The aircraft carrier Midway is docked in San Diego harbor about one mile from where I’m staying. I passed it during my morning run. Across the harbor I saw three other aircraft carriers and assorted navy vessels docked in port. Large, cold, gray, steel structures. All awaiting sea duty.

And as I passed by on a hot morning in Southern California a handful of stray thoughts came together.

• I thought of my father who spent a third of his life in the Navy and a good part of that at sea.
• I remembered my children calling me last Sunday to wish me a Happy Father’s Day. How great that was. How proud I was of them. And how unfortunate that there was no one for me to call.
• I thought of the news of Tim Russert’s passing and the interviews his son gave over the weekend. I thought of Russert’s book about his father and my repeated threats (any meager attempts) to write a similar book about my dad, Jerald E. Johnson.

So here’s a belated tribute to my father for Father’s Day. You can see him here. It is my favorite picture. He’d been at sea for I don’t know how long. A long time. I think 9 months was standard back then. He just got news that he was going home. Going home to see his cherished wife and growing family. He asked his buddy to take a picture. It was over a hundred degrees below deck somewhere in the mid-Pacific. But captured in that singular moment is a man so happy, so joyous, so excited, that no amount of physical pain or discomfort mattered. He was going home.

By any modern-day objective standard, my father was not a great man. He didn’t amass large amounts of money. He didn’t end up in history books. He won’t be known for holding records or achieving breakthroughs. There were no television cameras at his funeral. He was wise but didn’t claim any towering intellect or superior skill. He had no 15 minutes of fame.

But by human standards — by personal standards — he was an impressive and influential figure. He was a man of superior integrity and character. He believed in the value of honesty, decency and hard work. He was a man completely in love and dedicated to his wife, Joyce (he confided in me often that he loved Mom so intensely he couldn’t imagine life without her). He was a Christian who combined an intense faith with even more intense love and compassion. He was kind, loving and generous. But he also believed in asking tough questions and challenging foolishness. He made people think. Finally, he was humble and genuinely more interested in others than himself. (That alone would disqualify him from modern day concept of “greatness.”)

I say with full confidence and strength of character that I — and most others — would do well if we only were to come close to the standards of character, commitment, and compassion that Jerald E Johnson set for me and my family.

What does any of this have to do with ideas, issues, and brands?

Perhaps this.

Perhaps we should think twice about our obsession with youth. Perhaps we should reconsider and reignite a respect for ancestors. Perhaps we should second guess our mistaking celebrities for heroes.

Perhaps we should put more value in character than we do in accomplishment.

So thanks, Dad.

Happy (belated) Father’s Day.

I will always love you.

A simple word. But very powerful when put into action.

I saw that recently. I was part of something last week that I’ll remember for a long time. It gave me confidence that in a world awash with $130 a barrel oil, killer tomatoes, natural disasters, and financial meltdowns … there is hope. The hope I saw was in the commitment of young people to the notion of service.

First, a word about service, brands, and business. Folks have heard me say more than once that customer service is the new brand marketing. I didn’t think this up. Others did. And their argument is compelling. Great service can overcome obstacles, mask material and technology shortcomings, and cover up blemishes better than any cosmetic.

Ritz Carlton. Southwest. Starbucks. It is not the glitz or pr or marcom that built their following. It was the fact that their people were so nice, that they treated me so well, that they were there to serve.

So serving for the commercial cause is a good thing.

But serving for the cause of the community, for the cause of a nation, for the cause of society … well, there’s nothing that matches that.

Last weekend I had the priveledge of being led by a young 22-year-old named Aisha at a public service event in Boston. It was City Year’s annual Boston Serve-a-thon … one day where literally thousands of volunteers fanned out across the city to clean up parks, refurbish day care facilities, rehabilitate shelters. I was part of a group of 200+ from Omnicom. And I was proud of my company’s contribution.

But I was absolutely blown away by Aisha and her City Year twenty-something compatriots. They believed in changing the world through service. They worked hard. They loved nothing more than giving back to the community. They had an earnest passion that you could feel. It gave you goose bumps.

Check out Jess’ story from City Year Philadelphia.

These kids were realists AND optimists. They understood that nothing comes free. And that to serve is the best way to receive. Thanks, Aisha and Jess and Lawrence and all those other twentysomethings who are dedicating one or two years of their life to service through City Year.

You are a great generation. And you will serve this country well. And we’ll all be better off for it.

You give us hope.

After a particularly chaotic morning that involved a contractor, cleaners, a broken air conditioning system (that, on the first day of a 3-day heat wave in Northern Virginia), three client calls, one canceled appointment, two pots of coffee, all accompanied by a neurotic dog … I head to the airport.

Again.

I’m in the “preferred” TSA line a Dulles — a small benefit from my peripatetic life —  and about to go through the standard exercise of placing shoes, jacket, 1 quart ziploc baggie, and laptop in two gray bins when a young man puts his outstretched hand facing my sternum, moves it up and down in a stopping motion and says smartly, “Sir, this line is now closed.”  I look down the hallway to a scene the conjures images of mass deportation.  “But ah …” A diplomatic protest is immediately shot down.  There is a perfunctory “I’m sorry sir”.

I think to myself:  “at least pretend that you care.”

I’m now at C20 for the United flight to Boston.  It is the start of summer which means summer storms and plane delays.  The 2:18 flight is not scheduled to depart for 3:30.  It is 3:20 and nothing is happening.  I saunter to the counter.  Despite the fact that there is absolutely no one save the desk clerk there, I have to work hard to get his attention.  “Any update?”  I ask.  Continuing his aimless gaze somewhere far away from my face, the clerk says robotically, “The flight is scheduled to depart at 3:30,” he says.  “It doesn’t look that that’s going to happen,” I say.  “That’s all I know,” he said, still not looking at me with his voice trailing off.

Again to myself:  “at least pretend that you care.”

I begin to play a game.  From flight to cab to hotel to store to working out to restaurant to coffee shop … I’m looking around and trying to observe who actually cares about what they’re doing and about the people around them.  I find — and perhaps not surprisingly — that there a lot of very disengaged, disaffected, and desensitized people out there who see to simply be going through the motions of work and human existence.

That in turn, makes those who are truly interested, empathetic, concerned, and caring all the more outstanding.  Take Cindy at a Richmond-based HVAC service.  We met over a phone that day, my having found her via the Internet Yellow Pages.  She wanted to help.  She called me sir and spent a lot of time wanting to know what worked best for me.  She made extra phone calls to keep me and my son in college up to date.  She got someone to fix the air conditioning.

Most people — at least for today — however fell into the “pretending you care” category.  There was some small talk with the cab driver.  But I could tell that he really wanted to make calls on his cell phone.  The door man and the desk clerk at the hotel had nice smiles but were hardly enthusiastic.  The waiter was efficient but I got the sense that she figured a 15% tip was a high probability absent some catastrophe.  Polite, efficient, accompanied with a smile.

I look up the definition of “care.”  The verb.

• To be concerned or solicitous; have thought or regard
• To be concerned or have a special preference
• To make provision or look out for
• To have an inclination, liking, fondness, or affection for

I am reminded that a strong brand is a caring brand.  A strong organization is a caring organization.  A strong service model is a service model that infuses itself with people who care … and care passionately.

In reviewing my day I can see that a brand that pretends to care is usually “good enough.”  I can also see the power of people who really do care about what they are doing and the people around them.  Because genuine caring is not common.

Until then, at least pretend to care. 

It can get you by.

Fifty years ago one of the most popular magazines was named “Life.” The title alone suggested a society that looked broad and wide. Life as we knew it then was crowded, full, expansive, exhilarating.

A companion magazine to Life was “Time.” Time. Now there’s a title. Einstein himself could not have asked for a title more expansive or endless than that. Time puts us within the arc of history. It provides a context to what was, is, and will be.

Then in the 80s and 90s came a new publication.  A publication interestingly enough that was born out of “Time” magazine.  The magazine was “People.”  Apparently the publishers of “Time” found out that the most popular page in “Time” was the “People” page.  So they turned the “People” page into its own magazine.

People.  No longer was it all about the globe, the society, the trends, the ideas, the community.  No, It was the individuals, the celebrities, the rich and famous.  And if you weren’t a legitimate celebrity you could become one through a accidents (like falling down a well) that made you a celebrity for a day (or, in this case, an issue).  Your world got smaller.  It was a world not of history, movements, and ideology … it was a world of paparazzi, gawkers, show boats, egos, and pretty people that were “larger than life.”  People.  Larger than Life indeed.

I guess it was inevitable then that we ended up with this … one of the more popular magazines today … “Self.”  That’s right.  Self.  The publishers shamefully dropped the “ish” but they might just as well have kept it in the title.  It probably would have improved sales.

So we went from Life to People to … me!  Just me.  With an exclamation point.

From looking out and looking around to looking inward; from looking at our world to looking in the mirror.  It is no longer about life.  It is all about me.  From gazing at the globe to gazing at our navel.

Then came new media.

First we had the world wide web.  Now there is an expansive label. It is world wide.  I’m talking global, ubiquitous, all-inclusive all encompassing.  It casts a wide shadow.  It kindles up religious ideas of an omnipresent force.

But the world was too much to handle.  So we came up with personal web logs or blogs.   Blogs like this one. And blogs like this one are all about a platform for me to share, rant, converse, have fun.  Anybody and everybody can play.  But I’m carving out my own little community and conversation.  Indeed, I don’t want the world’s approbation.  Just my own little band of Juice Bar junkies.

Finally there was Twitter.  This is hardly a conversation.  It is digital voyeurism.  We lose the narrative.  There is no story.  There is no context save a reference point in time and place.  Indeed, there barely is thought.  Just reactions, impulses and one-liners.  A series of not-so-random images, reactions, and data points.

Help!

I’m communications and I’m melting.  I’m getting narrower, tinier, smaller.

I used to have a conversation.

Then I shouted out into the ether seeing who’d listen.

Now …

Tweet. Tweet.

Those of you who are bellying up to the Juice Bar may have noticed that (a) the posts are fewer and more infrequent; and (b) all the historic posts along with much of the blogroll went somewhere.

Remember a month or so ago when I said that I’d gotten infected with malware?

Well, I found out that the damage was far greater than thought.  Sort like a home inspector that comes back and says your house has termites.

The malware was everywhere.  Must have been some form of malware HTML napalm.  We (that is, my colleague Ryan) tried cleaning it up.  But we found that virtually every post was tainted love.

So now I’m going throught the pain-in-the ass process of hand cleaning each post and republishing them.

Nothing but a huge time suck.

So here’s my idea.  If we have to have a Patriot Act, let’s get someone to insert a provision that the Bush Administration use these intrusive and clandestine powers to identify and track down spammers and purveyors of malware.

And that once found we send them to Guantanamo.

Or Sadr City.

Or Burma.

There’s the change we embrace and the change we fear.

And then there’s the change that never happens.

The change we embrace — or at least claim to — can be found in the current presidential race. Its as if Carville’s sign was hung on the door of every campaign headquarters — both Republican and Democrat — to read “It’s the Change stupid!”

According to a recently released AP-Yahoo survey, people actually believe (or say they believe) that a president can change things:

Large majorities of voters believe the president has considerable sway on a range of big issues such as inflation, interest rates, the federal deficit, taxes and more. Fully three-quarters believe the president has at least some influence over health care costs, for example. Sixty-nine percent can see the president making gasoline prices go up or down.

Make gas prices go up and down? That’s executive privelege!

Maybe that is why the candidates are flocking to the change mantra. According to a review of presidential candidate advertising by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project:

Obama and Romney were the candidates of “change,” repeating that mantra in one-third of their ads, while Clinton, slow to embrace the term in her messaging, still managed to use it in more than one-quarter of her TV spots.

Then there is the change we fear — climate change. And the only way to change climate change is to change the way we do business.

That is, when it comes to climate change we have to change to change the change.

In my experience, people don’t like change. And even when they recognize the need for change they have a helluva time trying to get themselves to do it.

That goes from the personal — changing personal behaviors and habits — to the institutional — changing the way things operate in your house or your business.

The next time you go to the bookstore check out the “self help” section. Self help is code for “I (think) I need to change but can’t.”

Or read the latest books on sales and marketing. Getting folks to “change” (read: buy) is big business. In fact, there are entire business sectors making billions of dollars just to help people and businesses do what everyone now seems to say they do — change.

Change is exciting. But it isn’t easy. And in my experience it typically translates into — “let’s change … you first.”

Or in the words of Mark Twain: “The only person who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper.”

I think Twain was right. People are sometimes like babies with wet diapers. We want someone to be our mother and change us.

We will have a new president in 2008 and with that will certainly be some change. What we do with it is another matter.