I was down in LA last week listening to a former Navy Seal talk about what it takes to be a “Tier 1 Operator”- an elite Special Forces soldier who does the most dangerous counter-terrorism, insurgency, and behind-enemy-lines work. I’m not the kind of person who closely follows the military or knows a lot about soldiering. But man, was this guy impressive.
He is working as a special advisor on the latest installment of a military shooter game. He didn’t spend much time regaling us with war stories. Maybe that added to the mystique. No, most of what he said had to do with the mindset of being a Tier 1 operator. Bascially, you have to believe in yourself totally from the outset of selection, or you will fail. You’ll fail because the physical and psychological demands of training will break you otherwise. You’ll fail because the other guys competing with you for a spot will sense that weakness and attack it, like animals in a wolf pack. You’ll fail because it takes a certain arrogance even to dare to dream of being an elite soldier when you first sign up. “It’s a test of mettle that is harder than anything I could find in the civilian world. I needed to find it in myself first”
He was addressing about 30 of us and he had the whole room rapt. It was like listening to a fireman when you’re seven years old. I think his physical presence helped - he was handsome and poised with the strapping build of a pro linebacker. But he took pains to emphasize that the biggest misconception about his profession is that everyone is built like Superman: “we’re all shapes and sizes”. I think what worked is that he didn’t bother trying to establish himself or his credentials- he just started talking from a position of authority. Quiet confidence, not ego. If there’s one lesson I learned from all this, it’s the power of self-possession. Listening to him talk was what I imagine it’s like listening to an elite athlete like Michael Phelps or a world class musician. Someone who has such supreme confidence that they are at the top of their game that they have nothing to prove to an audience of mere mortals. I’d love to bring some of that mojo to my own work.
My mother-in-law is on the outer edge of the boomer generation. At 65 give or take, she just had double knee replacement surgery. Even five years ago, knee surgery was considered so invasive that you would never do both knees at once. Now here she is goign to a specialist clinic, the Center for Joint Replacement in Fremont that’s basically a factory of new knees for seniors. She was in hospital for a total of only THREE DAYS. She was carrying my daughter around within a month.
I really enjoyed the experience of going to visit her, because it seemed to me to be a glimpse into the future of medicine. A very narrow clinical focus. Exclusively immigrant care-givers. A tight age range of White patients between maybe 55 and 75, with a mean of 65. And as much a therapy session as a surgical clinic.
Post surgery, all the patients were wheeled into a common room twice a day for mandatory group physical therapy. There was no coddling here. Everyone had to do their exercises, and if they complained that they were too old, too weak etc., the response was consistently; “look at others in the circle, they’re doing it. And if you want to get out of here soon, you will do it too!” It was amazing to see the power of peer pressure being used on seniors! Another part of the magic was that you see the progression of recovery around the room- it was obvious who was there on Day 1 following surgery vs Day 2 vs Day 3, no just from the amount of bandaging etc. on their needs, but on how fit and hearty they looked. I think getting your knees replaced has the potential to be profoundly depressing- you’re old and weak and you will never walk properly again. But in fact you have to push through the pain immediately in order to get full range of motion back. It reminded me of birthing classes, but for seniors.
I was in the habit of blogging *every day* at Organic. Yesterday my wife asked me if I might enjoy blogging more regularly again, and I found myself making the following excuses:
(1) No one blogs anymore, all the conversation has switched to Twitter.
(2) It’s too late to start a new blog. Either you have a readership today, or you don’t.
I think there’s some truth to both statements, but I think I forgetting a major benefit beyond getting famous: it’s a great discipline to take the thoughts floating around in my head over a 24 hour period and try to turn them into something articulate.
Onward!
I love Cafe Press. Not necessarily as a place to buy stuff, mind you, but as a fantastic expression of the cultural zeitgeist. I love seeing people’s creativity (and plagiarism) and the capitalist drive at work. No event is too minor that some entreprenurial type hasn’t thought to stick it on a T-shirt.
I nearly worked with Cafe Press when I was at Organic. They have gone through a couple of management cycles since then, and they have clearly improved their merchanding. Tonight I am using number of T-shirt designs proferred to predict the American Idol finalists. Based on this survey, it’s going to be Adam Lambert (559 designs) vs. Danny Gokey (374 designs) in the final, and not, surprisingly, Kris Allen (262 designs).
Update: per Newsday and The Davie Brown Index, brand reseach confirms my hypothesis!
“Basically, each celebrity gets an overall ranking, which is based on how test audiences scored them on eight things: Appeal, aspiration, awareness, endorsement, influence, breakthrough, trendsetter, and trust.”
Rating/Person
91.28 Barack Obama
90.85 Will Smith
89.92 George Clooney
87.46 Angelina Jolie
81.52 Elvis Presley
80.77 Carrie Underwood
79.68 Justin Timberlake
78.92 Kelly Clarkson
78.87 Miley Cyrus
78.59 Britney Spears
74.55 Michael Jackson
71.80 Clay Aiken
66.17 Mick Jagger
64.84 Jordin Sparks
63.45 Kanye West
61.10 David Cook
58.64 Chris Daughtry
57.70 David Archuleta
44.12 Fantasia
46.47 Adam Lambert
46.46 Anoop Desai
44.24 Danny Gokey
41.27 Lil Rounds
39.62 Allison Iraheta
39.26 Kris Allen
37.29 Matt Giraud
Amazon’s big annoucement is out today- a redesign of the Kindle. On the face of it, this is a story about the power of design. While Tim Brown of IDEO singled out Kindle 1.0 as an example of poor design (sorry Bob Brunner/Ammunition) that in turn hobbled adoption, Kindle 2.0 is a Frog Design re-envisioning, basically Mac-ifying the form factor with rounded buttons and a slimmer profile that immediately invited (favorable) comparisons to the iPhone 3G.
Still, I think most coverage misses the point. The secret of the iPod is not the form factor- it’s iTunes. Anyone can replicate the industrial design (as the Kindle proves)- but no iPod competitor can replicate the delivery mechanism for the content. WalMart, Amazon and other have tried, to no avail. Kindle’s secret sauce is WhisperNet, not the reader itself. I think Amazon made a big tactical mistake in not lowering the price ($359), especially in this economy. They should be following the razor & blade model - building unassailable market share in eBooks and taking a loss on the hardware if necessary. Mark my words, a re-designed Kindle, no matter how slick, is just not going to move the needle in terms of attracting a wider user base.
Does SNL/Pepsi Threaten Traditional Agencies?
It’s Adam Lambert.
He’s got the looks, the personality, and the kid can sing.
This notwithstanding (and maybe because of) the minuscule coverage he has received so far on Season 8. You could tell when he walked into his first audition that the judges loved him already. He has a very timely pansexual quality- think Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy.
The only potential snag: can he be the first (openly?) gay winner?
I love SNL (lately- and it’s only tolerable on Tivo), I love Will Forte, and honestly I think the most out-of-the-box and therefore effective Superbowl ad was Pepsi’s three-part riff off the MacGruber sketches. Very memorable, and I love the nudge-and-a-wink “we know that you know that you’re being advertised to”.
Peter Arnell calls it “un-advertising”, but I think a better word is meta-advertising. Just right for the kind of jaded sophisticates who watch SNL in the first place. My only question- are these people Pepsi drinkers? My thought is that most viewers (like me) are too old to drink a full-calorie soda.
As usual, Crispin Porter’s latest campaign has tapped into something deep in the pop culture zeitgeist. I don’t mean to trivialize it- they are genius at the frivilous- it’s just hard to know whether that the same thing as effective marketing. I’m talking of course about Whopper Sacrifice.
Today’s NYT takes it to the next level of analysis- what does it mean to have more “friends” than friends in the world of social networking? I had a personal experience with this via LinkedIn this week -a “friend” contacted me about a rec for a job at Organic. He had a cartoon for a photo and I didn’t recognize him at all. I had to ask him directly how we know each other- very embarassing- and kind of cover it up by offering to help him out anyway.
I explored this a little bit about two years ago when developing a combination trend forecasting/persona development product at Organic. One of our predictions is that people would want tool to manage social media lenses- multi-personalities and levels of access to their “friends”- their party boy persona, their business persona, their Second Life persona etc. This is precisely one of the suggestions from blogger Henry Blodget in the article.