the time to figure out when his “One Hundred Day” mark will be — but my guess is that it is sometime around Easter (BTW, Happy Mardi Gras!).

So why start talking now — in the dead of winter — about something that is not going to take place until Easter? Is this advisory board of mine a bit goofy? Not really. Seems there are a lot of other people interested in discussing this topic well in advance of its actual occurrence.

Google “Obama’s First One Hundred Days” and you get nearly 71 million results (all in .23 seconds!). For a guy that has been in office just a little over a month, President Obama already seems to many as comfortable as an old pair of jeans … so much so that folks are already writing the obituary of his first 100 days right after his first news conference.

Maybe it was the Democratic primary that wouldn’t die.

Maybe it is the effect of watching the nation’s economy and your personal wealth slowly but inexorably melt away.

Maybe it is the ubiquitous and inescapable media that takes any event and expands, extends, and makes a five second event last for five days.

But the Obama presidency already seems like dog years — every day in real time seems like seven days to us normal humans.