Peculiarly Uncommon Thoughts on Twitter and Celebrities

I once assured myself that I would never write about Twitter.  Everyone these days has already written about the subject, especially all the social-media marketers out there, and I’m not a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of guy.  Still, I spend a bit of time thinking about authenticity, transparency, and celebrity so this post was bound to happen.  

Before commenting on how celebrities use Twitter, I want to explain how I use it, and why I have a love-hate relationship with celebrities.  (It relates, I promise.)  For one thing, Twitter offers a chance to share my thoughts and feelings with the world and to meet interesting people from different backgrounds, and by different backgrounds I mean more than just different types of social-media marketers.  Those folks are useful in some cases, but I follow enough of them already.  I’m more interested in meeting honest and talented people who do unique things and have captivating ways of seeing the world.  I don’t care so much about people trying to sell me things, but I do care about people, when I’m not fighting off my own inner demons, and I am curious to learn how my fellow humans navigate through this strange, but miraculous, journey of life.  

At its best, I also see Twitter as a way of counter-acting a profit-worshipping, depersonalized culture of buracracy and venality.  The casual nature of this simple-to-use online service encourages honest disclosure.  Go ahead and criticize Twitter for encouraging an ethos of oversharing, but at least people on Twitter are less likely to proclaim that everything about themselves and their world is great.  In real world conversations, people are tragically far less honest.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask a few random strangers on the street or even acquaintences how they’re doing.  Did any of them, perchance, mention that they were doing fine or doing great?  What a surprise that is, right? 

(I despise the kind of self-congralatory marketing that some individuals and companies use in a delusional attempt to persuade the world that everything really is great all the time.  It goes something like this, "I’m unconditionally awesome right now just like I’ve always been, and I’m going to continue to be more and more awesome each year."  Not to rain on your parade, but your ability to produce profits that just go up and up into infinity is somewhat impeded by the reality of your eventual death.  Sorry.)  

To continue with our experiment, go find a few random people on Twitter and pay attention to how they answer the previously mentioned, now implied, question.  I would be willing to bet good money that there are more compelling, more transparent responses from the Twitter crowd. There’s something special, almost magical, about being part of a community that is fueled by honest discourse.  To benefit from that transparency while withholding it from the group is a form of resistance, a selfish action that makes it a little harder for the community’s ideals to prevail.  

I embrace that sense of transparency that comes with Twitter while recognizing the risk it brings.  If I am too honest, I might convince some people that I’m an idiot or a jerk.  Maybe they won’t hire me or maybe they’ll use my words against me as a result.  But, I’m willing to face those risks because being transparent forces me to live a life worth sharing.  I acknowledge dark spots in my life on Twitter to be honest about who I am and to bring those dark spots into the light.  You see, I care more about becoming whole than about gaining market share, although there is nothing wrong with gaining market share if done in an honest and excellent way.  If you think that’s a foolish outlook, then by all means avoid doing business with me.  I don’t sell to everyone, and we’ll both be happier if you take your business elsewhere.

I’ve said my share of dumb things on Twitter, but I’ve made a point of not deleting those tweets.  (I have deleted one or two of the more impulsive and grammatically incorrect ones, but I haven’t done that for a few weeks.) I’d rather let you get a glimpse of what I’m really like than to make you think that I’m more noble than I am.  Again, at stake is the correcting influence of transparency, and if I’m going to embrace that idea then I should walk the walk.

Onward we go to discuss celebrities. I know, I buried the lead.  It was on purpose: honesty not fame is the foundation from which I hope to build the ideas that follow.  

Like almost everyone else, I admire people who are excellent at what they do.  I’m astonished by George Lucas’s cinematic wizardry, Tiger Wood’s concentration, Nicole Kidman’s elegance, Michael Phelp’s dedication, Oprah’s graciousness, Steve Job’s vision, Tom Wolfe’s depth, Tim Burton’s style, Brittany Snow’s sincerity and so on.  Even the celebrities who are famous for being famous tend to have some enigmatic quality tat captivates our collective attention, and yet the selfishness and baseness of some celebrities does much to screw up the world.  

(The next paragraph that follows may seem abrasive, but please trust me through it.  I need to make an important point, and I don’t know how else to do it.)  Have you ever reduced, in your mind, a celebrity to the status of a stupid skank who exists only to corrupt and to earn more money for powerful, amoral mult-national corporations?  I have … but, when I remember that we are created in the image of God, I can’t continue to maintain that thought.  Even the celebrities I am tempted to despise are loved b God, even they have something special to contribute.  

Now that I think about it, I’ve done my sare of thoughtless and skank-like things, and usually it was because I was hurting and I didn’t know how to better resolve the pain.  Maybe then I shouldn’t be so quick to judge, right? Same goes for you too.

From that perspective, it’s harder to see even the seemingly shallow celebrities as completely useless human beings.  They may be tragic examples of spoiled potential, but they are still children of God, and so they still matter by definition.  

I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for the souls of celebrities since they are blessed with their awe-inspiring gifts.  

I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for celebrities since they are blessed with the awe-inspiring gifts that they have. 

  

 

I once assured myself that I would never write about Twitter.  Everyone these days has already written about the subject, especially all the social-media marketers out there, and I’m not a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of guy.  Still, I spend a bit of time thinking about authenticity, transparency, and celebrity so this post was bound to happen.  

"Illusion" from flickr.com/demisone

 

Before commenting on how celebrities use Twitter, I want to explain how I use it, and why I have a love-hate relationship with celebrities.  (It relates, I promise.)  

On Twitter, I’m interested in meeting honest and talented people who do unique things and have captivating ways of seeing the world.   When I’m not fighting off my own inner demons, I do care more about people than about selling stuff, and I am curious to learn how my fellow humans navigate through this strange, but miraculous, journey of life.  

At its best, I also see Twitter as a way of counteracting a depersonalized culture of profit-worshipping and dishonesty.  The casual nature of Twitter’s simple-to-use online service encourages honest disclosure.  Go ahead and criticize Twitter for encouraging an ethos of oversharing, but at least people on Twitter are less likely to proclaim that everything about themselves and their world is great.  

In real world conversations, people are tragically less honest.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask a few random strangers on the street or even a few acquaintances how they’re doing.  Did any of them, perchance, mention that they were doing fine or doing great?  What a surprise that is, right? 

In case you didn’t realize it by now, I despise the kind of self-congratulatory marketing that others use to persuade the world that everything really is great all the time.  It goes something like this, “I’m unconditionally awesome right now just like I’ve always been, and I’m going to continue to be more and more awesome each year.”  Not to rain on your parade, but your ability to produce profit that goes to infinity and beyond is somewhat impeded by the reality of your eventual death.  Sorry.

"nopants spectrum" from flickr.com/kenyee

 

To continue with our experiment, go find a few random people on Twitter and pay attention to how they answer the previously mentioned, now implied, question.  I would be willing to bet good money that there are more compelling, more transparent responses from the Twitter crowd.

There’s something almost magical about being part of a community that is fueled by honest discourse.   That’s why I’m compelling to protest against the people who use Twitter only to sell things.  To benefit from that transparency while withholding it from the group is a form of resistance, a selfish action that makes it a little harder for the community’s ideals to prevail.  

I embrace that sense of transparency that comes with Twitter while recognizing the risk it brings.  If I am too honest, I might convince some people that I’m an idiot or a jerk.  Maybe they won’t hire me or maybe they’ll use my words against me as a result.  But, I’m willing to face those risks because being transparent forces me to live a life worth sharing.  

I acknowledge dark spots in my life on Twitter to be honest about who I am and to bring those dark spots into the light.  In addition to that, I’ve made a choice not to delete tweets just because I regret writing them.  That way it is easier for you to see what I’m really like. 

You see, I care more about becoming whole than about gaining market share, although there is nothing wrong with gaining market share if done in an honest and excellent way.  If you think that’s a foolish outlook, then by all means avoid doing business with me.  I don’t sell to everyone, and we’ll both be happier if you take your money elsewhere.

Onward we go to discuss celebrities. I know, I buried the lead.  It was on purpose: honesty, not fame, is the foundation from which I hope to build the ideas that follow.  

Like almost everyone else, I admire people who are excellent at what they do. I’m astonished by George Lucas’s cinematic wizardry, Tiger Wood’s concentration, Nicole Kidman’s elegance, Michael Phelp’s dedication, Oprah’s graciousness, Steve Job’s vision, Tom Wolfe’s depth, Tim Burton’s style, Brittany Snow’s sincerity and so on.  Even the celebrities who are famous for being famous tend to have some enigmatic quality that captivates our collective attention, and yet the selfishness and dishonesty of some celebrities does much to screw up the world.  

"Tiki Alien" from flickr.com/pete4ducks

 

(This paragraph may seem abrasive, but please trust me through it.  I need to make an important point, and I don’t know how else to do it.)  Have you ever reduced, in your mind, a celebrity to the status of a stupid skank who exists only to corrupt and to earn more money for powerful, amoral multi-national corporations?  I have … but, when I remember that we are all created in the image of God, I can’t continue to maintain that thought.  Even the celebrities I am tempted to despise are loved by God, even they have something special to contribute.  

Now that I think about it, I’ve done my share of thoughtless and skank-like things, and usually that was when I was hurting and didn’t know how to better resolve the pain.  Maybe then I shouldn’t be so quick to judge, right? Same goes for you too. 

From that perspective, it’s harder to see even the seemingly shallow celebrities as completely useless human beings.  They may be tragic examples of spoiled potential, but they are still children of God, and so they still matter by definition.  Besides, I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for celebrities since they are blessed with the awe-inspiring gifts that they have.  

Let me give an example to explain what I mean: I know that I’m ultimately responsible for the decisions I make, but films with strong moral centers have influenced me to do good after I saw them.  On the other hand, I’ve done reprehensible things while under the influence of values-deficient films.  I know I’m not the only one who has even been influenced by what he’s seen, heard or read, because if that were true, companies wouldn’t spend millions of dollars on advertising.  

The shiny, illustrious people we call celebrities have a similar influence, for good or evil, since they are similarly larger than life and also have access to our collective attention.   They can use that attention for good–to inspire us, address problems and point us toward the light–or they can demoralize us and lead us towards decadence and decay.  I talk about this more in my post entitled, How to Avoid Being a Corporate Artist.

I know it’s hard to believe, but celebrities are people too, and being a celebrity is not as easy as it looks.  They have to deal with thousands of people who want their limited attention, time, and money.  Some folks out there want to exploit or humiliate them while others try to seduce them with drugs or sex.  This is why I pray for celebrities on occasion.  (To be fair though, I’ve also thrown curses at some of them.  I do let my anger get the best of me sometimes, but I’m trying to get that right.) 

In any case, our collective future depends in part on the choices that celebrities make.  Their choices matter as much, if not more, than the choices that ordinary folks make, so it’s not a bad idea to care about the celebrities we admire and maybe even for those we don’t.  

With that said, it would be nice if celebrities would also care about their fans, and Twitter is a good way to do that.  Some already do, at least to some extent.  

Hugh McCloud, a cartoonist with wry and insightful observations who writes gapingvoid, follows me on Twitter.  He’s got a new book about creativity coming out in June.  It’s called Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity and it’s already selling well through pre-orders on Amazon.  

Jeff Heusser also follows me on Twitter.  He’s one of the founders of fxphd, one of the preeminent online training programs for visual effects in the world.  

Paul Coelho is the internationally renowned writer who wrote the best seller, The Alchemist.   He’s another guy who is following me on Twitter.  He’s currently promoting his new book about the excesses of celebrity called The Winner Stands Alone, a digression from his more fable-like tales, but a book that I’d still like to read.

I mentioned the products above because they seem interesting and because they are from people who matter to me.  Whose stuff didn’t I promote?  The stuff from people who aren’t following me back on Twitter.  The Gospel of John reminds us that we love God because he first loved us.  In Twitterland that translates into this: I care about you because you first followed me. 

"Man in the mask"ot; from flickr.com/68137880@N00

 

I don’t expect every celebrity to follow me back.  They often have more important things to do, and if they follow everyone they will get flooded by tweets they don’t value.  Fair enough, a celebrity who doesn’t follow me back had better add value with interesting, thoughtful, or amusing commentary.  If the celebrity in question or his staff writers tweets dozens of times a day, my patience for self-indulgent commentary greatly diminishes.  (I tolerate more self-promotion and self-indulgence from those who follow me back, because they can’t be so bad if they are smart, sophisticated, and decent enough to be following me.)  

Speaking of staff writers, it is dishonest to have someone else write tweets on a celebrity’s behalf without disclosing as much. It’s 140 characters or less, people.  How hard is it to write your own 140 characters for your fans?  Why not care enough about the people who help you enjoy the lifestyle that you do by  sharing things to delight them and show your appreciation.  

If you must use assistants to write your posts, then why not disclose as much?  Much as it pains me to admit this, Britney Spears sets a good example in this arena.  On her Twitter page, her tweets are distinguished from those of her managers by attribution lines.  It’s a sad state of affairs when Britney Spears takes the moral high ground that you avoid.  

Since there are a growing number of fake accounts, it is hard to tell the difference between what is a real account and what isn’t.  Sometimes these fake accounts are created by over-zealous fans who should have better things to do.  Other times, I suspect the devils who try to control celebrities perpetuate lies so that their celebrities can be everything to everyone.  For example, you could have one celebrity account geared to the Goths and one to the soccer moms.  By keeping the accounts ambiguous in nature, you can encourage others to believe that the fake niche account they found is really the celebrity in question.  And market share goes up and up!

"Budwing Feeds" from flickr.com/destinysagent/

 

 

Yet the more market share you gain in this dishonest way, the greater the risk that you turn yourself into a soulless product.  Sounds great, except people don’t care about products; people care about people.  Consumers will devour a product until it is licked dry.  Fans, on the other hand, will go out of their way to help the people they cherish.  Wouldn’t you rather have long-term fans than short-term consumers? Then my dear celebrities, offer honesty and affection to the people who support what you do.  

Fans and celebrities both have a responsibility to treat each other as people, not as products to consume or as numbers to hoard for ego-purposes.  (Yes, Aston Kutcher I’m talking to you.)  To do otherwise is to perpetuate foul one-sided relationships that lead only in death.  There are bigger things in this world than just your ego, your lust, or your profit-margins, so don’t be the jackass who ruins them with your selfishness.  

"String of hearts" from flickr.com/aussiegall

 

 

I close with a hypothetical.  What if certain people really are meant for each other, meant to collaborate, support or love each other, and together they could go on to do greater things than they could apart?  Wouldn’t that make life a little more magical?  But what if corporate, build-up-the-numbers thinking distorted the truth and prevented these destined pairs from harmonizing?  Wouldn’t that be a lamentable if these people never go on to fulfill their grander purposes together?  It could come in the form of celebrities who never inspire and get inspired by their fans, friends who never meet, or star-crossed lovers whose love never takes root.  

Whatever the case may be, it’s a tragedy, but it is a tragedy we can avoid if we aim for excellence with the honesty and love that heaven puts in our hearts.  That’s not a bad way to make the world less corporate, don’t you think?

Being Less Corporate is Good for Your Business, Your City, and Your Soul

In this new year in a tumultuous world, why should you care about being less corporate? For one thing being less corporate can lead to more sales, as I’ve explained before.   But really, most of us don’t do things just for the sake of earning more money.  We pretend we do sometimes, though. That way we don’t have to talk about what really drives us: a desire to belong, to be useful, to be loved, to matter.

At The Moulin Rouge by Toulouse Lautrec

Talking about that stuff leaves us vulnerable, and that’s not an easy thing to do.  Instead, it is much easier to discuss things that can be measured, a paycheck, material possessions, and other quantifiable signs of status. What’s wrong with that, you ask?  I answer by calling your attention to the bizarre human ritual known to sociologists and common folks alike as the dinner party.

It is an unstated rule that every good guest at any self-respecting dinner party must acknowledge how great things are going for himself (or herself, the dinner part is a undiscriminating taskmaster, after all).  That is why you will hear witty variations of the following dialogue at almost any dinner party you attend:  ”Yeah, I’m doing great.  The job, wow, really great.  The kids … really, truly great. The new house and the car, you’re not going to believe this, but they’re so unbelievably great that I can’t even describe how great they are.” Fantastic stuff, is it not?  

This is not to say that only great things are discussed at dinner parties.  Of course this is not so.  The weather is an acceptable topic that can safety deviate from greatness. Also it is perfectly acceptable, according to the dictates of dinner party etiquette, to point out how other people fail to live up to the essence of greatness, namely the greatness that any given speaker so magnificently exhibits.  

Let’s be honest: do any of you enjoy that kind of thing when you are stuck reading it and not enforcing it?  Probably not. (If you’re one of the few people who does enjoy hearing that sort of thing, you should probably stop reading this blog and look for a more dinner-party friendly blog, perhaps something like FabulousDinnerPartyBanalities.blogspot.com.)  

At our core, we know that people are more complex than they let on, but we’ve been conditioned to hide our struggles and our shortcomings in the name of pursuing the success that comes from that coveted, perfect image.  And so, the truth of a person is often valued less than the image he forges  in our crazed, perception-driven world, and that’s a sad and corporate thing. 

(To be fair, dinner parties, like anything else in this world can be enjoyable if done with the right intentions.   There is something to be said about sharing a nice meal with friendly, but sincere, companions, and getting to know others in a relaxed and unpretentious setting. )

As long as people avoid addressing problems for the sake of maintaining appearances, they’ll never get the support they need to get better or to fix things. A Microsoft executive could have the smoothest sales presentation in the world with the slickest tech demo, but I would not believe a word he said if he tried to convince me that Vista was a great, problem-free, operating system. However, if he or she acknowledged the problems that users have experienced while explaining steps that Microsoft was taking to correct those problems, then he might earn my interest and possibly regain my trust.  

The picture above is from 192 Creative, Smart & Clever Advertisements, a post that justcreativedesign.com did a few weeks ago.  There are some clever, unconventional ads on display there, so check it out if you’re curious, but be warned: some of the ads are a little vulgar.  Anyway, this picture shows a nice variation of the campaign that Cingular did about dropped calls.

First of all, the campaign focuses attention on a problem that cell phones sometimes have. Here, no one is trying to tell you that cell phones work great all the time. Nor did Cingular claim t0 avoid dropped calls entirely. Rather, their ad says that Cingular has “the fewest dropped calls.”  In other words, they face the problem too, but unlike their competitors, they name the problem and in so doing, focus  attention on correcting it. 

I’ve expressed my disagreements with Obama before, but I do admire his ability to inspire people and his enthusiasm for change.  If Obama refused to acknowledge problems and insisted that everything was it should be, then he’d definitely have far fewer followers. John McCain’s unfortunate quote about the fundamentals of our economy being sound, became for some an indication that McCain would not acknowledge the challenges that reality was serving us. Remember McCain at the next dinner party you attend when you are tempted to sing odes to your own problem-free existence. 

Working at Canon, I’ve learned that it can make a big difference when we acknowledge the concerns of our customers. We don’t have to agree with every accusation that someone brings up, but we get more favorable customer responses when we explain that we are looking into an issue instead of claiming that no such issue can exist under any conceivable circumstance. If we do our jobs well, then our customers will come to trust that if there is a problem with a camera model, then Canon will take steps to correct it, through a firmware update or a service notice as we’ve done in the past. 

Everyone makes mistakes, whether it is a company, an employee, a spouse, a religious leader, or a politician. Learning from mistakes and correcting them are better goals than avoiding mistakes entirely;  Afterall, the only ones who don’t make mistakes are the ones who don’t challenge themselves or try something new. Uncorporate honesty can help with both learning and correcting. 

So many dumb things happen because no one wants to question the boss or the popular one. We tell ourselves that we’re being nice, but we’re really being corporate, spreading banality and failure throughout the world with our unwillingness to speak up. And if you’re not honest enough to ever let others see when they’ve hurt you, then you are robbing them of an opportunity to see the consequences of their actions. 

I don’t believe it is appropriate to bring up every problem to everyone. Some matters are better handled in a private context, but too often people and organizations are hesitant to acknowledge problems even to each other, and that is a problem.  Relationships can fall apart simply because two people fail to sufficiently name and honestly address the points of frustration with each other. Businesses lose clients and damage their reputations simply by sticking to PR half truths for as long as possible instead of acknowledging problems for what they are and fixing them. 

Christ fought for good, but he did not hide the suffering he faced or the problems he experienced. It’s an admirable but very difficult thing to do sometimes. Our instinct is to put more and more armor on, not to take it off, piece by piece. Some days I come close to terror when I remember the things I’ve said and done in the spirit of honesty; By acknowledging my own struggles, vulnerabilities and shortcomings, I’ve given my enemies enough ammunition to do serious damage, but then my honesty has helped me inch closer to wholeness, and that is worth the risk to me. 

I thought long and hard about writing this article. You see, I have to believe what I’m writing or it is almost impossible for me to write anything. Could I really recommend the less corporate path, with my life the way it is? I was set to become a good, if not great, lawyer after high school. I won the debate tournaments in my district, and my advisers and relatives all thought that law school would be ideal for me. I even got to tour one of the big DC law firms, and some of the lawyers involved expressed interest in staying in touch.

I have a great deal of respect for lawyers. The good ones are eloquent and they fight for right and for civility, justice, and order. But that was not me. I cared too much about winning with whatever argument I could craft. I don’t know for certain, but I’m fairly confident that if I went to law school then I’d be making much more money now, although I would probably also be a less authentic version of myself.

Still, far less humor would probably come at my expense during those fabulous dinner parties (yes that’s one reason why I’m not such a fan), and people would actually return my calls. I would be doing something with much more measurable results, and I wouldn’t have to watch one heart-felt creative endeavor after another get trampled upon by indifferent or bureaucratic recipients.

Knowing all those things, could I in good conscience recommend a less corporate life to others? Yes. It’s not the easier way, but I’m a better person for listening to my heart. I’m not perfect, but I’m closer to a sense of harmony than I was before. I may never fix everything that aches or find the success that would make it all OK, but I am not the corporate monstrosity that I could have been. That has to count for something. If you disagree, then take solace in knowing that somewhere out there, a charmingly sinister dinner party is summoning you.

The Advantages of Personalized Advertising

If you’ve been paying attention to advertising lately, you’ve probably noticed that ads are getting a lot more personalized.  This is a good thing.  It means companies are spending some time thinking about their customers as individuals with specific perspectives and interests.

Seems like an obvious insight, right?  After all, I haven’t met anyone who prefers to be treated like a stereotype or a generic number that is very much like other generic numbers within a statistical collective.  Yet, there are still companies out there who try to sell you a product or service using Henry Ford’s old maxim:  “You can have it any color you like, as long as it’s black.”

Sometimes mass-production concerns limit variation, so it’s an understandable limitation, but it’s nice, and uncorporate, when companies give you choice.  Sure it may take more effort to produce choices that cater to an individual’s preferences, but it can lead to a stronger connection with the brand, and that’s rarely bad for sales. That’s why you can customize your Google homepage, buy an iPod or car that approximates your favorite color, and special-order your Dell machine to include just the components you want.

Efforts to custom-tailor advertising campaigns to the individual rather than to a broad demographic are relatively new, but the idea is slowly catching on.   Let’s look at three interesting examples:

AMERICAN EXPRESS

Ever since American Express started running their “My Life. My Card” campaign, I’ve been intrigued by the number of respectable celebrities who got involved.  Tina Fey, M. Night Shyamalan, Ellen DeGeneres, and Robert DeNiro are a few of the names who participated.  I’m sure American Express paid them all handsomely, but even so, high-profile figures are  generally concerned to some degree about the appearance of selling out.

How then did American Express land so many big names?  I’m guessing part of their success came from the freedom they gave their participants to express themselves.  In the above commercial notice how the people involved talk about their unique contributions to the world, their projects.  There’s no corporate, generic discussion about how American Express exceeds expectations or how  it puts customers first. Instead we get specific examples of interesting people sharing their passions with us in a personal way.

When I see that commercial, I don’t think, “hey look at all those sell outs.”   I see new sides of people I admire, and I’m left wondering what my special contribution  to this world might be and how American Express could help me share it.    Not a bad message to convey, yes?  I don’t know about you, but the message’s appeal to me is a big reason why I have an American Express card.

EPSON

Most of us with computers use printers to get important things done, but how often do you hear someone begging for geek cred by bragging on his printer instead of his cell phone, or stereo system, or game console?  Not often I think.   I definitely don’t lose sleep waiting for tech specs on the season’s upcoming printers.  Epson understands this.  That’s probably why they came up with epsonalities.

If you go to their site at epsonality.com you can go through several tests to find out which printer is exactly right for your personality.   You don’t get thrown into a broad group based on your age, sex, or occupation, because, after all, you are an individual, and your needs and wants are different by definition from  those of others,  perhaps a little or perhaps a lot. Why shouldn’t that also be true about the printer you use?

The print ads and tv spots used to promote the epsonality site, like the one above, emphasize the particular ways that particular people want to use printers.    Specific examples in the advertising help us imagine how we might use an Epson for our own specific purposes.  And when you think about it like that, it does make printers seem more fun, almost like a beloved cell phone.

ADIDAS

Adidas has run a series of Impossible is Nothing ads that feature more famous people talking about their struggles.  Those are interesting enough for their emphasis on the individual and his specific struggles in achieving success.  The ads don’t generalize about how Adidas helps you win just like (fill in name of famous athlete here).   They look at the particulars and inspire us in the process.

But, what really strikes me about the commercial above is that it celebrates a team that doesn’t achieve undisputed success. To most observers, the featured Saint Margarets team isn’t a triumphant one, but to the team itself that one goal they scored is a colossal victory. 

It’s such a great, uncorporate thing that Adidas is willing to rejoice even with a team that loses the game but still achieves something unprecedented. We can’t all win the big games, but we can all aim to do our very best as we play with our own unique skills and perspectives, and Adidas salutes us for that.  That’s a pretty compelling reason to buy Adidas stuff, don’t you think?

Remember these ads when dealing with friends and employees and clients.  No one wants to be treated like just another number, but treating someone like an individual takes time and effort.  It means taking an interest in someone, not for the sake of getting the sale but for the sake of a appreciating a fellow human being created in the image of God, just like you and me. It means taking the time to understand what motivates, intrigues, and repulses a person and spending more time adapting a specific approach to him or her.

You do it, to some extent, when you’re trying to sell to someone, so why not do it for the rest of the people in your life?  It is, after all, your chance and mine to make the world just a little less corporate.

Healing Corporate Relationships

“All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.” Lord Byron wrote that in Don Juan.   Great quote, especially when you think about it beyond a theatrical context (but then all the world’s a stage, isn’t it).    I think about this quote sometimes as a way to evaluate my life when it is all said and done.  Will I have lived a life of selfishness and distance from others, dying alone after a lifetime of sowing dissonance and death in others? Or will my life end as a small, but miraculous, divine comedy, one that involves building relationships with others that are bigger than me, while growing and giving back to the world a love greater than death?

Lord Byron painted by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

I don’t know the answer to that.  I hope for the second choice, but fear the first.  How would Lord Byron answer that question, I wonder.  With his work he gave us astonishing poetry that defies the shackles of a conventional existence, but with his personal life he left passion, yes, but also chaos and sorrow with his wandering, profligate ways.   I’m not judging; I don’t know that I can do better with my personal life, at least not on my own.  But, I must hope and pray that it is still a possibility, even for me.

By now, you may be thinking, “well that is very nice, but what does this commentary have to do with making my business less corporate.”   Actually, I have no idea about what you’re thinking, so I have to guess.  (Perhaps you are actually thinking about the delciious bologna sandwich you will make for yourself very soon.  If that’s the case, go make that sandwich and come back when you’re ready.)

This determination to keep our personal lives separate from our business lives is part of the problem. In earlier days, people lived in more tightly-knit communities and they had some sense of each other’s personalities and characters.   You did business with the baker because you knew him and knew his personal reputation.  If he wronged the town in his personal life, then that would be something that the sensible townspeople would address before continuing with business as usual.

I’m generalizing, I know.  I’m not trying to suggest that everything was as it should be in the past, but I just want to call attention to the strange modern idea of severing the business life from the personal one.   That’s why we hear so many more business consultants talk about improving business through better public relations or better marketing.  It is  less popular to talk about improving business by becoming a more caring, less broken person (although there are people out there like Zig Ziglar who do this well).

It’s like Tolstoy said, “everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” But if we want to change the things in business that don’t work, the stuff that leaves others discouraged and demoralized, we have to change the things in ourselves that cause the problems.   I’m writing this first and foremost to myself.

I have corporate interactions with people too often. Sometimes it’s because I want something out of them instead of valuing them as wondrous individuals worthy of affection and respect simply because they exist.   Sometimes it’s because being honest and facing the truth of the moment is hard, because it’s safer to prevent anyone from getting too close. (But, the same distance that prevents someone from stabbing another also prevents him from offering a hug.) Sometimes I don’t trust in a decency greater than myself or in a sense of self-correcting harmony that transcends the threat of easily observable punishment.

I want to change these things.  Talking about them helps.  So does prayer.  So does art and genuine friendship and playtime. Yes I really believe that even finding a sense of playfulness in the most mundane or painful of moments can make a big difference.   (That’s my justification for planning to buy myself a wii, by the way!)

I’ve been to awful business networking events where I’ve been encouraged to see other people as mere business opportunities.  Those things are proof enough that I’m not the only one who’s been tempted to see others as means to an end.

I’m sharing my personal struggles for my sake and for yours. If we all aim to be less corporate, even in our business relationships, then we’ll make the world a little better.  And maybe just maybe we can make those business meetings less about schmoozing to expand your brand and to maximize the power of your network (just the thought of that makes me want to throw up or get drunk) and more about meeting, appreciating and learning from interesting people.

Do you have any thoughts about how to turn corporate interactions into authentic ones?  If you do, I  hope you’ll share them.  Sharing honestly is one way to wish that it ends as a comedy for each of us. So, here’s hoping for a divine comedy to one and all.

Lord Byron painted by Richard Westall