Almost everyone that reads David Brooks column today will disagree with it. Those on the left will read it and believe in their heart of hearts that all Republicans are really tiny minded ideologues who couldn’t care less about their neighbors. Those on the right will think that Brooks (as all big media does) fails to see the real Americans that talk radio, tea parties, and town hall meetings represent.
However, in the center of this great disagreement is great truth, and the bottom line on Brooks’ column is that he is right when he states, “The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity.”
There are a lot of conservatives that look at the cast of characters in media and as a good friend of mine says, “I wish they would get off my side.” I’m not wishing Glen Beck or Rush off of the air. They have a place and they can put pressure and raise stories that don’t get raised other places. But picking candidates isn’t their strong point. In order for them to be effective and to break through the media clutter they have to be out at the edges. They have to take risks and they have to fill time.
So, Gov. Pawlenty, I’m imploring not to take the media stuff too seriously on either side. Brooks is right in that getting out and talking to people will be the key. Health care has to be discussed, wars have to be evaluated, not all taxes are bad. The majority understands a president has to govern in that world, not the world that can cling to ideologies and sound bites. I think most of us also realize that we won’t always like your decisions. I don’t agree with you on a couple of big things, but I realize that knowing what specifically I disagree with you about is better than having you promise the moon and not deliver.
There is room for a conservative that tries to make sense somewhere besides the edges. It won’t always be comfortable, but to become that party that embraces disagreements and handles them well would be the real revolution.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Back from vacation
I had a lot of great ideas to blog about when I was on vacation. Yes, for three weeks I drove around, saw fascinating stuff, had interesting conversations, ate good food and in general lived a life worth blogging about, and I didn’t blog once. A day and half into a hard transition back to life in the real world and most of those great ideas are now gone, or at least fuzzy enough that they sound far less brilliant, but maybe that is the point.
For the past three weeks I was pretty disconnected. I didn’t worry about the checkbook (anybody know how I can make a quick $500, legal is preferred), how many emails were waiting for me, what was for dinner on that given night or many of the hundreds of things that make up my day to day existence.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my life. Part of what was really great about the vacation was spending all day everyday with my wife and kids. What I finally did on this vacation that I’m not sure I have done in the past decade or so is relax and in that relaxation, I think my brain worked better.
So, I’m back from vacation with a few lessons learned. The key one is that everybody should take a vacation. For me, I think I have learned that means a vacation from a schedule as well. One of the best things about vacation is that we had very few demands on our time, and we didn’t place any on ourselves either.
I’m sure there are other lessons, and I may get around to writing about them. But for now, I needed to get back on schedule and post a blog.
For the past three weeks I was pretty disconnected. I didn’t worry about the checkbook (anybody know how I can make a quick $500, legal is preferred), how many emails were waiting for me, what was for dinner on that given night or many of the hundreds of things that make up my day to day existence.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my life. Part of what was really great about the vacation was spending all day everyday with my wife and kids. What I finally did on this vacation that I’m not sure I have done in the past decade or so is relax and in that relaxation, I think my brain worked better.
So, I’m back from vacation with a few lessons learned. The key one is that everybody should take a vacation. For me, I think I have learned that means a vacation from a schedule as well. One of the best things about vacation is that we had very few demands on our time, and we didn’t place any on ourselves either.
I’m sure there are other lessons, and I may get around to writing about them. But for now, I needed to get back on schedule and post a blog.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
One more nutty Yellowstone Club story
On Sunday, the New York Times ran the first extensive interview with Edna Blixseth. While I would recommend that anyone interested read the story, I will sum it up here: the story of the Yellowstone Club really is bizarre on a number of levels.
One of the things that did occur to me after reading it was I may have been unduly harsh on members in the piece I wrote for the Montana Standard. Bill Gates may need a place to ski with his kids that doesn’t require security. That says something really sad about the world we live in, but I do see why some individuals may need the privacy. And if the club is as family-friendly as the article states, then maybe the ultra-rich have some problems I glossed over.
Still some things in the story really jumped out at me. Someone out there should really pay me to write a book about this because it has all the makings of a great one:
- The portrait of Edna Blixseth is really interesting. This is essentially a woman scorned story made no less bizarre by the fact that the author points out her current boyfriend is an ex-underwear model who had to sell his Bentley to keep things a float.
- Edna considers gardening a Zen practice, which sounds pretty normal until she adds she does it one hole at a time on her private golf course.
- I really wished I would have had this quote to work with in my piece on the club from a member who wanted to remain unnamed. He said in defending Tim Blixseth, “It’s that aggressiveness that got this thing off the ground, that got the lifts built, that got the forest land away from the government, that got the water rights. As long as it was working in our benefit, everybody thought it was great.” That quote kind of makes my Yellowstone Club as an extractive industry point in a lot fewer words than I used in the Montana Standard.
- The story ends with a description of Edna’s prayer ritual. It is kind of a typical tactic where someone far at the fringe of religious practice is held up as if to say, “See, people that believe in God are the nutty ones.”
Currently there is a song on country music radio that may have one of the great choruses in country music though it is a mediocre song overall. It may be the title of my eventual book about the Yellowstone club, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Velleity
Nerd alert: when I was in Mr. Mellang’s fourth grade class I used a thesaurus to help me write a short paper. I’m pretty sure I got some of the words horribly wrong, and sometime around college I swore off the thesaurus, but I still take great joy in finding the perfect word whose meaning matches the reality.
At a staff retreat I helped plan last week one of the participants introduced me to the word “velleity.” As defined by the free web dictionary it is “a mere fancy that does not lead to action.” The way it was presented during the meeting is less elegant buy equaling meaningful, “a problem you don’t care enough to do anything about.”
The retreat actually went pretty well. We spoke candidly about what needed to be changed, and challenged (maybe even too much) the status quo and spoke about what could be changed to make the place better. What was particularly good was that it seemed like making the place better wasn’t just to make our lives easier, but was centered more or less around the idea of accomplishing of a mission. So, if the retreat went so well why am I still haunted by the word velleity.
I think I’m haunted because trying to define the velleity is a humbling task. Andy Stanley in his book Visioneering brings forth the idea that every great vision begins as a moral imperative. It is the deep feeling within in us that a particular situation or problem is so unjust that it must be changed and we must be the person to do it.
It’s an important, but humbling question to ask, “What do I care about enough that I’m willing to do something about it?” Part of that question makes a person face up to what they are not willing to do anything part. I have joked for years that I don’t care enough about getting in shape to give up donuts. The unhealthy eating might be a problem, and I may complain, but it’s a clear velleity, because I don’t quit eating donuts.
I have a colleague about my age who was recently diagnosed with cancer. I wonder if I suddenly had to face my mortality in a real way that I would feel the moral imperative to better care of myself in order to be around to care for my family.
There is an organizational application as well, because I think it is clear that the things we don’t care enough about to act on that kill us. It’s the organization that talks about tighter cost controls but never puts them in place that ends up in real trouble. It’s the organization that waits for someday to invest in people that realizes at some point it has lost its best and brightest.
If a person doesn’t care enough to act on a problem, then that fact needs to be acknowledged. People and organizations that are honest enough to ask these tough questions seem to be a few steps ahead.
At a staff retreat I helped plan last week one of the participants introduced me to the word “velleity.” As defined by the free web dictionary it is “a mere fancy that does not lead to action.” The way it was presented during the meeting is less elegant buy equaling meaningful, “a problem you don’t care enough to do anything about.”
The retreat actually went pretty well. We spoke candidly about what needed to be changed, and challenged (maybe even too much) the status quo and spoke about what could be changed to make the place better. What was particularly good was that it seemed like making the place better wasn’t just to make our lives easier, but was centered more or less around the idea of accomplishing of a mission. So, if the retreat went so well why am I still haunted by the word velleity.
I think I’m haunted because trying to define the velleity is a humbling task. Andy Stanley in his book Visioneering brings forth the idea that every great vision begins as a moral imperative. It is the deep feeling within in us that a particular situation or problem is so unjust that it must be changed and we must be the person to do it.
It’s an important, but humbling question to ask, “What do I care about enough that I’m willing to do something about it?” Part of that question makes a person face up to what they are not willing to do anything part. I have joked for years that I don’t care enough about getting in shape to give up donuts. The unhealthy eating might be a problem, and I may complain, but it’s a clear velleity, because I don’t quit eating donuts.
I have a colleague about my age who was recently diagnosed with cancer. I wonder if I suddenly had to face my mortality in a real way that I would feel the moral imperative to better care of myself in order to be around to care for my family.
There is an organizational application as well, because I think it is clear that the things we don’t care enough about to act on that kill us. It’s the organization that talks about tighter cost controls but never puts them in place that ends up in real trouble. It’s the organization that waits for someday to invest in people that realizes at some point it has lost its best and brightest.
If a person doesn’t care enough to act on a problem, then that fact needs to be acknowledged. People and organizations that are honest enough to ask these tough questions seem to be a few steps ahead.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Texting in church!
So after trying to disprove last week that Twitter is sustainable, I had a fascinating experience with integrating technology into communication in a new way on Sunday.
My family doesn’t normally attend Westwood Community Church, but for a variety of reasons we went on Sunday. The pastor, used text messaging during the service. It was really well done. After a short tutorial, he encouraged people to text answers which were put up on the screen in real time. It was really engaging, and no I didn’t even text. My thumbs make me text impaired, but it was still fascinating and the positives far outweighed the negatives of a few folks by me who couldn’t figure out how to get their phones on “silent”.
The up shot is that it reminded me of something about technology and communication that seems to get missed. It is about the message first and the medium second. I know that is a theory not all people subscribe to, but the longer I work, read and think about communication the more I believe it is true.
As communicators, I believe that we need to figure out what the message or the story is first, and then figure out the best way to tell it. This point hit me two weeks ago when I rented the film “The Other Boleyn Girl”. It’s actually a pretty interesting story lost in a pretty bad movie. My estimation is that is because it’s not a movie, it’s a miniseries. There are far too many events and the motivations are too complex to cram into a little under two hours. It is a story that needs nuance and background, and without it you are left asking, “Now why would they do that?” about primary characters.
For what are probably a lot of sound commercial reasons they crammed the story into a movie format. It may make sense commercially, but if you care about the story it doesn’t make any sense.
Sustainability is a big word now for business. I’d apply it to communicators as well saying that commercial considerations may make sense, but the more sustainable option is to care about the message first and the medium second.
My family doesn’t normally attend Westwood Community Church, but for a variety of reasons we went on Sunday. The pastor, used text messaging during the service. It was really well done. After a short tutorial, he encouraged people to text answers which were put up on the screen in real time. It was really engaging, and no I didn’t even text. My thumbs make me text impaired, but it was still fascinating and the positives far outweighed the negatives of a few folks by me who couldn’t figure out how to get their phones on “silent”.
The up shot is that it reminded me of something about technology and communication that seems to get missed. It is about the message first and the medium second. I know that is a theory not all people subscribe to, but the longer I work, read and think about communication the more I believe it is true.
As communicators, I believe that we need to figure out what the message or the story is first, and then figure out the best way to tell it. This point hit me two weeks ago when I rented the film “The Other Boleyn Girl”. It’s actually a pretty interesting story lost in a pretty bad movie. My estimation is that is because it’s not a movie, it’s a miniseries. There are far too many events and the motivations are too complex to cram into a little under two hours. It is a story that needs nuance and background, and without it you are left asking, “Now why would they do that?” about primary characters.
For what are probably a lot of sound commercial reasons they crammed the story into a movie format. It may make sense commercially, but if you care about the story it doesn’t make any sense.
Sustainability is a big word now for business. I’d apply it to communicators as well saying that commercial considerations may make sense, but the more sustainable option is to care about the message first and the medium second.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Tweeting to distraction
Anybody remember “Rico Suave”. Yeah, I do to. It is something that got overplayed, overhyped, and now it’s just embarrassing when it gets stuck in your head and you can’t get it out.
I think the world is eventually going to feel the same way about Twitter. A Sports Illustrated article today talks about how Twitter is changing sports, or at least our relationship as fans with sports stars. While they provide some compelling evidence, Twitter as the hot thing isn’t likely to keep momentum, and there are some lessons to be learned.
Twitter isn’t really sustainable from a user or a reader platform on a mass basis. A short article by Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik on Nielsen reporting that most users opt out after the first months points this out. For average people, they realize pretty quickly that letting everyone know everything that you are thinking or doing takes a lot of thinking and doing. It violates one of the basic facts of good communication which is that it has to be interesting and most of us just aren’t that interesting on a minute by minute basis. If you need further proof read my blog.
From the perspective of a fan or listener, I will admit that Twitter appears to have more usage, but not across a broad spectrum. There are a group of people that care enough to follow Stewart Cink’s every thought, but the longer that goes on the more that crowd thins to a pretty interesting few. There isn’t a profit motive for Cink and it has the making of creating a strange relationship with fans. For instance, I can’t even imagine my wife wanting hourly updates about my life let alone anyone else.
So, for those of you in communication and marketing I would say that Twitter is a potential time killer without a lot of upside. Sure it can be used for some useful things, but on an individual level the work doesn’t necessarily lead to the benefits one might hope for.
I think the world is eventually going to feel the same way about Twitter. A Sports Illustrated article today talks about how Twitter is changing sports, or at least our relationship as fans with sports stars. While they provide some compelling evidence, Twitter as the hot thing isn’t likely to keep momentum, and there are some lessons to be learned.
Twitter isn’t really sustainable from a user or a reader platform on a mass basis. A short article by Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik on Nielsen reporting that most users opt out after the first months points this out. For average people, they realize pretty quickly that letting everyone know everything that you are thinking or doing takes a lot of thinking and doing. It violates one of the basic facts of good communication which is that it has to be interesting and most of us just aren’t that interesting on a minute by minute basis. If you need further proof read my blog.
From the perspective of a fan or listener, I will admit that Twitter appears to have more usage, but not across a broad spectrum. There are a group of people that care enough to follow Stewart Cink’s every thought, but the longer that goes on the more that crowd thins to a pretty interesting few. There isn’t a profit motive for Cink and it has the making of creating a strange relationship with fans. For instance, I can’t even imagine my wife wanting hourly updates about my life let alone anyone else.
So, for those of you in communication and marketing I would say that Twitter is a potential time killer without a lot of upside. Sure it can be used for some useful things, but on an individual level the work doesn’t necessarily lead to the benefits one might hope for.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Until the next Yellowstone Club Lawsuit
There are some very happy moments in my life when I think, “This can’t be real.” At some moments I feel so blessed by who I get to be with, or what I am doing that it seems like too much.
I wonder if the person that wrote the statement for Sam Byrne, managing partner of CrossHarbor felt that way. In the Billings Gazette on Wednesday Byrne is quoted as saying, "We are extremely pleased that the future of the club has been secured and we can now turn our focus to serving the needs of our members and enhancing our world-class private living and recreation community.”
I wonder if he had a smile on his face and thought, “This can’t be real,” because the situation is so insane. The club is still coming out of bankruptcy, there are still contractors and others waiting to get paid but the winning buyer in the auction for the club can focus on delivering fluffier pillows or whatever it takes to engage in world-class private living. I didn’t even realize I didn’t have a world-class private life before I read that statement. Imagine my embarrassment.
There is another interesting statement in the story that really highlights for me why this should be a bigger story and why there should be more discussion. In saying they were satisfied with the settlement a lawyer for club members said they were satisfied because the settlement “. . . will allow the resort to resume full operations and pay almost all of its unsecured creditors.” I’m intrigued by the idea that it will pay almost all of its unsecured creditors. If I read that right, the members are pleased that it is business as usual for them, even if that means that some of the labor that went to creating Shangri-la goes uncompensated.
My Aunt Terry had a good point in an email commenting on the MT Standard piece. She reminded me that even strip mining is obligated to try and make the land whole after they are done. Apparently I was unfair to the strip mining industry and other extractive industries when I compared them to the Yellowstone Club.
I wonder if the person that wrote the statement for Sam Byrne, managing partner of CrossHarbor felt that way. In the Billings Gazette on Wednesday Byrne is quoted as saying, "We are extremely pleased that the future of the club has been secured and we can now turn our focus to serving the needs of our members and enhancing our world-class private living and recreation community.”
I wonder if he had a smile on his face and thought, “This can’t be real,” because the situation is so insane. The club is still coming out of bankruptcy, there are still contractors and others waiting to get paid but the winning buyer in the auction for the club can focus on delivering fluffier pillows or whatever it takes to engage in world-class private living. I didn’t even realize I didn’t have a world-class private life before I read that statement. Imagine my embarrassment.
There is another interesting statement in the story that really highlights for me why this should be a bigger story and why there should be more discussion. In saying they were satisfied with the settlement a lawyer for club members said they were satisfied because the settlement “. . . will allow the resort to resume full operations and pay almost all of its unsecured creditors.” I’m intrigued by the idea that it will pay almost all of its unsecured creditors. If I read that right, the members are pleased that it is business as usual for them, even if that means that some of the labor that went to creating Shangri-la goes uncompensated.
My Aunt Terry had a good point in an email commenting on the MT Standard piece. She reminded me that even strip mining is obligated to try and make the land whole after they are done. Apparently I was unfair to the strip mining industry and other extractive industries when I compared them to the Yellowstone Club.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
