Toellner Tells it

Keeping it real

It's easy to lose touch of reality sometimes.  Too easy.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to Blockbuster to rent a couple movies.  We don't watch many movies -- and when we do, we usually rent them on demand through our cable service...so this was the first time in a while I'd actually been to a Blockbuster.

Anyway, there was a young woman in the store who was very distraut that she couldn't rent any movies on VHS.  It was very sad...and you could tell her feelings were hurt, and she was a tad embarrassed that she didn't have a DVD player.  But in the inner-city, she is probably the norm, rather than the outlyer.

It's easy to forget that sometimes. I live in an advertising world full of early adopters.  Everyone I know has an I-pod, 2/3 of my office has a blackberry, 1/2 the office has a DVR, movies on demand, a video game systerm, satalite radio, etc.  Technology surrounds me.

And yet, this isn't the norm yet...and may never be.  We still live in a world where 35% of people live below the poverty level.  They may never have an MP3 player, DVR or even a DVD player.  These people are older people who see no need, inner city people have no means to get them, or rural folks who see no need or have no idea what the three letter acromnyms mean.

It's easy to lose sight of these people.  We never target them with our advertising message -- or with the products we produce.  Politicians don't run in the same circles as they do and forget that they too have needs.

It's easy to lose touch...but no one should let it happen.  So get out of your suburban neighborhood where everyone is just like you.  Live.  Meet some different types of people.  It's fun...and their outlook on life may be very different from yours...and you may become a much better person for learning that outlook.

The world is absent of news

Well, it's nearly official.  With very few exceptions, there is no real news any more...and I stumbled across two examples yesterday that pretty much proves its over.

My first example is from KCTV5 here in Kansas City -- granted, KCTV hasn't been a real news source in quite some time, but they actually outdid themselves on this one.  Last night, the lead story was "Pit Bull comes close to KCTV camera crew".  Holy crap!  In a metro area that is home to in the neighborhood of 20-30,000 pit bulls (ballpark, no one really knows), they actually SAW a  pit bull and caught it on camera. They showed the footage as the dog ran from their scampering camera crew, across a street and into a wooded area.  You'd have thought they were tracking the yeti.  This was the LEAD NEWS STORY.  It was pure comedy...right out of the Daily Show or Colbert Report.

Speaking of the Colbert Report, you'll love my 2nd example.  Apparently some real news networks (NBC, ABC) picked up an interview that Colbert did with a Senator from Florida that was running unopposed for his office.  As a joke, Colbert was trying to get him to say something that would cause him to lose the election if he was indeed running opposed and cohersed him into saying "I do cocaine because it's fun".  This statement got picked up by several major news organizations -- including Brian William's group.  Here's an article about it: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=110764 

I couldn't be more amused.  Seems like hard news and solid reporting isn't what it used to be.

Allowing good ideas to live

In Gordon McKenzie's book "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" (a must read for anyone who works in an organization of more than about 6 people) he dedicates one chapter to how he basically had a position as an advisor or sage.  For an entire year he appears to have done little but sit in his office, and when people brought him ideas, he told them how great the ideas were.  His thinking was that these people would hear so many no's along the way to implementing the idea, that he felt it was his job to be sure people felt like SOMEONE liked the idea.

This is how it is with most organizations. People come up with good ideas -- and they get shot down.  Maybe this person was in charge of ideas in this area in the first place.  Maybe the idea was bad.  Maybe the idea had been tried 10 years ago, so it definitely won't work now.  Maybe the person was jealous of the idea and shot it down.  It could be anything.  But I'd venture to say that nearly every person who has ever had an idea (which is most everyone) has had an idea shot down...even if it was a great idea.

This becomes even more true when agencies send ideas to clients. As if the agency person didn't have enough trouble getting it out the door in the first place, then they have to pitch the client -- who almost never seems to get the idea right away.  Or they tweak it a little and make it a bit their own. Then they sell it up to their boss who tweaks it again.  Then the sales guy makes a change, and next thing you know, the idea is a shell of the original. 

It only takes a few cycles of this before the ideator becomes frustrated.  Sometimes they leave, sometimes they move accounts, sometimes they continue through but only bring forth half-hearted ideas because a) they'll get shot down anyway or b) they don't love them anyway because it's less painful when they die that way.

Either way, it's a good way to not get the best ideas.

I'm not saying that ideas shouldn't be shot down...and that clients shouldn't tweak things...I'm just saying that our natural instinct is to provide input by finding fault in the idea.  Trying to make it better.  I just think it'd be a better, more creative world if our first instinct was always "This is great!" and moving on from there.  Because more often than not, if the idea isn't that good, it will be shot down by someone else....

Personal Responsibility

I'm a big fan of personal responsibility.  I think our society would be much better if we held people accountable instead of reflecting blame.  Don't sue Legos because your child choked on one...ask yourself why you let your child play with something he could choke on while unsupervised.

This whole pit bull debate in KC has put a whole new spin on personal responsibility.  If a dog gets loose and bites someone -- ban the dog!  Let's not hold the owner responsible for letting the dog loose.

Never has this come more to light than on Tuesday.  Tuesday at the Lees Summit public safety meeting the mayor of Lees Summit asked a question of the audience "what has happened to the people who were responsible for the incident in Independence".  She asked three times.  No one knew the answer.

There were two people from the Hill family that were in the audience. Both of these people have spoken on several occassions about banning pit bulls, because pit bulls were responsible for the injuries to their family member.  Yet, when the question came up about what had happened to the owner who had the dogs and what had become of him, they had no idea.  THEY HAD NO IDEA.  How is it that their family member was badly injured, and they've taken the time to go to multiple city council meeting trying to get pit bulls banned, and they had NO IDEA what penalties had been enacted on the person who owned and abused the dogs?

Baffling.

Personal responsibility is a wonderful thing...I believe in holding PEOPLE responsible for things.  And if it's my fault, I'll man up and say that it is.  Fix it, and move on.  I don't understand why people don't get this.

Viscious Dogs Volume 3

Ok, this has reached the point of being hilarious. Catch this news report from KCTV here in KC -- I'm actually going to post the whole store after the link in case wiser minds take over and take the link down:

http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/9545179/detail.html

PECULIAR, Mo. -- A dog attacked a 77-year-old woman Wednesday morning and then attempted to attack an officer, KMBC's Bev Chapman reported.

Police used a stun gun on the dog and shot at it, but it still attempted to run away.

The owner said the dog is half pit bull.

Georgie Brickers, who has a heart condition, said she was taking her daily walk along Soryl Avenue at about 6:30 a.m. when a dog attacked her.

"I was just walking along and all of a sudden, this pack of dogs just came on me. Scared me to death. I thought about running, but I thought it might make it worse," Brickers said.

"A neighbor sees it, pulls the lady into his pickup truck and calls 911," Police Chief Dean Kelly said.

Brickers was injured in her hip.

"It was a mom with babies, and it was the mom that was the mean one," Brickers said.

Chapman reported that officers answer calls of dog attacks throughout the metro area, but the pit bull breed is at the center of controversy this summer. Some cities are banning them or implementing dangerous dog restrictions.

Neighbors said the attacking dog has scared them before.

Police said they were attempting to talk to the dog's owner when the animal attacked again.

"As (officers) approached the front door, the dog attacks them from around the side of the house. One of the officers discharged his Taser. The other officer discharged his weapon three times. The dog yelled and ran through the gate that was open at the time," Kelly said.

After officers searched for several hours, the animal was captured unharmed at about noon in a nearby subdivision.

Brickers said despite Wednesday's scare, she will continue her daily exercise.

"I'm going to continue my walking. I'm not going to let those dogs stop me, and I'm going to find out for sure those dogs are under control," Brickers said.

Police said the dog's owner was cooperative, but he could face charges of harboring a dangerous animal, letting it run loose and not having an animal license.

The dog is being checked for rabies. Police said it hasn't had a shot since 2004.

______________________________________________________________________________

So now it has come down to reporting a story about a dog that didn't bite anyone?  Is that really news?  I mean, I went around yesterday and didn't get bitten by a dog either, why am I not on the news?  The dog was 1/2 pit bull.  Really?  That means it was 1/2 something else. And then the police in their insanity shot at the dog while it was running away...and he shot 3x and missed all three?  Remind me that if I commit a crime I should decide to do so in Peculiar.

Losing Trust

Now that my Star subscription is officially cancelled, I just came across Seth's blog entry on losing trust.  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/07/if_you_cant_mak.html

Seth uses astroturfing as a way to lose that trust...but it can apply to anything (including news coverage). 

I do think it's important to note that if you have worked hard and done the right things you will get forgiveness for small mistakes along the way.  But you have to earn that trust first...and if you do anything too bad, and really screw up that trust, there is almost no way you'll earn it back.

Inventing and Creating News

Check out the headline from yesterday's Star: "Action is Delayed on Dogs"

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/15065867.htm

This headline follows a meeting where Independence voted to significantly strengthen its dangerous dog ordinance and tabled a bill to ban pit bulls (which only one council member wants).

The reality is, Independence DID take action on the dogs, it just didn't match the agenda set up by the Star.

This comes on the heals of a meeting with mayor of Lees Summit who spoke to a reporter earlier in the day who admitted that their particular media outlet would only cover a dog bite if a pit bull was involved.

This comes on the heals of the Star running a huge front page article on dog fighting in the Sunday newspaper in spite of ongoing unrest in the middle east (which did appear as a sidebar).

Also of note is that North Kansas City met last night to briefly discuss their dangerous dog ordinance and breed-specific legislation only after "repeated" phone calls from the media that said they should.

At one point, the media reported the news.  Turns out now that they are in the business of trying to create news and sensationalize it.  They think this will help sell papers, but the reality is, there is too much accurate information to be found elsewhere...and people know it.  Until the news industry figures it out, ratings and circulations will continue to drop...and by the time they figure it out, it may be too late. 

The Long Tail and how Myspace capitalized

So I finally read the "Long Tail" -- not the book mind you (which in ironically in the Amazon top 10 right now in spite of it being a book about the lack of importance of the top sellers anymore) but the original Wired Article:  http://wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Obviously it's hard to argue with any of Chris's assessments in the Long Tail.  In fact, the Long Tail really explains a lot about the online world -- especially areas like Myspace, youTube, and Facebook.

One of the great things about networking sites like Myspace is that you can connect with anyone, anywhere, that has the same ideas and interests as you do.  In the old days, people formed clubs.  You need 4-5 people in your general area where you could meet with to talk about different subjects.  Thus, the Chess club was born.  You could have a club about anything as long as 4 or 5 people thought it was worth their time to talk about it.

The rules are the same for Myspace - -but now you can take geography out of it.  Now you only need 4-5 people in the entire world who care about something, and an online club can form.  You can have a club for people who died their pit bull purple, or who follow an unknown punk band, or play some game invented by aborigenies. It can be anything, and geography is unimportant.  So when you used to be the only person in Kansas City that cared (and thus, club meeting were quite boring), now you can meet with anyone anywhere on the subject.  That's pretty cool.  And as long as there is a club, more people will find it and join.

The internet has allowed us to connect with people that share our unique interests.  Chris talks about it in terms of selling books and CDs -- but it works for everything.  And as people have more diverse interests, and "clubs" about these interests, we're exposed to more and more opportunites.  It's pretty cool.  It does have its problems, which I'll write about later this week, but it has great opportunities.

Needing to be important

Airplanes fascinate me.  Not the planes themselves (although I admit that I think getting something that big to fly is pretty impressive), but by the people who ride them. 

Ten years ago I used to travel a lot with my job.  It was pretty common for me to strike up conversations with other business travelers along the way.  People don't talk to each other on planes anymore, or in airports. 

Now, in every airport in the country, 1/2 the people are talking on their cell phones -- loudly.  Working the phones. As soon as a plane lands, it becomes a race to pull out your phone/blackberry first to get that first call signal out. No time to waste.  Blackberry people are NOTORIOIUS for this as they will read their blackberries crossing the street, taking the stairs to their office, etc.

It's an interesting phenomenon. Technology has done wonders to make us more connected -- but it has also made us dependent.  Now, instead of our careers being defined by our ideas and thoughts, more and more they are defined by the emails we send, the virtual paper we shuffle, and the phone conversations we make. We've defined ourselves by staying connected...by being important to someone else.  By being sure we matter. 

After the last few weeks of being on the road some, I think most people could improve their work tremendously by unplugging in airports.  Basphemy.  But here are my suggestions:

1) Talk to other business people.  They're everywhere.  And their problems are more or less the same as yours - -and have tried the same things you're trying to fix them.  Learn from them.

2) Read more.  There is more information available to us than at any point in time in history.  Read.  Learn.  Carry a notebook and take down your best thoughts.  Refer to those best thoughts often.  Answer the questions.

3) Let whoever it is at the office who you feel like you need to check in with make some decisions on their own. Chances are, they're more than qualified to do so -- but not empowered to -- because you're not letting them.  Let them make decisions.  They'll appreciate the trust.  They'll grow faster, and you'll be able to give them more work to do so you can focus on projects that represent growth for you.  Empowerment is a wonderful thing.  Give it.  And if they have a question they don't feel good answering, they'll call.  But until then, leave them alone.

4) Meditate.  Not necessarily in a yoga/zin sort of way, but spend some downtime with your thoughts.  You'll be amazed at the great ideas that will come to you if you just give your mind time to actually think, instead of doing.  Spend less time doing, and more time thinking...your work will reflect the improvement.

5) If you MUST talk on your phone, talk quietly. Everyone else in that airport thinks that they are more important than you are and talking louder isn't going to change that.

How decisions are made

I've never quite understood New York City.  How can a city that has the most complex mass transit system in the world, and apparently the best tunnel diggers in the world and can build the Lincoln tunnel and every other tunnel in this city without the whole city colapsing, not have a train route from the airport to Manhattan?  Hundreds of thousands of people take that route every day -- and they don't have a route?

I'm going to go out on a limb here -- I really know nothing about the topic, and figure that the taxi driver's union prevented it from happening.  It was a sure way for them to maintain their business.  There may be a better explanation, but I sure can't come up with one.

Either way, I never cease to be amazed about the number of decisions that are made for the wrong reasons -- decisions that are made that affect entire companies, cities, states, etc that come out of cronyism or to help a friend of a friend.  It happens every day in organizations everywhere and is a sure way to make a decision that won't provide the best of service to the people who work or live there.