One of the joys of raising teenagers is reliving their concert experiences.
Like us, they save their money to buy expensive tickets with obnoxious service fees “for convenience,” and like us, they’re making memories of great shows and good times with friends.
“What was your first concert” will always be a fun ice breaker. Every time I say Duran Duran, someone can hack an old credit card security question. It was a great show at Six Flags Over Texas in 1986 with my buddy Ben and a couple cheerleaders we met at a competing high school. They were our first teenage crush before Missed Connections on the Back Page.
My teenage son Simon recently got swept into a sudden mosh pit at a Catholic youth meetup in Dallas all of all places. Unfortunately a girl got knocked down (it happens), and some Karen mom weaved her way into the group to stop the moshing.
“The hell?” I said. What a devouring mother. While a Christian rock band is hardly the origin story of mosh, I’m sure the music was loud and exciting, and like so many trends of the 1990’s, grunge culture influences today’s teens the way swing dance and sock hop rockabilly did for Gen-X.
I told Simon about the early Lollapalooza and EdgeFest shows I attended at the Starplex Ampitheater in Dallas. With $10 tickets at the gate, the first Lollapalooza show sold out before I arrived. I paid a security guard to let me in via a side gate and wandered around to find my friends Amy, Jackie and May visiting from Longview.
I’ve lost count all the acts I’ve seen there – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Porno For Pyros, Jane’s Addiction, Rage Against the Machine. Pearl Jam played one of their first concerts outside the Pacific Northwest because of all the airtime on 94.5 KDGE, one of the first alternative rock stations in the US under legendary program director, George Gimarc. I remember their hit Jeremy being about a local kid.
Back then, Starplex allowed blankets and coolers for a picnic in the grass hill beyond the covered seats. After dark, all that stuff became fuel for massive bonfires, which amped the band’s energy. Mosh pits formed around these fires with brave kids jumping through them. When security forces brigaded with fire extinguishers, another fire and another pit would spring up across the lawn.
Moshing is universal.
The intensity of the fiery Starplex mosh pits are similar to the hypnotic dhikr prayer chants of Sufi muslims dancing together.
Through a primal need for community, individual men give themselves over to a larger organism, participating in something more powerful than they could muster on their own. People of all faiths make supplications to God through their group identity.
The intensity of a loud Maori haka with its synchronized percussion of stomping, body slaps and guttural roars with wild eyes, jutting chin and flashing teeth taps a similar instinct.
Moshing is a primal awakening of suburban youth. It’s a rite of initiation, bound deep in a violence that is uniquely American. Following our roots as a radical rebel colony, moshing binds individual free will into a unitive creative expression. It’s a tribal group-think, a collective need to be heard.
Not all moshing is a collective expression; I’d argue individuals punching air does not constitute mosh. There is a YouTube video of a chick at a metal concert wandering through a pack of wildly flailing guys, oblivious to the danger she’s placing herself. A young man caught deep in his own ritual, head down, rotated violently from his hunched core and whipped his extended arm to backhand her clean across her skull, likely breaking her nose.
The unharnessed reckless abandon of an individual dancer didn’t survive the 90’s pits… The group would’ve overwhelmed an individual flailing person, or shoved him into the bonfire. He’d have pinballed among us, and forced to conform to the circling group or get beaten down by someone bigger. In the chaos, there is still order.
Mosh pits rarely included women. Brave young women would occasionally jump into the fray without any targeted aggression, like rough housing with older brothers. Inevitably they’d be protected by white-knighting guys who would surround her like a punk kid sister. It made for an odd chivalry where the sacrificial call to heroics is stronger than the need to be heard or to conform.
Why do we mosh?
In his book, The Courage to Create, The existential psychotherapist Rollo May connects rage as necessary to the creative process.
Moshing is a form of creative expression. It’s unfiltered yet ordered, impulsive yet socially restrained. Like all great art, moshing is best expressed within a set of boundaries, literally pressing into the personal space of others who are pressing into you.
Why does this happen?
We have a deep need to express rage. As we press against the constraints of our existence, we experience a sort of death to ourselves, realizing that we are not in control of our ultimate destiny. Death is core to the human condition; becoming aware of our mortality, our limitations, and the societal structures that stifle individual creativity, we come to grieve the loss of our own life, and therefore our potential. Channeling this rage into a creative ritualistic dance is a transformative and liberating force because it transcends the individual. It stretches into the realm of legacy.
We must confront our death. Awareness of death is a catalyst for creativity. For the creative person, the realization of our mortality evokes a sense of urgency and a desire to leave an impression, like ancient pictographs in a cave. Confronting death forces us to reflect on our purpose and our values. We’re inspired to create in search of meaning, to affirm our existence.
We must transcend the anxiety of death. Engaging in creative pursuits helps us transcend our fear of death. When we create an enduring artifact of our life, even the memory of a concert, we’re gesturing toward immortality. We touch a sense of continuity, a significance beyond our physical existence. And for the Christian, a healthy reminder that we are indeed immortal, embodied souls not made for this world.
We experience a symbolic death and rebirth. The creative process – even the ejaculatory expression of moshing – spans a momentary death and rebirth. Jumping into the pit, being swept into a pulsing circle of fire and sweat, joy and pain, forces one to let go of preconceived ideas, beliefs, and even aspects of their own identity to make way for new possibilities and fresh insights. In a crushing body of fist and elbows, your feet stamping to stay upright, there is no space for anything but the present. Presence is the antidote to life’s crushing anxiety about the regrettable past and foreboding future. The rush of adrenalin and cortisol triggers a Defcon One hyper-vigilance and situational awareness as an amygdalin survival instinct. The alligator brain takes over, and so violently we roll.
Creativity is also an expression of its time. Where abstract artists were a natural evolution of reductive thinking, moshing reflects cold war city kids of the farming and blue collar Silent Generation with uncles and teachers who fought in Vietnam. We faced a bleak future of crime and filth, inflation and job uncertainty, energy scarcity and war, with massive changes in the economy and technology. Concerts exploded with pent up rage, and for a moment, brought people together.
This transformative process that is essential to creative evolution. We rage at our death, and we mosh to be born again.
In the immediate aftermath of watching the 2022 Oscars crumble, I tweeted a special nod to the last time we saw such an appalling disruption to an award’s show.
In the moment I admit the glee one feels recognizing a notable historical event happening in real time.
However, through the evening and next morning, I learned a good deal about the strange marriage of Will and Jada Smith, her “entanglements” and the public humiliation he has suffered in choosing to reconcile with his wife in their marriage. That helps explain why he became unhinged and severely overreacted.
Is “G.I. Jane 2” funny?
Given the violent outburst it supposedly elicited, and the predictable association in the aftermath, it’s worth examining what Chris Rock said. And before we can dissect the joke, we need the proper form of analysis in both the artistic expression and the venue in which it’s shared.
The best comedy is quite nuanced on multiple levels, playing into connections most people miss. The best comedians push themselves to the very edge of public speaking.
We need stand up comics because they exhibit courage and humor in a lost and hurting world. They dance along the precipice where the rest of us dare not tread lest we face humiliation, lost reputation and livelihood. Such is the genius of the comedic art form, and why comedic mastery is revered as something bold and brilliant when it works, weak and pathetic when it fails.
Chris Rock is among the elite comedians. He is routinely named near the top of “best comedians of all time” lists. He came of age through the trailblazing shadows of Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy to break into broader entertainment. Jerry Seinfeld does an excellent job uncovering the unique dynamic of actors vs comedians, as well as the particular struggle of black comedians in his series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Objectively, Chris’s popularity and success merit more than a dismissive swat of the hand. The guy is widely deemed funny. And where humor is a mark of wisdom, it’s worth noting what he has to say.
With the G.I. Jane joke, Chris is making several connections.
First he knows Jada personally having worked together on the wildly popular Madagascar franchise. Presumably, he thought he knew her well enough to play into the social taboo of commenting on a woman’s hair. Though he miscalculated her response to ribbing, his comments are offered in both a personal and professional context.
Chris is also working the premier entertainment award show with a long history of self-deprecation and public roasting. It is through public vulnerability that this type of humor overcomes an obvious wall between celebrities and their fans. For a moment fans are brought into the inner circle with a wink-wink / nudge-nudge level of familiarity they would otherwise never enjoy.
The G.I. Jane reference is difficult to pull off because to truly appreciate it, one must know not only the original film, but the story behind Demi Moore. Like Jada, her marriage to Bruce Willis faced public ridicule through her own entanglements with a young man, Ashton Kusther. In both cases, the couples embraced the fluidity of their sexual relationships publicly with a sense of defiance.
Demi also chose to shave her head for the G.I. Jane role. So too did Jada choose to shave her head and speak publicly about her decision, albeit for a different reason.
Still, in both cases, the act of famous women shaving their heads were seen as bold and strong. At the time, Demi made a notable mark of individualism and diversity early in Third Wave Feminism. Likewise, Jada might be seen as a hallmark of Fourth Wave Feminism celebrating intersectionality, and the rejection of women as objects of sexual gratification. Knowing she is embracing a medical condition as a stand against the perception of beauty, I imagine a second take on the G.I. Jane script might have been well received by audiences.
I don’t want to give Chris too much credit overthinking a line. Neither do I want to mitigate whatever pain he causes as a professed insult comment. Instead, I want to slow down rhetoric and recognize that when Chris offered an unscripted throwaway line in the moment, his comedic genius is on full display, and why he’s a great host for these award shows. He is able to make connections so incredibly fast, before anyone has a chance to appreciate his depth and charism.
Did Chris’s joke fall flat? It’s hard to say. In the moment, the audience laughed. So did Will, until he caught the glaring disapproval of his wife. I’ve heard it said the best jokes are the ones that fail, and I tend to agree.
Regardless of his intent, the joke clearly stung Jada in the moment. Chris immediately started to backpedal, but it was too late.
Will’s reaction cut deep for the public.
Truly, a remarkable moment in time, we see the pain of many people projected in what Will did next.
We see the pain of people suffering the humiliation of medical conditions they cannot easily hide.
We see the pain of cultural sensitivity around women’s hair as a traditional sign of beauty for its distinction and the time it takes to cultivate, during a period of social haziness as we collectively question masculinity and femininity.
We see the pain of infidelity as the details of Will and Jada’s marriage become public, and her role as a predator is seen by those devastated by traumatic betrayal.
We see the pain of whataboutism in racial commentary.
We see the pain of reactive violence.
We see the pain of lost chivalry as a cultural value.
We see the pain of celebrity narcism and stolen valor. With the award show’s declining popularity and subsequent spread of #theslap via social media, Questlove’s win for Best Feature Documentary will forever be lost to Trivia Night pub crawls.
We see the pain of our inability to collectively discern truth. Convinced the slap was staged in a pathetic bid to re-capture audiences, we can anticipate rampant skepticism that’ll block dialogue. This is not a reasonable conclusion considering this is not the kind of attention the Academy wants. Indeed we see the pain of Academy members outraged by the lack of security, the lack of venue ejection, the follow-through award, and the hand-wringing of sanctions days after it happened.
We see the pain of a divided upper and lower class. In what Bari Weiss has coined “The Great Unraveling“, we see institutional loss of power, exasperated by technology, where rules that apply to thee, do not apply to me.
My sense is these pains didn’t come from Will’s slap. Indeed, the audience laughed presuming it an improvisational pratfall. Even Chris laughed when he said “Wow! Will Smith just slapped the shit out of me!” Imagine if Will never said a word, never expressed his indignation. We’d have a different perspective entirely.
The pain we all feel comes from his rage.
Will’s very words are of ancient biblical proportion. From the Book of Genesis, God spoke and the entire world formed. He gave man the power to name the creatures of the earth. When Will demands that Chris not say his wife’s name, he is acknowledging the power of the spoken word. He is precisely correct. We know this because in an instant Will silenced an entire theater with tens of millions of viewers watching live by his words.
The Anatomy of a Proper Apology
Whether it’s a parent teaching their child, or a CEO accepting responsibility of their brand, there are key elements of a true apology.
Recognition that the action is objectively wrong.
Admission of harm caused without mitigation.
Admission of guilt without shifting blame.
Expression of remorse and sincere regret.
A promise of penance and to do better next time.
A request for forgiveness, without expectation of receiving it, after the other conditions are met.
Did Will’s apology meet this standard? Unfortunately, no. He mitigates harm, shifts blame away from himself under the guise of a loving reaction, and draws into question his remorse.
Will wants to be excused for his emotional reaction.
At a base level, I agree. We ought not judge people’s character by their worst moments in the throes of passion.
Reactions to extreme stimulus should not define us because they cut deep to our core in milliseconds. Reactions are formed in our psychological personality developed from childhood, shaped through our upbringing and codified in our biology. Even for the wisest stoic sage, reactions to extreme pain is incredibly difficult to control.
Will needs to own his reaction fully, and promise to examine what is hurting himself so badly that he’d over-react. “I’m sorry, but…” apologies just don’t fly among mature well-grounded adults.
Note the difference in reactions between Chris and Will.
Chris immediately backpedaled when he saw Jada’s reaction. He exhibited a healthy sense of shame for having done something wrong, even if he couldn’t articulate it in the moment. His immediate reaction was to try and make it right with words of reassurance.
Will laughed, looked at Jada, then confronted Chris. He stood up, marched into the limelight with tunnel vision, without any common sense or concern for how unacceptable he is behaving. He raised his hand, slapped a smaller submissive man whose eyers were closed, chin exposed and hands behind his back. Will then walked back to his seat and made a vile statement on public television not once, but twice that shocked every voice in the theater into silence, and sent network sensors scrambling.
The differences in their reactions is rooted in temperament and perspective. We know anger masks fears and insecurities. In that moment, Jada and Will were overcome by their own feelings of humiliation, without any consideration for lighthearted positive intent. They broke the social contract they hold with their fans, too haughty to laugh at themselves as beloved members of a bigger human family, as people who suffer the difficulties of life like the rest of us. Blinded by their own malice, all they could see in the moment was an affront to their dignity, a threat to their status.
Will should apologize for his narcissistic hubris. He has forsaken any gratitude for the privilege he enjoys from wealth and fame. He should apologize for surrounding himself with sycophants who are clearly enabling him to project his disillusionment. He should apologize for expecting the poor and marginalize to understand his plight, let alone accept his bad example.
Will is blame shifting from Jada and himself to Chris.
Will is not the victim here. Neither is Jada a martyr.
Will fails to acknowledge his own hubris that’s permitted him to physically assault others. He does not own culpability with his underlying contempt, nor can one reasonably expect he’ll change.
Will seems to not appreciate stand up comedy as as art, arguably a form more courageous and sophisticated than the thespian’s. The comedian lives by his wit and survives alone without the safety net of a retake and supporting cast.
Reconciliation comes from though humble contrition!
We don’t know Will’s heart, we can only judge by his behavior. What seems apparent from the video is that Will’s immediate reaction to the joke was laughter. His violent reaction followed Jada’s glare.
Anyone that has suffered deep feelings of betrayal, especially among those with whom we are most vulnerable, will recognize moments of lost control, childish impatience and the demand for outcomes beyond our ability to affect them. It’s reasonable to believe Will is fed up with the grotesque mocking of him, his wife and their children in popular music and videos.
I see the trauma of a broken man, who for a moment lost his well-groomed persona mask, unintentionally exposing himself to the world. His is a recurring nightmare we’ve all experienced.
Will’s stammering acceptance speech exhibits hallmark symptoms of PTSD. He struggled to articulate himself, the impossible task of reconciling his person and his persona. We recognize the agony of grief, a never-ending fall from the greatest night of his professional career to lowest point of confronting himself in front of the whole world.
It is common for people suffering from PTSD to feel like they’re experiencing an outer-body experience. I’d wager Will felt this way. Unless he’s an a priori narcissist, he’s probably reeling from witnessing his own behavior that, to him, seems so out of character from the person sees himself to be, and the person he aims to project.
That slap has been winding up for years. It cannot be adequately addressed by a corporate apology released to the press.
Feature image isEmerging Man(1952) by Gordon Parks in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man about an African-American man living in solitude underground, invisible to society. The image evokes a sense of emotional isolation, the loneliness and fear of reconciling our person and persona.
Your children give you one of your best relationships in life. Play with them cheerfully and take on the world.
“Dad, can I join a clan?” Simon asked me, aged nine. The heck kind of question is that? And so began a half decade of strange conversations and father-son bonding in the world of social gaming.
Gaming has been a part of my childhood and social network as much as Friday night sleepovers with friends nights playing Dungeons & Dragons and board games. I recall fondly the 80’s HBO opening sequence playing in the background with summer blockbusters on loop. Like most kids my age, we began playing video games in the red glow of Pizza Hut while mom and dad sipped beer in a nearby booth. Then came the 8-bit Atari and Commodore console games, like Pong and Pac-Man and Pitfall wired into the back of 13-channel TVs. I graduated to arcades with a fondness for mechanical pinball. On an early date with my future wife at Dave & Busters, I won tickets to see Ringo Star when I beat a local radio personality in Daytona USA, a network racing simulator. All those days skipping undergrad classes to hang out at Le Fun on The Drag in Austin paid back a token win.
Simon’s desire to play games with his friends really isn’t so different. We created the Texas Empire “clan” with his friends from school in Clash Royale, a popular strategic action mobile game where players develop decks of character cards, like Pokémon, with varying abilities to battle in arenas. The game includes elements of mythical stories like a mission, us versus them, legendary quests and treasures waiting to be discovered. In time, strangers joined our clan, people we’ve never met. Over the years we’ve played hours together with all the delight and frustration one expects in any adventure.
We first played Fornite with Simon’s cousins during Christmas in 2017. That makes Simon and me “OGs,” the original gangsta honorific hailing from early hip hop culture, seen by its own adherents as a type of social game of power, money and leaderboard dominance.
As Fortnite appealed to younger gamers, parents objected to its violence: close range gunfire, sniper headshots, explosions, high falls and death by bludgeoning. I shared these concerns until I came to recognize the game’s hilarious cross-cultural references. Fortnite gameplay feels more like slapstick with cartoonish violence than battlefield realism. Players are animated avatars with bloodless eliminations and perpetual resurrection. It’s interactive Tom and Jerry and Wile E. Coyote.
Parental concern about Fortnite isn’t without merit.
As a first person shooter with sexualized characters akin to comic books and superhero films, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we see a rise in dangerous police chases and cars plowing through pedestrians along with the popularity of the ultra-realistic Grand Theft Auto where the worst of antisocial behavior is rewarded.
I understand the game’s influence on the adolescent mind. Perhaps gaming keeps me young? My wife can certainly vouch for my regression while gaming.
I’ll not enter the chicken-egg debate on whether gaming imitates life or vice versa. I suspect they feed each other and am inclined to leave empirical data to scientists.
Instead, I want to share the deeper connection I’m enjoying with my son through gaming.
Firstly, I’ve not been dismissive of gaming as a silly waste of time, nor the passions gaming elicits. Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon. It’s the hinge pin of countless experiences Zoomer kids get and their parents do not get.
Every generation presses parental boundaries in dancing, music, fashion and technology. Social gaming is part of that progression.
Fortnite is full of current music, funny TikTok dances, film references and “collabs” with special “merch” growing much faster than Facebook could change its name. The game is a metaverse, a deep mix of popular film, songs, luxury brands and celebrities in traditional and social media. Beyond in-game experiences, Fortnite is reinforced by wildly popular YouTube channels, Twitch streams and subreddits. It’s a commercial powerhouse pursued by Roblox and Minecraft. Earlier this year, Disney opened its vault of intellectual property for gaming partnerships. For parents, social gaming provides the pulse of what interests our kids and their friends.
Secondly, I recognize powerful marketing forces are targeting the perpetually elusive teenage audiences in a way business ethics and psychology have yet to articulate.
We don’t widely understand the benefits and damage of convenience versus privacy in digital culture. My hunch is Simon is viewed as a persona, not a person.
Wherever his individual dignity might be blurred, I will get involved to help him see his place in the big picture. I talk openly with my kids about the effects of media, including gaming, to help them develop an awareness, to guard against their own manipulation.
Did you know you can watch entire films within Fortnite? Some in-game film characters like Deadpool really aren’t appropriate for preteens, so again, parent involvement is key.
We’ve seen the Millennium Falcon land in game with a Star Wars pre-release live interview with director J.J. Abrams. We’ve seen live concerts by popular musical artists like Marshmello and Travis Scott and Ariana Grande, each with their own in-game skins and battle gear. These spectacular virtual events are design and engineering marvels, with millions of kids participating simultaneously. They’re all the kids text and talk about at school for a week. I’m reminded of the arena concerts and music festivals of my youth. Fortnite is hosting generational coming-of-age experiences marked by music and artistry that are vastly more popular than Woodstock, Lallapalooza and Coachella.
Parents: Watch for Unfair Practices and Manipulation in Social Games
Thirteen design patents and terms of use for in-game purchasing systems were examined.
Video games are increasingly monetized with in-game purchasing options called microtransactions.
Patented game systems exploit behavioral tracking data to optimize purchasing offers.
Some player-game dynamics may be viewed as an information asymmetry.
In-game purchasing systems lack basic consumer guarantees and protections.
Game developers research, test and iterate for maximum financial value. They know how to induce player behaviors and which behaviors are lucrative. In Clash Royale, the win/loss ratio of decks to each other is publicly available. The game publisher Supercell surely has even better metrics. Parents and gamers should be wary.
Likewise, be aware of targeted recruiting ads in games and popular gaming YouTube channels. I’ve seen them from all the US armed forces Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force. Personally, I’m a fan having spent a good deal of my youth in junior and collegiate ROTC programs. I think a military career is something every American ought to discern. Still, parents be aware and ready to have the conversation.
The addictive nature of gaming cannot be mitigated, both in our neurological and psychological attraction to flickering light, audio and pace, and our tendency to avoid responsibilities, duties and struggles in real life. I may have a little more street cred in telling Simon to “turn it off” when I too would rather goof off all day than deal with life head on.
And speaking of work, I’d wager Microsoft and Epic Games host more web-based conference calls than all the direct business apps combined. At least on the weekend before the global pandemic. Gaming should be balanced with outdoor activity, team sports and rough and tumble play that teach kids to explore our physical world and their own potential.
The Benefits of Gaming
From what I can tell, gaming appeals to higher order senses:
A sense of mission and purpose, which appeal to deeper motivations of meaning;
A sense of right and wrong, of rules, of fair play, justice and mercy;
A sense of the new and novel, an appeal to openness and a call to exploration;
A sense of adventure and challenge;
A sense of potential, of failing and trying again, of pushing one’s self to achieve a goal, and the satisfaction of success;
A sense of accomplishment and completion;
A sense of place, one’s orientation in a world and among others;
A sense of intent, with urgency. Social games often involve rapid communication among teammates who organize in a joint pursuit toward a cause they cannot achieve alone.
As boys are generally more attracted to gaming than girls, I wonder if boys fared better socially during the pandemic than girls. YouTube and Twitch streaming, which also skew more toward male audiences, are filled with gaming channels pushing social interactions and improving gameplay. Girls, on the other hand, have a more isolated social experience on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that are less interactive, with more visual comparisons in fashion and beauty, and highly opinionated comment features.
Our Bond Beyond Gaming
I’ve led a seasonal prayer breakfast for men for 13 years. Every Friday morning at 6:00 am, we meet for coffee, tacos, fellowship and structured conversation. We watch a brief video or a talk given to the group, and discuss in small groups and conclude with a brief reflection by clergy. These meetings are well attended, usually between 60 and 70 guys representing dozens of ministries in our parish and neighboring parishes. The idea is to develop meaningful connections with friends, to help each other grow closer to God, to become better husbands, fathers and leaders in our community.
The program is specifically designed to accommodate dads of our parish school. Meetings are bound to the school year, and they wrap before the school Mass. And yet, I can count on one hand the number of men who’ve invited their teenage sons to join.
Just before his 14th birthday, I suggested to Simon he might enjoy going with me. To my delight, I’ve not once had to wake him up or force him to attend, nor has he ever whined about having to wake up so early. When I come downstairs at 4:45 in the morning, he is dressed and ready to go. We arrive around 5 am to make coffee, set up tables and goof off with the rest of the set-up team.
Incredibly, Simon recruited a half-dozen of his classmates to join our breakout table. I already knew each of these boys from our Clash Royale clan, but it’s in these meetings that I’ve really gotten to know them. I know their parents, their siblings and classroom drama. I know when essays and science projects and homework are due. I know each boy’s individual quirks and idiosyncrasies and insecurities, who is funny and outgoing, and who is shy and reserved. I see how they tease each other, as men do, as a means of testing one another, asserting the primitive hierarchies in which we size each other up and orient ourselves. I watch the proverbial iron sharpening iron. Paradoxically, their verbal sparring is a deep sign of respect, as if to say, “I know you. I know what you can handle, and it’s more than you know.”
I sit at their table to foster fellowship on their terms. I guard against an overly churchy experience; it’s enough that they are even at church outside of Mass, among the good men of our parish. It is here the boys encounter the individual priests, deacons, doctors, cops, tradesman, teachers, attorneys, salesman, entrepreneurs, fathers and grandfathers. They personally know heroes of war, a pioneer in laser technologies, a jeweler, mechanics, a UT Tower shooting first responder and leaders in political parties and popular companies. And all these men know Simon and his friends. For the boys, it’s masculine initiation with civility in true friendship and shared interests beyond gaming.
At this age, inevitably, common interest in games is the beginning of exploring other interests. Fortunately, I’m in a position to discuss gaming nuance because I too enjoy games. I know the frustration of losing to a broken game mechanic, or lost wifi connection or sudden interruption. I can speak to real disappointment, and consequently, I’ve earned a degree of trust and openness talk about the game of life.
At our table, created a new game I call, “Ask me anything.” I invite Simon and his friends to stump me with the hardest questions they can muster. I’ve fielded incredibly intelligent questions. It’s mentally taxing because there isn’t any room for lying. Kids can smell bullshit before they step in it. When I don’t know an answer, I give them the satisfaction of beating me. Then we investigate the question together on our phones. We rely on search, images of great cathedrals, the lives of saints, the wisdom of church fathers and zooming into maps of Israel.
As Roman Catholics, we also have two books on our table that guide us in the game.
The first is sacred scripture, the Bible, or more accurately, a canon of 73 books with collective human wisdom extending back 4000 years to the early Hebrew texts. The second book is the Catechism, a synthesis of what the magisterium holds to be true on hundreds of matters. The genius of the Catechism is in how it’s structured to make deep insights approachable.
One of the benefits of a classic Catholic education is the Catechism. It’s an iterative collection of human knowledge, much like the continuous delivery models in modern gaming and progressive web applications. The Catechism includes academic thinking in an approachable essay writing style with an index to help us find answers to difficult questions. It teaches logic with scholastic terms from old books. It builds vocabulary with proper words, and sentences, and paragraphs arranged to form big ideas. Like modern games, the Catechism is a cultural intersectionality.
Chris Harrison’s visual diagram of 63,000+ biblical cross references is a beautiful artistic rendering of connectivity. Source.
Combined with the Bible as the Catechism is intended, both books have strong potency appealing to people across time and culture and geography. The books are hyperlinked texts, like the web, with tens of thousands of cross references in ancient myths, parables, mystical wisdom, poetry and stories that transcend time. Understanding religion as part of humanity’s metaphorical substrate taps into the same awe and wonder a child feels in an immersive game.
My Advice to Parents of Gamers…
Recognize the value of play as part of natural human development. From our infancy, we gain knowledge through mimicry. We learn objects exist and events occur independently of our actions. As embodies souls, we attribute meaning to the physical world. The great psychologist Jean Piaget contributed volumes of work to the field of child development on the principles of learning through play.
Understand games engage the mind through story. They involve plot, characters, setting and ancient modes of conflict with a clear beginning, middle and end. We participate in dramatic nuances of negotiation, token economies, ownership and cunning strategy. Games are an immersive form of storytelling, the way humankind has always gained wisdom and experience.
Don’t yell at your kids to stop playing, or to go to bed, get off the X-box, turn off the TV, etc. First of all, they’re on a conference call. Everyone in the game can hear you screaming. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard a parent yell at their kids, “Turn it off, NOW!” I cannot help wondering, even if they’re unaware that others are listening, are they not mindful of the separation they’re sowing among their own progeny?
Worse, harshly insisting on an unexpected end to gameplay puts a kid in a terrible spot. Do not force your child to choose between obeying you and being disloyal to their friends.
Keep in mind, when a kid is in a game, they’ve made a tacit commitment to his teammates to help them fulfill a quest. If they have to leave early, your child can easily cause the entire team to fail at the mission. Do that two or three or four times, and their friends will not want them to join the team. Quitting early leads to feelings of wasted time better spent without your child’s participation. Being excluded from play is not good for a child’s healthy development. We want our kids to have positive connections with their friends, to feel welcome and wanted.
Even in solo games, sudden quitting will lose accomplishments if the game doesn’t autosave progress. Imagine the frustration of your computer crashing before you could save a document or spreadsheet. The lost time and energy is maddening. When a kid whines, throws a tantrum and withdrawals because you made them stop suddenly without warning, are they really any different than us?
Feelings of disappointment and frustration are real and avoidable. A good parent doesn’t demand blind obedience when doing so leads to the anxiety of unfinished business or betrayal. Set boundaries in a respectful manner.
Figure out how long a typical game lasts and set time boundaries. Be sure to account time to boot up machines, get logged in, connect with friends and start a game. If there isn’t enough time, say “Not right now,” and suggest a better time. And when that time comes, let them play freely.
A Fortnite solo mission might take twenty minutes. A squad mission takes about the same time. A Clash Royale battle is three to five minutes. Some games haver countdown timers. Puzzle and strategy games like Sudoku can be stopped and started with little notice.
Recognize they may have underestimated the time it takes to complete a quest. Just as we all overestimate our ability to handle more than we can, give them a little padding, especially if they’re just learning a new game.
Help them develop internal discipline of timing, when they play and for how long. If they struggle with this – and most will – then be a good parent with external discipline. Say no. Don’t take their disappointment personally. Don’t give in to bad attitudes and bad behavior like whining, yelling, tantrums or slamming things. Set firm boundaries and enforce them.
Help them visualize responsibility and what it’ll be like when they transition away from the game. For example…
“You can play your game for one hour. After that, we have to [leave the house, eat dinner, go to bed, etc].”
Or ask, “Can you get to a stopping point?”
Take an active role. Don’t be passive. Games are not babysitters or mindless distractions.On the contrary, games engage deep neurological circuitry to activate physical and emotional centers of the brain. As such, they should be limited and appropriate for your child’s age, temperament and maturity.
Be mindful with whom they’re gaming. I’d caution against allowing lone gamers to join their group without your supervision. Games ought to reinforce friendships they know personally like cousins, classmates and neighborhood kids. I’ve noticed the further removed a player is from personally knowing the people with whom they play, the more apt they are to antisocial behavior like cursing, stealing loot and sabotage.
I’ve not seen the contrary hold true. In my experience, online gamers that meet in person often don’t always an interpersonal connection. There is an obvious mission when playing together, but that doesn’t always translate outside the game. I’ve seen gamers with different personalities and values find they don’t really have anything in common at all except the game itself.
Play with them! Games are fun! Humans have an incredibly long maturation period before they leave their parental nest. And yet, every older parent says, “Time flies. Before I knew it, they were gone.”
Make memories. Spend time in playful activity you both enjoy.
Feature image is The trial-Ned Kelly Series (1947) by Sid Nolan in Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia. Nolan captures the trial of Australia’s notorious bushranger outlaw noted for his bulletproof armor in his final shootout with police. Like Fortnite, the artist employs bold bold colors, sunlight and landscapes to quickly render the unfolding drama.
One of the remarkable outcomes from the Challenger tragedy is that low-level engineers foresaw the risk of o-ring failure, but project leadership failed to recognize the level of risk, and downgraded the priority of remediation. Same with low ranking agents deep in the bowels of intelligence agencies with early concerns of flight school infiltration that failed to rise to meaningful action that might have prevented terrorist attacks on 9/11. History is replete with preventative disaster, or at least mitigated loss, from the Titanic to Halifax, Pearl Harbor to Hurricane Katrina. There were always warning signs.
And so it goes with Rust.
I can’t imagine Halyna Hutchins’s husband who is undoubtedly reeling in early stages of grief marked by disbelief after the accidental shooting of his wife by Alec Baldwin. Apparently they spoke by phone, shortly after the shooting, where he said the actor expressed confusion and a remorseful conciliatory tone.
I’m reticent to cast blame on the inexperienced armorer Hannah Guiterrez Reed who admitted her inexperience on set, though she had been deep knowledge of firearms, and had been on many sets with the legendary armor Thell Reed, her father. On the set of Rust, she split her attention between being armor and prop master, a resourcing issue overseen by the film’s producer, who also happened to be the shooter. And remarkably, earlier in the day, members of the film crew quit in protest of unsafe working conditions.
How can this be? How do we mitigate risk on mission critical work?
Fundamentally, I think the answer is summoning the courage to speak truth, no matter how difficult. Or at least not lie, by commission or omission.
I’m practicing this lesson myself. I have a personal tendency to not speak up when I intuit my words won’t matter. I’ve long dismissed this dreadful practice as being staunchly Gen X, embracing the angst of my low population sandwiched between Boomers and Millenials. We’re old enough to know The Greatest Generation, and lived through the real threat of nuclear annihilation. Our culture, music, films and literature express underlying frustration with the insufferable state of being. Gen X wanted change, not tearing institutions down.
Our solution? Shut up, it doesn’t matter, carry your cross and continue. Raging against the machine
I’ve come to learn we’re wrong. Or at least not quite right. Our eff-it attitude is rooted in helplessness and fear. Fear turns to anger, then resentment, contempt and ultimately nihilism. We care too much to let the world fall into cynicism and despair.
Fortunately, we’re smart enough to not dismiss sage advice, but I fret our timeline is too small. It’s a folly for a modern man to ignore his ancestors, to assume we know better than those who dreamed big with less energy and technology, who laid the foundation for everything we know and have today.
Raging against the proverbial machine hasn’t been sufficient. We have to articulate problems as we see them. We have to listen carefully, in humility, and hone our disposition toward justice and mercy, to develop the intelligence and courage necessary to avoid pitfalls.
And so it went with the production of Rust. Emphasis is mine:
This tragedy is not just down to cost-cutting measures or crew fatigue. Wolf says movie sets can be so intimidating, staffed with young crew members who are star-struck or cowed by a demanding director or just thrilled to be working in the industry, that most would never speak up.
From the NY Post. Steve Wolf is a firearms and special effects expert in Hollywood.
In Pursuit of Truth, Beauty and Good
The ancient Hebrew texts of Sirach offers timeless counsel on the practicality of speaking truth coupled with wise silence.
One is silent and is thought wise; another, for being talkative, is disliked. One is silent, having nothing to say; another is silent, biding his time. The wise remain silent till the right time comes, but a boasting fool misses the proper time.
The knowledge of the wise wells up like a flood, and their counsel like a living spring. A fool’s mind is like a broken jar: it cannot hold any knowledge at all. The mind of fools is in their mouths, but the mouth of the wise is in their mind.
Written 2200 years ago, this sage advise doesn’t mean wise people need to be silent. On the contrary, they need to speak up, and properly discern the right time to do so.
Sirach captures the idea of capital-T Truth as a universal spirit, originating in ideas and intuition, and animated in our communication. We participate in the advancement of Truth by speaking it, even roughly, to bring reality to life.
My favorite leaders in business are those who have the courage to listen, to encourage dialogue, and to share bold opinions. Personally, I flourish in these environments because I believe an idea can come from anywhere. Truth has a way of revealing itself in the collective good of earnest people pursuing a noble goal.
I’ve watched organizations and micro-cultures lose the core value of dialogue. In these environments, I’ve grieved the loss of my own voice and others like me who drown in a sea of prideful certainty.
You can spot loud cowards when they thwart inspiration. They’ll uprooting the very source of potential, with skepticism and snark. They offer bad advice unsolicited, and lead with criticism. If an idea is incomplete, they’ll not iterate. They withhold encouragement, let alone a better way. They lack imagination. They see the world in terms of scarcity instead of abundance. They see people motivated by power, not purpose. They murder ideas with little daggers like sales forecasts and weak budgets, senseless deadlines and quarterly results.
To wit, beauty is crafted in order. We don’t build great cathedrals and engineering marvels without systems. Knives are wielded by madmen and master chefs, to cut and to kill.
We bring about Beauty in Truth for the common Good.
Feature image is The Pórtico de la Gloria, en la Catedral de Santiago de Compostela created in 1075. Since the 9th century, countless pilgrims have walked the “camino” Way of St. James the Great to visit the shrine and burial site of the apostle. Santiago de Compostela is the capital city of Galicia in northwestern Spain. The Old Town district is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Photo by Axencia Turismo de Galicia.
This summer I had the unplanned occasion to visit the two deadliest sites for mass shootings by a single gunman in the United States.
On a rare rainy evening in Las Vegas, I strolled alone five miles, from the McLaren car rental terminal to the Linq hotel. As I walked the desolate southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, Southwest flights with optimistic gamblers roared over my head close enough for me to see the pilots’ faces. At the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, tourists queued patiently for selfies with an Elvis impersonator. I passed by the old Glass Pool Inn made famous in Casino and Leaving Las Vegas.
Approaching Mandalay Bay, the golden windows seemed to have lost their glittery luster since I first saw them in 1999. I looked to the 32nd floor corner where Stephen Paddock fired more than 1000 rounds down on a crowd of concertgoers in an open cement lot across Las Vegas Boulevard, killing 60 people. Standing in the breach, thinking of terrified people taking precious little shelter, one gets a sense of his cowardice in shooting helpless victims from a makeshift sniper’s nest.
Pausing at the site brought to mind my own mortality, of senseless death, and strange claims of bravery by apologists of extreme violence. Terrorism can never be held as an act of courage because it’s fundamentally an act of taking, not giving. It’s selfish, not sacrificial. Courage is a universal human virtue just as theft is a universal vice. In our bones, rational people know that indulging in one’s murderous rage is not courageous.
It’s far more difficult to master one’s passions, to face the inherent struggle of life head-on. Thoreau is right.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
Henry David Thoreau
As I scanned the Mandala Bay windows, I thought of how I’ve done the same in Dallas, looking toward the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy. In a moment of awestruck, I wondered why, and what I might do if I were in the crowd. Or more terrifying, if I looked down on a hapless crowd with dead malice in my heart.
The City of Dallas has done our nation a great service in preserving the place for people to grieve, to never forget the horror of innocence lost through violence. Televised. Dealey Plaza has an air of the sacred, set apart from the world, outside of time, inside an outdoor cathedral with walls of steel and brick and noise and bustle.
Not so in Las Vegas. There isn’t a memorial.
I attended the University of Texas in Austin in 1996, thirty years after Charles Whitman’s shot and killed 15 people from the Main building tower, which at the time had been the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in US History. In 1966, nearly four years after Kennedy’s assassination, Whitman took a high perch and fired down on victims going about their day. As the first mass shooting in a public place, his violence precipitated the creation of police SWAT tactics, and the continual rise of militarized law enforcement.
Two months after visiting Las Vegas, I walked along Orange Avenue in Orlando looking to the entrance where Omar Mateen sustained a three-hour killing spree at the Pulse nightclub. He continued unabated, killing 49 people, and injuring 53, until first responders breeched a rear wall with overwhelming force to end the violence.
In both Orlando and Las Vegas, revelers planned a fun evening of music and dancing, never imagining the extraordinary danger they’d soon face. Both shootings happened at night to an unsuspecting and vulnerable crowd.
I have friends who abandoned plans to be at each location the night of each shooting. The next morning in Las Vegas, a flight attendant friend recalls a quiet flight out of town full of collective trauma. One girl in particular stared out the window vacantly in soiled clothes. She had no luggage, having abandoned it and gone straight to the airport from the scene of the shooting. Upon landing, she burst into tears, overwhelmed from the safety of home and her survivor’s guilt. In Orlando, a friend happened to take an alternate route home after his service shift instead of his routine of grabbing an 3am donut across the street from Pulse. Their stories makes the events feel personal.
Reflecting on these events and firearms in general, I think reasonable people recognize legitimate and matched defense against an unjust aggressor as both a right and grave duty in preservation of the common good. Unfortunately, civil discourse inevitably departs from legal and moral debate, and into the realm of rights and justice, us and them. Both sides argue ad nauseum, I’ve nothing interesting to add except my wonder that the foaming rage of society’s bellwether issues might be deeply rooted in individual temperament. Too often logic and compassion give way to the exposition of strange alligator brain circuitry around safety and protection like autonomic disgust, gag reflexes, in-group/out-group suspicion and personal identity within these groups.
Instead, I’m wondering about deeper questions.
Why does the blood of martyrs galvanize movements?
We see the best example of explosive growth following Christian martyrs who give their lives, in stark contrast to terrorists who take lives. This is true in ancient and modern times, throughout the world.
Spending time at the Pulse memorial, amid the images of smiling friends and sorrowful artifacts, one laments the grave evil of taking life. In our natural repulsion to violence, we can look past differences to see individual people. In the faces of victims and their grieving families, we recognize injustice and vulnerability, and if we’re lucky, the very face of Christ.
Even for non-Christians and non-believers, Christ is the ideal of human vulnerability, a sinless life given in exchange for every injustice ever committed anywhere at any time. Even if people cannot articulate their feelings of injustice, they feel it in their body as easily as a child senses unfairness in a game.
Why is there not a memorial in Las Vegas?
Planning has been underway a long time, yet the movement hasn’t yet coalesced in memory of loved ones. The answer is probably rooted in circumstance:
Superstition – Las Vegas is fundamentally a gambling town, where Frank Sinatra implores Luck to be a Lady Tonight, and the MGM redesigned its lion entrance that scared the whales away. Like a barren concrete desert, the otherwise prime real estate is forever marred by tragic loss.
Destination – Many of the victims traveled to Las Vegas to see the concert. I can’t imagine the pain of family members in making arrangements to bring their loved ones home, let alone have the creative energy to participate in an appropriate memorial.
Shadows – The marketing mantra, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” plays into the secretive nature of sin. The attitude gives license, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge inside approval of boorish behavior. Perhaps in Las Vegas, a mass killing is on the end of a wide spectrum of degradation best left unspoken, like another hole in the desert.
Why are we drawn to visiting sites of terror?
Insisting on the preservation of life is an act of love, a fundamental principal of morality. An act of defense may have the unfortunate double effect of preservation of life and taking of life, where one is intended and the other is not.
Like Oklahoma City, these memorials are best when they reflect deeper values of life. The macabre is alluring because it foretells our own future. We cannot look away.
Feature image is México by Graciela Iturbide (1990) at the Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid. The image captures the startled flight of a murder of black crows from the safety of a live oak, perhaps from gunfire, allegories of death, danger, a bad omen and in stark contrast to the Holy Spirit commonly depicted as a white dove.
I confess my childlike excitement for theme restaurants and bars.
Generally overpriced, often with mediocre service, I so appreciate temporal escape through casual dining and ambiance flair.
I’m reflecting on my attraction to campy destinations after visiting Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar in Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida. My nephew works there as part of the Disney College Program, and being part of a global brand renowned for detail and customer service, I’m enthralled by the attention paid in creating such a unique destination.
From the outside, Hangar Bar appears to be a local explorer business / veteran pilot hangout. The facade invites charter seaplane swamp tours amid spare aviation parts, wings and propellors. Once seated at a round booth inside a detailed diving bell, I remarked it feels like we’ve stepped into an Indiana Jones movie. Only then did I realize Jock Lindsey is Indiana’s pilot in the original 1981 film our family just happened to watch a week ago. What a delightful surprise, both in synchronicity and within an experience so masterfully crafted to remind me of its inspiration.
The Walt Disney Company faced disdain when it began acquiring creative rights of huge franchises like Star Wars and Marvel in the 2000s and 2010s. Fans feared the branding machine would not hold true to stories and nerd culture. The genius of acquiring source content is undeniable as these stories weave their way into experiences well beyond film and comic books to theme parks, rides, gaming, apparel and collectible merchandise.
Props to the Imagineering team for developing such an obscure character. The restaurant is filled with Indiana Jones easter eggs like the Peruvian idol along with masculine touches like sturdy aluminum plates, heavy glassware and mechanic shop towels for napkins.
Comfort Food
I remember Chili’s as a throwback to the great chili cook-offs throughout the Southwest. Walls were adorned with vintage signs, tools, bottles and sports gear as well as photos of people mingling in tents and campsites with ribbon winners and champion banners. The modern Brinker version of Chili’s is a bland facsimile with a loyalty award program. When my former Omnicom employer GSD&M had the national advertising account, I recall learning people tend to order the same dish because familiarity is the main appeal of national chains. People expect to get the same dish prepared the way with ingredients sourced from the same factories and distributors.
In the spirit of Keep Austin Weird, an irritatingly funny meme has persisted for years in the r/Austin sub-reddit. The Chili’s at 45th/Lamar is recommended as a top local restaurant for its frosty margs and skillet queso. The joke stands in defiance as Austin matures from hippy cowboy college town state capital to a large metropolitan city with a developing bourgeois food culture. Indeed I do like the chicken soft tacos, chips and salsa.
Threadgills is an institution with Austin as its theme, including live music and Southern comfort fare. Janis Joplin began her career at the original gas station on Lamar Boulevard. The downtown location is built upon the former Armadillo World Headquarters where everyone from Willie Nelson to Frank Zappa to Bruce Springsteen performed. I recall one birthday meal catching the yodeling cowboy Don Walser playing in the main dining room. What a treat to hear a Texas Panhandle legend on a random evening. The menu featured classic dishes like chicken fried steak, cheese grits, catfish, meatloaf, green beans and fried okra with jalapeño cornbread. We always took visitors to Threadgills to get a taste of what made Austin great. Sadly, both locations are now closed.
While a student at the University of Texas, I became a regular at the at TGI Friday’s in the old Radisson Hotel on Town Lake. The two Friday’s in Austin (the other in the upscale Arboretum in the “way north” part of town) were apparently the most profitable in the US during the 1990s. Nostalgic for the Gay Nineties a century prior, this popular chain featured bright red and white striped awnings, hanging ferns, and tables set around a large bar of heavy oak, brass fittings and mirror backing. In college, I must’ve eaten a thousand fried turkey and ham Monte Cristo sandwiches with jelly and powdered sugar. Sweet and savory with high calories, how I once burned them easily.
Friday’s was the last bastion of signature mixed blended drinks for the populous. Their separate drink menu featured scores of smoothies, slides and exotic teas prepared by “mixologists.” As a regular with other dear friends who worked downtown, I am still in contact with my Friday’s bartenders, one of whom is a prominent attorney, the other a GM of another fascinating chain, Top Golf.
I loved everything about Pizza Hut as a kid. The Italian bistro featured red vinyl booths with Tiffany style hanging lights and candles set in Venetian glass holders that we’d blow out as soon as we sat down. “Knock it off,” my dad would act all irritated and relight them with his cigarette lighter tilted so the wax wouldn’t spill. “Here are some quarters, go play Pac-man.”
We played video games until the deep dish pizza arrived, leaving mom and dad to enjoy a pitcher of beer. We drank Dr. Pepper in giant red plastic tumblers. I still recall a class field trip to meet executives in the hut-shaped building in Newton, Kansas. Our local franchise is one of the first in the company’s storied history just a few miles north of the original Pizza Hut in Wichita.
I wish we had the same pizza experience for my kids. The closest I’ve found is Campisi’s in Dallas just south of the SMU campus where I used to work as a valet. Formerly the Egyptian Lounge with alleged mob ties, Campisi’s is a dark room with rich red booths lit by low candles. Jack Ruby ate there, as he frequently did, the night before he assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas Police garage.
I could go on with fun memories at Rainforest Cafe, Showbiz Pizza, Magic Time Machine, Medieval Times, Dick’s Last Resort, Chevy’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, Bubba Gump, Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood.
Austin is rising with its own fast casual chains in Torchy’s, Taco Deli, Rudy’s, Mighty Fine and P. Terry’s. Chuy’s manages to hold true to its quirky mix of Elvis and Tex Mex even as it’s traded on the NASDAQ .
So many concepts stand on their own. Encounter at LAX, Shark Bar, Katz’s, Musso and Frank. Then there are the countless meals on sidewalks and inside markets, kitschy boats and trains. Touristy aquariums, Brazilian churrascarias, French bakeries, Cajun Mardi Gras, Chinese gardens and Irish gastropubs all blend into an American spirit of mixed culture and consumer gluttony.
My appreciation for themed destinations is both in stewardship and systems. I love designers that take care in creating an immersive experience beyond function. And I appreciate the engineering challenges of executing well at scale. When done right, we patrons enjoy a few hours of leisurely respite, the moments that give purpose to a life lived well in companionship.
Feature image is Juan Luna’s Blood Compact by Vicente Manansala (1962) at the Fukuoka Museum in Japan. It’s a cupic adaption of the Filipino artist’s original depicting the 1565 pact between Bohol islanders and Spanish conquistadors, a friendship expressed over food and wine.
Over the holidays, I bought options for 2000 shares of GameStop for $20/share. Today, GameStop hit $467.50/share before the casino closed its doors.
We are witnessing an extraordinary event in digital history.
Individual investors led an insurrection on capital markets. Just like US Capitol insurrection a few weeks ago, we see a pattern of institutional rebellion in a technological perfect storm.
At the center is Robinhood, a mobile trading app at the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street.
I downloaded Robinhood this past summer to try and understand what made it so popular among new investors. I wanted to know…
How did this upstart break into a space dominated by financial leaders like Schwab, Fidelity E-Trade and Ameritrade?
How can I apply the investing lessons I learned in my 20’s for financial gain in my 40’s to hedge against the instability of a COVID job market?
My curiosity with an initial Robinhood seed round of $5000 earned a whopping 330% in just six months before the holidays.
Then I placed my monster GameStop bet.
Thoughtful mobile design
I discovered the answer to my first question rather quickly. Robinhood offers the best mobile trading experience for new investors.
Through a series of prompts and educational tool tips in plain language, Robinhood helps users understand the intricacies of placing complicated trades via options contracts. It begins by asking whether you think a stock price will go up or down. From there, the app guides the investor through a decision tree based on their appetite for risk.
One can easily track stocks, funds, commodities and digital currencies like Bitcoin and categorize them. Robinhood also sells access to Morningstar data for $5/mo and binds it to the stock along with your investing history. It surfaces similar stocks and tracks the Robinhood Top 100 list to help identify high volume opportunities.
Within the trading desk, the app presents realtime decision data like percentage probability of profit in buy and short scenarios. Option traders used to have to assemble this data via complicated tables, and then apply strategies with whimsical names like the Wheel, Iron Condor, Married Puts and Covered Calls.
It’s easy to understand Robinhood’s attraction to inexperienced investors in an era of pandemic boredom and free federal cash. In the same way Tinder has changed the way people select mates and date, Robinhood makes it very easy to enter into, ahem, a compromising position. Both apps provide superficial surface data that encourage impulsive decisions without understanding substantive fundamentals.
Robinhood may face legal challenges for being overly simple. Perhaps. Or perhaps legislation is being weaponized to prevent the masses from investing outside of institutions in the name of personal and market protection.
While smart design set Robinhood apart, the company’s biggest gain came in a much powerful external force: the Reddit Army.
r/WSB is a Digital Version of the Occupy Movement
The “Reddit Effect” is traffic brigading to unprepared websites causing them to crash sudden load. That’s effectively what happened with the GameStop stock today.
Wall Street Bets, self-described “Like 4Chan found a bloomberg terminal illness” is the principal subreddit leading the GameStop takeover.
As a long-time Redditor, I’ve been watching WSB grow to millions of users for more than a year. Like a digital anthropologist studying a strange tribe, I’ve learned their language and fascinating rituals.
The r/WSP culture is a hyper-masculine rebellion against the woke. Moderators are an active mix of seasoned investors and attorneys. The group feels like a middle school playground with its own language, put-downs and low-brow shitpost humor in stark contrast to popular cancel culture. Some choice examples…
“Stonks” only go up. The belief that stocks always rise is held unironically by the same people that buy on the dip.
Brrrrrr references the Fed’s money printing press and this particular opportunity to benefit during a period hyperinflation.
DD is counter-intuitive WSB due diligence. Posts spike in karma points when reasonable analysis is countered with a YOLO bet of one’s entire portfolio.
If DD is really sound, some smart aleck will inevitably reply, “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.”
Tendies are profits. They could be 10-baggers (10x gains), but mostly reference pathetic ten-dollar profits as if they are massive gains. Same with declaring oneself a thousandaire. Tendies are also synonymous with chicken tenders, a staple childhood diet of today’s young investor.
Diamond Hands are compliments to extraordinarily successful investors who publish their plays and earn a legion of followers seeking the next big play.
Gay Bears is a pejorative for anyone shorting any position, especially popular stocks. Retards and Autists are epithetical salutations to the entire community.
Gain Porn / Loss Porn are video proof of people’s actual wins and losses. These posts are always highly regarded. I’ve seen stunning market swings well into 9-figures on individual 401k accounts.
People are constantly referencing their “wife’s boyfriend”, both as a cuck pile-on to Loss Porn, and as a personal admission they’re spending all their waking time in Robinhood and on Reddit while they neglect their responsibilities at work and home.
Robinhood and the general market are simply “the casino.”
“Papa Musk” has long been suspected of watching the community when he tweets WSB codewords. WSB loves when Elon antagonizes competitors and makes wild predictions. There are many pictures of Tesla owners with vanity plates referencing the community. Indeed, WSB pressed Tesla and Apple to all-time highs following 2020 splits.
WSB memes are some of the most remarkable pieces of entertainment media I’ve seen online. They’re incredibly nuanced. One has to appreciate the many layers of the market and the WSB inside culture to fully appreciate their brilliance. The best ones are high quality productions referencing pop culture films and anime.
The overall effect of thoughtful design and the WSB mob is my investment strategy shifted to something much more intuitive. In 2020, I had big wins with the AAPL split, the Tesla run, AMD and Starbucks. I justified these bets by market cap and volume, but I have to admit a sense of FOMO, like a craps player eager to get into the action with a hot shooter.
Then I made a terrible play buying Pfizer in anticipation of a vaccine. I followed another loss on CRSR and stayed out of the PLTR run. I relived difficult lesson from years past. Smart investors buy on the rumor and sell on the news.
E-Trade, Hollywood Park, and the MGM Grand Sports Book
In my 20s, like Redditors today, I dabbled in three other games of chance. In each one, I had spectacular early wins followed by crashes.
Hollywood Park
At a 4th of July catfish fry in Compton in 1998, I jumped at the chance to join my dear friend Nigel’s uncles to go bet on the ponies. They took me to Hollywood Park, the same track Charles Bukowski won and lost small fortunes. At their behest in the betting window, my $2 trifect hit for a $147 win. The winning rush took hold. I still enjoy the racetrack, but I’m sure I’ve given more back over time. I’ve certainly never bagged another trifecta.
Lesson: Lady luck is fleeting.
The MGM Sports Book
In 1999, my friend Javier and I paid $1000 for a full season of sports tips from a shady guy in New Jersey. We found him through the local AM sports talk station. Each week, we called Guido, he’d give us a hot sports tip, and one of us would go to the MGM in Las Vegas to place the bet.
We did quite well until our mutual friend Smokey absconded with a $750 in winning tickets. I moved my bets to offshore websites hosted in the Caribbean and lost a huge bet on Gozanga in the second half of some random game. I finally abandoned the experiment as US laws became more aggressive about online betting within the States.
Lesson: Tips are not dependable. Platforms are not stable.
E-Trade
I rode the rise and fall of the Dot Com boom-to-bust bubble with $3000 in an eTrade account. I spent hours studying business fundamentals, but I ended up making rash bets. In some cases, I lost money just because I couldn’t figure out how to set a stop.
Most importantly, I learned I’m paying retail prices without access to wholesale markets. I could see I’m subject to the whims of market movers, and Uncle Sam always took a rake.
Lesson: Learn the game. And know it’s rigged.
Institutional Crackdown is Inevitable
I worked at Charles Schwab for five years as a marketer in a high-growth enterprise professional services group. I am intimately familiar with institutional culture within the Financial Services sector. It’s a highly regulated industry, and those regulations are interpreted conservatively.
There is a reason banking and investing brands are so damn boring! Legal fine print accompanies every piece of marcom. Banks have to track all pieces. Given the fluid nature of the web, and slow adoption of innovative tech like blockchain, digital preservation is Draconian.
Financial empires are built on the principal of capital preservation, they’re highly motivated by risk mitigation, even over profit. They play a long never-ending game. And they’re right to do so. Economic stability and trust are bulwarks against the tide of social fads and personal greed.
GameStop feels like a power shift. I’m not so sure. Look how quickly Congress acted to build a fence around the Capitol insurrection in response to a mob. Why wouldn’t they do the same for Wall Street? The crash of 2008 taught us our political heroes believe select firms are too big to fail.
In the same fashion, Robinhood took the extraordinary measure of halting the purchase of new shares of GameStop. This is undoubtedly a complicated decision because hedge fund managers with fiduciary responsibilities had shorted the stock and were facing bottomless. Stop losses would’ve been triggered, and I imagine price impacted by supply and demand for stocks.
Then there is also the problem of green investors purchasing on margin, which is credit Robinhood may not be prepared to extend given the volume and volatility.
I have a major concerns with Robinhood’s infrastructure too. In one particular high volume transaction, I could not exit a position after Apple split because the app crashed. When it came back online, my account balance showed a temporary balance worth double. That incident, plus the lack of access to after hours trading, led to serious reservations. I parked cash during the entire month of September.
All of these are mere growing pains. Robinhood’s decision to halt trading on GME today had a disastrous effect on the stock’s value. It immediately plunged to the low $100s. Redditors are furious, they are abandoning the app in droves in search of more stable platforms. I suspect trust in the brand may be irreparably harmed.
The clash of web culture and financial institutions has been fun to watch. And in my case, profitable. However, I am staunchly Gen-X and highly suspicious of institutions hell bent on protecting themselves in a counter-intuitive way.
We see the same “protective” walls in fields of math, biology, journalism, politics, travel and finance. I know one law of money is that it is attracted to more money. It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of all the players in this saga.
I had the good fortune of learning these lessons before my Robinhood experiment.
I foresaw the intersection of several trends. I understood the power of Robinhood and saber-rattling Redditors. I respect the pent up frustration of Millennials who are facing the terrible prospect of less earning potential than their parents. I watched the spike in e-commerce and online gaming during the pandemic. I saw limited supply for the Sony Playstation 5 console coupled with extremely high demand over the holidays. All of this led me to GameStop where analysts predicted trouble.
So I YOLO’d my portfolio on the kind of DD that makes WSB salivate. Profits are made on secrets and going against the flow.
In two separate tranches in late December and early January, I purchased options contracts to acquire 2000 shares of GameStop for $20 a share. With today’s spike, 2000 shares of GME hit $935,000 in value which would make me another Robinhood millionaire.
And yet, there is the most important lesson of all: It is very VERY difficult to accurately time the market. I sold my options contracts three weeks ago for a $1200 loss. I have nothing to show for it except the kind of opportunity loss porn WSB loves to punish.
My ability to see trends does not mean I can predict the future!
Feature image is The Cardsharps by Caravaggio (c. 1595) at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth. Once owned by Cardinal del Monte, the image depicts an early version of poker. It’s part of the Kimball’s permanent collection, a must see when visiting DFW.
A typical Saturday night in the COVID era for our family involves pizza, wings, Dr. Pepper, watching Shark Tank reruns, and a movie.
The movie is truly a bonus when our collective mood settles on a comedy or a drama or action.
We’re the kind of family that talks through movies. God, it’d be maddening for any visitor, I’m sure!
April and I are blessed with teenagers who indulge our nostalgia for music and movies we loved at their age. More accurately, they share our affinity for the “meta”, that is creativity as a thing in and of itself. Our conversation is often about the process, the thinking behind the outcome. We discuss the affect and the effect. We reflect on the the words beneath the words, the historical context behind an obscure reference, or as Paul Harvey used to say, “The rest of the story.”
Our meta dialogue about movies usually extends well past the length of the film. In recent months, we’ve watched a variety of films from different eras that hold up quite well. Rambo, Saving Private Ryan, Gran Torino, and Million Dollar Baby.
Richard Linklater’s cult-classic Dazed and Confused is of particular interest. Released in 1994, it’s set in 1976 with many of the sites still recognizable to us here in Austin. The movie sparked conversations around obvious themes of peer pressure, high school cliques, hazing and general teenage hang-out culture in the immediate aftermath of no-fault divorce.
Our kids felt like the movie in some ways isn’t relatable because bullying and violence are of a lesser concern in the modern high-school experience, whereas the acceptance of drugs are more open. We smell weed in every major city we visit. The general acceptance of hooking up is more complicated as dating pivots toward a swipe-left transactional experience. A film that blends the coming-of-age story of middle-schoolers and high-schoolers feels inherently risky.
For a perspective of the teenage club scene in Los Angeles, check out Eric Weinstein’s interview of Less Than Zero author Bret Easton Ellis. Episode #7: The Dark Laureate of Generation X YouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify
The Shark Tank Meta
Shark Tank captures the entrepreneurial spirit driving America’s economy with an approachable business language that focuses attention on problems and the founder’s ingenuity.
It’s a terrific show for families. Any parent who sees an inkling of business aptitude in their kids should tune in. We also enjoy The Profit with Marcus Lemonis and various turn-around shows from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey, again with a meta perspective on the fallibility of people that yields poor results.
These business shows highlight gamesmanship from the lens of success. They routinely ask, “Why does the company exists?” On Shark Tank, founders must tighten their pitch to be effective. Undoubtedly they receive sound coaching in preparation for both the investors, and the medium of television. We root for the underdog, and shutter when at pretentious behavior.
Having started several businesses, invested in others, received an executive MBA and counseled countless company leaders, I’m convinced the show offers genuine business substance beyond its stylized delivery.
We see the dark arts of persuasion and high-stakes negotiation. We calculate valuations, hear good marketing advice and have a sense of what it takes to bring a product to the masses.
Last night, one segment stood out to me. It began with a high angle shot of the founder meditating in the back room followed by a series of behind-the-scenes cut filmmakers and cameramen and the director conducting an action countdown. We expected to see a bad pitch like the horrible singers on America’s Got Talent who manage to break through to professional rounds to the feigned annoyance of Simon Cowell and public ridicule.
Not so. Peaceful Fruits founder Evan Delahanty struck me as a creative soul out of water. He ran a perfect pitch for superfruit Acai, careful to pronounce ah-sigh-ee, and make his case for social capitalism which remains a prominent part of the brand’s story.
Shark Lori Greiner appeared smitten with him. She has a refined intuition about founders, much like her fellow shark Barbara Corcoran who happens to be my favorite. Delehanty didn’t get a deal, but he struck me as someone else that should have been funded, perhaps not on this idea, but as a creative person in need of patronage.
The Napoleon Dynamite Double Meta
After Shark Tank, we decided to watch a comedy favorite. Released in 2004, Napoleon Dynamite endures not because the characters are quirky, but because they’re true.
The First Meta: Story
I suppose one could argue the film’s thematic elements are timeless. That’s true, we see indelible American experiences.
We see rural life caught in the amber of dated fashion and technology to wonderful comedic effect. We laughed at nerdy graphic t-shirts, iZOD polos, jean shorts, limited dial-up bandwidth, and 60-foot phone cords offering precious moments of privacy. These props provide anachronistic backdrop that keeps us wondering, is this supposed to be happening in the 1980s? The 1990s?
No. Napoleon Dynamite is perfectly set in 2004 in Preston, Idaho, a real place in a real time that’s worth adding time to visit on road trips to Yellowstone National Park.
The most obvious theme is Be Yourself. Napoleon certainly arcs from a lanky creative wannabe to an actual creative artist. While he enjoys drawing, and has vivid fantasies, he’s objectively terrible and he initially lies to Pedro about having a girlfriend. Napoleon suffers scorn and bullying until finally letting his freak flag fly via freeform dance in front of the student body at Pedro’s election.
All of the main characters support the theme of Be Yourself. Pedro starts the trend with his confidence in approaching the prettiest girl in class, and his laissez faire attitude when she rejects him. His wig is the only hint of his insecurity. Deb presses her business interests and stands up to shallow ideas of womanhood. Kip and Lafawnduh enjoy a strangely connected relationship rooted in their openness to the other as who they are. Uncle Rico’s shining moment isn’t stuck in 1982, it’s at the very end of the movie when we see him scramble to straighten up his van and personal living space to welcome a surprise female visitor, played by the real-life wife of Kip.
We also experience teenage angst. Arguably the most popular filmmaker to explore this theme, John Hughes elevated sexual conquest in line with the consequences of the culture he lived, namely no-fault divorce and Western divorce of the unitive and procreative nature of intercourse.
The Second Meta: Creation
A generation after John Hughes, husband and wife writers Jared and Jerusha Hess crafted the anti-jock mouth-breathing nerd.
Napoleon’s character seems born out of the region’s Mormon tradition, both in Jared’s upbringing, and actor Jon Heder’s refusal to ever participate in a sex scene because of his personal faith and morality. We can’t help but wonder if this pronouncement stymied his Hollywood career.
Famously, Napoleon Dynamite’s minuscule $400,000 budget makes the $44M financial windfall at the box office all the more remarkable. In the decade prior, we saw the same phenomenon with Blair Witch Project and El Mariachi. The effects stand in contrast to 9-figure bombs.
Imagine what inspiration might come from systems thinking applied to scale vs franchise production. Would 100 films with $1M budgets yield more return than a $100M shot at a blockbuster?
Institutional hive minds in Big Hollywood and Big Business are forcing a strange creative death march. Leaders are over-functioning, the effect is the same as an overproduced auto-tune song.
Creative people in business need air cover just as they do in the academy, arts and exploratory fields. Humanity makes the biggest strides in creative endeavors when artists, designers, thinkers and scientists have license and safety. It’s incumbent on business leaders to suss out innovators in their ranks and protect them for the health of their business. If not, these people will suffer the malaise of middle management and administration until they finally leave.
These meta conversation have an impact on the way my kids think. One thing I’ve noticed they don’t merely enjoy the social influencers of their generation. Sure, they laugh at silliness on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. More so, they’re fascinated by the brands their favorite influencers constructed. My kids are gaining a level of financial and media literacy around the construction of these platforms, as well as their potential.
My hope is to provide a competitive edge through empathy and big picture thinking. We’ll see how it holds up. Until then, we’re enjoying our Saturday Nights together!
Feature image is The Dancing Couple by Jan Steen (1663) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Steen’s work is emblematic of the transient nature of life. Good vibes among bubbles, cut flowers, and broken egg shells suggest earthly pleasures are temporary, and thus, point to our deeper need for everlasting values.
Let’s support artists who make our city beautiful.
My friend and formal colleague from Sanders\Wingo, Bradford Maxfield posted pics on Facebook of another mural installation completed by Studio Bradlio. This one is a beautiful inspiration in the Ascension Seton hospital that captures its mission. He brings a distinctive style to his work that he’s formed in his vocation as an artist, and as a commercial designer in advertising that is leading to a prolific exposition of his talent throughout Central Texas.
Author Paul Britton also posted a photo essay of the 21st Street Co-op, the eclectic housing cooperative I lived while attending the University of Texas that’s full of murals. He captured the feel of this special place in West Campus with pieces that survived my time living there in the mid 1990s.
Both posts in this morning’s feed remind me of an idea I got while visiting Montreal in November 2018. I learned about the annual Montreal Mural Festival, a citywide week-long event where artists travel from around the world to make the city more beautiful one wall at a time.
Likewise, whenever we visit Philadelphia, we always take time to walk Magic Gardens created by Isaiah Zagar. His mosaic work is much like Simon Rodia’s at Watts Towers in Los Angeles with disposable media like colorful glass bottles and tile. Here in south Austin, we have our own Cathedral of Junk in the backyard of artist Vince Hanneman.
These are whimsical walk-through wonderlands of creativity with childlike nostalgia. In Zagar’s case, he extended into his community with commissions throughout his South Philly neighborhood. Philadelphia has taken care to tell the story of their city’s public art through MuralArts.org.
We need to bring that artful spirit to Austin! Our city routinely appears in top lists as the best place to live, work and visit. We have a strong history of festivals from Aquafest in the 90s to SXSW every March.
Lessor known, Austin has become a mural city in is own right with guided and self-guided mural tours: Do512, Austin.com, GPS, Carrie Colbert, Viator. Our murals are everywhere inside and out.
I imagine a patronage grant to properly catalogue these unique pieces of art would be quite useful for visitors and citizens alike in the form of a mobile app. As a member of MCN, I appreciate the particular care museum curators and digital professionals take to properly catalogue works of art. Such a project would aim to capture the art with public contributions of media, locations and history behind the commissions.
I’d love to be part of a civic movement that takes care to steward these important pieces of street art within an app. To do it well, I imagine involvement from museum curators, the Austin Historical Society, a digital agency, the Austin Ad Council with stakeholders from the local chamber and city council might make this happen. Who knows, perhaps Austin might create another invitational festival.
As we close a difficult year, take personal stock.
I have an enduring interest in the place where nature and culture meet, that is, the transformation of chaos to order. I feel comfortable in the transition of idea to action, and am grateful for the experience.
My vocation as an executive producer suits me because dreaming about potential happens continuously, from pre-market research to pitching new business to crafting an exciting deal to continuous delivery.
I’ve had a curious attraction to stairways and doors during my travels. They fascinate me, especially stairs with a turn up around a corner or into a basement door. I can’t help but wonder, where do those stairs lead? What’s up there? What’s behind that door. I’m susceptible to the allure and potential, the secrets and possibilities.
One of my all-time favorite travel books is Stairway Walks in Los Angeles. It fits nicely into my pocket, and served as a guide for some of my earliest dates with my wife, April. Many Saturday mornings, we hiked the neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silverlake and Santa Monica.
We moved into a small bungalow at Linai Apartments at the crest of a hill South Pasadena above Foothill Blvd, the old Route 66. I loved driving up and down the winding roads to and and from home lined with lush foliage and tall palms. I could never quite see around the bends, that perfect moment of anticipation between nothing and something.
As the end of 2020 draws near, I’ve been reflecting on what the new year will bring. The fear of a pandemic may be turning toward the hope for a vaccine. The pendulum of civil discourse in the US and the UK is swinging in a new direction.
I sense a liminal period where exasperated people are keen to move away from the status quo. But to whom? And to where?
Ultimately, these are personal questions each of us must ponder. Take the time you need to imagine how you’d like the new year to shape up for you. What can you learn? What can you imagine and create? What do you need to move forward?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCcFyR0MITQ
Feature image is Destruction in the Course of Empire series by Thomas Cole (1833-36) depicting the rise and fall of civilization. I highly recommend the Dallas-based band by the same name. They are talented friends from the 1990s who I knew during another period of transformation. Ptah is a personal favorite song while contemplating Cole’s work that inspired their self-titled debut album .
I’ve done a good deal of research in fields of trauma, grief and self compassion. In a past life, I worked as a volunteer crisis counselor for survivors of sexual assault. I continue to work with people coping with immense pain and suffering in their primary relationships via online forums and group meetups.
Every psychology expert I’ve read talks about paths to healing being through pain, not around it. When we avoid difficult conversations, when we take up mindless habits, when we fail to tell the truth – or worse, when we lie – we are prolonging and compounding the challenges of life. Suffering is an inevitable consequence of being.
In military circles, the source of so much biz speak, we hear the hoorah phrase, “Embrace the suck.” There is something uplifting and liberating about accepting one’s fate and acknowledging life is inherently difficult.
It’s good to see these ideas manifest within the solutions-selling methods of Zigler, Boress, Sandler and Kaplan. They’re fundamentally bound in sympathy (too often confused with empathy) for the person with whom we meet. That’s why I’ve never totally identified as a salesman or a support rep or marketer or product guru.
Client discovery calls are personal encounters with a genuine dose of vulnerability. At some level, people are laying themselves open to criticism. They’re admitting past mistakes, hasty decisions, lost time and money and effort.
What a privilege it is for us to be present in these moments! We can listen without judgement, offer words of understanding, encouragement and affirmation. We can be healers of sorts through insightful questions and consultation and genuine hope for a better way. We’re poised to help with an amazing offering from preeminent experts facing hard problems head on. We go through the pain, not around it.
Force Management is a sales training methodology leading me to examine a couple areas of personal improvement around the mindset of pain. I’ll share a couple of personal journal notes I took during the course…
Patience. I often see the end solution very quickly, whether that is with a buyer, or with an internal team process. When I encounter resistance or disagreement, I’m prone to discouragement or taking slow action personally. I need to hedge against the presumption that I’m right. I need to be open to what this person might teach me, and think creatively about working together. When I fail to do this, I’m opening myself up to being misunderstood, cocksure, and perceived as not being a team player.
Naiveté. I can be overly positive to a fault. I make assumptions that people see things as I do, and will behave as I would. When they do not, I feel frustrated, disappointed or even betrayed. I need to hedge against hyper optimism with a dose of healthy skepticism. Honest questions like, “How can this fail?” and Think-Says-Feels-Does empathy maps can offer helpful perspective. When I fail to do this, I’m opening myself up to sliding toward animosity, resentment and contempt.
Magic happens when we let people open up. Simply by listening and playing back what we hear, we set ourselves apart. In the din of work, at all levels across verticals and within disciplines, people have an almost desperate need to be heard, to feel understood. “I hear you” and “What I heard you say” are powerful connectors.
We may not always win the deal, but neither do we lose.
Feature image is Mary Magdalene as Melancholy by Artemesia Gentileschi (1622-25) in the Museo Sumaya, Mexico City. Gentileschi is recognized as master in an era when few women had the opportunity for artistic training.
Idaho dad is a refreshing call to tune in and chill out.
Nathan Apodaca is an unassuming father, like me, who’s teenage daughter introduced him to TikTok, like mine. Unlike me, his account @420doggface208 touched a societal nerve with a sensational video.
When his truck broke down, Apodaca grabbed his old longboard, a bottle of Ocean Spray juice and skated to work jamming to Fleetwood Mac’s classic song Dreams from 1977. His morning commute with its playful indifference stands against the dumpster fire of 2020. It’s a nostalgic response perfectly set, an uplifting reminder of the impermanence of tough times. Things didn’t always suck. Things will get better. It’s a liberating act of submission, an “Ahh, hell with it.”
Apodaca’s video became an immediate hit. Savvy brand managers at Ocean Spray gave him a new truck. Fleetwood Mac enjoyed renewed interest in their music. As art impersonates life, bandmates Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks created their own video tributes. Together they’re an additive body of work, a ray of light in an otherwise difficult year.
Now here you go again You say you want your freedom Well, who am I to keep you down? It’s only right that you should play the way you feel it But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of what you had And what you lost And what you had And what you lost
Dreams lyrics by Fleetwood Mac
The Dreams soundtrack is more than an infectious reflective groove. Analytical psychologist Carl Jung saw dreams as the psyche’s attempt to communicate with the conscious mind, to bring forth an awareness of what is real and true. As the gateway to our subconscious personality, we should listen to our dreams to better know ourselves and our place in the world. Dreams can orient us so that we might bring orderly peace to uncertain chaos.
Beyond the personal connection to dreams, Jungian philosophy describes the collective unconscious as a universal meta psyche, a creative life force in which all people are connected.
The flash of popular attention on a meme is testimony to a deeper connection we all feel when we see something special. Even if aided by an algorithm designed to bring it to our attention, and UX designed to encourage us to share, the audience must still decide to consume and share. When the ensuing cycle of sharing outside of the social platform crosses over to competing platforms and news coverage and virtual and physical water coolers, we’re catching a glimpse of the collective unconsious.
Phil Collins has seen a similar resurgence via memes anchored in his 1981 signature song, In the Air Tonight.
Here’s a recent example from YouTube stars TwinsthenewTrend who share their reactions from hearing the song for the first time.
We can see the collective unconscious playing out beautifully between the interplay of two people bound since pre-birth. I find myself reacting to their reaction, a connective playback that makes the twins creative artists in their own right.
In a curious foretelling, they turn away from Collins’s piercing gaze on the iconic album cover. “It look like he starin’ into my soul. I’m scared. I can’t look at him! For real!”
I saw what you did I say you with my own two eyes You can wipe off that grin I know where you’ve been It’s all been a pack of lies.
In the Air Tonight lyrics by Phil Collins
The brilliance of this video is that the teens don’t hold back. They listen and open themselves up to learning something new. They’re quite expressive to the point we feel them.
Notice how initial looks of suspicion immediately give way to bobbing heads and curiosity. Their reactions are so much fun! “Oooh, like a ring entrance… Play that thing… Oh yeah… like a WWE entrance!”
Then that magical beat drops. The twins are visibly overwhelmed as mystically as Heaven for the Church Expectant. It’s almost too much to bear. Listen to their sheer joy: “Wake em up!… That was cold!… I ain’t gonna lie, I ain’t never seen nobody drop a beat three minutes into a song… He killed it… That’s unique… Let’s wake ’em up!”
Collins croons, “I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life! Hold on!” We see what the twins see. We too are lured into the anticipation and the late-song climax. Together we experience a musical intercourse, a unitive act of mutual sharing that is additive in nature. Our reaction to their fresh perspective yields a renewed joy to a classic experience that’s always been there, waiting to be revealed.
My kids Mary and Simon had the same sort of reaction when I first played In the Air Tonight for them in 2017. I remember exactly where it happened.
We were headed to San Marcos for a “Friendsgiving” on Thanksgiving day. With light traffic on the lower deck of Interstate 35 through Austin, I cranked the car’s radio to near max volume. Normally my wife April would complain and turn it down, but she didn’t, recognizing in the moment one of my “memory makers” (I’ll address nostalgia shortly.)
Speeding through the concrete walls, we all felt the longing of distant guitars driving a moaning melody. The soaring vocals with Collins’s pleading edge overtake us right up to the explosive drop of that timeless beat. My kids loved the song instantly. We still pause and vibe whenever we hear it.
Why is memory so vivid? Perhaps the same reason the twins’ video is so remarkable. We live vicariously through a virgin experience with all the feels. Magic happens when we’re open to it.
In the Air Tonight is a special creation story. Phil Collins achieved infamy through his vulnerability and artful discipline.
First, he accepted his role as a daring artist, open and susceptible. Crafting something new for public consumption requires us to lay ourselves bare. We’re drawn to artists when they exhibit courage, a fleeting virtue admired across time and region and culture. The artist faces real risk of embarrassment or humiliation or worse: silence and rejection and privation when they subsist on their art.
For Collins, the song exposed deep personal wounds. It’s as if he had to purge out of himself, an exorcism with medicinal effect, like cauterizing a gash on his soul. He bravely cries out in confused anguish. We recognize it as the inherent suffering in life, the club’s cover charge for merely being.
I don’t know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it’s obviously in anger. It’s the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation.
Phi Collins on the creation of In the Air Tonight [BBC]
Secondly, Collins disciplined himself to avoid the high-hat cymbals and snares that might become a crutch of the mere mortal drummer in the house band at your local pub. Where percussionists dutifully establish order so the guitars and keys and singers might harmonize with mathematical synchronicity, Collins constrained himself so that he might find something fresh, unique and set apart. He experimented on a relatively new instrument, the Roland CR-78 to achieve the innovative gated reverb sound.
The result is legendary. Collins managed to create music that’ll transcend the lifetime from which it emerged. In the Air Tonight is recognized in every top 100 list of the 1980’s, a decade marked by the distinct sound of society crawling out of the rubble of a war-torn century. LA Weekly calls this work “the sleekest, most melodramatic drum break in history.” As the root of so many memes, we can expect his song will endure as long as generations continue to discover it
Why? And how did this happen?
Collins seems to tap into a primal hyper vigilance deep within our unconscious mind. Embedded within such a mournful song, his break hits like a tribal warning gong. Pay attention! There is danger about! It’s a clap of rolling thunder after lightening flashes. How else do we explain our excitement as the song builds? When every dad, and now their kids, break out air drum sticks to mark the infamous beat, we’re acting out something deep within all of us.
Apodaca’s Morning Vibe and Collins’s In the Air Tonight show us how creative breakthroughs come from constraint.
Great plays in games are remarkable because they happen within field boundaries and rules to govern just competition. Engineering marvels are bound by the laws of physics. Master painters are constrained by their canvas.
Reasonable theological arguments are made from the idea that more comes from less (see Peter Kreeft’s Twenty Arguments for God’s Existence). If we follow the axiom to its logical conclusion, God as Creator brought everything from nothing. The ultimate is (every thing) came from the ultimate is not (no thing). Imagine the absence of light and elemental matter as the ultimate constraint, and therefore, the ultimate source of all beauty.
The mystical idea of a personal encounter with an eternal life force is belief born in the religious realm. The Christian invokes the Holy Spirit, the Buddhist meditates on Dharma, the secularist practices mindfulness. Opening one’s self up to the creative element inherent in nature requires an act of self-emptying, like free driver, so you may sink down deep into the dark.
Tapping the collective unconscious embraces suffering. It requires a sacrificial act, to leave worldly concerns behind, to constrain passion and desire. One must give up something meaningful to find meaning. Beauty in both memes came from grieving personal loss, acceptance of fate, and sharing their experience with the world.
Nostalgia is a reasonable proof of quality culture. I’ve observed in Zoomers a particular interest in music and style from the 1990’s. They want the same connection to their musical past. We Gen-Xers did the same thing. We stayed close to the classic rock riffs and beats influencing popular hip hop, grunge and alternative rock.
As a father, I take special care in making memories with my family, as every dad ought. After all, we parents are primary arbiters of culture to our children. We should take care to guide them into society. If we don’t, society will take their precious little hands and guide them into uncertain chaos. Hanzel and Gretel suffered immense danger when their father abandoned them.
Fleetwood Mac has objective quality. We can tell because it’s enduring and interconnected. Dreams connects to other cultural hits from which my kids are aware. They recognize Edge of Seventeen in the hilarious jukebox scene in School of Rock when Joan Cusack permits herself a relaxed moment singing with Jack Black. And who can forget Forrest Gump’s running montage to Go Your Own Way, an inspirational track timeless in its pace, strive and potential.
It’s such a joy to relive these connections with our kids. They’re deeply curious about what made certain music popular, and why. Their instant, on-demand, crowd-sourced experience is so different than ours. We experienced a collective introduction of music through narrow media channels like Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and the Top 40 Countdown, Soul Train, Columbia Music mail order subscriptions, and the rise of MTV.
We lived through a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts: the corporate filter of what would be popular helped to define what would actually be popular. History tells us they got it right, too. Renewed interest in Boomer bands like Fleetwood Mac and Phil Collins aren’t a fluke. TikTok and YouTube are making these bands accessible to a new generation because they’re discoverable. Sales of these classic bands are popping off today.
Did the music execs of yesteryear know something we didn’t? Did they have a consumer data feedback loop? Yes, they did! The industry’s data aggregation and analytics weren’t as sophisticated as today’s marketing tech, but they had data from albums and concert ticket sales. DJ’s fielded call-in requests. Music makers could sense the “it” factor in talent to the degree they could manufacture it in boy bands and girl bands. They listened to their gut on what would and wouldn’t work.
Recognizing the bubble gum pop has a place, the inauthenticity is evident. We know this because the music doesn’t endure. When we hear it again, it’s the same flash in a pan, an iterative experiment.
The Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has a fun permanent exhibit of One Hit Wonders. If you’ve never been, you should go. Your kids will love it!
They’ll love this meme too. Enjoy!
Feature image is We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit by James Gleeson (1940) in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gleeson’s work is marked by his exploration of the subconscious via religion, mythology, literature and psychology.
Adam describes the book as something he returns often. Given the current global reality, he thought it would be helpful to focus on “small hinges that swing big doors.” (Love that!)
Key Takeaways…
There is a path to our highest contribution. Mckeowen asks, at the end of your life, will you say, “I wish I’d been less true to myself and done all the nonessential things others expected of me?”
Our highest contribution matters most. On any given day, we have things we could do and should do. The could is the easy stuff, the should is the hard stuff. If we’re not prioritizing the should stuff, it means we’re borrowing from our future success.
I can do anything, but not everything. This means the things we choose to do need to have our full attention, especially when stress runs high. This is a great reminder, especially for people that wear lots of hats (like me).
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. We all have people vying for our attention, which is limited bandwidth. Prioritizing our time is a gift we can give to ourselves and to others. Don’t rush to make other peoples problems your own.
Trigger phrases need disruptive thinking. Taking a note from Stephen Covey’s famous maxims, Notice and change phrases… “I must!” –> “I choose.” “It’s important!” –> “Only a few things matter.” “I can do both.” –> “I can do anything, but not everything”
Trade-offs are an inherent part of life! Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. Instead of thinking about what you’re sacrificing, think about where you can go big.
I especially appreciated McKeown’s long view on metanoia, or change through inner conversion. Our work in digital media blends form and function, art and tech, the mystical and lucid. Mckeowen encourages the modern thinker to read the classics in philosophy and literature. He swims in the deep end of the pool with theological concepts of chronos and kairos, a refreshing surprise within a business text.
When my kids turn twelve, I have a tradition of teaching them how to drive on that Father’s Day.
Mary’s first time driving, Father’s Day 2016Simon’s first time driving, Father’s Day 2020
“Why would you let a 12-year old drive?!”
Part of my vocation as a father is to develop within my kids an adventurous spirit. I’m not a helicopter parent, I’m more free-range. Children are their own persons with their own interests and ambitions. Behold the world is out there for them to explore!
I’m also terrified of the idea of losing my children suddenly in an avoidable car crash. I figure I can give them a leg up with training, practice and comfort dealing with uncertainty.
We drive a stick-shift 2001 Jeep Wrangler “TJ” Sahara edition. I bought it on a whim from a retired couple in Georgetown because I wanted a convertible and a 4×4. This Jeep is the perfect vehicle to learn how to drive. It’s got a very forgiving clutch in low gear, it’s easy to control, and it rolls easily over curbs (oh, my!).
We drive in abandon parking lots. Before I hand over the keys, I give them “the talk.” I explain that driving involves an intimate joining of man and machine. They are to take command while respecting the power they control. Great things happen when they have the freedom to go into the world and tame it.
I implore them to be geeentle. Be suuubtle. Don’t mash the brake or pop the clutch or jam the gas. Don’t jerk the wheel. Take your time and roll out slooowly. “Yes, Dad.” They hear the words, but the anticipation is palpable.
I park, we switch seats, and I’m completely hands off. Move the seat up, seatbelt, adjust your mirror, adjust the other mirror, can you see behind you? “Yes, Dad.” We go through the strange handles and knobs. There’s the turn signal, the wipers, the lights. They rotate the wheel a bit.
We cut the engine and go through all five gears plus reverse. They get a feel for how the stick feels wiggling it in neutral. They put it in gear, release the handbrake, pull the handbrake, back to neutral. We take several minutes for them to get familiar with the environment.
Starting the engine is always fun. After double-confirming they’re in neutral and holding the clutch, they turn the ignition. Inevitably they hold too long and grind the starter. I admit, I start sweating a bit. Anticipation is peaking.
They struggle to release the e-brake, and now, holding all motion with their left foot, they gently ease off the clutch. The old Jeep crawls forward ever so slowly, inch by inch until we’re moving! It’s thrilling!
Hilarity ensues.
We can’t really talk about steering, it takes practice to get a sense of how much a vehicle will turn. Inevitably, they over rotate and panic. Hint: wide open spaces really help. Mary duffed her first so badly, she headed straight for a curbed island.
“Whoa, honey, slow down! Turn! Turn!” quickly gave way to “Give it gas, hammer it!” when she couldn’t avoid the island. Thank God we were in a Jeep, it just crushed right over the concrete and grass and back off the other side. We bounced around, and I laughed, “Let’s go!”
Simon stalled at the bottom of a curved hill. When he restarted, he popped the clutch hard and slammed the gas. The tires screeched a trailing skid, his first burnout, my mind racing ahead a few years expecting it probably won’t be his last. At the apex, he hit the curb hard forcing me to grab the wheel lest we roll the Jeep. That would not have been good. He kept the tach running strong, never stalled again.
When we’re done looping around, both kids can easily run from a standing start up through the gears. We stay off surface streets and let them cruise while the Texas sun sets on a hot June evening. My favorite part is the cooling open air while they gain confidence; driving the old man around is a breeze.
I stop for ice cream on the way home, a just summer reward for a job well done. We get home and retell the stories, and then to their friends. “You’re dad is so cool, my parents won’t let me drive.” That’s a shame. They should.
She got a 96 out of 100, the highest score ever given by this particular DPS officer.
Here’s the kicker: she did it in a lifted 1999 Chevy Suburban 4×4 383 stroker that reaks of oil, WD-40 and the musky stench of Cajun Navy (TEXAS Divison).
Do the math people, that’s a classic vehicle and it’s an absolute unit. It’s also the only street legal vehicle in my fleet.
Her parallel parking is so perfect, it instantly became a thing of legend. The other kids literally just abandoned their Subarus and Hondas in tears. They couldn’t bare the witness of such power and grace.
I take all the credit. All those years of valet parking cars for boujee Dallasites finally paid off. SUCK IT MISTERS NEIMAN AND MARCUS!
Like any normal father, I taught her to drive a stick shift when she turned 12. She was there when that snowstorm slammed us on that lonely drive between Detroit and Toronto. She was there when we burned donuts at the grave of Billy the Kid on the way to bury mom out in New Mexico. She was there when we drove deep into Utah’s offroad trails at Canyonlands National Park. She was there every time I’ve been pulled over for speeding, rolling red lights and driving on medians.
Mary understands ticket-avoidance because every red-blooded American cop knows there is a proper time and place for tomfoolery. It’s NUANCE people!
Our biggest fear was that damn passenger door. You have to know how to wiggle the handle just right, otherwise you’re trapped. Normally we’d explain this exit to a new rider lest they die in a fiery death.
However, we couldn’t risk vehicular failure, it only passed inspection when I slipped my mechanic a two-fer coupon so he could take his lady out to the Chili’s for a skillet queso and some frosty margs. No fear, I coached Mary well. When the officer couldn’t open the door, Mary said, “It sticks when it’s humid, let me do it.” The officer was so giddy of the sight she just witnessed, zero Fs were given.
This is for a game publisher, but note how they solve problems common to universal web design.
* The home page is the introduction for 95% of all inbound traffic, it routes people to a bevy of topical info. * The site serves many audiences using “trailheads” on the home page so visitors can segment themselves to find they content they want. * It makes use of a central marquis on the home page that displays embedded rich media, something we can scale toward. * Global nav is succinct and prominently displayed at the top to ensure visibility for all user agents, browsers, mobile, etc. * Information is displayed in proportion to it’s relevance to the broadest swath of users. The company obviously knows their audiences. * Utility nav elements are downplayed, but easily accessible. Search is in a global header, links & legal birdseed are in the footer and RSS feeds are couched in topic headers. * Common UX/UI prompts like rollovers are reserved for ancillary data that is assistive in nature. All primary data a visitors needs is brought to the forefront, they don’t need to hunt and peck for data. This enables visitors to more readily make a decision about what they’d like to consume. * Note the redundancy in nav links like technology and community which serves distinct visitor browsing styles. This is common software UX/UI practice that works naturally in web design. Think about all the ways you can print a document…File-> Print, CTRL+P, click the printer icon, etc. * Note the tech page content layout. Content is organized by topic, subtle use of color, text treatment and iconography assist with user consumption. http://www.epicgames.com/technology/
If you like me and collector of loyalty cards for your favorite coffee shops around the nation, your local grocer, pharmacy, gas station, etc. you no longer need to scramble through your wallet or jacket pockets, when the lovely counter clerk says “Are you a member?”
For many consumers the little paper card has gone mobile and as the New York time reported yesterday, “Some start-ups, like CardStar and CardBank, store existing loyalty cards on cellphones with scannable barcodes. And companies including Motorola and a start-up called mFoundry are providing retailers with the technology to build cellphone loyalty cards.”
The intriguing part about the whole idea of mobile loyalty cards is not so much the “card” itself, but what marketers envision for the new found idea of “loyalty cards.”
More Comments on the lecture here: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/02/jesse-schell-future-of-games-from-dice-2010/
Facebook is Big, Strange & Unexpected
Facebook Math
There are more Farmville players than Twitter
Lead Gen is greater than direct payments Sign up for a credit card to get virtual money earns more revenue than direct payments.
Also unexpected… Wii & Wii Fit Club Penguin Guitar Hero Webkins
What is common? “Velvet Elasticity”
Free to play Get virtual money – spend $6
“I spent time on this, so it must be valuable.”
“I spent $20 to re-up, so it must be valuable.”
All these games bust through to reality.
Gillmore & Pine: Authenticity Are things real? Are they authentic? We live in a bubble, technology cuts off from reality, we’re no longer self sufficient. “There is a hunger for reality”
Technology convergence – brings us all together? No, Technology is divergent
Games are a part of every day life, from the Ford dashboard to marketing point systems.
Technology is disposable. Schells predicts every product having an interface, screen & camera on it.
Concludes wondering if people will alter their behavior b/c they know it is being monitored, recorded and analyzed. And since people know they’re being watched, and they want good external outcomes, will that make them better people? That’s a deeper theological question, but I think I can find priests and psychologists who would agree on the potential.
We can facilitate this for the Russell Simmons event very easily by declaring an open Twitter channel for participants. We just need signage with the Twitter bird that says:
“On Twitter? Tweet this event using #EventName”
That’s it. People that use Twitter will know what this means.
You can type in “#28days” to see how many people mention us in their tweets. See for yourself how it works on the link below:
http://search.twitter.com/
The benefits:
– The event becomes much more interactive for participants, from host/guest to guest/guest
– Personal investment tightens community bond under the brand
– People can participate in the event, even if they aren’t physically present
– Huge traffic driver to Facebook & the site
– The event can potentially get millions of trackable impressions
– Speakers can potentially respond in real time to questions from the audience (with moderator assistance)
– Guest can potentially hook up in support of mutual goals, directly serving a key program objective
– We can directly engage the community to encourage participation, respond to concerns, etc
– Attaches the the brand and program to a progressive medium via social mobile
– This will be great interactive experience for staff within our own agency
Augmented reality (AR) is a developing technology that overlays computer-generated graphics onto a real image or video. The most popular example of AR is the yellow First Down line on televised football games. We’ve also seen it in rotating billboard displays on soccer and baseball, and briefly, the trailing comet tail to help hockey fans keep their eye on the puck.
Zugara, an interactive agency, experimented with online augmented reality in a couple notable online applications. The Webcam Social Shopper is a virtual fitting room that lets people see themselves in clothing before they buy. It also uses motion capture so a person can navigate the online store by moving their hands rather than stepping up to the keyboard.
They followed up with Cannonballz, a game utilizing a person’s web camera and Facebook Connect so the player becomes part of the action.
Oddcast has a simple AR demo. Just print the unique badge and display it in front of your webcam to bring an animated rocker to life. SekaiCamera is making strides in mobile AR as well; this video from LOEWE Tokyo offers a glimpse.
Location-Based Social Captioning
Layar is a Dutch-made program that enables people to leave comments on images captured by their mobile device. The app uses 3D technology to gauge distances as well as the phone’s compass and GPS or cell tower triangulation. Then, computing all this information on the fly, the real image can be geotargeted so that other people can read the comments and post their own.
Social captioning seems like a natural evolution of AR. With advanced filtering and administrative control, I can imagine a number of recreational and commercial uses for this kind of application.
Ratings & reviews Restaurants, bars, local retail
Visitor attractions City walking tours, Architectural and historical tours, ghost & event tours, sports & convert venues
Real estate Listings, property details and contact info
Have you seen the video of the Phillies dad catching a fly ball? In front of a cheering crowd, he gives it to his toddler daughter who promptly throws it away. It’s so endearing to see his shocked expression, then an “aww shucks” flood of unconditional love for his little girl.
Chances are, you saw this video within the first 48 hours of its release on YouTube or embedded in a blogs. This event is the hottest piece of content to go viral in recent memory. It’s just so darn cute! This guy is the epitome of “AWESOME DAD”, one I personally can relate to better than the fat dumb dad on any number of sitcoms and spots in the past decade.
It has all the elements of a classic story packed into 30 seconds: plot, character, theme, climax and resolution. A father’s pride, a child’s mistake, forgiveness, reconciliation. It’s so tightly bundled in a beautiful way, it becomes an instant Internet meme. It’s ripe for a super mash-up, something savvy marketers crave.
Unfortunately, the MLB lawyers have trumped all reason and yanked the video from all video-sharing sites, and by proxy, all embedded media like blogs and social networks. Video from their own site is coded in a manner that does not allow it to be played from anywhere except their site. Boom boom pow, this is so 2000 and late!
The MLB completely wasted an opportunity for the MLB to attach its brand to a heart-warming story. Mashable agrees. The MLB could have been recast in celebration of fatherhood or baseball as a family game.
I can already see the 30s spot: the touching video, professionally mastered with compelling V.O. or slide copy. That is fine. But it’s so much more sincere relating to the story when it’s shared among friends in ways they already communicate. Forcing everyone to go to a branded site loses a degree of authenticity.
Presumably, the brilliant legal minds at MLB responded from a flat-policy to defend against future video sharing. I understand the protective need, certainly an open license could be granted in these extraordinary cases. That is the difference between thoughtful leadership and policy management. Instead, the MLB reaction suggests pure greed in a game played by millionaires.
At least the Phillys are playing this up. I hear Dad is getting lots of swag and is making the talk-show circuit. That may seem greedy too, but this kind of PR is organic and altruistic. The team is offering up a wonderful story without the expectation of getting something in return. Big difference.
During these difficult economic times, I have many friends seeking work. Please contact me with specific needs or if you are building a future talent base. I can refer people in all areas of marketing:
Account managers, all levels Interactive producers Analysts & strategists Project & program managers Content producers Creative & art directors, all levels Copywriters Designers Flash artists, editors & developers Web developers Software engineers, Java, .NET, LAMP Technical services managers IT & system administrators
These people are not chaff separated from the wheat. This is an amazing group of smart and experience people swept up in cut-to-the-bone layoffs. Even if you aren’t a hiring manager, please ping me if you are merely aware of openings.
I’m a big fan of custom flash units in interactive video advertising. Barbarian Group kicked off the genre with Burger King’s Subserviant Chicken, but EVB & Toy New York helped Office Max push custom advertainment virally with personal content in Elf Yourself.
As a producer, I like the mix of creative and technical strategy required to pull these off as well as the challenge of tight broadcast integration. These campaigns also glean solid web analytics to help justify ROI. I’ve had fun planning the execution of similar concepts for NASCAR champion Carl Edwards who is building his own personal brand quite well.
Here is the latest one created by MoveOn.org & sent from my longtime friend @NigelPrentice imploring the consequences of my not voting for Obama.
This is a clever execution that is relatively inexpensive because the back-end logic simply handles text & destination email. It doesn’t use pics, video or mobile, all of which yield a richer experience, but exclude less savvy participants. As a result, this simple concept can take off quicker and spread further.
Did you get this in your inbox? I’d be interested in hearing any metrics & market penetration for this campaign. Otherwise, what do you think of the execution?
Post Election Update: Frank Luntz, political analyst and author of Words That Work , says “for the first time ever, this election cycle, more young people got their information from the web than from the print media or television. This has never happened before. It means that YouTube and MySpace and Facebook matter.”
A Case Study in Online Public Relations & Crisis Management
Police arrested a 66 year old woman this week for refusing to pay her $7.45 tab at Waffle House. The story got picked up by Drudge Report, then the broader media and finally through blogs and social media networks.
This is not a bona fide PR crisis, but this situation reflects poorly on Waffle House, a national chain with ~1500 stores. Dumb criminals are entertaining, but reports aren’t clear about why she didn’t (couldn’t?) pay. Many bloggers are finding fault with the restaurant and railing against it. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Google Blog Search]
The store manager probably should have discreetly waived the bill, although I can’t imagine they thought the situation would be elevated to national attention. Regardless, this is an opportunity for the company to define it’s relational strategies for crisis management and online consumer interaction.
Background: Waffle House Serves a Broad Base
Full disclosure: I love Waffle House. It’s a brand steeped in Diner Americana invoking the hot black coffee retreat painted by Edward Hopper. The all-day-breakfast menu is working class fuel, from pre-dawn to the deep night-shift. It’s the kind of place comfortable memories are made, from roadtrip pitstop adventures to the nighthawk’s final call.
Waffle House is a cultural icon rich in user-generated content. Click images to see Flickr comments.
Waffle House offers simple food, folksy patrons and they have some of the hardiest working & friendliest servers in the industry. Sitting next to the grill line when the place is slammed, the hot sizzle, greasy smells and barking orders is poetic to a business process nerd like me.
Recent Waffle House PR Challenges & Responses
Waffle House has already faced a series of bad press from unruly customers.
October 2008 Robberies occur in Texas and Alabama. A fatal shooting Florida is met with calls for boycotts online.
August 2008LiveLeak has security video of a brawl complete with racist comments about Waffle House customers. The company should nail whoever is releasing these security videos to the public, although methinks it may have been released by plaintiff litigants who obtained them through the course of Discovery. Unfortunately, the damage is done; the company’s best response is being prepared next time.
March 2008Kid Rock pleaded not guilty for fighting in a Waffle House. I love the company’s response: they invited the star back to a restaurant to greet his fans and raise money for a local homeless shelter. Spokesperson Kelly Thrasher explains the company wanted to “take a negative situation and turn it into a positive situation.”
Waffle House brand managers should proactively apply this positive philosophy to social media. This recent series of events can be the impetus for a cohesive online PR strategy that touts the brand’s long-standing reputation for good customer service.
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” Grandma
What Should Waffle House Do?
I recommend a deep dive on some of these general actions.
Develop an Online Persona
One can expect resistance to social media from a brick-and-mortar diner chain, especially one that doesn’t advertise. Traditional PR might consult with Legal and publicly drop all charges. Or partner with local homeless services nonprofits.
However, consumers have already extended the brand across social networks (more on that below). Blue collar audiences are online, 70% use social media and savvy brands are serving them.
Whataburger is a Southern burger chain with a made-to-order heritage that targets men, 50+. It’s ad agency McGarrah-Jessee drives a polished effort online as well as in direct, outdoor and cool broadcast work reminiscent of my favorite down-home man-it-up Miller High Life spots.
We tailored the BecomeAnEX campaign to help multiple shades of blue-collar audiences. We found a majority of our target already online and eagerly embracing mobile technologies.
Engage Existing Communities
My brief research uncovered a bevy of positive stories, pictures, a Wikipedia article and scores of cult-classic sentiments like this unassuming Waffle House Wedding in Georgia that would have been a hoot to crash. Git ‘er done!
Once brand managers know where people congregate online, they can enter discussions via PR and interactive advertising. I believe an approachable persona mixed in humurous kitsch and classic PR would be very well received in micromedia formats (@woot comes to mind).
Develop Distinct Strategies for Each Platform
Social media outlets are unique and some communities lend themselves to different business objectives (i.e awareness, response, promotion, revenue, feedback channels, etc). Plan accordingly.
Leverage UGC
Integrate user-generated content into Waffle House web properties.
Attach the Brand to a Quirky Holiday Waffle House already does this to some extent. They are a sponsor of Real Men Cook, a family celebration event hosted on Father’s Day in Atlanta. Waffle House benefits with buzz marketing, product placement and celebrity endorsement.
A cheap Quirky Holiday SEM Strategy could generate local press, elevate presence of mind & uptick sales for a couple days on an otherwise off-beat holiday. Eat What You Want Day [May 11] could be fun given their pick-n-choose menu. Other possibilities: Lips Appreciation Day [Mar 16] and No Housework Day [Apr 7].
Update the “Newsroom”
I’d wager the Waffle House Newsroom got a lot of hits today with this story. And it hasn’t been updated in over two years. Good media relations is critical.
Web Analytics & PR Measurement
Judging by the state of the site, and the apparent lack of a full-time PR manager, I’d wager executives don’t study inbound traffic sources. At one time, Waffle House partnered with Vocus for on-demand news monitoring and measurement. Hopefully company employs basic online monitoring.
Implement a Brandjacking Defense Posture
These are just the kind of one-off stories that instigate a brandjacking that will probably run it’s course in a few days. Even if this case probably will not hurt the brand long-term, why risk it? It appears @wafflehouse has already been brandjacked on Twitter and on Google’s Blogspot.
Using my Social Media Checklist, Waffle House brand managers should snag social media profiles, even if it doesn’t actually engage followers.
Speak to Security Concerns
Customers need to feel safe. Be open about what security measures the company is taking and address flagrant misstatements when they occur. This requires active and passive online brand monitoring.
New Price Points
I’m not privy to current Waffle House pricing strategies, although, I do remember All You Can Eat deals for $3.99 in college! Brands have to be careful about competing on price when a depressed economy eventually recovers. However, this story got traction because of the economy; people will make a connection on price & this lady being unable to afford $7.45. A temporary high-level plan can hedge against public blowback.
Enterprise Strategies in Social Media
While PR focused on external messaging, Waffle House can use social media for internal infrastructure communications.
Franchise Communications
A few years ago, I got an internal sneak peak at Schlotzsky’s efforts to shore up internal communication among franchisees during a restructuring phase. I’d keep an eye out for anything that supported franchise relations specifically.
Collaborate On Internet Messaging & Brand Identity
Schlotzsky’s also addressed inconsistencies in external messaging, branding and stores across the franchise system, both in traditional and online advertising. From what I can tell, Waffle House is facing similar challenges today. Even after establishing a strict code of branding guidelines, policing and enforcement requires dedicated resources.
Regional Online Marketing & Domainjacking Avoidance
The lack of an online messaging strategy also puts the brand at risk for domainjacking. Franchises are already grabbing their own domain names, which is common when marketplace planning and legal don’t keep pace with technology.
Waffle House should have a unified front in the WaffleHouse.com domain, improve the store locator & offer marketing pages for franchise owners so they can leverage the brand for local promotion. Following this, the company can develop strategies for regional online marketing & mitigate the risk of domainjacking.
Is this case study helpful? What would you suggest to Waffle House executives? Please share your thoughts below!
In the social space, Carnival has cruised to the front of the Twitter line. They have a brand evangelist, @CruiseSource, tweeting live from a Carnival cruise that is currently underway. His current bio reads “Your Source for Everything related to Cruising. Live from CCL Destiny 10.16.08.”
CruiseSource.us is a blog about cruising, not Carnival persay. My clients in the travel industry tell me that they enjoy perks from cruise lines and destination resorts in exchange for bookings and promotion. Presumably, that arrangement exists for CruiseSource, and it’s a good way for Carnival to dip their toe in the social ocean.
What is notable about this case is how effectively brand evangelists utilize micromedia to generate buzz and online PR for brands. This is also a good example of small businesses being nimble with social strategy and engagement.
Best Practices in Social Media Strategy & Engagement
CruiseSource is using Twitter to establish themselves as experts in their niche. Rather than just constantly link back to their site, an early mistake they seem to have overcome, they relate with their audience in meaningful ways. Examples:
They spent weeks building excitement about this cruise.
They invite cruise-related questions and follow-up with answers.
Apparently their efforts have led a major cruise line to invite CruiseSource to participate on a web 2.0 advisory board. If this is Carnival, then kudos for building a smart partnership and generating inexpensive online PR. As long as CruiseSource maintains an air of industry promotion and authentic human interaction, Carnival will benefit from the company’s peer recommendations.
For any travel brand, I suggest a few more tips in establishing a genuine social presence online.
Be more personable. CruiseSource has found a voice on Twitter and its blog, but it still hides behind the company name on all posts. Even using a first name (Tucker?) would cut through informality and lend credibility to their recommendation.
I’m interested to see what travel brands develop on other social platforms, both in external marketing and within the company’s internal organization of staff, partners and sales channels.
Interactive Producers are often tasked with domain name registration and management on interactive campaigns. To this end, I offer a Domain Checklist to help producers and brand domainers obtain domain names from the registrar provider. Let’s look at the pros and cons of GoDaddy.
Reasons to Use GoDaddy
Search domains Their whois search is good at recommending similar domains. This is helpful during domain selection in the campaign’s creative strategy phase.
Cheap registration GoDaddy has always offered the most competitive registration rates for commercial domains. Be sure to get a significant discount using the GoDaddy promo codes from the Live Codes blog. This can be a significant savings the client will appreciate, especially when registering hundreds of domains purely in defense of domainjacking.
Smooth domain administration GoDaddy offers one of the easiest control panels in the industry for domain renewals, DNS changes, domain transfers and bulk administration. Domainers can also lock accounts and plan auto-renewals for up to 10 years.
Wide TLD variety GoDaddy allows registration with a large number of top level domains, including some TLDs reserved for country codes and sponsored entities. Use the convenience of a single source.
Flexible terms on hosting The GoDaddy hosting model is engineered for a high volume of low traffic sites. I once produced a campaign that generated so much traffic on GoDaddy servers, they had to temporarily take our site offline to move it to a different production environment. We got a surprise series of bills for the burstable load, our hosting bill jumped from $200 to nearly $20,000!
Despite our success in marketing, I negotiated a significant price reduction. GoDaddy graciously agreed to accept a fraction of the cost, and they allowed us to move the campaign to a host provider better equipped to scale rapidly during traffic crunches.
You can reach a human being Unlike many smaller registrars, you can talk to a real people at GoDaddy. Call (480) 505-8877. This can be crucial when dealing with odd situations like sponsored TLDs, renewals, transfers, emergency DNS administration or chasing down account access due to poor management during campaign staff turnover.
Proactive customer service Update I got a brief voicemail from GoDaddy just checking in to make sure everything is a-ok. Nice touch!
Reasons to Avoid GoDaddy
Excessive Upselling During Registration I don’t even ask my most savvy brand managers to suffer the endless stream of GoDaddy upselling during the registration. My campaigns rarely need the privacy, promotional or hosting add-ons. It can be tricky navigating the registration process, especially by domain owners that aren’t sure about what services are needed.
However, his boorish persona steeped in adolescence and keenly expressed in the company’s sexually charged Superbowl ads is kinda creepy (he really should consider leaving Guyland). Judging by his fan comments, he has managed to build a cult following a la other web celebs. But is his regression really such a feat in the shadow of Hugh Hefner? I’m just sayin’. Have some fun, but think a little more Richard Branson or Larry Ellison and less Tila Tequila.
Deconstructing Personal Twitter Feeds to Help Communication
Without being privy to formal Twitter usability studies, I’d wager most people rarely browse their tweet timeline beyond the first page. For those of us who follow hundreds and thousands of tweeters, we miss the vast majority of tweets in our network. It also means that only the most frequent tweeters have a chance of being heard by their followers.
How to hear your friends on Twitter
When I’m in a consumer mode, I often click on individual tweeters to read their last series of posts. I gravitate toward different people depending on what mood/topic I’m interested in at the time.
My friend who is new to Twitter asks, “How can I push my friend’s tweets to me?” Easy. Scroll to the bottom of a profile and subscribe to the RSS feed. You will see their tweets in your reader.
You may have select tweeters of whom you’d like to read everything they say, so subscribe to their RSS feeds. Note, when someone deletes a tweet from their timeline, it still appears in their RSS feed like Google Reader or Facebook. People in this category might include:
Use @name replies so tweets about them will show up in their Replies list. I’ve found people tend to favorite these tweets more often (I do too) and people are more apt to reply back. Be sure to put the @reply at the beginning of your tweet, otherwise it will not appear in their Replies list (Twitter should fix this).
I also direct message (DM) people with increasing frequency. By default, Twitter sends them an email to their preferred email account and it lands in their Direct Messages queue. Good uses for @replies and DMs are:
Expressing appreciation for new follows
Conventions, tweet-ups
To make an introduction
Apply for jobs w/ Twitter-savvy recruiters like @kimhaynes
Ping a friend’s mobile device (also use the Nudge feature)
Quick & pithy emails
Top of mind awareness
Lead generation
Is this helpful? Please talk back with a comment or tweet me with an @reply or DM 🙂
In my experience on campaigns large and small, domain management is too often been an afterthought. This is unfortunate because proper domain planning can really help the success of a campaign just as a lack of planning can harm a campaign. Domain stewardship isn’t difficult and it attaches naturally to the creative process.
Online Brand Stewards Should Control Domains
Who is the proper steward of a brand online? The client? The ad agency? The interactive agency? There are many POVs about who “owns” a brand online.
As marketing stretches into corporate strategy, sales, service and support, it becomes more than visual identity and messaging in traditional media. Arguably, some measure of brand ownership actually transfers to the public because of the distributed self-investment of social media.
Online brand stewardship is currently relative to a blend of talent, resources, capabilities, experience and expertise within a particular client-agency partnership. Depending on the mix, brand control would clearly fall into one camp, or it might be a joint responsibility with each party assuming specific roles.
Regardless of who stewards the brand online, one party should assume ownership of the brand’s roster of domains.
Domain Management for Small Businesses
When I started my own web development company in 1997, I used to register domains for my clients. I stopped this practice by 2000 because I found it to be a taxing deviation from my primary service. I spent too much time tracking down old clients, getting renewal approvals and collecting money for domains I paid for, but didn’t own.
I also wasted a lot of time tracking down old web developers and hosting partners who had registered my client’s name in their own name. In most cases, I’d have to convince a dejected former partner to hand me the domain keys. In some cases I encountered old vendors who wouldn’t release the domain without receiving payment on an unrelated service, a form of blackmail domainjacking. Consequently, I registered domains on behalf of my clients using their credit cards.
Today, small hosting companies and web developers can turn to broad suites of automated hosting tools to help them run their business. These tools handle everything from lead gen to automated POS, server administration, and of course, discounted domain registration.
Still, I encounter considerable domain management risk all too frequently. Registration and administration is abdicated to the most technically savvy people on the team.
Good domain management involves more strategy than production. Many domain managers are intimidated by the technicalities of domaining, but they really just need to approve a clear domain strategy. The plan can easily be executed by an interactive producer or brand domainer.
As interactive media matures, I foresee a greater dependency on a unique service discipline: the Brand Domainer. This person or company would monitor domaining trends and would consult with agencies and clients on procurement. Domaining and brand registration is a critical duty in interactive campaigns, yet this responsibility is currently dispersed between IT, marketing & production groups and across client, agency, developer and hosting companies.
The Brand Domainer fulfills these roles:
Domain Procurement & Maintenance
Stakes out and maintains Registrar partnerships for generic, sponsored and country code TLD registration & transfers. Marks timely payments to avoid downtime and tightly controls DNS administration across all brands.
The idea of a “Digital Safe Deposit” can be useful for interactive ad campaigns, especially flights across multiple platforms (social media, SaaS, Web 2.0, DNS, hosting, etc). With dispersed talent & high turnover between client/agency/interactive/partner companies, account authentication & digital assets are at risk.
Domain Consultation & Recommendations
Make recommendations on domain names based on availability, creative work, domaining budget and risk of domainjacking threat.
Social Media Consultation & Profile Registration
Make recommendations on social media platforms based on creative work and risk of domainjacking threat. Register profiles and maintain a master list of access points for brand agents and community managers.
Domaining Budget
Forecast and maintain domain registration budgets based on procurement plan and length of agreements.
Brand Monitoring & Policing
Use RSS & monitoring tools like Google Blog Search, Radian6, TweetBeep and UsernameCheck.com to passively intercept threats. Actively query and patrol search engines and popular social media platforms for brand abuses.
Protectors of very large brands already pursue brand infringements, at least passively. I have a good friend who took his site down after receiving a Cease and Desist letter from McDonalds. This was for a .nl Netherlands domain that simply began with “Mc.” Either some poor legal IT intern found his obscure domain while scouring the web through a dictionary search (black helicopter active), or his online brand promotion was so successful that he sprang up on a staffer’s radar (passive interception)
Note, brand monitoring describes preventative activities for brandjacking and domainjacking. This is distinct from listening, measuring and analyzing social media for ROI, strategy or engagement, more accurately defined as Analytics.
Domain Dispute Resolution
Command a working knowledge of the ICANN Dispute Resolution Policy; a domainjacking mandates a rapid response. Refer to the Domainjacking Primer for advise on what to do if you’ve been domainjacked.
Social Media Dispute Resolution
Most social media platforms currently do not publish dispute resolution policies. Brands with trademarks and service marks likely have a case for account termination or transfer. However, at this time, prevention through pre-launch registrations is recommended.
If anyone is poised to successfully launch this new kind of service, it’d be a large ICANN registrar like GoDaddy, Register.com or Network Solutions. A smaller registrar might also consider this play as a means of generating properties through large bulk registrations.
Interactive shops or hosting companies could provide brand domaining as a flat pass-through cost to large and small agencies that are stretching interactive resources. I can also conceive of a new SaaS company carving a lucrative niche practice in this space. Profilactic.com is a social media agreggator/lifestreaming service that promised to help people with “identity crisis.”
In either case, the should become an Accredited ICANN Registrar capable of registering its own Top Level Domains (TLDs). This would make the registration of domains less expensive so campaigns could acquire massive domain batches.
Domain management is an important part of brand stewardship; I think clients and agencies would appreciate the peace of mind from a partner that made this a painless component of their interactive campaigns.
As part of my Domainjacking Primer, I want to share my own experiences in “gettin’ punk’d” by a domainjacker. Hopefully I can help other online brand managers avoid or respond to this kind situation.
The Dastardly Domain Thief
i worked on a national campaign that invested heavily in product development, brand identity and advertising production for months before the official launch. We attracted millions of impressions via PR, TV, radio, direct and online media. Everyone considered the campaign a success.
Unfortunately, within days of launching the campaign, a domain squatter managed to register an odd non-premium generic domain. This person slapped a fake website together to deliberately confuse our target for their own profit. Operating from a foreign country, they sold a knock-off product using our brand equity.
To make matters worse, they launched their own Adwords campaign and directly competed in search media. Our trademarked brand and its keyword variants initially had low usage, so the squatter could snag niche keyword inventory at a very low CPM. However, their “competitive” keyword grab boosted the inventory value, complicated our SEO efforts and made SEM more expensive for our campaign.
By capturing a fraction of our search traffic, they clearly intended to profit from PPC AdSense revenue given the ads plastered throughout their site. In no time flat, we faced public confusion and brand dilution from someone piggybacking our large investment and months of hard work.
Domainjacking Mandates a Swift Response
Fortunately, we responded so quickly that the brand ultimately only suffered mere annoyance. Working through cease and desist letters, we procured the rapid cooperation of the squatter’s registrar and hosting company. We reclaimed rightful domain ownership and even enjoyed brief AdSense exposure at the squatter’s expense.
Following this episode, we developed a comprehensive domain management policy that purchases large blocks of domains. There is now tighter DNS coordination between agency account management and client IT management in the run-up to new campaign launches. And following a campaign launch, the agency and client actively patrol for new infringements against their brands.
Avoid Domainjacking with Proper Planning
In addition to this overt case of domainjacking, I have encountered all kinds of problems from poor domain stewardship. I’ve had to wrest DNS info from former web developers and hosting companies, help track down lost passwords from old employees and rescue domains from botched international transfers. Each of these cases could have been avoided.
These experiences motivated me to write this series on brand stewardship and domainjacking avoidance. Today, I utilize several tools on ad campaigns to help with domain registration, DNS account management, social media profile management as well as engagement analytics.
Speaking of brandjacking, here is the “ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US” vid, a 4-minute mash-up of old viral memes. Lots of mileage from this mix-tape.
Having produced scores of integrated interactive campaigns, I have seen unexpected problems arise from improper domain and social media account management.
I want to share my experience and offer advice on domainjacking, a risk that can be particularly detrimental to brands.
What is Domainjacking?
Jump to a section below What is Domainjacking? Types of Domainjacking What Domainjacking Is Not How to Defend Against Domainjacking How to Respond to a DomainjackingDomainjacking* is a bold type of brandjacking where domainjackers co-opt a brand’s identity and goodwill in bad faith at the point of domain registration. Domainjackers aim to steal traffic for personal profit or to smear a brand. They use search engine marketing and organic search results to generate profit in the form of PPC ad revenue and/or sales of similar products and services.
Unlike phishing scams that prey on victims through broadcast spam email, domainjackers build websites using branded domain names. Using SEM/SEO, brandjacked social media profiles, and conceivably through phishing, they drive traffic to their illicit sites.
Consequently, search engines are constantly adjusting their algorythms to avoid driving traffic to illegitimate domains. Social media platforms will need to implement Dispute Resolution Policies as brandjacking becomes more prevalent and as social media becomes more important to brands.
Types of Domainjacking
Here are a few examples of domainjacking, either by malicious parties or brand stewardship incompetence. Some tactics are illegal, some may not have a legal precedence.
Alternate TLD Registrations
Many interactive campaigns only register the most popular top level domains like .com, .org and .net. A domainjacker often sweeps in to buy other TLDs like .info, .biz as well as country code TLDs like .us and .uk.
Similar Names
Domainjackers may register domain misspellings, similar spellings or phrases with the brand name embedded.
Domain Disputes
Small business marketing services companies like web developers, graphic designers and former employees have been known to hijack a domain they registered on behalf of their brand client for nonpayment of services.
“BrandSucks.com” Gripe Sites
Vindictive and aggrieved customers may register a brandsucks site in order to voice their complaint or publicly trash a brand. In these cases, brand managers have to file official UDRP complaints with ICANN in order to affect site termination or transfer.
Internet strategy consulting firm Fairwinds Partners maintains a list of UDRP brandsucks complaints, their outcomes and ICANN’s decision. Note many complaints did not rule in favor of the brand complainant. (Hat tip to IPKat’s Law Blog for links and opinions in this area.)
Outright Domain Theft
Domainjackers may use a variety of methods to acquire access to a brand’s registrar account. With this information, a domainjacker could transfer ownership or temporarily redirect traffic to an alternate web server.
What Domainjacking Is Not
When trying to define what something is, it’s helpful to define what it is not.
Domaining
Domaining is a multifaceted multibillion dollar industry involving domain sales, management, brokering, auctions and link generation. One can find successful “domainers” in the “domainersphere” who’ve profited from legitimate domain trading.
Legitimate Domain Ownership
Domainjacking is not the legitimate transfer of domain ownership nor is it the legitimate aquisition of a domain following its term expiration. “Domain squatters” utilize software to grab domains when they expire and brand managers may be forced to bid on those domains in the open marketplace if they cannot demonstrate bad faith on behalf of the new registrant.
Lost Registrar Passwords
In order to prevent domainjacking, registrars have numerous checks in place to verify domain administrators are who they say they are.
Registrar Parking
Registrars can park domains on their own servers for nonpayment.
Phishing Phishing is a malicious type of brandjacking that preys on customers of a brand. This tactic is usually executed via spam email that asks the recipient to click on a bogus link to enter personal account information. The fake landing page often has branded subdomains and a similar visual identity intended to confuse and deceive.
How to Defend Against Domainjacking
To the extent a team can anticipate threats, domainjacking is largely avoidable.
Don’t be cheap
Domain registration is a nominal cost of a campaign, but it can be a significant line item. Be prepared to explain the cost of not properly managing domain registrations in terms of harm to the brand, lost revenues, lost engagement opportunities, legal fees, misplaced resources, etc.
Mark Your Brand
Where appropriate, get a trade or service mark on your brand. This won’t prevent DNS registration, but it will help support registrar domain disuptes and convincing hosting companies to comply with ceast and desist requests.
Perform a Simple Risk Analysis
Start a list of domains ranked by high, moderate and low risk threats of domainjacking. This list would be considerate of the project’s domaining budget, media plan and forecasted impact. Popular brands should register all TLDs appropriate for a campaign. Read my Domain Checklist For Interactive Campaigns when planning & registering domains.
Avoid Social Media Brandjacking
Invest time to register brands with popular social media & micromedia account profiles. Jeremy offers an excellent list of Brands that got Punk’d by Social Media. Follow my Social Media Checklist For Interactive Campaigns as a minimal social media strategy.
Register with a Generic DNS Admin
When registering a domain, use a generic email account like [email protected]. Not only does this help control privacy of domain ownership, but you also remove your dependency on individual staff. When the producer or DNS manager leaves your company, you don’t need to go searching for passwords or log into your registrars to change all the contact. You can simply auto-forward the generic DNS admin accounts to a new account. Take care not to jeapordize security in this handoff.
Manage Domain Passwords
This duty usually falls into the realm of the Interactive Producer, however, online brand stewards should take care to safeguard this content from the risk of threat. Resource managers may also consider assigning all domaining duties to a single Brand Domainer.
Long Registration Periods and Auto-renewals
All registrars allow domain managers to registrar domains for extended periods of time. This can actually help SEO because search engines trust long-term domains more than those nearing expiration. Set accounts to auto-renew domains to prevent unintended expiration. Be sure to keep credit card info up to date with the registrar.
Lock Registrar Accounts
Most registrars now allow account managers to lock the domain accounts to prevent accidental account changes.
Register Your Own Brandsucks Gripe Site
“Sucks” and “stinks” are two common pejoratives in brand bashing. BrandChannel distributes a whitepaper on managing the destructive potential of brandsucks: The Power of Internet Gripe Sites. One notable example is the film theater chain Loews. The registered LoewsSucks.com and use the site as a customer feedback channel with its Guest Satisfaction Survey. Fairwinds Partners maintains a list of 100s of brands that have registered their own brandsucks domain name.
How to Respond to a Domainjacking
If you’ve been domainjacked, you need to mobilize your team and respond swiftly to limit damage to your brand. Here are a list of actions.
Know Your Enemy
Perform a Whois search to determine who registered the domain and where it is hosted. Note, the domainjacker may have made this info private to thwart your effort, but you will be able to determine their registrar and the IP address of the host server.
File a UDPR with the ICANN Registrar
ICANN publishes their Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Reolution Policy or UDPR that is followed by all registrars. Here are considerations that help complainants win a favorable ruling.
Trademark and Service Mark
Demonstrate use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services. Note, weak and nonexistent trademark claims, aka reverse domainjacking, can harm a brand.
Commonly Known
Demonstrate being commonly known by the domain name, even if you never acquired trademark or service mark rights.
Noncommercial Fair Use
Demonstrate how the domainjacking either a) intends to mislead or divert customers, b) tarnishes the trademark or service mark or c) is not a noncommercial or fair use of the domain name.
Even with an airtight claim and amid a customer service crisis, Panix, the oldest ISP in New York, faced crippling battles with MelbourneIT and Verisign when their email traffic got domainjacked.
Lawyerup and Counterpunch
Attorney jokes are to Americans as Aggie jokes are Longhorns, but this is the time you want aggressive legal counsel in the are of Intellectual Property rights and domain management.
Attack on Multiple Fronts Simultaneously
Send Cease and Desist letters to the registrant and to the hosting company. The sites are commonly self-hosted in a foreign country, so be sure to follow the ICANN domain dispute process and contact the hosting company directly.
In my next article, I will share my own own experiences on domainjacking.
Footnotes * I love the English language because we can easily meld words to form new phrases without disrupting transmission. I prefer “domainjacking” over “domain jacking” or “domain-jacking” because a precendent has been set with “carjacking.” (OT: I once got carjacked in Oak Cliff near Dallas; ask me about it sometime.)
And for you SEO and domaining ninjas, I hope you appreciate my not-so-subtle effort to capture some alternative spelling traffic! In case your wondering, and so that I might mention the keyword just one more time, here are some domainjack conjugates (and their current Google results). I’ll spare you the H1 tag wraps 🙂
Domainjack (40) Domainjacks (24) Domainjacking (588) Domainjacker (4) Domainjackers (4) Domainjacked (382) Domainjackgate (1 result YES! I WIN!) I’m claiming this one before the media constructs a scandalous ‘gate’ suffix!
Clients, agencies and interactive production shops can use this checklist when registering brands with social networks & web 2.0 platforms for a specific campaign. This list is helpful for domain planning and for domainjacking avoidance.
UsernameCheck.com is a helpful utility that scans social tools to monitor domainjacking. Brand managers may elect to register brands with tools, even if they are not initially used in the campaign. Services like Profilactic.com can help with social media aggregation
» Last Modified December 10, 2008 » # of Platforms 93
* = High risk for domainjacking. Register these accounts at minimum for all campaigns. Certain types of campaigns may require accounts on other/all platforms.
Was this post helpful? Have any additions? Don’t agree with my taxonomy? I wanna know. Please talk back & leave a comment!
Clients, agencies and interactive production shops can use this this TLD checklist when registering top level domains for a specific campaign. This list is helpful for domain planning and for domainjacking avoidance.
» Last Modified October 6, 2008 » # of Platforms 81
Generic TLDs
Nearly all campaigns merit registration of all Generic TLDs.
.biz
.com
.info
.name
.net
.org
.pro
Sponsored TLDs
Registration of these domains is limited to specific conditions.
.aero
.asia
.cat
.coop
.edu
.gov
.int
.jobs
.mil
.mobi
.museum
.tel
.travel
Commercial, Vanity and Domain Hack ccTLDs
Brands may utilize some of these popular country code TLDs. They may also build domain hacks that combine subdomain and TLDs for clever or shorter domains (i.e. del.icio.us).
.ad – advertising
.ag – agriculture
.am – AM radio, audio, podcasts, domain hacks
.be – domain hacks
.cc – carbon copy
.cd – Audio, podcasts, file sharing
.dj – Audio, podcasts, file sharing
.fm – FM radio, audio, podcasts
.gg – social gaming, gambling (gg = good game)
.im – instant messaging, domain hacks
.in – Internet, domain hacks
.it – Internet, domain hacks
.je – “You” in Dutch and “I” in French
.la – Los Angeles, domain hacks
.li – Long Island, domain hacks
.lv – Las Vegas, love
.md – medical doctor
.me – individuals
.ms – Microsoft projects
.mu – music, audio
.nu – “New” in English, “Now” in Dutch
.sc – source
.st – street
.to – Toronto, domain hacks
.tv – broadcast, entertainment, online video
.ws – website
.vu – “View” in English, online video
.vg – video games, advertainment
# 6Lizzer Simplifies Content Aggregation Lizzer has a private beta for its online publishing tool. Community managers, bloggers, extranet and web publishers can search Lizzer for links, pics and videos by subject and get simple embedding code. Check the demo at Lizzer.com
# 5Moximity Delivers Location-based Ads Moximity delivers location-based offers through social media on mobile devices.
I used to co-office with the founders of Wayport and this was the original idea behind their network of hospitality & travel center hotspots. I guess they were just 10 years ahead of their time.
# 4UGC Helps Opex Scaling @deckermarketing Posted an excellent article on user-generated content in terms of its operation expense scaling – a value proposition that is sure to please CFOs in tough economic times.
# 2Rapid Response Interactive Media Alan Edget (@ACEdge) is an F500 social media strategist behind those clever FreeCreditReport.com ads (I love these; their funny & work well on TV & radio). He blogs about his attempt to create an algorithm that measures ROI on interactive media placement. The goal is to be able to rapidly respond to the market & change placements, kind of like options trading.
# 1First Day of Autumn 2008 I see a few SEO companies are leveraging Google’s logo changes for fresh untargeted traffic. This is a clever ploy to prove their SEO mettle and generate a little buzz. Free and easy, this tactic is bound to become a meme. I built upon their accomplishments to develop the Quirky Holiday SEM Strategy.
BONUSDid you know that Google saved all their holiday and event logos for posterity? I love the preservation of campaigns. It’s a good practice for entertainment, history & long-tail traffic.
How Brands Can Generate Big Awareness During Odd Holidays
Last week, as the world celebrated another Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought of a slick SEM trick: Buy quirky holiday names for the sole purpose of brand awareness. Quirky holiday inventory has temporary demand spikes and low-competitive rates. This might be good opportunities to align your brand with fun, off-beat culture news and catch new visitors during idle leisure time browsing the net.
What Is a White Sale Strategy? Retail stores sell specific merchandise at a deep discount for a short period of time.
White Sale Examples Think K-Mart’s Blue Light Special and the Foley’s Red Apple Sale. John Deere pushes residential sales during their annual Deere Season campaign.
Woot.com (@woot) applies a reverse model online; there is always a deep discount sale, but the product changes. World Market explored a similar Adobe Air widget channel.
Retailers have long used White Sale strategies to dump excessive inventory and to gain a temporary competitive advantage. The Quirky Holiday SEM strategy is slightly different than a White Sale. Rather than promote a branded self-made sales event, Quirky Holiday SEM leverages universal interest and PR surrounding unusual events to generate brand awareness. The strategy lends itself to retail, but could be used for any type of brand promotion.
Awareness and low cost can justify the ROI of a Quirky Holiday SEM media plan. Traffic is not targeted, so click-throughs are a bonus, especially since keyword inventory would be relatively inexpensive.
Ideas for Quirky Holiday SEM Campaigns
Here are just a few of the strange, funny and odd holidays where corporate brands, campaigns and associations could apply this strategy.
Bifocals At The Monitor Liberation Day December 1Lenscrafters, eye doctors & Lasik surgeons, ergonomic companies, nonprofits for the prevention of eyestrain, monitor fatigue, eyesight health education & disease prevention, elder care.
Bathtub Party Day December 5Kohler, Whirlpool re-modelers (bathfitter.com already has a placement), plumbing companies, design centers, home builders, destination spas.
National Inane Answering Message Day January 30 Manufacturers like Panasonic, Sony, Nokia, Samsung & Motorola, online retailers, VoIP carries Skype and Vonage, cable carriers, cell phone service providers, mobile marketing.
First Day of Autumn 2008 September 22 SEO companies are already leveraging Google’s holiday and event logos for fresh non targeted traffic. What a clever ploy to generate a little buzz and new unique visits against an odd keyword. So far, these are simple organic SEO results, but SEM could easily apply.
Hat tip to @PatrikAltoff who managed to attract hundreds of “autumn 08” visitors to Blogstorm on Sep 22, 2008.
Any Quirky Holiday Hallmark could actually target traffic with Quirky Holiday SEM, assuming they had matching merchandise. A smaller print card company or e-card service could generate a significant portion of its revenue on this SEM traffic.
What Quirky Holiday SEM Strategies can you imagine? Share them below!
As a member of the Sam Houston Rifles, we had to memorize and practice the 11 Leadership Principles and 14 Leadership Traits taught by the United States Marine Corps. These principles and traits merit occasional reflection by business & online community leaders.
Develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates.
Make sound and timely decisions.
Set the example.
Know your Marines and look out for their welfare.
Keep your Marines informed.
Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions.
Ensure assigned tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished.
Train your Marines as a team.
Employ your command in accordance with its capabilities.
The 14 Leadership Traits
The acronym JJDIDTIEBUCKLE helped us memorize the 14 Leadership Traits.
Judgement The ability to weigh facts and possible solutions on which to base sound decisions.
Justice Giving reward and punishment according to merits of the case in question. The ability to administer a system of rewards and punishments impartially and consistently.
Dependability The certainty of proper performance of duty.
Integrity Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles; includes the qualities of truthfulness and honesty.
Decisiveness Ability to make decisions promptly and to announce them in clear, forceful manner.
Tact The ability to deal with others without creating offense.
Initiative Taking action in the absence of orders.
Endurance The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress and hardship.
Bearing Creating a favorable impression in carriage, appearance and personal conduct at all times.
Unselfishness Avoidance of providing for one’s own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.
Courage The mental quality that recognizes fear of danger or criticism, but enables a man to proceed in the face of it with calmness and firmness.
Knowledge Understanding of a science or an art. The range of one’s information, including professional knowledge and an understanding of your Marines.
Loyalty The quality of faithfulness to country, the Corps, the unit, to one’s seniors, subordinates and peers.
Enthusiasm The display of sincere interest and exuberance in the performance of duty.
Where can you improve? How can you apply these skills to your online community?
# 6I wish I had thought of The Palin Name Generator. Traffic from a funny little meme can help generate some serious ad revenue.
My name is “Axe Diesel Palin.” @aswenson is “Quarter Granite Palin.” @jmayson is “Revolver Trooper Palin.” @pcamarata is “Scat Dubya Palin.” @baczo is “Copper Catfish Palin.” @cinerina is “Engine Nighthawk Palin.” @adam is “Shaver Razorback Palin.”
What is yours? Share it!
# 5David Kramerer’s POV re: Twitter probably resonates with Gen X & Y. He sees Twitter’s benefits for workgroups, professional applications and to document a one-time event in real time.
# 4I’m digging the Twitter redesign this week. Much cleaner, lightweight & more flexible for add-ons. I also redesigned my own profile page to better convey my expertise in social media and interactive advertising. People seem to be having a few technical difficulties though, which is fairly common with SaaS upgrades.
# 2Chris Brogan has started an interesting conversation on defining web authority. There seems to be a blurred line between popularity / web celebrity and knowledge / credibility & reputation. He also lists the web analytics tools we used in measuring impact of the BMW and Become An EX campaigns.
Seth Godin and Ed Welch have 101 ideas for brand managers on how not to take care of their customers. Here are my favorites related to online advertising.
3. Don’t ask for feedback from your customers. Make them take surveys but never engage them in a conversation with you.
5. Do everything you can to keep your customers from creating a community – you don’t want them talking to each other.
15. Don’t take viral marketing seriously. How fast can a message spread anyway?
22. Never try to build customer evangelists – mass advertising has always worked better!
31. Routinely email your customers without their expressed permission. The more frequently you send email, the better.
42. Don’t browse the internet – don’t look for what people are saying about your company.
69. Be sure you understand that internet marketing is just like “old school marketing”.
Online Communities Are Rich Opportunities for Brand Managers
Has your online community become stagnant? Are you struggling with “resource poverty?” Perhaps you don’t have the capital to upgrade your forum software. Or your mods are burned out wasting their time fighting spam, breaking up flame wars and banning trolls for a dwindling group of participants.
101 Ways to Destroy Your Tribe Ed Welch’s PDF on Seth Godin’s blog shows CEOs, bloggers and site managers how to wreck their brand’s base support by not properly supporting communities.
Some forums should be closed. But before you decide to eliminate your online community, reconsider its benefits, even if it is struggling. Reinvestment may be justified.
Forum Participants Are Personally Invested
People freely give their time to participate here. Knowledge is shared, there is a sense of community and authentic friendships are formed. Removing this data wipes out that collective investment.
People will be pissed when their investment is cavalierly wiped out. If you are determined to close your forums, at least make them read-only.
Deleting Forums Weakens Communities.
You may notice that parts of your community swarm to new platforms like Twitter, Plurk, Ning etc. You will always have early adapters that dabble in new platforms, but chances are, you have regular participants + lurkers in stagnant forums.
We decided to take down the SQPN forums when they got overrun spam and one bad apple troll because the volunteer mods didn’t have enough time to deal with them. A few people migrated to other related communities, but the vast majority of members just went *poof*. In hindsight, we should have made those forums read-only until we had the chance to properly devote resources to them.
Deleting Forums Alters Culture.
Building a new community is much more volatile than maintaining one. Salvaging a stagnant community with a safe inviting culture preserves the voice and culture. Creating a new community risks losing a notable asset. Read more about this group dynamic in the Online Community Lifecycle.
UGC Is Gold.
Companies are knocking themselves out to encourage user generated content. Even a stagnant community has nurtured a rich garden of UGC goodness. The personal investment of individuals strengthens bonds among like-minded people and presents opportunities for promotion, search marketing and higher advertising revenue.
SEO Opportunities
Your current forum content could easily translate to 100,000s of pages indexed by Google and other search engines. Every page, every keyword, every phrase, every misspelling, every link represents a long-tail opportunity to optimize free organic search results. SEO from your forums is a powerful way to attract more visitors.
Lurker Conversions Forrester Research has found that 80% of community members are lurkers. Most new members are naturally reserved. They want to discern the benefits of a community before they commit themselves. Once they become active participants, your brand gathers more free UGC.
Some community managers force registration to fight spam and keep trolls at bay. However, this policy misses tremendous SEO benefits. If this is your policy, you can assume that a large swath of fresh participants are dissuaded from ever participating.
Donation Opportunities
If your website accepts donations, there is almost certainly a direct correlation between unique site visitors and contributions. All of your forum pages serve both as point of new visitor attraction (SEO) and a point of donation awareness.
Advertising & Sponsorship Opportunities.
Each forum page represents an impression for which advertisers are willing to pay. This is a lucrative revenue opportunity that can cover the cost of forums. People will tolerate tasteful ads in forums if they know it supports the community and your brand.
A Fresh Start
Resetting your forum is a good time to strengthen your moderator team and help alleviate their workload. A new forum is also a good reason to reach out to lapsed members to invite them back.
Today’s forum software has smarter ways to fight spam, can handle massive traffic loads & integrate advertising. You can almost certainly find a flexible, stable solution that allows you to migrate data from your current forum and preserve all of the rich conversations and connections of your community.
HBO is experimenting with media convergence through it’s HBOlab unit in a new web series, Hooking Up. Set in a fictional college named Bask U, the show features popular video bloggers and web celebrities. HBOlab will release the show exclusively through online video venues.
Hooking Up features web celebrities who have managed to garner millions of online fans over the past few years.
The series would emphasize content and experience over relatively low production costs, something HBO has been willing to try in the past with Project Greenlight and K Street. Both of these pseudo documentaries also leveraged star-status to help generate buzz. I expect Hooking Up will attract more visibility given advances in social media platforms and a broader reach of online video delivery.
The show’s best shot at success is each star’s ability to self promote directly to their own massive fanbases online. The sense of being approachable lends a web celebrity a distinct advantage over the contests and film stars used in previous HBO projects. Moreover, the current fanbase is already in place and quite active.
Fortunately, it sounds like the project’s success will not be measured simply on it’s ability to turn a profit, rather HBOlabs appears to have freedom to really play in the social space. Following my experience on the BMW Ramp mockumentary, I anticipate a few benefits for HBO despite the low entry costs:
Devoted Fans Behind-the-scenes commentaries & extra content can turn causal consumers into devoted fans, especially when a company engages them directly. Consumers that become personally invested with the stars and each other can become powerful WOM channels. Dwights Blog, Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica podcast and multiple Lost Podcasts are good examples.
New Audiences HBO has an opportunity to develop new online communities around shows, storylines and set locations. They can also attract audiences from niche communities and convert them to devoted fans.
New Real Estate HBO has an opportunity to develop new web properties with which sponsors will want to associate their own brands.
New Talent HBOlabs can develop production and creative talent into other projects at HBO. Shows & talent can cross pollinate to generate more buzz and attract fresh audiences. We realize similar benefits at SQPN.
Generate Buzz Free PR outlets like fans, evangelists, thought leaders and the business press help refresh HBO’s top of mind awareness and new paid subscriptions.
Smart Positioning Companies that invest in social media are currently perceived as youthful, approachable and technically savvy.
Hooking Up is written and directed by Sherwood “Woody” Tondrof, part of the creative talent behind “The BC“, a 2005-2006 web series spoof on Fox’s “The OC.” The BC tells the story of a troubled Boston College student who meets a kindly Jesuit priest. The show is fiction, but it effectively uses real BC students and professors and garnered national attention through a mixture of traditional and online guerrilla marketing.
You probably have a good idea about how you’d like to steer the early stages of your web community. Ponder these questions to see if you’re on track and where you might adjust.
What is the goal of your group expressed in a single sentence? What objectives serve that goal?
Have you defined how your community will operate? Have you published forum rules or comment guidelines? Do you have a privacy policy? Do you have a plan for dealing with spam, trolls and other abusive elements?
Will you allow members to self-promote in early stages? Will your leaders and mods be able to distinguish between natural self-promotion and spam posts?
What attributes reveal your management style? Approachable? Hands off?
Which best describes your approach in forming your group?
» Ready. Aim. Fire.
» Ready. Fire. Aim.
» Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim. Aim.
Who do you know that counterbalances your style and approach? How can they help?
Are you participating in your community? What are you doing to foster group participation? What are you doing that inhibits participation?
Who is emerging as a potential leader in your community? Are there any brand evangelists? Consistent contributors? Natural mediators? Do they get along well with others?
Stage 2: Storming
Reflection: Online Community Growth
As your community vision extends to others, you inherently sacrifice messaging control. Learn from the mistakes of others, and look at the many brands handling this change successfully. Read these questions to help articulate new and persistent problems and suggest possible actions you can take.
Do new ideas serve the group’s goal? Do these ideas need to be abandoned? Or should they be drafted within a new set of objectives?
How do you welcome new members to your community? What would a new member experience when they join your group?
Do you have infighting among members of your group? Is it healthy debate or destructive bomb-throwing?
Do you have a Troll Watch List? How will you deal with troublemakers? Which is an appropriate course of action: a public rebuke? A gentle reminder of the rules? Or do you cut to the bone and ban them from the community?
Do you have arguments spilling over from other communities on the Internet? Can you find resolution from past history? Do you accept personality clashes as inevitable?
Do “know-it-alls” squash discussion? Are they truly knowledgeable, but lack interpersonal soft skills? Can you help them add value without pissing everyone off? Or are they just jerks? Can you call in support from senior members to chastise, clarify, defend or attack?
How do you oversee member contributions? Are avatars offensive? Are you overrun with spam or offensive material? Do you invite self-policing or do you have a team of responders actively patrolling for issues or both? Do you have clear path to moderators so members can notify you of problems? Are you aware of technologies that can help you control unwanted and malicious material?
Do you have strong diplomats that value peacekeeping over healthy debate and disagreement? Are they allowing an argument enough time to play itself out? Do they send fighters to their corners too quickly?
How is your leadership personality? Can you be a bit overbearing or needy at times? Too timid? How do you respond to the ideas of others? Do you have a “brain trust” that can give you honest feedback of your performance?
Stage 3: Norming
Reflection: Habit & Tone in Your Online Community
As your community matures, you will recognize healthy attachment among its members. Your community may operate fine in this stage with minor maintenance and attention. Or you might want to tighten cooperation and press for higher performance.
What is your group’s current dynamic? Is it collaborative? Combative? Active or passive?
Can you identify sub-groups within your community? Which are good, bad or ambiguous to your goals & objectives?
Do you have any individuals that tend to cut across cliques or rise above the fray? Might they become leaders, moderators or brand evangelists for you?
What tools and methods can every member hook into? What areas need stronger collaboration?
What good habits does your group have? How can you foster them?
What bad habits does your group have? What actions or lack of action leads to those habits? What attitudes, beliefs and past “baggage” contribute to those ongoing actions?
What ideas and practices are deeply ingrained in your community? Do they really serve the purpose? Can you identify any that are harmful or inhibit performance? Are you part of the echo chamber or do you have enough distance to recognize it?
Are you transitioning from a role of director to a role of working supervisor? Are others assuming roles of leadership?
Do you need to return to a new Forming or Storming stage to shake up your community? Who can you recruit to help?
Stage 4: Performing
Reflection: Sustaining High Performance
Congratulations if your community has achieved a level of high performance. Take some time to think about how you can keep it going.
Is your community financially solvent? Is it monetized via ad revenue or paid content?
Is your software keeping pace with your level of community activity?
Which social networks target your membership demographic or psychographic? Where else do your members hang out? Can you forge mutually beneficial partnerships?
Can use social media networks and user generated content platforms to expand services to existing members? Can you use these tools to boost membership?
What tactics do you see working in other high performing communities?
Post Mortem: Transforming and Mourning
Reflection: Changes and Death of an Online Community
Your community may be on the verge of temporary or permanent transition. Consider these issues to decide if you should embrace change or pull the plug.
Has your group achieved its goal? Are people wondering “what’s next?”
Have key influencers or core leaders left the group?
Are you facing burnout? Do you have time to continue leading?
Are you stuck in a perpetual Storming stage? Would it make sense to transition back to Forming or press on to Norming?
Who could potentially take over community management? Is there a stand-out leader or sub-group?
Is your advertising campaign approaching EOL? Is the community still flourishing? Do long-tail benefits justify continued community support, even without actively promoting it?
How can your community celebrate its accomplishments? Who deserves acknowledgment?
Final Thoughts
Community Managers that want to work on their community, and less time in it should study Tucker’s model of group dynamics in the context of a Social Community Lifecycle.
IT Consulting company Avanade recently polled 541 global top executives and discovered that the majority do not have a formal plan for adopting social media. This finding comes despite proven company benefits, so we can expect a few more years of wailing and gnashing teeth as evangelists from all social media denominations fight for adoption.
Here is my POV on why companies are slow to move in the social space despite the benefits. I offer a suggestion to curious company managers as well: start a simple “Social Media Lab” to explore tools and best practices.
Before asking why companies avoid social media, let’s consider a brief primer on why they should.
How can companies benefit from social media?
Thousands of blogs are devoted to this simple question. Here are a few reasons.
The Benefits of Social Media
Attracting and retaining customers, and growing customer relationships, have always been top priorities for business. But in a globalized economy it is more critical – and challenging – than ever to build vibrant customer relationships across geographies, industries and at all levels throughout organizations. Social media technologies have the potential to transform the way companies build and manage relationships with their customers. Avanade
Better Service
Customers appreciate multiple channels of communication. By making themselves more approachable and accountable in the marketplace, companies earn the trust of new and existing customers. This can translate to a culture of listening, testimonials, good PR and higher sales.
Better Support
Public support empowers customers to resolve problems quickly and independently.
Companies like SWsoft experience tremendous growth because they introduce their customers to each other for mutual technical support. The company keeps close tabs on rising issues in their Plesk product and refines their development roadmap for new features requested by customers. SWsoft needn’t be concerned with public criticism because they have an opportunity to openly demonstrate their commitment to service. They also enjoy quick and thorough defense from evangelists. Peer reviews are very powerful for growth.
Higher Sales
Trust and accountability earned in service and support broadens a company’s target. In addition, social media can elevate service for preferred customers. For example, Dell Premier Pages helps large customers handle procurement and support, but social media introduces opportunities for lead gen, sales assistance and higher per-sale closings.
Stronger Vendor Relations
Opening lines of communication and collaboration among vendor networks increases efficiency and cuts costs. This applies to everything from fulfillment to billing and encompasses breaking news, emergencies and feedback.
Internal Collaboration
For years, companies have benefited from intranet communications: news engines, wikis, document sharing, learning management systems, trouble ticketing, etc. Social media like message boards, blogs, commenting, online ideation, social chat and UGC sharing are part of a natural evolution toward group cohesion.
According to the Avanade study, among the companies that are early adopters of social media, two thirds have experienced improved customer satisfaction. 64% report an improved reputation in the marketplace. Most reported that social media is inevitable, and 2 in 5 companies can directly associated an increase in sales with a move to using new forms of media. So, the study begs the question…
Why are companies avoiding social media?
The Avanade study cited common reasons around fear and apathy for a lack of social media integration. Company executives worry that social media will cut employee productivity. They worry about security and reliability on unproven technologies. Social media advocates claim executives don’t understand the potential of social media on customers or employees.
My experience is that social media reticence within advertising stems from three key areas.
The Timing Is Premature
We have witnessed similar hesitation in nearly every iteration of online media. Indeed, the technology adoption lifecycle paints a clear bell curve between innovative early adopters and laggards. I remember a similar argument among small businesses on why they should even publish web sites. Today, it seems, the examples of good uses of social media are coming from small businesses seeking to distinguish themselves as nimble and responsive to large competitors. It is simply a matter of time until early social media success parlays into broader adoption.
Advertising Reactionaries vs Progressives
There exists within advertising two philosophical camps: Reactionaries that cling to traditional media and progressives that tout the bleeding edge of new media. Reactionaries tend to live in the upper echelons of account, creative and media departments. Progressives are younger up-and-comers across agency ranks and most have had high-speed Internet access their entire adult lives. Reactionaries read printed versions of Advertising Age and progressives watch daily Ad Age vidcasts. A cycle of conflict ensues: progressives respond to reactionary skepticism by pushing the latest interactive trends (even if inappropriate) and reactionaries respond to the idealism of progressives by not supporting cool projects (even if appropriate). Internal strife abounds before and after work is presented to the client.
Marketing vs IT
There exists within companies a natural push-pull between Marketing and IT groups, especially around web site management. In the realm of interactive advertising, Marketing is drawn to new methods of reaching audiences despite unproven technologies, high costs and lack of resources. IT resists high implementation costs and distractions from principal duties in security, uptime and data management despite the potential benefits of a well executed campaign.
How can companies explore social media?
Nobody wants to risk undo harm to their brand. Therefore, competing groups tend to look to the market to guide their next steps. Social media tools are so new that virtually everyone waits to see which tools, platforms and best practices bubble up to mainstream. The market naturally gravitates toward proven success.
The Avanade / Coleman Parkes Research survey, CRM and Social Media: Creating Deeper Customer Relationships, reveals more interesting findings:
* More than 75 percent of companies worldwide admit that social networking will come into the business by stealth if not proactively managed.
• 9 out of 10 companies understand that the next crop of employees will usher social networking into the workplace.
• More than 60 percent agree that social networking is the next major step in collaborative activities and technology for a business.
And yet…
• Approximately 60 percent of respondents say integrating social media technologies is not on the agenda.
• Only 18 percent of respondents have any kind of strategy in place to integrate these technologies within the company for employees. Avanade press release, Sep 8, 2008
Taking a page from the Google Labs playbook, I suggest that curious companies create their own “Social Media Lab” that explores the social space. Competing groups can build a social web strategy by sharing their perspectives on risks and opportunities and performing light experiments.
Both Marketing and IT groups have individuals that tinker on the edge of new media. Marketing has people that are always entertaining new methods of reaching untapped audiences. IT has people that apply their their own sense of creativity to new technologies and platforms. Putting these people together with an expressed common goal can yield fascinating results.
While working at Power Computing, a very successful Macintosh-clone company, we experimented with several tools in the mid 1990s that precipitated the rise of social media. We devoted resources to extranet development so internal staff and partners could collaborate. We monitored public forums and listservs closely in order to engage the public directly, announce news and respond to emergencies. We eventually shared our internal support knowledge base with the public, a tool that became the basis of Apple’s online support. Each of these activities contributed to the public perception of Power Computing as young, edgy and well-intentioned, giving the company a competitive boost.
Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang describes the evolution of brands on Twitter. His web strategy offers insight into any social medium the Lab wants to explore. He advocates a crawl-walk-run approach for brands curious about social media.
A Social Media Lab does not need to be a distraction. With a little concerted knowledge sharing and a playful approach to social media, companies can harness energy and interest amid small teams to realize potential for the entire company.
Coleman Parkes Research, author of the survey, “CRM and Social Media: Creating Deeper Customer Relationships.” See also: “Web Content Development and Management,” a white paper on the tension between Marketing and IT.
Avanade Press Release “Most Companies Avoid Integrating Social Media Despite Evidence of Benefits,” Sep 8, 2008
A couple years ago I took a 10-month leadership course on small group facilitation to learn about how new groups form and achieve sustainability. The lessons were geared for physical offline groups, but my experience as an online group facilitator, including one of the largest social networks on Ning, convinces me that offline group models remain intact in the realm of social media as well. Web communities are comprised of real people, so we can expect basic human behavior patterns to permeate regardless of the medium in which they communicate.
In 1965, Bruce Tucker proposed a model of group dynamics popularly known as Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing. In a nutshell, Tucker’s model encompasses several distinct stages, beginning from a group’s creation through its maturation and ultimate evolution or extinction.
Online community managers will find that Tucker’s work is still relevant today. These same stages of creation and growth are evident within all types of social media. If you moderate blog comments, forum posts, product reviews, news feedback, podcast networks or participate in social gaming or virtual worlds, Tucker’s model should be of interest to you. This is especially useful if you want insight into how your community can achieve sustainability.
The Lifecycle of Online Communities
Let’s look at each stage in sequence and consider how Tucker’s model applies to today’s online groups. As you read the descriptions, try to identify within which stage your online community currently exists. Is your community flourishing? Do you need to shift your community toward a later stage? Or retreat to an earlier one?
In the early stages of group development, individuals rally behind a leader or core steering committee under a banner of broad challenge or opportunity. Enthusiasm is high, friendships form easily and people begin working on tasks. Everyone tends to be on their best behavior, but founding members operate independently with sense of autonomy and tend to be self-focused.
Successful groups leaders claim a position of authority by virtue of their experience, maturity, availability or simply because they are the ones laying the ground rules. Leaders frame guidelines on how the group will function and how its members will interrelate. This may be expressly written or socially implied through mission statements, codes of conduct and “leading by example.” Sharing the principles of group dynamics among group leaders and moderators can be very helpful in preparing people to encounter situations. (wink wink nudge nudge: share this article with your social media managers…)
In the Forming stage, group leaders should also watch for early emerging leaders. When I instructed ROTC cadets in various drill camps and leadership schools, we closely observed individuals in order to fill positions as squad leaders and flight commanders within the first few hours of training. Extroverts tend to rise because they naturally make themselves known to others, but introverts are just as capable of leading if they are prompted or invited to do so.
Reflection: Online Community Formation You probably have a good idea about how you’d like to steer the early stages of your web community. Read these questions to see if you’re on track and where you might adjust.
Stage 2: Storming
Ideas and Personalities Compete to Be Heard
Every group encounters a period of identity & self awareness, where members debate essential objectives and problems and how they should behave individually and within groups. This is also a stage where leadership authority, knowledge, style and capability is most apt to be judged as either appropriate or unsatisfactory.
Groups can pass quickly through this stage or they can collapse for a number of reasons. If a leader abdicates their early role as guide, role model and referee, then stronger personalities are poised to set the behavioral tone. If purpose and objectives are muddled, then people will argue or undermine others to prove that their ideas are superior. “Good” people that were initially motivated, engaged and participating will leave the group.
Another common community “soul killer” is the mouthy member that cannot help themselves from yapping. You know these people. They speak too often, for too long, and usually about issues that are irrelevant and self-serving. They overemphasize the minutia and obfuscate meaningful issues. They can make others uncomfortable by being too personal or act insensitively to others. They are not invited to speak by others, rather they tend to chime in on everything to imply deep personal wisdom, even if they just want to point out that they have no opinion on the matter. They moan, whine and grind their opponents. At the same time, these people can be overly welcoming and kind to new group members in an effort to win them to their side. Their immaturity is so evident, one is surprised to learn they aren’t a teenager (perhaps they are in netiquette terms).
If group leaders do not want to lose control of their group at such a critical stage, they need to act decisively to stifling, filibustering and flame wars. A good community manager brings a big bag of tricks with tactics in nuance, creativity, subtly and force. Like a good parent, group facilitators need to be ready to discipline, lead and teach. By applying a little parental love to your community, you can present an example of nurturing behavior amid disagreement and discord and move quickly past an otherwise painful growth spurt.
Reflection: Online Community Growth As your community vision extends to others, you inherently sacrifice messaging control. Learn from the mistakes of others, and look at the many brands handling this change successfully. Read these questions to help articulate new and persistent problems and suggest possible actions you can take.
Stage 3: Norming
Purpose, Cliques & Team Habits Form Groups that reach the Norming stage enjoy clarity about their goals and objectives. That clarity helps to draw its members into service of the group, so harsh infighting and sabotage tends to fall away before this stage.
Individuals promote themselves less, unless the group’s objective involves self-promotion like business networks, alliances and chambers of commerce. Even then, members support each other through introductions into spheres of influence beyond the group.
Members in this phase naturally attach to sub-groups of similar interests and tasks. Teamwork is stronger within sub-groups and sub-groups work more seamlessly with each other. Trust is built as people get to know each other and as the group accomplishes objectives. Collaboration is built through agreement on rules and the sharing of methods and tools.
Groupthink is a hazardous risk in the Norming stage, where new ideas and creativity are stifled in favor of process and status quo. Community leaders need to caution against group denial and echo chambers by recognizing their symptoms. They can avoid groupthink by remaining neutral and inviting fresh POVs when appropriate.
Hierarchy tends to flatten out during Norming compared to earlier stages. With a clear mission, collaboration and interpersonal issues worked out, leaders are able to assume more production tasks. Conversely, team leads may be established with more authority and control passed down and shared from Forming and Storming managers.
Reflection: Habit & Tone in Your Online Community As your community matures, you will recognize healthy attachment among its members. Your community may operate fine in this stage with minor maintenance and attention. Or you might want to tighten cooperation and press for higher performance. Reflect on your community to see where it is healthy and where it needs attention.
Stage 4: Performing
Teamwork & Efficiency Prevail
A few groups will achieve the Performing stage where everyone seems to be firing on all pistons. Milestones are accomplished and objectives are routinely met. Experience is high, so communities become a rich knowledge base.
Teams become interdependent and work together fluidly without the drama borne from unnecessary conflict. Dissent does exist as long as it is channeled in a manner that is acceptable to the group. Supervision is minimal as people are held accountable to each other. Decision-making resembles more of a populist democracy than a dictatorship or republic. Community leaders tend to be highly participative.
High performing teams may face circumstances that thrust themselves back to early stages. For example, the void left when early leaders leave a community can trigger a new Storming phase. I’m also reminded of the downtime caused by an explosion in the Planet’s H1 data center in Houston, an experience that sent its support forums into overdrive. Communities can experience these cycles of life over and over.
Browse the Big Boards to get a sense of what some of the largest communities on the web are doing. This is an outstanding resource for guerrilla social marketing.
Reflection: Sustaining High Performance Congratulations if your community has achieved a level of high performance. Take some time to think about how you can keep it going.
Post Mortem: Transforming and Mourning
Dealing with Change and Coping with Demise
Online communities are like living organisms that either adapt to internal and external changes or they will die. Think back to the big events in your life and they were almost always precipitated by change. Leaving home, starting school, starting a career, leaving a job, getting married and having kids all involve a death of sorts. One ceases to act or exist in one way when they change in another way. The same kind of death and renewal applies to groups.
I have seen leaders “kill” online communities and the reaction is not unlike real-world death. Feelings may not be as severe as losing a loved one, but members do experience a sense of loss like seeing your favorite TV show get canceled or saying goodbye to a friend that move’s away. This experience in virtual communities is not surprising considering the personal investment and real formation of human bonds.
Brand managers should consider this effect when transitioning campaigns or taking down social microsites at the end of a media flight (aka End of Life or EOL). If maintenance costs are truly inhibitive to effective ongoing community support, then the community should probably be taken offline. A diseased community can actually be harmful to a brand.
On the other hand, if long-tail benefits are evident and the group is operating at a strong Norming or weak Performing stage, the community may merit a plan for transition and ongoing maintenance, even if it only provides minimal support.
If you decide to maintain a community because participation and impressions justify the cost, then turn to your vendor partners for help in this transition. Good providers like Mango Mobile plan for EOL at the beginning of a campaigns. They are very flexible in either extending maintenance agreements or handing all assets back to the client for perpetual hosting. Another example is Blockdot in the advergaming space. They continue to support several widgets, social gaming and community applications well beyond the original EOL campaign schedule.
The life and energy of a social network benefits from early planning in the Online Community Lifecycle. Likewise, it benefits from planning at the end of life. Leaders can use Transforming and Mourning stages as an opportunity to publicly praise the group’s accomplishments. Individuals can be recognized, relationships can be acknowledged and achievements can be praised. People celebrate the birth of children and they gather to celebrate the life of those departed in death. The same kind of celebration can be introduced to the life and achievements of an online community.
Reflection: Changes and Death of an Online Community Your community may be on the verge of temporary or permanent transition. Consider these issues to decide if you should change or pull the plug.
Final Thoughts
Community Managers that want to work on their community, and less time in it should study Tucker’s model of group dynamics in the context of an Online Community Lifecycle. Just as a sapling needs light, nutrients, water and fresh soil, an online community can be groomed for healthy sustainable growth.
While writing about the Online Community Lifecycle, I recalled an episode I observed years ago during the “storming” phase of the Clark Howard Message Boards. I remember one particular real estate expert who was an absolute tyrant in the community. This guy knew his field extremely well, but he had zero patience for real estate noobs and those with whom he disagreed. He offered world-class advise, but would turn on a dime into a crass name-calling bully. For the life of me, the only reason I can fathom that Clark allowed this to persist is because he is a notoriously self-admitted cheapskate that didn’t invest in proper tools and personnel to sustain a vibrant community. Unfortunately, Clark allowed his community to fester and attack each other relentlessly, and were it not for his very popular radio show and books, it surely would have failed.
I found this member’s disposition to be quite amusing in spite of the anguish he caused. He really did know his stuff, even though his tough-love modus operandi ruffled feathers. I joined the group and started a new topic entitled “Ode to [whatever is name was].” I wrote a simple sonnet a la the meter of “There once was a man from Nantucket” about this particular individual.
This is an example of the off-beat first post I offered to cut through some of the forum bickering.
An Ode to Smith
There once was a man named Smith.
Who’s warnings were roundly dismissed.
The people replied
In anger and cried,
“What manner of man is this?”
In an amusing and respectful way, I essentially pointed out how smart this guy was. People needed to look past his curmudgeon persona and listen to the genuine knowledge he had to offer.
The response was very positive given that it was so personal. People came forward to give the guy the credit he deserved, yet inviting him to chill out. He appreciated the gesture, other lurkers came out of the shadows and several people even wrote their own poems; very funny in a stale financial forum.
Unfortunately, Clark’s moderator got wind of the thread and, incredibly, removed it because it didn’t meet some strict (and secret) rule about never ever under any circumstances deviating from financial discussions. Shortly thereafter and ever since, newcomers are assaulted with the glaring red warning to behave and to watch out for unscrupulous behavior, negative messaging that is sure to drive them straight to the shadows of Lurker Land.
The moderator’s decision was a real shame because we had planted a fun seed of comradeship and goodwill amid a well-intentioned community. Moreover, this online brand was desperately struggling to find a kind voice that welcomed new members. It’s remarkable because if you spend 2 minutes listening to Clark, you’ll hear a very gentle and humorous tone that was in stark contrast to the vitriol people encountered on his website at that time. I think the moderator’s seemingly hip-shot decision to stamp out any fun was a serious mistake for another reason as well: Community leaders should never forget that people are actually investing themselves when they contribute content. This investment strengthens a community and develops brand evangelists. And converting lurkers to active participants should always be nurtured whenever possible.
Thankfully, Clark seems to have learned some important lessons. His team has a presence on the boards and applies more consistent moderation. New visitors can see clearly demarcated subject matters to consume content relevant to them.
Clark also does an excellent job of directing his radio listeners to his website during his “Trash Clark” segment where he invites people to log on and leave feedback in his “Clark Stinks” forum. This strategy accomplishes two key objectives simultaneously. (Note: I hesitate to say “strategy” because I believe Clark’s success is in large part because he has a true servant’s heart. He cares deeply about his listeners.) First, by promoting his message boards, he is encouraging people to participate beyond listening and lurking. I’d wager his website enjoys long length-of-stays and very low bounce rates. It’s prime real estate for his radio advertisers which presumably could generate more revenue for some technology improvements.
Second, Clark provides a vehicle for people to give him direct public feedback, which amplifies his nice-guy approachable image. Few people actually bash Clark, but his gesture is very smart.
While part of this online community feels as though it’s clinging to adolescence, at least it has matured beyond puberty. Clark’s radio convergence and enthusiastic team shows signs of even greater potential.
I have been involved with interactive projects and web publishing since 1996. I will share my insights on interactive advertising, community and social media strategy, & engagement, web analytics, project management, leadership and technology.
I am married with two young children and devote considerable time to volunteering. I’ll publish irregularly.
When I’m in a consumer mode, I often click on individual tweeters to read their last series of posts. I gravitate toward different people depending on what mood/topic I’m interested in at the time. 
Fortunately, we responded so quickly that the brand ultimately only suffered mere annoyance. Working through cease and desist letters, we procured the rapid cooperation of the squatter’s registrar and hosting company. We reclaimed rightful domain ownership and even enjoyed brief AdSense exposure at the squatter’s expense.
HBO is experimenting with media convergence through it’s 
