THERE'S NO FREE CABLE IN THE GAME OF OLIGOPOLY

It’s only a matter of time before people start asking the obvious question.

“Why in fuck’s garden am I paying $147 a MONTH to watch television?”

This is the question I asked myself a couple of weeks ago while adding up our household’s monthly expenses. Seems like just yesterday my cable bill was $35. How did we get here?

When did the cable bill feel more like a monthly shakedown? And why do we reflexively pay whatever they say it’s worth without questioning it? Because alternative would be anti-American!

Ours is a culture of connectedness. We love being in the know. Unplug that connection and we end up on the information fringe wondering what everyone else is talking about. The information fringe is not the most desirable place to be, unless you're moving to Idaho and swearing off human interaction altogether. In which case, your cable bill is likely the least of your problems.

The bottom line is, if you want to function socially in this society, you have to have access to some basic info-tainment. You have to have cable.

So we fork it over – month after coffer-draining month.

I don’t know about you, but my monthly cost mysteriously climbs a little higher with every statement. $114. $123. $142. $156. $177. Go back and look at yours over the past year. Upsy daisy!

When times are good and consumer confidence is soaring, we don’t really question highway robbery – we just stick our hands up in the air with a smile and say, “Take all you want, we’ll make more!”

But in tighter times, as our nation’s “hopeful” leader projects unemployment figures above 10% in the near term, more and more people are starting to think about what they’re getting for their money.

And for our cable money, I’d say we’re getting screwed.


CLUB CABLE IS ALL THE RAVE

It’s all there in black and white.

Your monthly statement outlines everything you “get” for price you are paying. But if you read between the line items you’ll see that the cable company is merely passing along someone else’s content…for a fee. And that fee – consistently my highest household bill – is established by two old, white businessmen making a $1 bet in the bathroom over how much they can charge us before we cancel. Thanks to our unhealthy obsession with information, Randolph and Mortimer Duke have us by the short and curlies.

CONSIDER THIS

Unlike every other utility bill you pay, cable costs are not based on how much TV you consume. You pay full price for it every month whether you use it or not. It doesn’t matter how many hours or channels you watch in a month, you will pay the same amount.

In essence, the cable fee is all about ACCESS. It’s the $20 cover charge you eagerly hand the doorman at the hot new nightclub. It’s a platter full of all-u-can-eat TV. It’s a front row seat on the couch.

And if you don’t like the price, don’t buy it. Right?

That’s certainly true in a competitive environment where other companies can step in and provide the same or similar service for less. Competition tends to be good for consumers because it forces companies to provide more for less.

But if you closely evaluate your options, you’ll see there’s very little competition in the cable market.

The cable industry is a classic example of an oligopoly, in which a few companies enjoy complete, unchecked control over an entire market.

If you want to stay connected via phone, television, or Internet, and depending on where you live, you have limited options.

Here I am in the nation’s third most populated metropolitan area and I have exactly TWO cable television options, and the most significant difference between them is the logo on their statement.

What about satellite?

The dish companies have taken considerable market share away from the cable companies in recent years, billing themselves as lower-cost alternatives to cable, but they live and die by the same, lucrative business model that charges a monthly access fee. You don’t buy the dish and call it a day…you have to SUBSCRIBE to a monthly SERVICE.

Make no mistake about it – satellite communications companies are part of the oligopoly.

But the news isn’t all bad. Here’s a look at the future:

http://bit.ly/xTygC

Companies like this one are probably why the cable companies are hell bent on raking it in hand over fist while they can. The captains of cable are no dummies. They see the writing on the wall, like oil barons panicking and price gouging before the green revolution takes hold.

MARKETING BRILLIANCE!

If you were in charge of marketing for one of these cable companies, you’d have a pretty big job. You’d have to convince people, somehow, that they’re getting a great value for all that money. And that’s not an easy task when folks like me are out here with a megaphone screaming, “Why in fuck’s garden are we paying all this money for cable??!?!?”

I mean, how would you talk otherwise rational people into making monthly payments of $150 for access to anything?

I’m in marketing, so I’ll tell you how.

BIG numbers in colorful fonts!

We’re trained to assume that prices MUST be good when they’re blown up huge on a postcard or in a newspaper ad. We’re bombarded by so many offers, we don’t have the time or attention span to focus on them all. We just trust that the offer MUST be good or why else would they be showing it off like it's the best deal since the Louisiana Purchase.

Out of curiosity, I recently went to Comcast.com and looked up their normal, non-promotional price for basic cable. BASIC cable. Not the expanded basic – just access to what they consider your “basic” channels. I found it in the small print.

$59.98 a month.

I was speechless. $60 a month for BASIC cable? How is that even remotely reasonable? Am I so out of touch with the cost of things that I don’t recognize real value anymore? This is their starting cost, remember – everything else is an add-on. The next tier. Premium channels. Converter box rental. DVR. HDTV. All extra.

Reality is obscured, of course, by the really big number in the colorful font:

$29.99/month!

Now THAT sounds reasonable. If only it were true.

CABLE IS NOT REALLY PRO-CHOICE

You do have choices when it comes to ordering cable service. You don’t have to order 450 channels, all the top tier pay channels, and the kitchen sink. You can scale it down to something a little more reasonable, like 250 channels and HBO.

What you CAN’T do is the one thing that you would like to do: pick your own line up. And it’s not because they can’t manage this from a technology standpoint – it’s because it would hammer their bottom line. This is how they make their money.

They disguise their packages as choices – but you really don’t have much of a choice.

We are forced to select an all-or-nothing “package” and pay a set cost, regardless of how much we watch. They call it a “service” fee. I don’t know what your experience has been with your cable company, but “service” is probably not the best word to describe that fee.

Even the most caffeinated and ADD-riddled among us have little use for the overwhelming number of channel options that come with these packages.

Sane people simply don’t have the need for 300 channels. Or 200. Or even 100 for that matter. In fact, if you took an audit of the programs you watch over the course of a week, you’d likely find that you watch around a dozen or so channels – give or take a few.

The Consumers Union recently reported, “The average household watches no more than a dozen to 17 channels.”

The rest of those channels are just noise, and nuisances you must flip past to get to the channels and programming you do want to watch.

If this is the case, why can’t we just pick the channels we actually watch and pay for those? How much are we paying for the OPTION to watch the other 288 channels?

BASIC CABLE MATH

Let’s say you get a promotional package that offers 300+ channels for $59.99. That comes to about .20 cents per channel per month. If you only watch 12 of them, that’s just $2.40 out of the $59.99 you’re paying. So you’re essentially paying $57.59 every month for the option to watch something else.

Deal or no deal? I don’t need to be a banker to know the answer to that one.

IN DEFENSE OF CABLE

To be fair, it’s important to acknowledge the relationship between cable channel producers (Disney, Fox, Viacomm, etc.) and the cable companies. The channel producers sell the rights to rebroadcast their content to the cable company, which then passes along that cost to us.

Guess what happens when a channel like, say, ESPN, starts enjoying a larger audience share? They assume their content is worth more and charge the cable company more money to offer it as part of their “basic” package.

And guess who ends up paying for that? YOU do. This is how basic cable gets jacked up to $60 month. I don’t know about you, but I think the cable channel producers are double-dipping. They take in ad revenue, airing commercials we are forced to endure…and then also charge cable companies for permission to carry their content. I declare shenanigans!

The cable companies contend bundling is the best way to provide maximum viewing options while keeping costs down. But as channels become more popular, the producers start bumping up their prices knowing the cable companies will pay because the demand is there. And the cable companies get blamed for the costs. They ought to use some of their oligopoly influence and stand up for consumers for a change. Tell those double-dipping producers to fly a kite.

WHY ARE THERE ADS ON CABLE TELEVISION?

Think about this for a second. Broadcast television has been free for decades.

FREE. No charge. Turn on your set and watch.

How is that possible?

Yes – ADVERTISING. Advertising dollars finance the development, production and broadcast of content, which is in turn leveraged to collect more advertising dollars, and so on and so forth. It’s a nice little system that makes complete sense because we can all see exactly how it works.

Content is free to us because advertisers pay for it. Maybe we watch their ads, maybe we don’t. But that’s the drawback to advertising: you can’t MAKE people watch or read your shit. You can only put it out there and hope.

As a creative advertising professional, it’s often been my challenge to develop compelling, relevant ads that resonate with people. This is how we support and sustain the cycle of free content.

Good ads work, and keep companies investing in the medium. But as ad dollars shift, the medium starts to fade. Look at what happened to the print news industry. Companies moved their marketing dollars online, primarily at the expense of newsprint. Without ad support, the medium stands on the verge of collapse, and desperately needs to change its communications ideology to reestablish consumer relevance if it is to remain a viable channel.

How does this relate to cable television? Well, there’s the free-content-supported by-advertising model…and then there’s another model.

HBO, believe it or not, surfaced in 1972. They had a different approach. Instead of offering free content supported by advertisers, they went straight to consumers and said: If you pay us directly, we’ll provide uninterrupted programming.

37 years later, they’re still alive and kicking – for two simple reasons:

1.) The content is good
2.) People are willing, when they’re able, to pay for it

And this just begs the question: Why should we pay to watch channels that are supported by advertising? Why aren’t advertising-supported cable channels free anymore, like they’ve always been?

TNT. Bravo. HGTV. VH1. The History Channel. They all sell commercial time to support the production and distribution of the content they broadcast. They’re on the “free” TV model, yet we pay for them like we do for channels that don’t have advertising. Why? Somewhere along the way the cable companies changed the rules on us and we didn’t notice.

STOCKPILE CABLE NOW!
Consider this. Cable is not a finite resource like the rest of the utilities you pay for. If you use more heat in the winter, you’re going to have a bigger bill because you’re consuming finite resources that someone else can’t use. Not so with cable.

The more television you watch does not leave less television for someone else.

If you use more gas, electricity, or water, you’re consuming resources that someone else can’t use – so individual usage is an important determining factor in establishing the cost.

With cable television, this is not the case. There’s a signal pumping 24/7 to your TV whether it’s on or not – and it’s not in danger of running out. There aren’t going to be rolling cable blackouts if too many people tune into American Idol at the same time. Your hometown isn’t going to announce “no cable” hours to conserve television. And you’re certainly not “wasting” cable if you let it run it overnight. Electricity, maybe...but not cable.

Cable isn’t a traditionally distributed commodity with a market value based on the amount we use versus the finite amount that is available. And that means the price of cable is almost completely arbitrary!


THE COST OF DELIVERING THE WORLD
We’re paying for unlimited access to a virtually unlimited resource – and that cost can be whatever the market will bear. Right now, the market is bearing a lot more than it needs to, in my humble opinion.

Why do we do it? Why do we let the cable companies fleece us repeatedly month after month? I understand there are hard costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure of the network. But what exactly are those costs?

Except in the case of a handful of local cable access channels, cable companies aren’t responsible for creating any of the programming content we watch on television. They just provide the connectivity – that magical switch they can flip without warning from a desk in Mumbai and shut you down instantly if you miss a payment. (Don’t ask me how I know that)

Many cable companies use independent contractors to fulfill their installation and service technician needs, while outsourcing their customer service and technical support needs to the Asian subcontinent because it’s marginally cheaper than employing your out-of-work cousin Glen. Maybe if Glen would quit smoking he wouldn’t be so damn expensive to insure. But now I digress…

The point is, what kind of operational and infrastructure maintenance costs are really required here?

It’s not hard to imagine a company like Comcast employing about 6 people here in the U.S. and running the entire operation out of the back of a pimped out van. What are they are physically providing in exchange for unlimited access to a virtually limitless resource? My home still has the same cables running to it we had last month. And the month before. And the month before that.

AN ALTERNATIVE THAT MAKES MORE SENSE
Why can’t cable companies bill us for what we use like the rest of the utility companies? Bill me per channel if you want. Or by the hour. At least then I can decide which channels, or which shows, to watch and pay for instead of paying for hundreds of channels that I never asked for, don’t want, and will never watch.

Then at least I would have some control over my monthly costs instead of the control I have now: $0 for no service, $60 for basic TV, $100 for expanded TV, $150 for God’s control room.

Let me build my own channel line-up. Or give me cable minutes like a cell phone plan. Give me some kind of a billing system that doesn’t make me feel like I’m getting mugged every month.

BUT WAIT – THERE’S MORE!
Reviewing my bill I also noticed that my cable company makes me pay to rent THEIR video converter boxes, which I need in order to receive their service. That’s like selling someone a car and making them pay extra for the keys...every time they drive it!

SO NOW WHAT?

Rest assured, the model will be changing again...thanks to the Internet, of course. There are already a handful of sites boasting free television through your computer – one of which I offered earlier.

In the same way that companies like Skype are offering FREE phone calls via the Internet (which really works, by the way), it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to deliver the content we crave without the arbitrary and excessive costs meted out by the middle man and his double-dipping accomplices.

Until then, however, if we want inside Club Cable, we need to hand that cash to the man at the door...because the government is letting these clowns play unregulated in the oligopoly gardens.

CONFESSIONS OF A RETIRED SHITSLINGER

I’m a shitslinger. There’s no way around it. I like to sling shit.

Literally – not figuratively, metaphorically, or otherwise.

Every time I tie up that little blue shit bag, weighted with the warm compact butt nuggets from our well-fed terrier mix, I think about winding that shit up and letting it fly.

Is that wrong? Is it, though?

Is it really?

Let me back up for a moment.

When I was 15, growing up in Chicago, I had a very important job. It was my household chore to walk to our family dog – a shepherd collie mix – down three flights of stairs every night, rain or shine, up and down the alley behind our house, until she finally found an agreeable place to plant her signature dogpile.

Some nights it would take her two minutes to find that perfect patch of gravelly heaven. Sometimes she’d sniff every split in the pavement, taking 20 minutes or more to identify a shitworthy canvass for those repug-nificent works of arse.

Only one thing was certain those nights – when she was done doing her business, I was in the shitslinging business.

Back then, they didn’t really have all of these fancy pile-sized "hand" bags that they do these days, so I had to follow her around with a crumpled up plastic grocery bag. Sometimes the bags had holes in them that you couldn’t see in the dim alley light at night, but you were sure to FEEL them if you squeezed the assfruit a smidge too hard.

For some reason, when you’re 15, it doesn’t occur to you that slinging shit is a bad idea. You don’t think about where it goes, or who’s going to clean it up later. You just know that it liberates you in some mysterious way. Nope - when you're 15 - slinging shit is a perfectly sane, sensible thing to do because...well, why not?

So when my canine companion would finally rise from that signature shit stance, kicking up stones and dust with her hind feet, I’d swoop in with my plastic falcon to swiftly extract the crap from the concrete. In a single motion, I’d deftly pull the bag handles forward, trapping the crap inside the bag, and tie the top into an awkward bunny-eared bow.

Making sure the coast was clear, I’d spin a couple times imagining I was an Olympic shitslinger going for the gold. Like a shot putter, or a discus thrower, I’d leverage the momentum of my rotating torso and let that turdpedo soar into the night sky - target unknown.

Most of the time I would lose sight of it, a muffled rustle somewhere in the distance confirming that my payload had found purchase, and almost wetting my pants with glee in the process.

My parents had no idea I was out slinging shit all over the neighborhood at night, until that fateful Spring morning. My mother screamed my name in a way I knew I had been discovered. I ran to meet her out on our third floor porch. We looked down from our perch at the maze of telephone lines and garbage cans in the back alley.

The snow outside had melted overnight after a long, cold winter, revealing a gloriously macabre sight.

All up and down the alley, for blocks in both directions, the garage rooftops were dotted with plastic bags of shit. They had frozen in place where they landed, night after night, most standing upright, the handles all tied in tight bows. At a glance, someone might have thought an airplane full of skinny white Easter baskets had airdropped its cargo all over the north side neighborhood.

There had to have been a hundred bags of thawing dog shit on those rooftops, if not more.

Somehow, my mother had me pegged for a shitslinger, because she knew in an instant that this work had my signature all over it. I could not deny it. I was laughing too hard. I was also grounded for months. And worse – my shitslinging days were all but over.

Flash forward to today and I find myself struck by the same impish urge to do something I now recognize is – more than simply mischievous – just plain wrong. Only now my juvenile urges are laced with an unhealthy dose of creativity.

As I walk the dog back home, I envision all the “fun” I could have with that tiny blue bag of dog shit.

I see the open sunroof of an expensive luxury car and I think, “Time is winding down...he drives, spins, fakes, pivots, fakes again, shoots...it's up and...he SCORES!!”

I notice an open window walking past a neighbor’s house at night and wonder how fast I would have to run to escape visual ID after pitching a plastic-wrapped pile of poop onto their dining room table.

I look at the mailboxes on the street corner and wonder if the post office would ever be able to return that shit to sender.

I see cyclists as moving targets. I see condo balconies as a chance to elevate my game. I see busy intersections as a crap shoot.

And I see garbage cans as joining the ranks of adulthood.

I know my wife, for one, is thankful I have thus far managed to silence the menace within, surrendering to adulthood night after night, and depositing those little blue bags in the trash where they belong.

But that doesn’t stop the shitslinger in me from dreaming. Because every time I tie up that little plastic bag, weighted with those warm compact nuggets from our well-fed terrier mix, the 15 year-old in me remembers the liberation I felt years ago from setting that shit free.

Sometimes you just gotta let shit go. It is, after all, the best way to know if that shit's gonna fly.

IT'S THE LOGO, STUPID

My wife is getting a fleet car through work, so we've been looking to sell one of our other vehicles. The fleet car will be nice to have, even if it's not something we would have picked out ourselves.

Thinking it through, we understood that it's not mandatory we take the fleet car, but it just wouldn't make much sense to turn down a FREE car - free insurance, free gas, free tolls, free oil changes, free car washes...well, you get the point.

So, after about 14 seconds of deep consideration, I elected to say goodbye to my ivory pearl Infiniti G35 and hello to [crowd applauds excitedly] our brand new Ford Fusion!

[Crowd quickly quiets, soft whispers and groans continue]

Sexy, I know.

While I wasn't initially jazzed by the thought of parting with my sporty ride, I knew I would come to appreciate the financial benefit of freedom from car-related expenses. As you are likely aware, car costs can really add up - and getting rid of that steep monthly payment will be like finding cash in a paper bag on our doorstep every month (minus the sideways glances up and down the block as you spirit quickly back inside with the dough).

Still, there's been something about the Ford Fusion that hasn't exactly stirred up a whole lot of excitement in me. It's a brand new car, I keep telling myself. It's going to have a sunroof and play MP3 files and smell like heaven's foyer.

Why aren't I more excited about this?

I started noticing Ford Fusions on the road this week and thinking, "That's not so bad, is it?" And it really wasn't. In fact, sometimes I'd see a pretty sharp looking car and think, "I really like that car!" before realizing it was a Ford.

Funny how much something as small as a logo can influence our feeling about something.

And that's when it dawned on me. It's the brand, silly! The "Ford" name does not live in that part of my brain where I store all of the cool stuff, like "iPhone," "Banana Republic," and, "Infiniti."

Why is that? How did Ford end up in the anti-cool bin? Out of curiosity, and while I was waiting for the longest red light in the world to turn green, I began a thought exercise in which I mentally replaced the Ford logo - that hideous, outdated script font inside a blue oval - with an Infiniti logo.

BAM! Just like that, the "Infiniti" Fusion was one sweet-ass set of wheels.

I immediately wondered if the folks at Ford had figured this out yet - that they could probably increase sales among key American demographics (i.e. people who buy cars) simply by replacing their logo with a new symbol of some kind. Sure, there's brand equity in that logo...but with what demographic? And aren't those people too old to drive anyhow?

This is the power of branding, as they say. So much of the focus in marketing over the past 15 years has been on building strong brands so that people recognize you and know what you're all about. But what happens when people recognize you and associate you with "inferior, uncool product"?

I personally don't dislike the Ford brand - I just don't FEEL like driving any of their cars when I see that logo.

When I see a BMW, Audi, or Acura logo, on the other hand, my eyes turn green and I start salivating. Slap one of those logos on a rusty tractor and I'm sold...because the feeling I get when I see those brands makes me want to drive whatever it is they're putting on the road.

I recently read that one of the keys to companies turning around the American automaker market will be building better products that people want. But I'm in marketing, and the fact is there are a lot of people out there who don't know what they want until someone tells them. Product is only one of the 4 P's.

In my opinion, the recovery is going to require a major reprogramming of a few brand platforms until labels like Chevy and Ford no longer trigger a sensation of nausea. They need to become symbols of innovation, evolution, and rebirth.

From the ashes, a phoenix rises. A Phord Phoenix.

If I'm in charge of Ford, I start with the logo. Right now. That logo is toast. It's time for a 21st century look for a 21st century carmaker. I've been told that the 2010 Fusion is actually a decent machine, but too many people (like me) won't be able to see past that logo.

And come to think of it, the Ford name should probably go, too.

How about Fjord, instead? That has a nice European sound to it, no? The 2010 Fjord Fjusion is one sleek and sexy ride.

I'M SOLD!

I would like to close this post with a wee bit of Brady wisdom for the brand executives at Ford.

As Peter and the other Brady kids once belted out, "When it's time to change you've got to rearrange...move your heart to what you're gonna be."

So what are you gonna be?

THE TWITTER STAMPEDE

Interactive advertising "Admaven" Nicholas Kinports says "Everybody Hates Social Media." It's a good post that discusses some observations in the marketplace regarding trends in the promotion of social media marketing.

I replied to his post with my observations, and build upon them here for further discussion.

**********************
RE: Everybody Hates Social Media

I sense that a lot of companies and clients are just now becoming curious about social media marketing because the traditional media din has been deafening. CNN reports, newsprint articles, and online columns have been hammering the business community with forecasts for a “new age” in marketing where consumers are calling the shots – and social media is the best/only way to reach them.

This has a lot of marketing folks scrambling to take action fast, so as not to get left behind. But in the rush to Twitter and Facebook, I think they’re missing out on something fundamental to marketing of any kind: strategic planning. First, many are simply new to the idea and don’t yet fully understand the potential value in social media marketing. I would recommend these people become familiar with its nuances on a personal level so they can identify potential business applications for the medium. Having someone explain to you how it works can only produce a dim glimmer in the lightbulb above your head.

Second, once there is a better understanding of how people interact in these popular communities, I think there must be time set aside for the development of a coherent plan and strategy for integrating social media efforts with existing and planned initiatives across channels. In other words, you can't just start Twittering and expect a return on the investment. You have to strategically build it into the mix.

I don’t personally hate social media, but I do believe ubiquitous media coverage is inciting an online stampede of well-intended marketers destined to get it all wrong. Like anything, taking the time to get it right, which can also mean spending the money, can pay huge dividends down the road.

EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT SURVIVING THE RECESSION I LEARNED WATCHING SURVIVOR

Even while there are signs the economy is improving, the job market is anticipated to be among the last to rebound. That means continued job hemorrhaging is likely in the months ahead. As companies of all sizes look for ways to cut costs but cutting people, I look to Survivor (as I so often do) for some tips to avoid the chopping block.

Here are the Top 10 Survivor tips for surviving the recession:

10.) MAKE FRIENDS – Nobody likes the grumpy guy who complains about everything and never goes out drinking with the crew. If you’re bad for morale, you’re an easy cut. Play nice with others and you’ll make it to the final nine.

9.) CATCH FISH OR MAKE FIRE – Be valuable. Even the most adored contestants wear their welcomes thin by lazing about. In business as in Survivor, your special skills will get you every bit as far, if not farther, than your personality.

8.) WIN CHALLENGES – If you want layoff immunity, you’re going to have to fight for it and there are plenty of everyday workplace challenges that will give you an opportunity to shine. Be the first one in every morning. Fill up the paper tray. Run that presentation to Kinko’s at the 11th hour. If someone’s going home, it won’t be you.

7.) FLY UNDER THE RADAR – Use discretion. Don’t leave your resume laying on the photocopier. Stop humming obscure showtunes in your cube. Log out of your Facebook account when you break for lunch so people don’t see that you’re “hardly working again – I love my job.” Shower. The obnoxious players who stick out as oddballs or anti-establishment are always among the first to get the boot.

6.) FORM AN ALLIANCE – Stay close to the office untouchables to become untouchable yourself. Buddy up at lunch. Carpool. Walk to the train. Get to know and trust key people and you’ll have extra ears and eyes to alert you when the whispering begins. You’ll also have advocates and allies to defend your reputation at senior leadership's tribal council.

5.) KNOW THE PLAN – How many times have we seen the Survivor folks smugly strutting about camp just hours before getting the axe? They feel safe and invincible in their naïveté, but the fact is if you don’t know what the plan is, you’re probably not part of it. Get involved, stay active, and don’t take your position for granted.

4.) LEAD AND FOLLOW – Strike a balance between teamwork and leadership. It’s good to follow direction, but order-takers are easily replaced. You need to show initiative, too. Step up your efforts and prove your ideas have merit. Just don’t come on too strong because nobody likes a bossy barker. Congratulations – you just made top 3.

3.) SHARE YOUR REWARDS – Generosity can take you a long way – in Survivor and in life. You definitely want people saying nice things about you behind your back. When you receive credit or praise for a job well done, make sure to acknowledge the support of your co-workers, and the expert guidance of your superiors.

2.) HUMILITY OVER HUBRIS – If you’re among the fortunate few to make it to the end, there’s one final hurdle to clear: your peers. Remember all those coworkers you lied to, misled, and stabbed in the back to keep your job? Don’t brag about how smart you are for outlasting them all. Acknowledge their misfortune, be sympathetic to their plight, and win them over with your character. You’ll gain votes of confidence from these people for life.

1.) THE GAME EVENTUALLY ENDS – This is important to keep in mind wherever you go and whatever you do. Some people feel like it’s the end of the world when they hear those dreaded words: “Corporate has spoken…it’s time to go home. Grab your stuff.” But NOTHING is permanent in today’s business world. The marketplace is in constant flux, so if you’re not the sole survivor this time, take your experience down the street and apply to be on the Apprentice.

THE CONCEPT GARDEN

So often in advertising we talk about "the big idea." It's the traditional brainstorm session kickoff question: What's the big idea? What is the concept that's going to sell this product or service? What is the angle here? How are we going to get noticed? What's going to make people say, "Aha! I totally get it...that's cool"?

In my experience, the big idea always starts out as a page or two of small ideas. Silly ideas. Stupid ideas. Ridiculous ideas that "they'll never go for." One of those ideas, of course, becomes the big idea.

I've always been the idea guy. Working at small creative agencies my whole career, I've been responsible for coming up with thousands of ideas. Television and radio concepts. Dimensional direct mail campaigns. One-off print ads. Outdoor campaigns. Promotional themes. Interactive presentations. Communications and contact strategies.

Most of my ideas were never executed. That's just the way it works. And the ones that ARE executed are seldom the best ones - at least in my humble opinion. But that doesn't matter so long as clients are pleased with the creative product, and that they work - driving awareness, interest, desire, and action. It is all about client satisfaction, after all. In that sense, the "best" idea is the one the client buys.

When a good idea doesn't work, it's seldom the fault of the creative. It's usually under-funded, watered down, or paired with a poor list. A lot of clients don't understand that about creative marketing. Just because you have a great idea doesn't mean it's going to work. It needs to be supported financially. That means spending the money to have it professionally produced and properly promoted. The integrity of the concept needs to be protected. That means resisting the urge to make sweeping, often unnecessary changes that compromise the appeal and effectiveness of the idea. And a good idea needs to be paired with sound marketing data. That means having a clean customer list, a solid media strategy, and/or the benefit of current market research to give your good idea a great chance to connect with your top prospects.

Coming up with a big idea can take 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, or 5 weeks. It's hard to provide a reliable estimate since it's impossible to know how long it will take. When I'm about to start a project, people ask me, "So, when do you think we'll have something to look at?" The answer, of course, is sometime between now and never. I usually error on the side of now. It's better for business. But clients always want a firm date, so I give them one as a stake in the ground. Still, it's important to recognize that building ideas is not like building a deck. You're not assembling material pieces in the physical world. You're trying to herd thoughts as they run wild in your imagination. It's not like picking up lumber at Home Depot.

If the stars align properly, I may just stumble upon something brilliant before lunch. If my creativity is blocked, on the other hand, it could be a few days before I have anything to share. That's the nature of the work. I always have something, though. Even if I know it's not the world's greatest concept, I know it will be effective. And that's the line we have to walk sometimes: profitability in the creative department is often the difference between good and good enough.

Which is tough for me because I'm a perfectionist. At least when it comes to creative ideas. I am never satisfied with my concepts and usually spend way more time than the budget allows for in concept creation development. Creative thinking is the fun part, and I like presenting options. My approach is to come up with as many ideas as I can instead of focusing in on one or two. I've found that it's not safe to get attached a couple of ideas - you need to start with a handful of solid possibilities and let the cream rise to the top. Plus, you need to pump out a few mediocre concepts before you can get to the really good stuff.

The final phase is collaboration. This is where you gather people in a room (or on the phone) to brainstorm. We talk ideas. We discuss options. We consider alternatives. We play things out in our minds. We vote. We marry concepts. We eliminate the impossible and the ridiculous. We vote again. The collaboration process eventually gives birth to what will become the big idea. It is still an infant at this stage. It needs nourishment and a lot of attention. But before you know it, there it is: the big idea.

If you ever need a big idea, I recommend starting with a page or two of small ideas. Silly. Stupid. Ridiculous. This is where big ideas begin, planted small in the fertile fields of an endless concept garden.

DUMBEST GAME EVER ALSO A LOT OF FUN

The following is a review of the dice game "LCR" I posted on Amazon earlier this week. In case you haven't picked up your set yet, I thought I would advise...

Dumbest Game Ever Also a Lot of Fun, April 6, 2009

Durability: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Educational: 1.0 out of 5 stars


This game requires so little brainpower it may be possible to play in your sleep...or possibly while driving (but you didn't read that here).

If you're looking for something challenging, strategic, or mind-bending, this is NOT it. LCR ranks right up there with "War" for the most mindless recreational games of all time.

That said, the game can also be a lot of fun *IF* you play it with something besides the thin plastic wafer chips that come with the game. I would NEVER advocate gambling with your children, but we do find that if you substitute pocket change for the chips (quarters work best, not surprisingly), the level of interest and excitement skyrockets. Incidentally, if you are playing with adults, a currency less round has the similar effect.

As it happens, games of skill and strategy are fun to play in and of themselves, and on the merit of besting someone at something - outwitting, or outperforming a competitor. Games of chance, however, are only fun if there's a "chance" you will lose your shirt...or potentially win someone else's, which, as those of us who have ever been to Las Vegas know all too well, is less often the case.

A normal LCR game functions like this: You roll the special dice, reallocate your "chips" based on the roll, and pass the dice to the next person who does the same. There are no strategic decisions to make. There are no game-altering "reverses" or "switch chips with the person on your left" commands or cards to add interest. Only three dice and a series of reallocation rolls. I imagine government money is distributed in the same fashion.

So how do you win? One of the sides of the dice has a big "C" on it. This stands for for Center. The L and the R, as you may have guessed, stand for Left and Right. Eventually, after the dice have taken a number of tours around the table, all of the "chips" will end up in a big pile in the center. The last person left with a chip/coin/finski wins the middle pile. There are a number of variations on this simple theme, but I'm sure you get the gist of it. Roll and do what the dice tell you to.

There are no decisions to make, only rules to follow, so the game is essentially a dumbed-down crap shoot. It's not educational in the least, if that is important to you, but perhaps for the simple lesson that, if you are playing with "chip" substitutes, you may learn that games of chance don't usually end well. In fact, most of the people at the table end up losing. I suppose there is something to be learned from that if your children are using their own money. But we usually end up bankrolling our kids, which ends up bankrupting us after a couple of rounds.

If the game doesn't sound all that exciting from this review, I apologize for the lackluster tone. I personally prefer games of strategy and skill to games of chance. Still, LCR is a wonderful way to get the family all gathered around a table for a couple of hours of laughter and togetherness. Some people really get anxious toward the end, screaming on every toss as the final chips are making their way to the center pile. The people you play with will determine whether this is a fun game, and the people we play with make it so every time. Plus, I'm usually pretty self-medicated on cheap red by the time we break out the LCR, so it ends up being about the perfect speed.

For the relatively low price of the dice, you get hours of mindless family fun in a portable plastic tube. Definitely worth the investment in my book, and worth a closer look. If you're interested, you can buy them online - just run a search on Amazon or Google for "LCR." They're also available in a number of specialty games stores.

DON'T BE HATIN'

I used to love reading The Drudge Report. There was just something about it.

It looked and felt markedly different than the traditional news media outlets, and I liked that. It had this underground, organic appeal that made me feel like I was special somehow...privy to insider information. Silly, I know, considering the website is one of the most widely visited pages on the Internet.

For me, for years, The Drudge Report was the quickest way to download the daily zeitgeist, and I was addicted to its easy-access format. I just loved the way the news was laid out…a single page, loaded with links, each custom-crafted headline contributing to a real-time commentary on the world. And that trademark black, bold headline in the center of the stark white page with a single photo calling attention to biggest breaking news story.

Yes, I used to love Drudge. *sigh*

These days, the site’s primary focus, as far as I can tell at a glance, which is all I can manage to give Drudge these days, is the pernicious denigration and humiliation of the Obama Administration.

And Obama hasn’t done anything yet!

He hasn’t had the time in office to eloquently mispronounce common words. He hasn’t had the occasion to treat our nation’s most sacred documents with contempt and disregard. He hasn’t invested the energy in defouling our reputation abroad. He hasn’t committed American blood and billions to the preemptive invasion of non-threatening sovereign nations. He simply hasn’t earned the disrespect Drudge shamelessly dishes day after nauseating day.

For heaven's sake, the man hasn't even choked on a pretzel.

All he DID do was win an election. And not by a small amount.

Ever since, and in fact for months leading up to his election and subsequent inauguration, Drudge's carefully written headlines have mocked the popular politician's every step in Washington, in a way we would have expected them to mock our previous President – a man who truly earned, and history may decide DESERVED, the sharp criticism he received.

Yes, the agenda is clear. To promote disdain for the progressive. To promote distrust of populism. To execute a smear campaign one headline at a time – each spitefully crafted phrase promoting a subtext of disharmony and a spirit of divisiveness.

All of the bitching and moaning is unbecoming of Drudge. And, frankly, from someone who had considered himself a fan and loyal follower, I find it a little embarrassing. I used to browse the Report with enthusiasm. These days I am almost too ashamed to keep it in my bookmarks toolbar. It no longer represents me, or the world I want to live in.

What has Obama done but inspired millions of uninspired Americans? What has he done but made history by overcoming great odds and cultural adversity? What has he done but pledged to defend the widely cherished democratic beliefs that have been silenced for too long? What has he done but risen to the occasion – to act with swiftness in addressing our nation’s most destabilizing economic crisis since the great depression?

Don't take my word for it. I encourage you to judge for yourself. Visit Drudge now. See what Drudge is calling “news” these days. See what millions are digesting as the same. Headlines about Obama bumping his head on Air Force One, promoting socialism, controlling the media, and being an elitist.

What does it benefit America to hope for our President’s failings at a time we as a people are failing? Failing to make the grade. Failing to become energy independent. Failing to hold corporate entities accountable for the havoc they have wreaked on the working class. Failing to afford basic health care to all Americans. Failing to recognize that in helping those who need help, we are also helping ourselves. After eight years of failed leadership, why wish and hope for more?

Instead of becoming a mouthpiece of hatred and malcontent, Drudge, I would have you deeply consider the words of a man whose positive ideals and values changed the course of human history: Mahatma Gandhi.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Be a force for good. Promote the positive. Sell success. Tell the story of our common struggles - those we all must overcome.

Or, at the very least, in the urban parlance of our trying times, give us all a break and for Criminy's sake, man, “Don’t be hatin’.”

THIS DEAD HORSE IS HARD TO BEAT

I often wonder who sits around and comes up with these modern day e-mail parables. I get a handful of them every week and some are pretty damn amusing, like the one I'll share today. Thanks to Robert Earl for sending my way.

*************

The Dead Horse


Young Chuck in Montana bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day.

The next day he drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news... the horse died."

Chuck replied, "Well, then just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Chuck said, "Ok, then, just bring me the dead horse."

The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"

Chuck said, "I'm going to raffle him off."

The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead horse!"

Chuck said, "Sure I can, watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked,"What happened with that dead horse?"

Chuck said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998."

The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?"

Chuck said, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Chuck grew up and now works for the government. He was the one who figured out how to "bail us out."

WELL THAT'S NEWS TO ME!

A new “blogging” newspaper has a lot of traditional journalists and news industry folks riled up – and for good reason. It stands to challenge the entire concept of what constitutes a newspaper. Or even – dare I suggest it – news itself!

If you haven’t heard about it yet, there’s a new print publication called “THE PRINTED BLOG.” It launched in Chicago and San Francisco a few weeks ago as, for now, a weekly roundup of stories and columns harvested from the Internet and printed for your browsing pleasure on paper.

Yes, someone is actually distributing WEB content in newspaper format. That’s so daringly against-the-grain it's news in and of itself.

As a proud contributor to the inaugural issue of THE PRINTED BLOG, I feel obliged to clear the air a bit in regard to what some might consider the generous use of the term “newspaper” in describing a publication like this one. And I’d like to start by asking a simple question.

What IS news?

It is likely safe to say that most people think of news as the information they read in the newspaper, or the stories they hear about on the nightly, ahem, news.

But just because you put syrup on something, doesn’t make it pancakes. I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that, either – but it has a nice ring to it. Bear with me for a moment, I’m blogging here.

News isn’t news because it’s on the nightly news or printed in a newspaper. News is the CONTENT – the information that is, in essence, “new” to you. And news can arrive in many forms.

News can be delivered by a friend over the phone, as in: “Did you hear the good news? Jack IS the father!”

News can come by way of a stranger in person:“Bad news, man. We ran out of the strawberry frosted ten minutes ago.”

News can be silent. No news is good news, as they say. Especially in places like the Middle East where news is too often accompanied by a body count.

And if you happen to hear about something twice, well, that’s OLD news.

Print newspapers and the nightly news shows are merely VEHICLES for delivering information, but over decades have become synonymous with “news.” What we’ve seen in recent years is a steady decline in readership and ratings thanks to the immediate and constant availability of information online. It’s simply an easier, faster way to access information you want.

You don’t have to wait for your morning paper or the news at 11 to find out what’s going on in the world. You have only to click and browse, at your convenience, any of myriad “news” resources. And that’s been bad news for the print newspaper industry in particular.

Still, traditional newspaper publications are far from obsolete. I, for one, still pay to have the Chicago Tribune delivered to my front doorstep each morning. I use it to browse car ads when I’m in the market, find local sales, read the amusing opinions of outspoken sports columnists, clip coupons, fill out crossword puzzles and sudoku grids, skim headlines for items of interest, and admire the photography.

I also use the newspaper to soak up slush from my winter boots, pack glassware for safer transport, cover my tabletop for messy projects like gutting pumpkins, and to commemorate special dates in history, such as the election of our nation’s first African-American president.

For me – and millions of other subscribers – the newspaper experience isn’t about getting news. It’s about the paper itself. It’s about the collection of rituals that make subscribing still worth it. It's about the act of holding and opening and folding over pages.

For my news fix, I have a dozen or so favorite websites bookmarked for up-to-the-minute updates on the world. By the time I pull the morning paper out of its plastic sheath, I’m usually well briefed on the day’s happenings.

When Founder of THE PRINTED BLOG, Josh Karp, first told me he was creating the “Newspaper for the next hundred years,” I winced. Blogs are hardly newsworthy, at least in the way we think about news. Too many blogs are jumbled, grammatically challenged ramblings of people channeling their energies in unproductive ways. But not all blogs. Some blogs are insightful, entertaining, intriguing, enlightening, and informational.

Perhaps most importantly, the content is NEW. It's fresh. It's unlike anything else the MSM is promoting these days. I just saw the same story on the midday news that I heard in the car on the way to work, the same story I read online earlier this morning that will be covered in the paper I'll open when I get home tonight. Ho hum.

News is everywhere, and it's largely the SAME. THE PRINTED BLOG may not be considered news by traditional standards, but it sure is new. And if it's new...well, that's news to me.

Karp is probably the last person to call the content for his publication “news.” He refers to it, simply, as content. Because he sees the newspaper for what it truly is, and that’s whatever people choose to do with it. The medium, you see, is the message.

This observation is not beside the point, because the publication's model calls for an unprecedented level of reader engagement in the not-so-distant future: self-selection of content by community, facilitated online, and replicated all over the country for a custom publication unlike any other.

It may not deliver what many would consider news, but THE PRINTED BLOG is definitely a newspaper. It delivers the experience of physical interaction with information, much of which will be “new” to the reader.

Will it follow AP style and aspire to uphold traditional journalistic standards? Not likely. This is, after all, the first print publication dedicated to capturing the essence of the wild, wild, web. In case you haven’t noticed, standards are a little different online. Not lower, necessarily. Just different. I’m not a huge fan of the abandonment of punctuation, but then many consider Joyce’s syntax-challenged “Ulysses” a thought-provoking work of art. Like THE PRINTED BLOG, it is what people say it is.

I have just one final note for journalism's old guard. Look closely at the word “journalism” and you’ll find it starts with a peculiar word – Journal. Defined, a Journal is quite simply “a diary: a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations.”

Sure sounds like a blog to me.

I do understand the misnomer of “newspaper” may not work for some, but the term is much broader than the delivery of presumed-objective content subjectively deemed important by editorial organizations with established beliefs and opinions about the world. In fact, I might submit that THE PRINTED BLOG is closer to the soul of true journalism than anything broadcast on the Fox News Channel. That's in my humble opinion, of course. Or, I should say, in the parlance of our age, imho.

This newspaper is about giving people what they want.

Choices. Flexibility. Relevance. Entertainment. Information. A vehicle for self-expression.

It's also a snapshot of the zeitgeist.

The way I see it, if the content is interesting and relevant, the paper easy to carry and share, and I can gut a pumpkin on it, count me in.

HOW TO STOP BADVERTISING

On the heels of advertising's biggest day (Super Bowl Sunday!), I wanted to share a little insight regarding the process.

Our clients do not make it easy, as illustrated in this classic clip. Sometimes a bad ad isn't the advertiser's fault. Most of the time, in fact, bad advertising is a function of how the client relationship works. They're cutting the checks, after all.

This clip is billed as a parody, but it's "spot on." Captures the aggravating nuances of an industry on the border of art and science.

WATCH IT HERE.

IN TRANSITION

SUPERB BOWL COMMERCIALS

In case you missed any of the action last night, here's a link to the Super Bowl ads.

It's thorough, and they're graded. I tend to agree with the assessments here. Overall, a rebound for the advertising industry compared to recent years. There were a number of real winners. My favorites were Bud Light's man flying out of the office window, the Teleflora flowers spot, Cars.com's well crafted story, and Doritos' crystal ball.

As for the game, I am still in shock that the NFL would allow that game to expire without reviewing that final turnover, which was clearly an incomplete pass. But that missed call was the punctuation mark on an overall poorly officiated game. One Steelers drive was buoyed by three personal foul calls, two of which fall into the "this game couldn't possibly be fixed, could it?" category.

No, I don't believe in conspiracies like that. But then, how can the replay booth not take a look at a critical, pivotal final turnover with just :15 left in the game?

FAIL.

HORES WHISPERING

Thanks to Ed (among others) for passing along this reminder that spelling matters.

THE BITTER COLD

You know what? It’s cold outside.

Big whoop.

That’s life, people. Sometimes it’s hot. Sometimes it’s cold. And sometimes you step outside in your boxer shorts to get the paper and think, “This is nice.”

Everywhere you turn the story is all about the weather. Coldest in a decade. Sub-zero temperatures. Brutal windchills drop to 30 below. Windburn. Frostbite. Hypothermia!

So what are we going to do? Stay inside?

No! Say it with me.

We’re going to put on our hats and gloves – just like we would if it were 10 degrees. Or 20. Or 30. Or 40, some of us. And we’re going to man up (or woman up, as the case may be). We’re going to shovel off our stairs. We’re going to scrape off our windshields. We’re going to get on with life.

If the news media weren’t reporting that it was so cold outside, do you know what you’d do? You’d put on more clothes. Somehow, we know when to put on more clothes. Like the native American Indians living in the northern plains for centuries knew to bundle up when that Arctic wind would come rolling through with a wintry vengeance, we know.

People have been living with cold for a long time. This is not the first time it has been cold. In fact, I seem to remember it being pretty damn cold in the not so distant past – a period historians are now referring to as LAST WINTER.

Cold weather in winter is not news. WARM weather in winter would be news. Then you’d have all these climate “experts” on television talking up global warming and citing the weather as evidence of a trend toward impending disaster. No one’s giving airtime to those cats these days, and they probably wouldn’t want it. Hard to pitch the dangers of melting ice caps with ice chunks stuck in your eyelashes.

For the record, I do believe in global warming.

But I also believe in global cooling. And right, now, this spot of the globe is definitely cooling. I don’t need meteorologists, special interest groups, news media, or even a thermometer to tell me that. All I need is to walk out onto my front porch in my boxers to get my paper.

“Nope…this is NOT nice. This is ice."

Better double up on the socks today.

GREAT MOMENTS IN HUMAN CREATIVITY

This is what a little creativity can do for your next party.

That's a cake under there. A moist, delicious cake.

Who wants the first piece?

I love the touches here. Sifter shovel spatula. Plastic bag wrapped around the cake. Cut out life-sized image of a startled cat. Melted Tootsie Rolls, finessed ever-so-gently to dangle like fecal sludge over the edges.

This is a well-executed masterpiece. A true triumph in human creativity.


***
Thanks to the Harris Wheel for sharing this glorious box of treats.

THE 25 YEAR OLD BRAIN

Here's a fun one. It's a brain game that will tell you the age of your brain based on how well you can perform a simple task.


It's in Japanese, so use these instructions:

1. Touch 'start'

2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.

3. Memorize the number's position on the screen, and then click the circle from the smallest number to the biggest number.

4. At the end of game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.

It will drive you apeshit.

Age of my brain?

25

Beat that, loser!

****************

(Thanks to GC for passing this one along!)

TEFLON MUSINGS OF THE WELL INTENDED

Some of my most enlightening moments come on weekday mornings around 7:58am.

I am always in the car. Sometimes I haven’t even managed a shower yet. I’m seldom more than a mile or two off from the house. It’s usually cold.

And then, suddenly, there it is again – that moment of revelation.

It’s not a light bulb going on so much as it is a dimmer switch briefly turning brighter before rotating back into the dark of my subconscious.

You may be wondering – what’s so special about this particular time? Why in the few minutes before 8am on weekday mornings would anyone so routinely encounter epiphany? This must be hyperbole, right?

Well, these just happen to be school days. And at 7:58 in the morning I am usually taking alleys, short cuts, and trivial risks on the road in an attempt to get Harrison to school on time.

It is also during this brief window that I am learning from an 8-year-old things about myself – things, perhaps, I knew once but forgot.

These are my conversations with Harrison.

*****************

“Do you know what a New Year’s Resolution is?”

“No,” he hummed in between bars of a song that has been playing in his head since October.

“Really? You’ve never heard anyone talk about a New Year’s Resolution?”

“Well, maybe. Not really.”

I decided to bait him a little bit. “Oh. Wow. Hmmm. Surprising.” He hummed a bit more, then took the bait.

“Why? What’s a resolution?”

“Oh – well. You know how New Years is the start of a whole new year, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this is the time of year that a lot of people decide to look at their life and make changes. They imagine how their life could be better, and then make a promise to themselves to make it happen.”

“Like how?”

“Like a lot of people, for example, would like to be in better shape. So they promise they will exercise more or eat healthier.”

“Oh yeah – like Uncle B.”

“Right. So, if you had to make a resolution for yourself, now that we are looking at a whole new year – what would it be?”

“I think I should read better. Just focus more,” he said, as if without much thought. But I could tell he had already been thinking about it. We each know what we need to work on.

“Wow. That’s a great resolution," I said. "Did someone tell you to say that or did you just come up with that yourself?”

“I came up with it.”

“Well, I think that’s a great resolution because that’s something you have complete control over. If you focus more on your reading, you WILL be better at it. That’s how it works.” He grew quiet, thinking about it. I decided to change gears and build on the momentum of this discussion before he changed his mind and elected to master the Wii instead.

“That was such a great resolution,” I said, “Maybe you can come up with one for me.”

“I think you should eat better,” he said, almost without hesitation.

“What does THAT mean?” I offered with a smile, glancing back in my rear view mirror.

“It means eat healthier foods.”

“Like what?”

“Like no more pork!” he said insistently, expecting I might fight back. I’ve been ardently promoting the merits of pork for a long time in defense of my affinity for the versatile Western delicacy. He knows I love pork. But he also knows I have high cholesterol. It would make an awesome bowling score, I once explained – but it’s not such a great score for cholesterol.

“Yeah – that’s probably a good idea,” I said. And then the dimmer switch in my mind turned up brightly.

I pulled up the curb outside the schoolyard and wished Harrison a good day as he hurriedly unclicked the seat belt.

And there it was. The New Year’s Resolution defined in my own words. A promise we make to ourselves. A vision of the future worth working toward. And the resolution is simply our conscious decision to go for it.

But we all know what happens to New Years resolutions.

They’re too often abandoned, and too soon forgotten. It dawned on me that I couldn’t remember a single New Years resolution I have ever made. We sure do like to dream, I thought. It’s easy to imagine ourselves in that Hollywood version of the future. But unless we make necessary life changes, resolutions are Teflon-coated musings of the well intended.

They’ll never stick.

And yet, the power to change is entirely within us. We CAN become that person we want to become – if we commit to it. If we give our resolution the time and effort it deserves. Then, perhaps, we wouldn’t be so quick to forget them.

And so I considered what it would mean to let go of pork. Not because I was seriously considering it, but just to weigh the sacrifice against the potential reward. Actually, I thought, there are a lot of other foods I could eat. I could probably live without bacon if I needed to. And ham. And sausage. And chops. And loin. And…

And now the list was starting to look a little ridiculous. Quitting pork cold turkey would be a tall order. So I decided I would follow Harrison’s lead instead and declared my resolution was to read better.

Labels, that is. Food labels.

Yes, this year I decided I am going to pay closer attention to what I eat by reading better. I’m going to avoid foods high in saturated fats, total fat, and “bad” cholesterol.

And I’m going to see if I can get that cholesterol level down to a less-respectable bowling score…even if I have to strike some pork from my diet to do it.

It's a promise I'll make to myself - and I know that if I don't keep it, I may never be able to trust myself again. And if I can't trust myself, who CAN I trust? Well, besides the 8-year-old in the backseat.

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR?

I like the holiday season. I really do.

The weather turns brutally cold, people forget how to drive, night falls at 4:30 in the afternoon, and people become generally more irritable and depressed.

What’s not to like?

Seriously, though. I really do enjoy the holiday season. I think most people do, despite our perennial complaints about last minute shopping madness, gridlock, erratic and miserable weather, nauseating holiday music, and creepy uncles.

It's okay, we’ve all got one.

Aside from providing an excuse to spend money we don't have, the holidays serve another, more vital purpose for those of us in colder climates. They help break up the dismal monotony of a lonely season spent primarily indoors.

Between the bitter arctic chill, short gray days, and long dark nights, winter is a naturally depressing time of year. But that stretch of holiday madness between the week of Thanksgiving and the week of New Years keeps us so preoccupied we barely have time to focus on these naturally occurring discomforts.

Nope – during the holiday season, most of our discomforts are entirely man-made.

Why?

WHY are we so wrapped up in ourselves this time of year? Why do people experience mall rage and family overload? Why do people dread the holidays, for lack of a more dreadful word.

This is supposed to be a time of peace and joy. A time to celebrate long-held traditions. A time to honor the birth of Hayes Zeus if you’re Christian, guerilla warfare if you’re Jewish, or the fruits of Capitalism if you’re uncommitted. At least according to Wikipedia.

Yet for so many of us the holidays represent a painfully difficult time of year. Why is that?

It’s really not so much a mystery when you consider the annual convergence of holiday-related stresses. Together, these fretful forces tangle and swell to become the perfect holiday storm…through which our tiny vessels must sail year after grueling year. This week I'd like to explore a few of the specialized stresses common to the holiday experience.

Do any of these sound familiar?

THE WORKPILE
You’re about to enjoy a nice slice of Christmas ham when you suddenly remember the huge report that’s due the day after Christmas…and you haven’t even started yet!

Talk about stress.

How can I possibly focus on the flavor of that savory swine, paired with a curiously spiced holiday wine, if I'm suddenly consumed with all those career commitments on the back burner?

We’re a nation of hard working people. It’s hard to turn that off – or to give ourselves permission to, anyway. The holiday season presents a challenge because, for many of us, there’s always that lingering dread of work piling up, even as we pile up our plates with delicious, starchy sides. I had a hard time relaxing this year thinking about all the stuff I wasn’t getting done.

SCHEDULING NIGHTMARE
A lot of people have to work during the holidays, including medical professionals, law enforcement officials, retail sales staff – just to name a few. For these folks and plenty of others, the holidays aren’t really a break in the action so much as a frustrating distraction.

And there’s a lot of wheeling and dealing involved to secure enough time off to make all those holiday meals. Holiday scheduling can create a lot of conflict in the home and place a lot of stress on an entire family.

GETTING MALLED
I am not what you would call a "people person." If I know you and like you, I don't mind standing behind you in line at the store. If I don't know you, you're in my way. And the mall becomes full of people in my way this time of year. People with strollers. People moving way too slow. People wandering aimlessly unsure of their next step. People texting people. People texting while walking slowly and aimlessly, with strollers and shopping bags. Holiday shopping is a contact sport that requires great patience, intestinal fortitude, and perseverance.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Most people spend the holidays with family. And every single person in your family has an expectation of how the holidays “should” be celebrated. Try changing things just a little bit and you could become the subject of vicious whispers.

In most cases, the general rule is: don’t rock the boat. In this way, the holidays represent the purest of social bureaucracies. “We do things the way we do them because we’ve ALWAYS done them that way!”

Never mind that there may be an easier, better way. Just come ready to defend yourself if you plan to change anything at all about the holidays, including but not restricted to the following.

• The rules to a traditional holiday game: “These rules are confusing! Why does my grab bag gift have to start with the letter P?”

• The order of events: “We can't eat now. We ALWAYS open presents first. I just had lunch an hour ago!”

• The style of meal service: “What is this - China House Buffet? It's so informal!"

• The start time: “Why are they having us so early this year? Do they want us to LEAVE earlier?”

• The menu: “Artichoke hearts and pork loin? Things must be really bad for them this year.”

• The day: “How can you have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve? It’s just not right!”

• Gifting: “I hate grab bags – why can’t we just buy for everybody like we always do?”

That’s the way tradition works. Change things up at your own risk…and expect to hear about it – usually through the grapevine, and 11 months later.

EXTENDED FAMILY MATTERS
Another source of stress around the holidays is being in a house full of people you only see once or twice a year. The first half hour is usually marked by everyone sitting next to who they came with, quietly avoiding eye contact like strangers in the waiting room at the family planning clinic.

Sooner or later, and usually after a glass or two of cheap wine, we loosen up enough to make small talk. And it isn't long after that that the gossip machine fires up. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a muffled inquiry as someone surreptitiously leans in for the scoop.

“Wow, I didn’t know she had another baby. That means she would have been pregnant last year. Hmmmm. Does she know whose it is?”

“They’re married? No way. He's totally gay.”

“What’s the youngest one’s name again? I always get those kids mixed up.”

“Is that the same guy she brought last year? I think I saw him on a Dateline special.”

“What happened to grandma’s face?”

“Who’s THAT guy – I’ve never seen him before.”

“When did Uncle Ron get out?”

“That’s not cousin Rachel is it? Oh my. She needs to put that plate of sausages down.”

“Is that a prosthetic?”

"How long has my fly been open?"

BUYING GIFTS
One of the most stressful of all holiday activities is the gift-giving ritual, and that’s because a lot of people are keenly aware that gifts say a lot about what you think of the person you are giving it to. For those of us who care what other people think, there’s a lot of stress in finding the “perfect” gift – or at least a gift that demonstrates a little thought. There’s also the stress of showing up to a family gathering without a gift for someone who was thoughtful enough to pick out something just for you. And then there’s the stress of keeping track of all the people in the family to buy for year after year.

THE VALUE CALCULATION
For better or worse, most of us can instantly ballpark the relative value of the things we give and receive. And it can be a little bit nerve-racking when the calculations aren't close.

"Wow - we got your brother's kids about $100 worth of stuff, and they gave us another friggin' sock monkey. That's six sock monkeys now."

I had a relative who did all of his holiday shopping at garage sales. No joke. I once received a glass bust of a human head wrapped in the comics section of the newspaper. You can't even regift something like that.

As for the rest of us, we can heap a lot of stress on ourselves as we work toward establishing a fair exchange of gifts. We want to make sure we spend roughly the same amount of money on the important people in our lives so no one feels slighted. How did we become so sensitive?

How many times have you had to run out and get something else at the last minute to “even things up.” It can become a never-ending balancing act to even approach equality in spending. Unless you resort to gift cards, of course - the least imaginative of all gifts, but the easiest in terms of keeping everything fair and square.

I know a lot of people who are big fans of gift cards, but to me gift cards have always seemed uninspired, and even a little impractical - because they're like cash, minus the convenience and universal acceptance. Like receiving foreign currency.

"Those are Lire. You can use them to buy whatever you want...the next time you happen to be in Italy."

MEMORY LANE
Death is an unfortunate, but inevitable life event that can forever mark a holiday with special sadness. This can create a lot of stress as we anticipate spending another season without someone for whom we cared so deeply. This profound brand of sadness has a way of controlling us and suppressing any happiness we might otherwise experience in the presence of the loved ones we have left.

MULTIPLE CELEBRATIONS
Today’s families are mixed, extended, appended, extended again, and downright confusing. How many separate holiday celebrations did you have this year? I had six. There was Christmas Eve day, Christmas Eve night, Christmas Day morning, Christmas Day evening, the day after Christmas, and then two days later.

Due to the fractured nature of the contemporary family unit, a lot of people find themselves on tour for the holidays – booking multiple engagements over the course of a very busy week. This can be an extremely stressful thing to pull off with all of the different events to attend, gifts to buy, travel to coordinate, and schedules to accommodate. You almost need a tour manager, a tour bus, and a team of roadies to keep the holidays rolling smoothly.

THE MAD DASH
Every year the holidays seem to come a little earlier, or at least retailers make it seem that way. Still, with so much work required to make the holidays special it seems there’s never enough time to get everything done. People fight stress daily as they work to cross off items on a never-ending holiday to-do list. Winterize the house. Buy stamps. Go shopping. Send out holiday cards. Decorate the house. Put up the lights. Buy a tree. Wrap the gifts. Make travel plans. Considering how busy most people are these days to begin with, all of these additional responsibilities can be a stressful burden.

THE MALCONTENT
Nothing creates stress around the holidays like that one person who gets underneath everyone’s skin. You know who I’m talking about. The chatterbox who never shuts up. The know-it-all who’s smarter than everybody, but especially you. The aloof snob who criticizes everything. The grump with the short fuse. The phantom menace who manufactures drama behind the scenes.

While most of us look forward to the holidays as a chance to catch up with loved ones, overeat, and enjoy the company of family and friends, there are a handful of malcontents who use the holidays as an opportunity to complain, meddle, badmouth, aggravate, and gossip. Just anticipating having to deal with these people can send stress levels soaring.

WEATHER ALERT
With the exception of those lucky enough to reside in milder climes, most of us in the northern hemisphere must brave the elements in navigating through the holiday season. Inclement weather creates messy, dangerous conditions for living and traveling. From cold, leaky houses to salty, icy roads, the season itself has a way of creating natural stress. It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to get home from work last week, roughly how long it would take to fly to Florida and get away from all of it.

DIETARY GUILT
How do we say NO to all of this food?

The short answer is we don’t. We give ourselves permission to gorge with the understanding that we’ll start a whole new diet in the new year.

But that doesn’t make us feel any better when notice our outie has become an innie virtually overnight.

We eat way too much over the holidays. We know it, we let ourselves do it, and we feel guilty about it after. It’s part of the holiday experience, and a common source of stress for men and women of all ages.

STRAPPED
Look in your bank account lately? The holidays sure are expensive!

If there’s one thing this year’s slow retail sales indicated it’s that we don’t NEED most of things we’ve been buying year after year. Stores are hurting because we finally managed to put the breaks on runaway spending.

I saw tables piled high with cheaply built pre-packaged gifts imported from China lining the aisles of department stores. Every checkout counter was stacked with boxes of “impulse” holiday buys. There were “sale” signs in every window of every store, in every newspaper ad on every page of every newspaper, and in every department of every store in every mall and shopping center.

In leaner times it becomes clear just how frivolous we have been – throwing money at stuff that ends up collecting cobwebs in the crawlspace. In the face of economic uncertainty, tightening our purse strings can be a stressful exercise in self-control as we seek out other ways to demonstrate to loved ones that we do care about them…just not enough to throw $20 at an electronic coin counter or flimsily constructed desk caddy.

If this economy keeps tanking, next year I'll be giving out hand-drawn caricatures of myself.

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So here we are – staring down the barrel of another New Year, presumably thankful to have made it and relieved to have another holiday season under our belts, if tightly. I heard more than one person declare this year that next year they’d be on vacation. Now there's a plan!

Avoid the frigid weather. The aggravation of holiday traffic. The awkwardness of extended family gatherings. The conflicting schedules. The last minute running around. The pressure to conform to what everybody else wants to do.

Just get away. Fly away.

Sorry – can’t make it this year…I’ll be out of the country.

Just laying there in the warm sand on some remote beach with a chilly mojito thinking to yourself how this truly is “the most wonderful time of the year.”

Until your creepy uncle strides out of the surf in a speedo.

NORTH POLE ECONOMY HEADS SOUTH: SANTA CUT FROM WORLD PAYROLL

Here’s the transcript from a television interview recently conducted in Lapland. It offers a startling look at how the economic meltdown is affecting people all over the world – even a global pop icon who once had it all.









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NORTH POLE, ARCTIC CIRCLE – Long time resident and world-renowned philanthropist Santa Claus was let go this week after centuries of dedicated service to all the good little boys and girls of the world. It was a shocking blow to the custom toymaker’s once unshakeable empire, and a warning shot to world economies.

We sat down with Mr. Claus for an exclusive conversation about his life, service, and uncertain future as the world’s most reliable free custom gift delivery service.

AYNtK: You look tired.

SANTA: Another late one last night, my friend. Very, very late.

AYNtK: Burning the midnight oil?

SANTA: [sighs] More like drinking the midnight whiskey.

AYNtK: I heard you were a tequila man.

SANTA: Ho, ho, no. Not anymore.

AYNtK: So...first of all, sorry to hear about the most recent news. It’s pretty rough out there.

SANTA: Tell me about it, young man. But, then, I suppose nothing lasts forever. Except fruitcake perhaps. [laughs] Ho ho!

AYNtK: It’s good to see you’re still in good spirits what with everything going on these days. Talk to me about that.

SANTA: It’s pretty simple, really. The people of the world are unconsciously reprioritizing the value of human capital.

AYNtK: Sounds like we’re done with the small talk. Tell me what you mean by that.

SANTA: Sure. By that I mean to say we are repurposing the human engine to meet new needs. It’s a difficult, but necessary, adjustment.

[Santa notices the vacuous look in my eyes and sighs again]

SANTA: Let’s see if I can lend a little clarity to that. Take your job, for example.

AYNtK: Please don’t – I need it. (I laugh)

SANTA: See? Right there? That’s value. People eat that shit up, pardon my French Vietnamese.

AYNtK: Eat what up?

SANTA: The humor. The wit. The perspective you put on things. As a writer, the value YOU provide the world is in this interview. You spend your working hours doing what you do for money, which you can then exchange for products and services, all the productivity of other people. You follow?

AYNtK: Sure. I’m essentially trading my skills for money, which is currency I can exchange to leverage the skills of other people. It’s a productivity swap.

SANTA: Righto. So it’s a question of value. And value varies.

AYNtK: Are you saying the world no longer values Santa Claus? I can’t buy that.

SANTA: It’s economics. The amount of currency you receive for your effort depends primarily on several things: Your talent, your time, and the market demand. Generally speaking, the more TALENTED you are, the more people will trade their currency for your skills. The more TIME you spend being productive, the more currency you can earn. And the more demand for what you produce, the more currency you can demand in exchange.

AYNtK: Interesting. So how does this play into your current situation?

SANTA: That’s where I was headed. I’m a pretty talented guy. I’m the only guy I know, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m the only guy I know who can strap a team of reindeer to a sleigh and take that thing airborne. It’s not a skill they’re teaching the kids these days.

AYNtK: I should say you’re right about that.

SANTA: But today with the Internet and global shipping we have a democracy of goods. People order what they want when they want it and it shows up a few days later. Did you know that letters to Santa are down over 400% from just a decade ago?

AYNtK: Wow. That’s significant. Why is that?

SANTA: Because I take too long. Kids don’t want to write a letter and wait a month or more for me to show up – hoping I bring them what they asked for. They get their parents to shop on eBay and Amazon and have stuff shipped immediately. I’m a 20th century dinosaur.

AYNtK: But your delivery system is remarkable. World coverage overnight.

SANTA: Ever hear of FedEx?

AYNtK: Now this might sound to some like you agree with your termination – at least in principle.

SANTA: Let’s just say I understand where it comes from. Of course I still have value to offer. Think of the operational logistics of building all those toys – millions of custom requests to fulfill. Then there’s the distribution network, which consists – again – of me. And the whole chimney drop thing. Took me years to nail that.

AYNtK: I don’t think people really appreciate all the work you put into making Christmas a magical event.

SANTA: And I really streamlined things since the early days. Made a lot of upgrades. I wasn’t always this efficient, you know. There were years I skipped entire countries. Simply ran out of time. I don’t think the North Koreans ever forgave me. At least not that Kim Jong-Il guy.

AYNtK: That does explain a lot. I think most people assume your system is pretty flawless.

SANTA: [laughs] Far from it. In fact, I get orders mixed up all the time. You ever get something from me when you were a kid that wasn’t what you asked for?

AYNtK: Actually, I do remember REALLY wanting a Big Wheel car, and getting a Hot Wheels car instead. That was rough.

SANTA: Details, my friend. Details are everything.

AYNtK: So if you’re the only one who can do what you do, why’d they pull the plug on the operation?

SANTA: I’m a luxury, son. As in: no one needs me. Half the world’s kids don’t believe in me anymore anyhow. I’m actually surprised they let me stay on as long as they did, what with the huge deficits I’ve been running year after year. There’s no revenue in giving things away. Just a growing expense sheet. Do you know how much those Wii things cost?

AYNtK: Any predictions for those people watching right now and wondering what’s in store for them?

SANTA: Well, I suppose if it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone. It’s happening everywhere, but especially in America. Look at your economy. Major shifts in human capital are going to be required to get things humming again. You’ve got to ask yourself, what will the commercial sector need to sustain the momentum of progress? Where are we in the evolution of civilization? What kind of world are we moving toward? What skills will the new economy require of its workforce? The skills of much of the workforce are becoming obsolete. Everything is automated and computerized. Even the service sector is at risk as more people are able to do things for themselves online.

AYNtK: What can we do as individuals?

SANTA: Think about what you do and how it contributes to what you have and how you live. Everyone needs to do this. Consider your talents and skills. How can you bring value to the new world economy? What does the world need now and how can you meet that need?

AYNtK: Wise advice from a guy who’s been around a little while.

SANTA: When I started this gig way back when I remember thinking, “You know, science is taking all the mystery out of life. There’s a void there. People want to believe something magical is happening behind the scenes. Something good.” And so I devoted my life to making that happen. It was a good run.

AYNtK: So what’s next for you? Are things going to work out for the Kringles?

SANTA: I hear there’s a vacant Senate seat in Illinois. [cackles loudly] Ho ho ho!

AYNtK: There may be a governorship soon, too, is what I hear.

SANTA: I wouldn’t do well in politics. I’m a model of efficiency – making more every year with less. Government somehow manages the opposite. But seriously, we’re going to be fine. Few people know this, but the Mrs. is actually an accomplished astrophysicist. She had some pretty substantial offers come in after she re-engineered my sleigh to slingshot with pinpoint precision at near-orbital velocities.

AYNtK: And what’s next for you?

SANTA: I’ve been at this for so long I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought. But I would like to try windsurfing.

**********

Santa remains in good spirits, despite being on the verge of losing his North Pole estate. According to the Elven Times, Claus Enterprises has always operated in the red, but is now behind on mortgage payments and expects a 2009 deficit close to one hundred billion Euros. First Pole Savings & Loan, reacting to the recent credit crunch, has been threatening foreclosure for the jolly old soul whose future job security is no longer “in the bag.”