I definitely have a face for radio!

Podcasting! What was I thinking all these years? It’s the perfect spleen venting forum for a totally fed up shit house entrepreneur like me. Where have I been all my life? I have the potential to inflict myself on 800 million listeners. What’s not to like?

I did a bunch of research on RSS feeds, subscription models, interview techniques and how to get rated on iTunes. There are tons of so-called podcasts out there but content is scarce. Good content, that is. These can run from 10 minutes two 2 hours an episode. Who the hell is that interesting? I mean, besides me? Some folks broadcast 7 days a week. Jerry Lewis couldn’t keep that pace up.

A lot of it is the same old fluffy baloney about how to be successful, manage your time (given today’s economy, I don’t think that’s a burning issue) spiritual enlightenment, suck up to get a job or how to make Metamucil cookies. There are even many about how to actually produce the podcast and add interviews through Skype. Tons of great info out there. Ya gotta have something to say, though. And impart it.

Sales and Marketing trends in the corporate world burn fiercely and then smolder out and morph into the next big thing. Where “Winning” and “Storytelling” was the hot button for a couple of years, now, the “War on Procrastination” has commenced. Oh, that’s a big one. Well, not if you’re unemployed:) They offer to call you every morning, give you a list of what you should get accomplished for the day then call you that night for accountability. What’s next? Sleepovers? Yeah, that’s why I left the corporate world, so I wouldn’t have to make any of my own decisions. Right?

As many of you know, I am a visual creative with a business background that helps companies and clients communicate effectively with their audiences. I languished in the bowels of large companies until I created my way out. By using tools that are readily available to understand the digital landscape and to re-invent yourself instead of waiting for your headhunter to get back from Aruba.

On my Enlightened Rogue Podcast, which will be audio AND video I will start sharing my experiences and how I not only survived but thrived in this cold cruel business world. I came in at 35 with fresh set of eyes after years of playing music, stand up comedy and 20 years as a professional chef. That’ll give ya whiplash, fer sher!

I’m a baby boomer and I’ll be the first to tell you that boomers are your obstacles. Traditionally trained at Wharton, Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale. Most of them are in the box where thinking outside of it is not allowed. Or understood.

That’s your problem. If you have to stay in the game while these guys are running out the clock, don’t count on any succession planning conversations anytime soon. Tick! Tick!

So, very soon, I will be making information available so that you can subscribe to my podcast if you wish to do so. There will be no pulled punches, no B.S. and no promises to make you rich, go to heaven or throw your Viagra out the window.

There will be valuable information and interesting interviews to share about using media in today’s market and to think and look at business differently. It is critical!

Remember: “You cannot lose with the stuff I use.”

What’s a grinder you ask?

Son: “Dad, can I have $50 dollars? Dad: “$40 dollars? What do you want $30 dollars for?

That’s a grinder. The uninformed run of the mill, clueless dingbat that starts negotiating price of a video before they even tell you their name or organization. I got one yesterday. There are parts of my business that I really hate and I think it’s more than permissible, actually mandatory to be under the influence of something, anything if you could only anticipate these types of calls.

They have no information. They have no objective. No vision. The woman who called me started getting nervous when I explained my background, experience and capabilities. “Oh, you sound really top end, we probably wouldn’t be able to afford you.”

I explained that it doesn’t have to be expensive. I do these things all the time. Then she launched into a hysterical dialogue with herself about how little money she had and how they probably would go broke. That schizophrenic episode would have easily given me enough time to step outside and spark up just to get on her same emotional level.

Seems she wanted to interview a bunch of her entrepreneurial clients on camera speaking highly of her organization and put them on You Tube to grow her business. I mentioned a few companies that I had done that for and were very successful. No help.

She started speaking in tongues again and moaning how expensive I must be. She told me she had other quotes out there and told me who they were. I know them and know for sure this will not bode well for her. Still, no actual dollar amount mentioned.

This is just another example of how video for business is so misunderstood. It’s thought of as either really expensive, no big deal, and the clincher : FUN! Fun? Like home movies fun? Makes you want to get a paper route.

I’m not going to submit that quote. You think that project situation will get any better? I think not. I’m going to clear that call from my temporal lobe and try to remember why I love what I do. In spite of the grinders and the misinformed, price only un-clients. If you want to look like an episode of “Caught on Camera” use your smart phone.

Now, where do I get my thirty minutes back?

Note: I was trying to tell her I would do it for zip because I am happy to help budding entrepreneurs but she ground me down. Guess she showed me.

Sure we’re doing this right?

 Full Disclosure: I get more business rehabilitating projects that have gone to hell than I start up. Should have named my company “Triage.” It looks so easy and so much fun who could resist donning a beret and manning the director’s chair? Looking back over the last year a lot of folks came to the conclusion, “this video stuff is hard!” Well, good, effective corporate video doesn’t have to be hard if it is planned out and executed correctly.

Having run in-house studios for the last decade at least, I have witnessed a lot of good ideas that went wildly out of control, missing the mark by making the same mistakes and underestimating the power of video story telling. The trend I’m seeing lately is the migration from calling in a video production unit to producing “home grown” video content for internal or external use using available employee, staff and leadership.

The stats for using video as a marketing communication tool are staggering but so are the numbers on ineffective, under produced and sometimes annoying and laughable attempts at reaching and moving an audience. It’s only video, how hard can it be?

There’s no getting around it, you will need more than e-mail, a web site and a pdf to get people’s attention today. Nothing has the impact and retention as the moving image delivered on the go for successful marketing, training and informational campaigns.

This year I resolve to impart more of my experience and knowledge to clients who really want to make a difference, a lasting impression and of course a little R.O.I to make for a successful 2015.

If you would like to have a conversation on how you can get started developing the kind of content that will make a difference in your company should you decide to bring this modality in-house, leave a comment and we can chat. I love sharing the possibilities.

This year, I will be podcasting (audio and video) with interviews and tips to get you rolling. I will be sharing my successes and my nightmares also.

You can also drop me a note at bo*@**************ue.com. Love to hear from you. This going to be a great year.

Again?

“Oops, (variable) we wanted to reach out to you about a typo regarding the last five e-mails we sent you about the date of our the upcoming, quickly selling out meeting. Great news! It’s actually two weeks later. Which still gives you even more time to register at a drastically reduced rate. What a great opportunity for you. So hurry!”

And so it goes. Smell anything here? Being a conspiracy theorist and a general pain in the ass, I read motive into everything. But this type of thing is occurring at an annoying rate from all corners of my world. I’m thinking they probably add a typo somewhere in there on purpose so they can reach out to you again if you don’t respond. Such is the clumsy, harmful relationship killers of the on line business world.

When are businesses going to realize you can do more harm than good by getting too cute by half using a short lived e-mail campaign? Creating false urgency, cranking up the volume and feigning customer intimacy (screw that last one up and you are dead in the water). Going for volume hoping to get a half a dozen reeled in will get you locked out forever with the rest of the fish in your pond.

Automation detonation!

Couple of quick points. Access is disappearing. On line will be most of your entry point in the near future. Don’t be pigs! Don’t shoot at the whole flock to get maybe a few birds. Use this tool with the same caution and respect as any human interaction. You never get a second chance…

Yeah, I’m pretty cynical but I’ve seen and been through it all. From total non-acceptance to the flak battles we are witnessing now. If you want to have an on line relationship, do your homework first. It will pay off.

Oops! Gotta go!

I’m paraphrasing here but this is basically how some of the calls  I have received in the last few years from serial offenders as a video producer.

“Hi Bob, sorry for the short notice but I was wondering if you would be available to shoot a company overview/onboarding/values/safety/day-in -the – life, video next week?”

Me: Sure, let me get my blood pressure cuff and a couple xanax and then we can get some in-depth information and some finer details. You know, audience, R.O.I.,  impact….

Them: “Details?” Basically, it’s just a quick video, about 20-30 minutes long (?) with everyone just saying how neat it is to work there and all the cool stuff we do. We’ve already told everyone what to say, basically. We have this dance all worked out and we think it will be a lot of fun”

As the call progresses my heart starts to sink and I realize (again) that this is just one of those check box “fun” little projects where they load this never ending stink bomb on their web site where it will reside for months and years and maybe someday turn into a “where are they now?”  sponsored by the alumni for retirements and anniversaries. Very disappointing.

You get invited to one of their steering committee meetings on the project and thank God you never quoted anything over the phone. Of course, they have a deadline. And it’s tight, because they’ve spent the better part of a year arguing over the wrong things and not having a clue how to make something valuable out of this convoluted mess.

By the third meeting you get the scoop on the political in-fighting, the hidden agendas and the lack of viewer empathy. The audience, whoever that turns out to be, can go suck a lemon. It’s not about you or what you will get out of it besides watching your co-workers work their way through the company line with a straight face, dry mouth and darting eyeballs. Check!

One sided relationships never work. When I was a sales rep out west, once a month a Bekins Moving Van would back up to my house and fill up my garage with all the claustrophobic brilliance some one who never spent a day in the field or ever sold anything could push out. This is kinda like that. Corporate masturbation.

Fortunately, I’m in a place where I don’t have to be someone’s camera crew and have no intellectual input into a piece of communication that is designed to mean something. I know they don’t teach video communication at a lot of business schools but at least be kind enough to admit that you don’t know what you don’t know and listen to someone who has been scarred and enlightened by the process.

Hey, maybe it’s your money, your vision, and your directorial debut but you should at least pay for the headboard.

I sometimes hear, “I do much better in a structured environment.” Oh, dearly beloved, please allow your humble enlightened one to disabuse you of that notion. Unless you are talking brick and mortar buildings, you are headed the way of the buffalo. Even Charlie Tuna has a fin up on you. Life was less complicated back in the womb too. My problems actually started when they cut the cord.

Life is less confusing when strict rules are imposed. Just don’t color outside the lines. Easy! Like labs rats and inmates. As the future nudges you into your next corporate incarceration, a structured environment is not where you want to be unless you’re waiting for that minimum wage bump. Imagine your McDonald’s retirement party.

I have heard some beauties in my day. My favorites responses from some of my younger ex-employees: “Sure, just tell me what you want me to do.” “That’s not what you said to do.” “I was waiting for you to tell me what to do next.” “That’s not MY job.”

Creative thinking separates the winners from the losers, the living from the dead and our fat asses from the office furniture.

I heard a very interesting analogy in my younger days. I asked someone what the difference between a blue collar worker and a white collar worker was. He said “The blue collar guy gets paid to do exactly what he’s told and the white collar guy gets paid to think of things to tell the blue collar guy to do.” What an asshole, I thought.

I now know, as a business owner, the white collar guy, (let’s say executive,) has to be able to be extremely creative, handle a higher level of stress, politics, some backstabbing and lots of second guessing. When the shit hits the fan, you better be able to find a new fan.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I led a very enjoyable stress free life performing my assigned functions to the letter in the early part of my career. It made me a star of sorts. You give me a clear objective and I will swallow it whole right before your eyes. Notice I said “clear.” Plan the shoot, shoot the plan.

I was also a member in good standing of the Steelworkers Union back in the 60’s. This is where I learned about job pacing, not being too helpful, double checking with the shop steward before performing a requested action from management and then watching some alcoholic loser get a promotion before me because he started two weeks earlier. It’s only fair, right comrade? The upside is, you learn so many union chapter rules word for word, you can skip Harvard. (If you only paid that much attention in high school.)

This is where your body, your soul and your mind part ways. It’s where your gray matter turns to sludge. This is where some code monkey writes a program that takes you completely out of the picture. Congratulations, you’ve just been automated!

So what is it? Do you just want a job or an adventure?

Or maybe some sentencing guidelines?

“I’d like to teach the world to sling..”

Anyone who knows me, knows that there are three things that make me shit house. Religion, politics and a certain species of blood sucker whose only goal in life is to make you rich. successful and happy. For a price. The motivational business guru business is still alive and well. Unfortunately.

I attended a two day Hay House presentation of “Movers and Shakers” a few years ago for aspiring geniuses who had hopes of building their own book writing, speaking and motivational platforms. Talk about winging it, they accomplished this feat with only nine sparsely populated slides, winks, nods and whole chapters of “The Secret.” Nice work if you can get it. They got it. Should have called it ” Movers and Shakedowns”

Every Monday morning the presses roll on their blog sites which they will happily deliver to you free of charge. Kinda. They’re usually hawking a book, a webcast, a one on one, or a page full of never before seen secrets to success like eating right, exercise, meditation, regularity and over coming rejection. Yes, you, (Dear, variable) have been chosen to join an elite staff of hand picked entrepreneurs who will converge on a secret location and topple the business world shoulder to shoulder with this brain trust from hell.

An almost free copy?

I’m pretty sure they’re all related to each other. They certainly are well known to each other. Josh Linkner, Chris Brogan, Michael Hyatt, Marie Forleo. Louise Hay et al, fresh off the lot of HARPO Productions are just dying to help. As you can see, Tony Robbins is back after mouthing every known cliche in the universe and reviewed by, you guessed it, Michael Hyatt. They always review each other’s books (how handy) and name drop each other in their blogs. This is also called a “back scratch” or a “reach around,”  a term frequently used in most correctional facilities. Talking about, what else? Money! Success! Fame! Never thought of that before have I?

He must of been waiting in the dark for the next crop of illiterate, unemployed, annoying, clueless MBA’s that have never heard the “Master The Game” rap to pounce on. The cloying little seeds of doubt they employ to enrich themselves are so wide and varied it boggles the mind. They clearly never got over the demise of the self-help section at Borders.

I was  recently interviewed by of all things, a well known business psychiatrist. I will omit his name cause he didn’t try to manipulate me. After I backed my dump truck up and hit the release lever for an hour or so, he said, “you need to be a thought leader, a pundit, you clearly have the business experience and on-line video and marketing chops” Why don’t you get out there and share what you’ve learned. I just might do that but it won’t be pretty. Probably funny but not pretty.

Meanwhile the game rolls on and these highly paid head scratchers keep trying to come up with the next chink in your armor in the battle for your lizard brain.

Hey guys, here’s my take away. If you have nothing to say, then just say it. Please.

Got your attention? I have a specific point though, about engaging in creative video production ventures with large companies, individuals and other free lance people or agencies.

First, and I can’t state this clearly enough: large video projects are like gambling, you need to have a “stash” that will keep you from making a fool of yourself when negotiating or playing out your hand.

Not just from your last few gigs,  but ideally a list of steady clients you already do business with as a cushion. Those alone won’t put you in a position of strength, but it won’t hurt quite so much if you have to walk away and it will prevent you from being manipulated and miserable.

If you miss a detail or not perform due diligence, then you could be donating a lot of your valuable time to charity. Theirs.

You are in business to help your client make money, reach and influence people, make money, get attention, make money and make a difference in the world. Did I mention make money? In truth, a lot of my clients live by “patients first.” Very admirable qualities in a cutthroat world.

In my years of experience, the first meeting will be revelatory. If they have a plan, it’s coherent, and they have given some serious thought about what they want to accomplish, that’s a good thing, but don’t relax, not yet. In the corporate world there are most likely things that are going on behind the scenes that you will not be aware of. They could be grinding you.

There could be someone taking notes on your approach, looking ultimately, to bring the project in house. A lot of companies already know who they want to do the work but are required to put out three RFPs. Then there’s the real killer, politics.

After years of this type of thing, I can usually get a sense of who’s driving the bus, making the final decisions and where the bus is heading. It is all about influence, instinct, listening and emotional intelligence. I’ve been in rooms where the person who brought me in wouldn’t sit at the table with me. They position themselves back against a wall or leave the room entirely. Politics. Again. No getting around it.

Here are some considerations that will come into play when the initial contact is made. Scope, vision, direction, timelines, body language, attention to detail, viewing audiences, deliverables and the big one, ROI. Lest I forget, bizarre tastes. There’s a reason companies do drug testing:) Get to the bottom line on these issues immediately, or as soon as possible.

Attempts by the client to trivialize the project by using terms like “just”, “quick”, “nice to have”, “not sure” “if” “we’re in no hurry” and “we’re still pulling a team together” are a sure sign of internal confusion, and could also be a subtle monetary negotiation ploy. These are definite concerns that have to be clarified before a project can commence.

Your main focus at this point is to identify the mission and draw out its complexity and more importantly, get to the “who’s the audience?” question. If you don’t, you could be embarking on a long and confusing journey your grandchildren might have to complete. A big danger is offering too many options at the outset and throwing the project into a tailspin. “With that new information, we’ll have to get back to you.” See ya!

Your job, whether you realize it or not is to guide this group on how to crystallize the concept, pull all the pieces together, don’t ruffle (too many) feathers, while presenting different options and not confusing the shit out of them. Not easy.

It is your job to make the client aware of all the total possibilities and benefits if approached early on by sharing your experience. Don’t let them leave valuable options on the table.

Like poker, some folks don’t want you to know what they don’t know, thinking you’ll take advantage of them or they’ll look foolish to the team, the rest of the company and of course, the C Suite. Did I mention egos? Grand jury experience might be a plus here:)

So now we circle back to how much intellectual capital you have in reserve, because you might have to cut your losses. Or, as Kenny says, “fold ’em.” You could attend one or more meetings and spend time filling out SOWs, creative briefs, NDAs and quoting something based on so little detail that it could creep into your twilight years. I once met with a company multiple times over three years while their CMO was trying to get through the FDA. They ended up being sold at the last minute. Ouch.

Some companies have oodles of time and just pulling a bunch of meetings together is the equivalent of hitting their objectives for the year. You don’t want to be a test monkey, so once you get the call, get your shit together and be ready for anything.

You have to know when to hold ’em, but you also have to know when to fold ’em. It gets tough out there. Like they say in Vegas “No balls, no blue chips” 🙂

As a video producer, e-strategist and an “enlightened rogue,” with 30 years plus of experience in the pharmaceutical arena in sales and marketing, I spend a lot of time capturing technical, medical, marketing, biotech, chemistry and  all sorts of business events where ideas and strategies are presented and discussed.

While covering these events, my main focus is to produce, capture and interview all the goings on and package the presentations as re-usable knowledge. With my background, I have a trained ear on what to look for in all of this information so as to be able to highlight it later.

The content I capture is amazing to witness and to listen to. It’s like being in an alternate universe. The jaw dropping ideas and opinions that are expressed at these events amaze, amuse, reveal and confuse. Illuminating to say the least.

Every day I get a refresher on how brilliant we are as a species. I have no idea how these people came to be on this planet. Where have I been all my life? These amazing physicians, business people and venture capitalists  are so far down the road it boggles the mind.

To the human eye, the world can be a mundane, predictable, uneventful place. We are so caught up in the day to day that we never even imagine the brilliance surrounding us. What an honor and a pleasure to watch and capture creativity first hand.

Being in the room when these explosions of ideas and creativity occur is one thing, but when I  review, edit, organize, process, package and distribute the content is when I become even more aware of what I have been privileged to witness. I am in the middle of a huge video project that has me spellbound with interest.

I was extremely impressed at the event but going through the content and listening even more closely, I am at once stunned and delighted at what my fellow humans are up to. What a gift to see the creative process rolling along at full speed. Talk about a free education.

I have to go back at it now but I thought I would share my awe and respect for the scientists, physicians, business adventurers and humanity as a whole, who make this world such an inspiring place. Brilliant.

I will be having lunch tomorrow with someone who has been out of work for a while and he is looking for options on how to re-package himself in this digital environment. Should he blog? About what? Should he get a web site? Why?

Is the purpose of your blog to generate business leads?  Or does it simply serve as a personal branding tool?  Or do you just enjoy writing?  Or all three!  Do you get responses/comments from people?  Do you simply post it?  Or do you send out an email to your permission-granted email list as well.

These are questions I get all the time. My first question to them is always, “Who do you think you are? Who are you? What do you have to offer? Are you an expert in your field? Can you make someone’s life less complicated? Why would I bother reading or hearing from you. Where have you been all my life? Have you been in parallel development mode in your career?

Have you spent most of your adult life in the corporate world and never contemplated life outside the bubble? If you believe everything in your last performance review about your strengths, weaknesses and leadership potential, you have a lot of unpacking to do.

So when I sit down at lunch with my friend tomorrow, I will ask him these questions. The soul searching will commence as it did for me many years ago. But it is vital.

The hypnotic career trajectory we all used to follow diminishes by the minute. The office building or factory you call home is looking for other options and they are finding them. I saw a quote this morning from Maya Angelou, “Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.” Truer words were never spoken.

Excerpt from Sold Out: Stress agents. The endogenous type.

Very early on in my sales career, right after I moved out from Boston to Ignorance, Arizona and found a place on the corner of Terror and Panic, I learned some very valuable lessons in the art of human interaction. Meaning, of course, money. We had a pharmacologic stress agent newly approved by the FDA and a week of product training in San Antonio, just as the first Gulf war was kicking off. Needless to say, it was a blur, and all the training I got is probably still in Texas.

One of the first places I started calling on was a clinic about five miles from my house. In Arizona, five miles means “down the street.” I went there quite a bit because it was the only place I could get home from without getting lost.

Marketing did a great job deluging us with every sales tool and gimmick you could think of, which gave me more legit reasons to visit accounts. The hospitals and clinics were plastered with dosing charts, pens, pads, pamphlets and jars of candy. Those were the days. There was an older widowed nurse at this particular clinic who took quite a shining to me and a male physician’s assistant who kept promising to get me into sexual  positions Houdini couldn’t get out of. Yikes!

After a while, with the help of my two new friends, I was able to get in to see the cardiologist, hand him some brochures and pray he could read, because I wasn’t going to be much help. After a few minutes, he stood up and walked over to me, his heavy boots making him seem even more ominous as he towered over me. He had on jeans, a bolo tie and a big, smelly, nasty, chunk of Skoals ‘tween the cheek and gum.

He asked me what the reimbursement was for this Persantine stuff. I told him it hadn’t been announced yet. Then he said “Son, I don’t care if this shit cures cancer, if I ain’t makin’ no money off it, I ain’t usin’ it.” Well, I must say I appreciated his candor. He also taught me a new slang term for heart catheterization, “Paying for the Porsche.”

Well, weeks later, the day finally came and my phone rang first thing in the morning. They were going to do their first I.V.Persantine  and asked me if I could make it. I said “hell yeah” and did what I had been diligently, professionally trained to do in these situations, I bought doughnuts.

I couldn’t contain my glee. My first real sell. Wasn’t I something? I called my boss, my friends, the Syncor lab and anyone else who would listen on the way over. Little did I know what was waiting for me.

When I showed up with my doughnuts and my enthusiasm, I was ushered into a room where there was a patient laying there with an IV and all sorts of other stuff hanging out of him. He looked serene and comfortable and trusting with the whole situation. When my nurse friend told him that I was the “expert” from Dupont who was going to walk everyone through this new procedure, I knew I would never wear the same underwear again.

I was thinking, “why don’t we all have a doughnut and talk this over.” Too late, this guy was ready and so was the team. Luckily for me, they had one of those protocol charts I had provided but never read, on the wall over his head so I could grab a word or phrase to make it sound like I had a clue. What I didn’t know at the time, was that these folks do stuff like this all the time and they just wanted me there for assurance. It all went off without a hitch but I was never the same.

When I got home I called my boss, Sully, and asked him if we were covered by malpractice insurance. Then I ate a doughnut and went back to bed.

Humor. What we won’t do to give or get a laugh. The recent passing of Robin and Joan gives us pause and makes us think about the value of humor. The absurd, bawdy, irreverent, disrespectful, stupid, ironic and self deprecating manner of emotional communication has a very steep price when misunderstood or perceived as sarcasm or disruption.

What we see from the really brilliant comics is not pratfalls, card tricks or goofy mannerisms. They have the ability to shove reality up your nose and make you like it. They pull the curtain off of life’s irony and moronic beliefs and bring us to consciousness for a side splitting second.

They bring out how we really feel about things but dare not think. That sudden jolt, gasp or breathless reaction to the truth, the real truth, about this hypnotic state we call existence, is both visceral and revealing. There are heads of state whose demise didn’t get as much attention as Williams and Rivers. It shows the value of comic relief and escape from the realities of everyday life, the horrors of war, the ineptitude of our leaders and the sad despair in third world countries.

My wit and humor has been both a blessing, a curse, sometimes a life saver or an ass whooping. Many times the punchline led to a punch. But resist? Nay! My sense of humor has gotten me everything but laid. Wait! Strike that! The fact that I see the humor in almost everything doesn’t make me a complete moron. (Well, not exactly)

When I worked as a sales rep for Dupont and a district manager position opened up in Chicago , I was told I should go for it by my then manager, Karen Randall. She thought I had what it took. I was at the top of my game. I had three states just about locked up, ran a district web site and was shooting patient education videos. I even wrote songs for the company and performed them at large venues. When the phone interview took place, the over riding concern was my sense of humor. Who would take a guy like me seriously? (Oh, I don’t know, maybe 500 satisfied customers?)

When the guy interviewing me ran out of excuses, he resorted to “What do you think George Jones would say if your name came up?” For once, I was speechless. That was it. Game over. The coup de grâce. When you wanted to kill the conversation with me you played the “George” card.  George, vice president of sales, had no idea how a chef, musician, dock working comedian ever slithered under the door and into his beloved sales force. When he saw me he would just sigh. I was a bit too much for this quiet, introspective gentleman. And I was constantly told he had his eye on me.

Once, at a sales training meeting, Sully, whose idea it was to bring me in to sales in the first place, opened the meeting with “We’re going to step up product training so that reps don’t just walk into a doctor’s office, tell a few jokes and leave.” Everyone in the room knew who that harpoon was headed for. I thought I would expire. It took me weeks to recover. But recover I did.

In honesty, you could fill a state with what I didn’t know about those products. But I knew people. I could make them laugh. I could listen. I could care. All the rest is bullshit as far as I’m concerned. Humor is communication at it’s highest level. Communication is everything. I’ll leave you with this.

“The problem with communication is the illusion that is has occurred.”

George Bernard Shaw

You sometimes have to get out ahead of the rep on a new product launch. Beyond magazines, journals, trade shows, a lame flash piece on your web site and word of mouth. Marketing needs to walk point and cover the bases first.

OK, you’ve spent years preparing to launch your new product. You’ve gone through all the steps: INDs, clinical trials, paid millions out to CROs and market research, training, been shaken down by the FDA, gotten all your thought leaders on board, you know the drill. Now it’s all hands on deck for the launch. Your new product is a very technical sell with lots of highlights and details. You need reps on the ground that can educate and convert existing customers and add new ones to the base.

By now, you should have a database of permission based e-mail addresses of everyone in your sphere of influence that you’ve been accruing over the years. You have been having conversations about your industry and highlighting trends and guesting KOLs and the thought leaders of all your products. Now you need that one digitally delivered detailed demonstration that will ensure that that joke telling, back slapping, late sleeping rep can’t skip over any technical details beyond his pay grade. (I know, I was one of them)

This approach by no means, replaces the rep. It helps them. It softens the ground for them especially for a newly launched product. It’s like calling in air strikes for ground troops. You need reps to to harvest e-mail addresses and explain to customers that their trust won’t be betrayed. This process takes a carefully concerted effort. One permission based e-mail is worth one hundred of the interruptive crash and burn.

Oh wait! No? You’ve spent the last ten years scrounging for “likes” on Facebook and never thought to develop a meaningful on line relationship with your base? Tsk,tsk. You know what they say in Russia? Tuffsky Shitsky!

You folded your arms down at the end of the conference table with that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” look on your face and asked your IT guy if you had a web site. You thought if you used the word “viral” people would call in sick the next day. It was just too much work to try something new, something inevitable and culture changing.

Luckily for you, it’s never too late. You can still develop content that will detail your product, educate your base, your reps, your employees and expand your audience. By shooting the message out in advance in a well produced video that can be presented at “lunch and learns,” hosted on your web site and even delivered by e-mail you can carpet bomb your competition into submission. If you need help getting started, give me a call. I burned my loin cloth years ago.

If you are a sales rep, partner, associate, tech, trainer, manager or whatever like description you’ve been haplessly tagged with these days, you are, I hope, aware that someone in the rarefied air of your organization has been plotting your demise. For years. They’re just not smart enough to pull it off. Yet. That’s why God made consultants.

The consultant’s role is to provide a clue to these self absorbed spreadsheet analysts. For (big) money. To construct that kiddie slide to the street to un-ass you from the property. Then the day comes. It’s other worldly. You feel like you’re stepping outside of your body on the way to a room set up especially  for the event. Reams of documents, stacks of yet to be assembled cardboard boxes, tissues, people you’ve never seen before, HR and your manager (who, by the way, submitted your name) crying crocodile tears.

They don’t want you any more. Hadn’t thought of that little affront to your self confidence had you? They’re actually paying you money to get off the property…now! Like dating that fat, homely chick in accounts receivable because you felt bad for her and she dumps you. You! How can this be?

Fact: Most executives will pull out the pom poms on any new idea that will streamline the organization and fatten the coffers of the board. That is their job. That is what they’re supposed to do.Their first allegiance is to the board. Always! Like natural selection. Their goal isn’t to set up a philanthropic community center so we can fatten up our 401K and drive a mini-van. Once we realize that, we can move back into reality. No one owes you a job.

Now you might be thinking, shit, you give me a year’s pay and a couple of free cardboard boxes and I will get over myself in a New York minute. Not so fast, smart ass! You forgot one tiny detail. Your enormous outsized ego just took a huge hit even worse than having your hand fall asleep on you. And that 3 pounds of gray matter up there hasn’t been challenged in decades. Don’t let the door hit ‘ya where the Good Lord split ‘ya.

If the only skills you’ve been developing over the last ten years at work is how to make a great latte’ and repeat all the stats of last weekend’s games, you better sell your toilet seat, because your ass belongs to the dearly discarded.

If you aren’t marketing yourself using the vast array of digital options out there or looking into already enhancing your existing offering, you are waiting for a bus that will never come. And soon, your phone will soon be answered by someone in New Dehli. The digital revolution has taken another victim. Welcome to YOU Inc.

Hey there, Rogue fans, I have some exciting news. Due to incredible demand, I am in the finishing stages of my blockbuster tell-all, Sold Out! My publisher said, “you can’t print this shit, they’ll take out a contract on you!” I’m like, “seriously, how many years do you think I have left?”

Over the years I have been working on a comprehensive revelatory book about my adventures in one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, selling the most successful radiopharmaceutical in history.

Replete with times, dates, intimate conversations, sex, fetishes and even a tale of a performance review given to me by someone so drunk I had to read it to him. To which he said, “I wrote that? Really?”

It covers my 13 years in sales and the offer to come back to Billerica and start a video production unit. This is where you’ll start to understand why your drugs are so expensive. You’ll learn how to play “Liar’s Poker” in the boardroom and stifle all-out laughter at some of the crazy ideas these people come up with, sober. Also, career saving techniques on how to stay conscious during a 4:00 pm meeting. (Who the hell would schedule such a thing?)

It will tell in detail, the good the bad and the homely, how a joke telling, guitar playing, drug addled fry cook was able to get in on the ground floor and get out when the elevator stalled. How did this happen and on whose watch? You will surely find out.

I will reveal all of the inside, outside and the greasy bottom details. So if you would like to laugh, cry or possibly call your attorney, you won’t want to miss this book.

If you’ve always wanted to know how sausage is made, I’ll tell you how the salami gets stuffed.

Disclaimer: I have already collected the limit on redaction fees in case you might want your name removed. I put this limit in place to avoid having it look like the C.I.A report on Benghazi. I know you’ll understand.

Pre-ordering will start soon! Get your copy. You might not want to get that phone call from a loved one in tears, sobbing and screaming that you will have to move.

It will soon be available on Amazon and Kindle.

The Rogue

“It’s the next best thing, really”

As we see the corporate inversion trend taking hold and causing panic in the financial markets and elsewhere, some patriotic companies are choosing to stay put and cough up the hefty 50% tax rate because they’re not in business to actually sell anything, they can’t, they just want employees  to hang in there, make the company look whole and have a nice life. Kinda like hospice.

Until they can find a buyer, they are committed to using all the warm bodies they have in place, then rotate them again if they’re still breathing. Human potential is never under valued.

These resourceful companies are choosing to “get fiscally creative” and skinny it down by cutting back on one of its biggest expenditures, their Annual National Sales Meeting. These clever folks have found ways to re-create the atmosphere of a real humdinger, party hardy, let it all hang out, BYOB, virtual, celebratory sales meeting.

Some of their successful cost cutting and morale boosting methods include using the word “team” incessantly and saving big by using the last three year’s slide decks and re-playing the video of the “How To Tell Stories” guy. “Are you ready to go out and start telling stories to your customers? Woo Hoo!”

Woo Hoo!”

Some of the team activities include taking a few minutes to pay special tribute to their down sized comrades. Which are legion.Then they usually gather at the bar late at night and scare the crap out of each other by replaying last year’s switch to telemarketing scare. “They wouldn’t reeaaallly do that, would they? I mean, would they?” Brrrr!

By renting just one suite and letting reps in two at a time to have a drink, a few appetizers, a rented sun lamp and an ocean noise machine, they have found a way to show their appreciation for getting through another year.

Though the attendees are forced to sleep on floors and empty elevators, the folks I spoke with said the carpet was fairly plush and they actually felt a bit refreshed in the morning even with maids dragging laundry carts over the top of them.

They also save money on airfare by using Go ToMeeting, conferencing in, or face timing anyone who lives outside of the Billerica town limits, which adds up when your dealing with a field sales force that tops out at maybe twenty or so. (At the time of this writing, anyway)

Most of these reps are elderly, so travel can be a burden. Especially if they’ve been selling the same product for forty years. These folks have been together so long they can actually finish each others’ sentences. (while in different states.) They mostly speak in product specific sound bites and footnotes from package inserts.  And really, who wants some incoherent guy from Buffalo in a walker, roaming around Logan airport trying to rent a bicycle?

This massive celebration, through the hard work of the marcom team, whose creative use of crayons, construction paper and interior decorating skills, are able to bring the festivities to life.

I have personally had my interior decorated by them, so I know first hand of their many talents. What they lack in creativity, they make up with a style that any fourth grader would be envious of.

So, as you can see, with a little creativity and a frugal CFO, you can still capture all the thrills, glory, excitement, and dare I say, decadence, while still capturing that “Motel 6” feeling with a few borrowed cds, a boom box and a “if you sleep in your car, we will pay for your parking” policy. It doesn’t get any better than that. Unless you like to sleep naked… in January.

At this rate, the company will actually make money on this three night orgy. Now that’s innovation. You have to hand it to them, (and they’d like you to) they certainly don’t let things get out of control. “We’re a small company”, the CEO said “So there’s no reason to get all crazy with this shit.” Well put, I’d say.

One of the employees, who spoke on condition of background, told me that in anticipation of this annual gala event, and to cover costs, they actually shut off the air during the summer. I told him I thought it must be uncomfortable to have to work without air conditioning. He said, “No, they’ve shut off the actual air. There is no air. None.” And he collapsed.

Well, that only tells me one thing: these savvy, bargain basement meeting planners are saving up for maybe an even bigger bash next year. If there is a next year. Can’t wait.

The theme for next year’s National Sales mini-meet is prescient, “Always Be Closing.”

Amen.

Am I on?

This is my 24,745th wake up. But whose counting? I arose unassisted, made my way down the stairs, stepped over the dog to start the coffee, then I started thainkin’, which is my slang term for thanking and thinking. I call this reflexive gratitude. No little stickies on the mirror, no wake up from Eckhart and no hokey screen saver.

It’s just the natural state of consciousness I have developed over a lifetime of incredible good fortune, financial safety, shit storms, disillusionment and near fatal mistakes. (I won’t mention past relationships, that’s a self-help book on its own.)

I think we wake up, or become conscious, twice every morning. Once physically, then spiritually. (ugh, there’s that word.) The second phase being the most critical. Agree?

Depending on your inclination, this is your daily fork in the road. You can kick start your worry machine or tell those squirrels in your attic to shut the fuck up. No need for formal meditation or mantras. Just…. let!

(I’m talking to myself here, no preachy me.) Time to stop pissing in your own punchbowl. Stop micromanaging your existence and more importantly,  painting yourself into your existential corner. Stop trying to reverse engineer all the stupid shit you’ve pulled all your life.

When I think about this “thing” we’re experiencing, I can’t help but feel someone or something is having a little fun with us. It is so unpredictable and unmanageable. Pretty scary too, at times, eh?

In the 24 hour life cycle, I think our sleep state is our most vulnerable. We go to bed planning the next day, worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, or lost in a previous episode of the “You Show” using your patented “pretzel logic.” Oh what a tangled …

Well reason me this: Who says you’re gonna get up the same way you went down? Who says you’re get up at all? Who says … anything? You do. Me do. Love me do .. . Jesus, there I go again. Shut up, up there.

OK, kiddies, here’s a little something to think about as you get older.
Most likely, you’ll be born liberal and die conservative. (Unless you’re a roadie, a fry cook, a host on MSNBC, or a left, tenured, radical Harvard Law professor, a community organizer, or both.)

You will own property. You will have something to lose. The president will be younger than you. No matter how much you weigh, you will be referred to as a “fat cat.” By this time you will have been taxed into dementia, had your wealth redistributed and get your diapers changed from a visiting nurse who doesn’t accept Obamacare.

You will know first hand what the term “bowels in an uproar” means. You will start thinking Dublin’s not a bad place to move your business. You will steer clear of the VA when your back goes out and you won’t wait to cash your Social Security check.

You will be wheeled away from the TV set every night with spittle running down your chin and be hoarse from screaming. Fox News will start making sense and your dream of Maddow and Sharpton getting banished to Saturday Night Live will become reality.

And every time you hear that certain “droning” voice you will know why you would much rather be “sucking on a gun barrel.”

Blam!

“We’re sorry, but that’s just the way we do things here”

Net 90? What the hell is that? Tennis? I didn’t build you a friggin’ cyclotron, I provided you a much needed service at the time with a very quick turnaround. I seem to remember the word “emergency” being bandied about at the time. Frequently. We’re not talking capital equipment here or new construction. And by the way, you’re not exactly G.E. (Are you?)

I wonder if you’re this flexible with your accounts receivable. I hope I can remember what the check is for if I’m still alive when it gets here. If it’s not post dated and I don’t drool all over it at the nursing home. I mean, how much interest can you make in 90 days? At this stage of my life, I don’t even buy green bananas!

My wife wants me to put your out takes on YouTube, but that would be funny, uh, I mean, wrong! Seriously, If you need a few bucks to make payroll let me know. I would love to help, plus I could use the write off. How’s that old joke go, the check is in your mouth … ?

Love ya,

Lou Zerr

If you are a pick pocket or a purse snatcher in Manhattan you are having a banner year. C’mon fess up, tell me this isn’t like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s not even a challenge anymore, is it? You’re probably expecting to clean up this year at the annual Street Thieves Convention. Your numbers are going through the roof! There’s no need for technique. It could be weeks before that stiff even knows his shit is missing. We need to raise the bar.

We are a fat, dopey, disconnected lot these days. Between alcohol, pot and smart phones I’m afraid to cross the street. Call me old fashioned but I like to see where I’m going when I’m walking down a busy street or driving my car. When I’m riding my bike I tense up when I hear wheels coming up behind me. Who knows what they’re up to? I see people step on to a crowded elevator and never look up from their phone save for the punch of a floor button. You could be getting on with Big Foot and never know until it was too late. Here fishy, fishy!

I used to have a friend who would beg me to have lunch with him every time he was in town. As soon as we were seated, the phone came out and I became the chopped liver entree. Maybe he just wanted me around in case his phone went dead. I have always had a heightened sense of awareness from my rough and tumble upbringing and I’ve learned to anticipate the alcohol induced mood swing, sucker punch, shake down or robbery. Or even worse, snoozing and losing.

I may hold a gun on myself while I’m shaving, but to me the alternative is of no consolation. I’m sure a mental health professional would love to spend a little time with me. Of course, they usually pay for that time. In spades.

So that’s the big problem. Everyone is so distracted it has become extremely difficult to get your message heard these days. We have to re-evaluate our approach. How do you deal with an audience that can get so lost in the swirl of distraction technology? How do you get them from distraction to attraction? Any beast of prey would tell you they have an extremely narrow focus when circling a herd. Or to use a term from my lexicon, “a shallow depth of field.”

In simpler terms, we define a shallow depth of field as the zone of sharpest focus in front of, behind, and around the subject on which, when the lens is focused on a specific subject. In other words, a clearly defined, smaller target audience.

By focusing in on the subject you are able to define their needs and speak the language they understand. Otherwise, it’s just more white noise added to their already cluttered hypnotic state. By then you have spooked the herd and you go home hungry. As my mother would say, “Bobby, don’t be a pig!” Oink!

So get into focus. Get that shallow depth of field and turn their distraction into attraction.

Don’t go home hungry.

Fair. Every time I hear that word I get pissed off. If it doesn’t have to do with the weather or a line drive to left, it has to be the most grating, irresponsible, bullshit excuse on the planet. “But that’s not faaaiiirrr!”

Memo: Life’s not fair, OK? You want fair? Oh no you don’t, trust me. If life was fair and all things were equal, we would all have to get our fair share of malaria, dysentery, Ebola, live in the middle of a war zone, constantly hit with typhoons, earthquakes and be taking a dump in the Ganges. Lest I forget, have some dictator killing off your families and friends for political (or worse, religious) reasons. So don’t tell me you want fairness or your fair share with a straight face. There’s no fair share there.

Here’s another great idea: Let’s take the largest job providers and organizations that create disease curing drugs and tax them into County Cork. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s distribute all that wealth so we can all keep our unemployment checks, food stamps and entitlements for the next 20 years. That would be fair wouldn’t it? Sure it would. Those fat cats have your shit man, and you know that ain’t fair. Let’s level the playing field all around shall we?

So let’s try this, let’s try crawling out of our cozy little cubicles and have an original thought. Let’s knock off the self pity around the water cooler because your boss doesn’t understand you or get your value to the company. Let’s stop the hissing across the table at the cafeteria and go home and reinvent ourselves. Let’s get in the game.

If you work for a company you are basically getting an allowance, so you may as well be doing chores for your uncle Wilbur. And don’t be sticking your chest out at your lame retirement party because you put your life on hold for 35 years. No one gives a shit that you had that much tolerance. Convicts do the same thing and they don’t get a party.

So as your laying on your deathbed at the end of your carefully controlled, risk averse life and you ask yourself the inevitable question: How did I live my life?  Did I take chances? Did I express myself to the fullest? Was I all that I could be? How will you rate your experience as a human? Was it good? Was it bad? Was it it great? Was it hell?

Meh, it was fair.

I was your friend and savior when you picked up the phone during that little shit storm you were going through and asked me to save your bacon. You couldn’t thank me enough when your lemons turned into lemonade. Oh happy day! But now I’m just a “vendor” who keeps slipping out of your memory stream now that all is well. “Oh yeah, that invoice, what did I do with that?”

I remember sitting in a purchasing office at the University of Arizona years ago, while this woman was on a personal call and actually filing her nails and chewing gum. (No joke) After 15 minutes, she said “I have to go, besides I have a vendor.” I was too new at my sales position to be offended, but I remember feeling somewhat shrunken in stature and a bit insignificant.

As time went on, I realized that “vendor” can sometimes equate with parasites or annoyance, something to be tolerated. A nameless, faceless turd that’s is always sucking around for something. Funny, I was under the mistaken impression that these lowly creatures  also brought something to the table, like goods, services and valuable information. No?

Maybe “ass saving” doesn’t fall into one of your payment categories but it probably beats the shit out of the alternative, I think you might agree. While I may have morphed into something you don’t feel you have to deal with at this point, I also feel the same way about dealing with you in the future. Keep the money. Have a pizza week on me. You have a really great group of people working there. You can say it was a donation. It was.

Thanks for making me call repeatedly, e-mailing you all those times and making me feel lower than whale shit. The next time you get your cheeks caught in the wringer and you need a vendor, go to Fenway Park, the place is crawling with them.

In-house corporate video production is like waste disposal in most cities. No one knows who’s running it and no one knows who’s making money from it. Very few know how it works and hardly anyone knows how to maximize it.

This is the most dangerous and depressing part of this business. I can take your money and we can both get a false sense of satisfaction when the project is over, but that won’t last long and maybe you won’t call back because you didn’t get the intended result. Or worse, any result at all.

I have discussed the failure of imagination previously, so I will guide you to the opposite end of the spectrum: When imagination staggers out on to the street and is drunk with invincibility and naivete. Oh, and a big fat budget. When scope creep turns to scope gallop and reality is wobbling off the sidewalk. Keeping it on track, on time and worthy of the effort is a feat in itself.

Democracy sucks!

When you are brought on to a large creative project and the wheels start coming off due to too many cooks, inexperience, indecision, bad decisions, unclear expectations, totally unrealistic deadlines and when your client doesn’t know what they don’t know, you need to gently and persuasively guide your new friend to safety. Or, as I call it, “walkin’ your baby back home.”

This is by far the most critical skill set a producer can bring to the table. By gently guiding the collaboration with creative options and scenarios, by gaining consensus and at the same time not being obvious, your “baby” will arrive home safely. In the end, like anyone who’s had too much fun, they won’t always be aware of your creative influence. But that comes with the territory.

When you are the designated creative driver you can’t just walk into a board room and start shooting your trap off, you can’t inundate and confuse with all your worldly knowledge. You need a lot of emotional intelligence to enlighten and educate your well intentioned new friend.

If all goes well and you are able keep your designee out of oncoming traffic, home safe and finish the project, which usually comes together at the eleventh hour, you might get a message from the client that will close with “Thanks for your help” 🙂

with the dopey little camera he snagged on E-Bay for a hundred bucks when you just want “coverage” for an event or panel discussion or even a celebration that will go absolutely nowhere.

Why spend the money to “archive” a special occasion, sales meeting or make a dumb corporate training video? Even worse, the epoch company overview attempt that will induce narcolepsy. Why pay for something you will never use, you didn’t properly plan for and won’t benefit anyone? Call your cousin Lenny.

Video is a strategy. Period. Today, especially today, it is by far, the most valuable and potent tool you will ever have. Access to audiences, customers, clients, employees, anyone, is disappearing. Attention is a valuable currency. With all the distractions we have today why diminish yourself in an effort at self gratification? Call your cousin Lenny.

I have gotten my business to a point where I can query a potential client on what their intentions are with a video. I ask about ROI, the audience, impact and relevance. I usually get an unsettling feeling when they use the word “just.”

“We “just” want to capture it, we “just” want a simple video, we “just” want to slap it on our web site, nothing fancy” That is not what I do. I’m not interested. Call your cousin Lenny, who will gladly stand at the back of the room locked down on a tripod playing “Angry Birds” in total disconnection.

That is not what I do. I took the word “video” off of Double O and added Creative for a reason. I have many years in the saddle and been in many a rodeo. I reserve the right to participate only in projects that will educate, enlighten or “move” an audience. If you can’t create useable knowledge, what’s the point then? Certainly at this stage of my life I would like to make a difference and help my clients reach and move their audiences.

I appreciate you reaching out, but surveillance videos aren’t my specialty. I love ya, but I really think you should call your cousin Lenny.

Dialogue: A discussion between two or more people or groups, esp. one directed toward exploration of a particular subject or resolution of a problem. Two or more people. Get it?

Ever been at some get together and someone that you don’t know starts making small talk? At first it feels pleasant enough, given that you don’t know a lot of folks there, but then it becomes clear your trapped. There is no introduction, no acknowledgement and no regard for personal space. Your own efforts at introduction go unnoticed as they veer off into their life story and then some.

You wonder how close you are to the punch bowl to pick up this type of traffic. If I just walk away will they notice? After all, you’ll probably never see this person again. Hopefully.

Successful dialogue is usually based on common interests. Otherwise, it’s a speech. So how do you know if you have any common interests if you never even inquire? If you don’t even know who you’re talking to?

You have become a drag on someone’s consciousness and something to be avoided in the future. Even though these ingrates don’t understand they’re getting the gift of you. How can that be?

If you’ve ever been trapped by one of these insensitive room evacuaters you will certainly feel that old familiar rash coming back. The older I get the less patience I have for this type of trespass. I am at the age where I can use chest pain and get away with it. And I will. I could always pretend to faint but I worry the wrong person will try to give me mouth to mouth.

Now that we can blah, blah, blah our asses off to anyone at anytime, on line and in line, sensitivity to another’s world view and interests should always be considered. Always. Unless you just want to hear yourself talk. As my mother once shared with me, “I love you but not everyone is going to feel the same way.” Ain’t that the truth.

Believe me, I’ve cleared enough rooms myself to know when Elvis has left the building.

At this point I usually try to provide some examples of how this type of behavior destroys on line dialogue in the business world but I won’t. I’m sure you see the similarities and dangers inherent here. Always try to ask more questions than you answer. They’ll love you for it.

So don’t stand near the punch bowl and if you don’t know who you’re talking to … don’t.

A failure of imagination is a circumstance wherein something seemingly predictable (particularly from hindsight) and undesirable was not planned for. This particular circumstance is usually attributed to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. But all too often I see the same type of failure when it comes to creative endeavors. A locked down plan with no room for improvisation or nuance is sometimes so predictable as to be irrelevant.

Sometimes, when I am called in to help develop a project, my mind will naturally run to a bunch of other possibilities that could maybe widen the scope and reach a larger audience. Or even add additional information to enhance the application. By not being open to the unpredictable and unexpected you leave a lot on the table and stanch the flow of creative thought.

During the ideation process, I sometimes see the look of confusion or bewilderment when I start to offer possibilities that gently guide them a bit off script. Not to change but to enhance. This is what I do. It is always challenging, so I have learned techniques to get them to reach their own conclusion 🙂 It is also not unusual to have someone come up with an idea that was proposed and rejected earlier in the meeting. Funny how that works.

I have spent many years accumulating “seat time” in conference rooms across the country participating in this process and the cast of players vary a bit but not by much. There is sometimes the owner of the original idea who feels protective and feels any variation is an attack or the project will not be identified with them if it is successful. There is always a risk of “lock down” when someone feels threatened or feels as though their big idea is being abandoned. Unfortunate.

You will also have a supporting cast with varying degrees of interest. Some have been chosen and just want to get it over with and some disagree with the concept completely but don’t have an alternative. Therein lies the challenge.

The objective is to conceptualize an idea and then embellish it into maturity. A band that goes into the recording studio with preplanned material almost never walks out with what they walked in with. It is a process. You gotta love it!

So the failure of imagination can damage, derail and deprive the original concept of all its possibilities. Learning to embrace the process can be an enlightening, exhilarating experience for all involved and ensure a successful, effective product.

To all the teachers, professors, nuns, parents and Palmer method tutors. I apologize for making your life a living hell. You were right and I’m sorry to have to realize this fact so late in life. Whatever I could do to destroy the pillars of higher learning I did it. I distracted, deflected, demeaned and disengaged from all scholarly pursuits until, in frustration, I was shown the door. Rolled down the front stairs and condemned to a life of factory work, fry stations, mediocre rock bands and any and all activities that would remove as many brain cells as possible.

I was merely too brilliant for the mortals who stayed on to endure that nonsense.

I’m getting to the “if you think I’m bad” section soon enough so bear with me. In the mean time, and this is where my apology crystallizes, I am amazed at what information stuck. Whatever standards and curriculum were in place in the 50’s and 60’s had to be constructed to get through to even the most hard headed, rebellious, ingrate. Or maybe it was osmosis. Whatever. Something took. Thank you, please accept my heart felt gratitude and grant me your forgiveness.

I have no idea what happened between then and now but what I see today as a far as literacy and engagement is bewildering. I saw a piece on TV last night where they interviewed a lot of young people in Harvard Sq. about politics and current events. I laughed my ass off.

Then I got scared.

Politics is a nasty game and not always worth the time and effort if you want to maintain a level of sanity. But to head off into the world so poorly prepared to engage and communicate is a bleak scenario. For everyone.

I blame the system. There’s no way you can’t be responsible for the travesty you have allowed to happen over these last decades. It is rampant and repugnant.

This has been going on for years and I blame the (not all) smarmy little would-be intellectual bullshit artists who have the nerve to tell some under served kid it’s OK to go ahead and purchase that cap and gown. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the faculty lounge.

By way of anecdote, I had a series of bands throughout the 70’s (so they tell me) and I had the good fortune to find a very gifted guitar player who had just graduated from Arlington high school. Though under age, I could still get him into the bars and clubs on our circuit. I told him to create the set lists for each of our gigs and pass out copies to the rest of the band. He refused. Just refused. After a series of threats, (including physicality) he agreed.

What he created stunned and confused me. I thought what he put on paper was sarcasm, meant to tell me to shove off. That wasn’t the case. He was for all intents and purposes illiterate. I now had the intellectual equivalent of a five year old in my band and my Berklee training as a writer and arranger was useless as far as he was concerned.

So what’s next for these hapless generations? A life full of dumbed down computer programs? A crap shoot of auto-fill and 140 characters? Will technology allow these pawns to succeed in spite of themselves? Let’s hope so but I doubt it.

Back to my mea culpa. Thank you again. To all who endured me. I apologize and I hope you are someplace being rewarded for your patience.

We see the trajectories all the time. They start out as your best kept secret, they hit commercial success and then they start the inevitable decline. Sometimes it’s so very painful to watch. Other times  you can’t wait to throw the dirt on them. The cycle.

How do we avoid the over exposure and crass commercialism that sends these shooting stars crashing back to earth? I think it requires a genuine intimacy and a not-for-everyone offering. There’s plenty out there so why try to be everybody’s everything? It’s the point where you step off the curb and get run over by your own success. You attempt to cover too much ground and lose the magic. Fatally.

We’ve all been hearing the stories lately of Dr. Oz and his preposterous claims of health, weight loss, anti-aging and colon cleansing miracles. What would cause such a gifted and talented surgeon to turn to snake oil? Eckhart Tolle, who changed my view of life with “The Power of Now” has turned to  “Moving Sale” with 75% off this week only. What? I know we all have to make a living but turning into “Bob’s Furniture” is such a shock to my system, it’s hard to contemplate.

At a certain point in our careers there will seem to be nowhere else to go but down. It’s not true but it will feel like treading water is not sustainable. The larger your audience the more susceptible and vulnerable you become. You make that main stream move that turns your dream into a shit sandwich. Like the heartbreak of psoriasis, our heroes and thought leaders overreach and show their naked ambition.

I am defining down my business model so that I can retain the spirit of what made me start my adventure in the first place. I say no more than yes these days to potential clients who might fatten my wallet but drive me shit house in the process. Not worth it to me or to them. I can also smell trouble from the outset. In my game, if you think you can’t work with someone, you can’t. Best to be up front about it and move on.

Like a guest who won’t go home or a speaker who stays on too long, weariness sets in and the change comes on. Trying to keep all the balls in the air with exaggeration and misleading statements are a sure killer.

The fall from grace is painful and eye opening. Think big, act small. Keep the magic.

Grow up in a white bread community and never had to worry about money? Go to good schools, were popular with the opposite sex and had a great relationship with your parents? Never wet the bed, been arrested, bullied, sexually assaulted or abused, incarcerated, drafted, beaten senseless and robbed? Well, a study just released by a world renowned expert in human tragedy … me, thinks you just might have gotten the shit end of the stick.

You might have missed out on the basic training that you’ll most likely need in the coming years. Like the Special Forces, Navy Seals or any good Marine, what doesn’t kill you only, makes you stronger or at least, smell stronger.

As I review my life and call up some of the horrifying situations that has shaped me into the wing nut I am today, I realize, ex post facto, (after the fact), the blessings that were perversely bestowed upon me.

Used judiciously, my catalogue of insults, trespass and injury, gives me a strange, comforting attitude and ironic sense of humor. Humor, by the way, is the only thing you will have left when life deserts you. And it will.

Squalor, bad teeth, ill fitting donated clothes, (that were excitedly pointed out by the donors at school ) a Goodwill Industries lay away plan, maniacal nuns, predatory gym teachers and even a state cop who sexually harassed me mercilessly. His name was Marvin Pratt from the Middleboro State Police Barracks, for the record. If he’s not dead by now, he should be. Last I heard, he was surrounded and arrested by his own guys at a motel with a nine year old boy. Prison love, served up cold. I hope.

I’m not trying to reverse engineer my early years to keep myself off the leather couch. Lord knows, I’ve entertained many a budding psychotherapist. But having rubbed shoulders with some of the more fortunate in my business career, my jealousy slowly turned to pity. They were cursed with an uneventful life, in my world weary opinion, of course.

I was telling someone a story once about a beating I took from a Catholic Brother at St. Joseph’s summer school, which I thought was actually a bit humorous because he fell down the stairs while swinging at me. (At least he wasn’t humping me) She stopped me with a horrified look on her face. She said “That’s not funny, that’s tragic, what’s wrong with you?” To each their own I guess.

So as I look back and take stock of all the experiences I have had, the good, the bad and the ugly, I realize that life isn’t supposed to run smoothly, that “only the strong survive” is not just some Darwinian theory. It’s a wonderful, indisputable fact.

Yeah, I look my age but don’t act it, I have everything I want but don’t need it. I have love that I most surely never take for granted and by the time I’m through with this body they can have it. Whoever “they” are.

Ex post facto, of course.

“I am soooo busy”

Disclaimer: If you feel as though any of these descriptions are directed at you and you feel like I am singling you out for shame, embarrassment and the insignificant turd you really are, I am.

We’ve all seen them, the quiet, mousey, dumpy, plumpy, disheveled, non-descript techie type who never speaks up at meetings and then trashes her office while muttering conspiracy and unfairness at every decision that doesn’t go her way. The pasty little code monkey who shriveled her way into Marketing Communications by planting rumor and innuendo about anyone who had an original thought. So insecure is she, that she views everyone as her potential enemy. Even for projects that are totally out of her skill set.

It-does-not-fucking-matter. You are in her sights.

This passive aggressive, neurotic, egomaniac will plot your demise while you sleep. All her conversations consist of non-committals like, hmmm … interesting, uh-huh, oh yeah and I guess. Or even wow! (if you have a death in the family )

Her office is in the bowels of the basement and stacked with projects that never saw the light of day because someone else might get credit. They were slow walked into the void of irrelevance. Timed out because “I am sooo busy”

She sits there in her graveyard of dead projects waiting for the next fool to offer up a spark of creativity or worse, show some initiative. Of course, she is enabled by a motley crew of protectors who know exactly what she’s up to. Their goal is survival and obfuscation. There will be only two things left on earth after they drop the bomb: cockroaches and..them.

Where does some frumpy, personality bankrupted, hausfrau get the shit house notion that she is totally responsible for the success of a $500 million dollar company? Chrystal Meth maybe? Her favorite line was: “I know it’s a great video project but I’m just worried he might be putting the company at risk.”

Company at risk. That sneaky ittle phrase would stop legal in its tracks. And a lot of times, the project. Oh, of all the selfless acts of concern for the organization. Such as it is. Thank you!

If you say you got up at 4:00 am, she got up at three. If you say you got up at 2:00 am, she got up at one. Once, to have a little fun I told her I got up at midnight. Without missing a beat, she said she didn’t go to bed at all. I have to say, she looked it.

These are the types of neurotic ass kissing characters one runs into during a long career in corporate America. I have been flushing my toilet twice ever since. And I will when I’m through writing this piece.

I take great comfort in the fact that I didn’t have to mention your name. You will take umbrage I’m sure, because after all, everything is always about you anyway? Right?