The magic of Steel Pulse is their ability to transform a song into a mystical experience.
What should be a simple rendition of “Chant a Psalm” turns into a moving version of their timeless classic:
And here’s another version of David Hinds singing the same song in a more traditional style.
The Lion of the Senate Wanted A Public Option
Senator Kennedy wanted the public option back in 1970!
It’s time, America!
More from Ted Sorensen >>
Updates here >>
80/20 Gone Wild? The “Desi Effect” in Silicon Valley
I know we are entreprenurial geeks, but this is a staggering statistic:
Though Indians make up barely half a percent of the U.S. population, between 1995 and 2005, they founded more than 15 percent of all the startups in the greatest technological center (Silicon Valley) the world has ever known.
Read all about it >>
The Gospel of Getting Rich
Unfortunately, there are far too many believers in this Gospel of Getting Rich.
The main idea: wealth is a reward for following God.
So that makes Halliburton, Exxon and the health insurance companies all paragons of virtue. They are doing god’s work – ripping off the rest of society.
And people like Stephen Hemsley must be a saints.
Nice.
So how come Jesus was a poor carpenter? Or the Buddha had nothing but a begging bowl? Must be because they weren’t very blessed… Poor beggars.
Here Comes The Big Oil Lobby
It’s nice to see how democracy works, or not.
First the insurance lobby, now Big Oil.
Let’s allow the insurance companies to deny people health care in order to maximize profits.
Let’s look the other way while Oil companies stop alternative energy strategies from taking off…
Is this a last gasp for Capitalism 1.0?
Why is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation silent?
Where’s the Pope? Again, the silence of “the church” is deafening.
Boycott Whole Foods: John Mackey’s Branding Problem
A few weeks ago I gave up on Silk Soy.
Now, I’m done with Whole Foods.
How does the CEO of a company justify his “politics” when it goes against the brand of his company?
The short answer is: he’s not the right person for the job. I mean, you won’t see the NRA electing Howard Dean as CEO. So how does Whole Foods have a CEO so out of touch with his customers values? Or his company’s values? On Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ no less. What’s next, FOX?
Bye-bye, Whole Foods.
Additional Reading: On Value and Values by Douglas K. Smith
10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes
AlterNet‘s Joshua Holland tells us about some of the highlights of what’s really in the more progressive legislation working it’s way through Congress.
Let’s pass health care reform, and become a civilized country that’s run “for the people.”
Tammy Erickson: Customer Experience is Not About Coffee
Tammy Erickson describes her banking nightmare. What should be a simple 10-minute transaction turns into a week-long disaster.
This is, all too often, the “corporate way.” We pay lip service to customers, but in fact, we don’t do anything to actually make the customer experience any better.
Customers are not our first priority. Really.
Corporate Fascism: How to Lead a Mob
The Rethuglicans are freaking out.
But what’s depressing is the way in which it’s being orchestrated.
Online, it’s troll-time.
The media has been bought off. The Republicans and the Blue Dogs have been bought off. And the masses are once again being taken for a ride.
What a business model!
Nice job, health care insurance industry.
C’mon Obama, don’t punk us.
When Lies Become the Truth
The sad truth is that 30% of Americans are so out of touch with reality that they won’t see the truth, preferring instead to chant their prepared slogans and lies – prepared for them by those bastions of morality: Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, and the good old GOP.
There is no reasoning with them. They are fascists.
The saddest part is that they are hurting themselves to help the very companies which would deny them care at the drop of a hat.
WATCH: Dying for Dollars
Any questions? This is the business model for the Health Insurance industry. Time to disrupt it – once and for all.
Fake Protests: Teabaggers Unite!
Disgusting.
GOP Gone Wild
What happens when the right-wing runs out of ideas. They turn to stupidity, lies, fear, hate, and hypocrisy – the five cardinal virtues of the Republican right.
Keith Olbermann: Republicans, Blue Dogs are Prostitutes
I agree.
The Church of The Evil God
Morons.
How are these christians taken seriously by anyone?
They are information terrorists.
Health Care Reform: Shameless Lies
Have they no shame?
No.
The answer is simply, no.
No shame. No conscience. No decency.
Health Care Reform: Is Bill Moyers the Last Journalist?
Nice quote from Dante.
This is what we’re up against. Is this the America we want? Bad news: we already have it. Well done, CIGNA. Thank you, Blue-Dog Dems. And of course, this edition of American Reality is brought to you by the Republican party, or as they call it now, the GOP.
Cartoon: Health Care Reform – What Would Jesus Do?
Funny how the church goes silent when anything important happens… whatever happened to the “least of my brethren”?
Maybe the Pope got bought off by the insurance lobby…
Health Care: Who do you Trust?
Do you trust your doctor or the paper pushers at your insurance company?
Another way to look at the issue: is it bribing or lobbying?
When the Republicans and the blue dog Democrats are both in the pockets of the drug and insurance companies, what do you expect? This is why we have lost our way, and why specifically, we need campaign finance reform.
Here’s some background reading:
– Health Care Realities
– Gang of Sickos: Six US Senators Sell Out Constituents for $11 Million from Health Industry
– How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do
– Sicko by Michael Moore (watch the whole thing)
– Industry Cash Flowed To Drafters of Reform
– Obamacare Is At War With Itself Over Future Costs
– The cost of no public option
– Crazy Wingnut Healthcare Attacks Exposed
– Nearly 2,000 Americans Seek Treatment in Fairgrounds Barn
– My Car Has Better Insurance Than I Have
– Firefighting in the 1800’s: A Corrupt, Bloated, Private For-Profit Industry
Time to throw these money-lenders out of the temple! Call and write your reps on Capitol Hill – daily! It’s your health, after all.
P.S. – Democrats, dump Baucus, now.
The Rise of Intuitive Intelligence: An Interview with Francis Cholle
Here’s my intuitive intelligence interview with Francis Cholle at Emory Marketing Institute >>
Cholle’s main point is that businesses have lost track of how to manage holistically. They are too focused on counting beans to create sustainable business value.
He’s not saying analytics are useless. He’s just saying that Mark Hurd at HP isn’t going to come up with the products HP needs for the future by using analytical processes (that’s not in the published interview – but we did discuss it!).
Read the interview here>>
U2 Stands Up for a Free Iran
How long must we sing this song?
Jack and Suzy Welch’s Reality Advertising
Jack and Suzy Welch star in a Microsoft-sponsored, web-based, business reality show. The site is here, but it’s too cluttered (I think they were trying to be cool).
I do think this is a great advertising campaign, if the branding fools don’t destroy it (by placing too many Microsoft (yawn) pitches in the margins, for example).
Watch the first show below. Jack jumps in and “surfaces” a few issues at Connect by Hertz – a new car-sharing venture. In a way, the fact that Jack pulls these issues out in 5 minutes sorta tells us how out of it Hertz is.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
After watching this I get the feeling they don’t understand VG’s Box1-2-3 strategy for innovation. In fact, they are most likely going to fail. After 30 days, the CEO has still NOT created a global business unit for Griff. Not good. No follow through on commitments.
One more thing. Why doesn’t Microsoft bring Jack and Suzy into Microsoft for a few days? They could wake the sleepyheads real fast. Stop one: The Automotive group!
Also, I’d like to see Obama send Jack and Suzy into GM for six weeks. That would sure be a reality show worth watching.
BTW: A quick ecosystem analysis shows that Zipcar is beating them hands down. Rankings: almost 600,000 for Connect by Hertz and 22,000 by Zipcar.
A Brave Witness
Beeb >>
John Hagel on “The Big Shift”
ROI for Democracy: The Value of Twitter
What’s the business value of democracy?
Finally, the real value of Twitter revealed>>
“We’ve been struck by the amount of video and eyewitness testimony,” said Jon Williams, the BBC world news editor. “The days when regimes can control the flow of information are over.”
Twittering Iran: The Struggle for Democracy in Real Time
This is very moving – the faint twitter of Democracy in Iran.
The question: is this going to be another Tiananmen Square? Or is there hope for a middle-eastern Wenceslas Square?
Ahmadinejad, you have lost the election and your soul.
The Thanatos Syndrome
And darkness covered his eyes.
Madness = an 88-year-old white supremacist.
Who is to blame? The NRA? The schools? Parents? Republican extremism? FOX News? The Neo-Nazis? Operation Rescue?
Hate closes down the world.. And hate speech begets hate-filled actions.
O Jerusalem: The Rise of Jewish Fascism
The extremists seem to have taken over Israel’s soul.
Watch >>
Tragic blindness.
Max Blumenthal says about his video:
I hope those who have watched it, especially those predisposed to dismiss it as anti-Israel propaganda or shock video with “no news value,” will at least ask how vitriolic levels of racism are able to flow through the streets of Jerusalem like sewage, why the grandsons of Holocaust survivors feel compelled to offer the Shoah as justification to behave like fascist street thugs, and how the sons and daughters of successful Jewish American families casually merged Zionist cant with crude white supremacism. The willful avoidance of these painful questions by self-proclaimed supporters of Israel is setting the stage for the complete delegitimization of the country they claim to love. As Obama said, “any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it.”
And on top of this we have morons like Rupert Murdoch.
On the other side, we have the moving story of Josh Lipsky and his trip to Buchenwald.
I see how easy it is to use hate to unite people – the Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, Jewish settlers, Zionists, Hamas, Taliban, Al-Qaeda – flip sides of the currency of terror.
The world is not against you, Israel. You are against you.
Hat-tips to Dera and Steven for sending me these stories.
Crooked Politics
Funny how Palin has to steal content from Gingrich. If she was doing this in college, she’d be expelled…
Maybe stealing is at the core of the GOP brand DNA?
See here, here, and here.
The Bravest Man in History a.k.a.The Birth of Chinese Democracy
Never, never, never, never. Never will we forget this anonymous hero.
When China does get democracy one day, they will build a statue for him at the very spot in Tiananmen Square.
John McEnroe: Give Tennis a Chance
The political machinations you find in national sports authorities, whether it’s US Track and Field (remember when they denied Carl Lewis a chance for his tenth gold in the relay?) or the USTA – which is hemming and hawing over letting John McEnroe set up a Tennis Academy in New York – are always horrible to watch, and even worse to experience.
It’s always gratifying to see people who never played the game at the highest level make big money off the game and mess it over at the same time.
Think Sepp Blatter’s FIFA and Samaranch’s IOC.
Disasters all around.
So who do we have to bribe to get John McEnroe a shot at giving back to the US tennis community?
Like McEnroe or not, you have to agree he always, always, showed up for the Davis Cup. I remember watching the great Arthur Ashe talk about McEnroe’s dedication to the red, white and blue. Let’s give him a chance, you guys in the USTA administration. There really isn’t anything to lose at this point. Think about it. Who do you want? McEnroe or FEMA’s Brownie?
George Lakoff: Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy
The attack on empathy is an attack on progressive thinking >>
Israel Doesn’t Want Peace…
By building settlements on private Palestinian property, the Israeli government are creating conditions against their long-term interests.
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. That’s precisely what President Obama is doing – showing Israel some tough love. Netanyahu knows better, and yet the drunken folly continues.
What are they thinking? What is Israel waiting for? Sanctions?
Julian Marley: Harder Days
Sometimes a song just sticks in your head…
Seth Godin had a similar experience, apparently, and it was also caused by a reggae-riddim.
Customer-Driven Innovation: Interview with Gaurav Bhalla
Here’s my “Customer-Driven Innovation interview” with Gaurav Bhalla for the Emory Marketing Institute.
According to Bhalla, the key building blocks of value co-creation are:
Listening: learning about consumers’ experiences; their angst, frustrations, desires, and aspirations
Sustaining value co-creation conversations: meaningful conversations that yield the raw material for co-creation
Experimenting and rapid prototyping: to manage risk, improvise, and enable speedy value co-creation
Execution: only when co-created value is delivered can the next round of value co-creation be initiated
Read all about it >>
The Heretical Views of Freeman Dyson
Global warming greatly exaggerated?
What’s wrong with Freeman Dyson?
Maybe the climate models he’s criticizing are off – but perhaps he hasn’t seen the pine beetle destruction across North America – all the way from British Columbia to New Mexico. Perhaps he hasn’t seen the dry, hot weather across California. Perhaps he hasn’t seen the melting Glaciers in Glacier National Park. Perhaps he hasn’t seen the mild winters in the Rockies. Perhaps he hasn’t gotten out of his air-conditioned office…
This is what happens when you get too smart. I agree with his principal point – that PhDs are, for the most part, a bunch of nerds who are too busy examining parts of the elephant to see the animal itself. I even agree that we are not spending enough time working on poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. But to say that global warming is somehow less important misses the entire point. Of course they are all related. Of course we have to become radically more serious about sustainable development. But too say something this absurd? Really.
Here’s where I do find myself agreeing with him:
I say the United States has less than a century left of its turn as top nation. Since the modern nation-state was invented, about the year 1500, a succession of countries have taken turns as top nation. First it was Spain, then France, then and Britain, than America. Each term lasted about 150 years. Ours began in 1920 so it should end about 2070.
I agree with his analysis as well:
The reason why each top nation’s term comes to an end is that the top nation becomes overextended militarily, economically and politically. Greater and greater efforts are required to maintain the number one position. Finally, the overextension becomes so extreme that the whole structure collapses. Already we can see in the American posture today some clear symptoms of overextension.
But here’s where he’s missed the boat: the two are connected. If the United States decides to re-invent itself as a sustainable economy, it will lead for another 200 years, period. That is what Obama and Gore have figured out already, but somehow, this smart heretic has not connected the dots.
Losing the Secret Ingredient in the H-Bomb
For decades nonproliferation experts have argued that, once unleashed, the nuclear genie cannot be stuffed back in the bottle. But they probably didn’t consider the possibility that a country with nuclear bomb-making know-how might forget how to manufacture a key atomic ingredient. Yet that’s precisely what happened to the US recently, and national security experts say this institutional memory lapse raises serious questions about the federal government’s nuclear weapons management.
Whoops! Is this what a military-industrial complex “senior” moment looks like?
Byron Katie: Challenging Your Assumptions
The Work of Byron Katie can be used as a tool to challenge business assumptions.
Here, on Byron Katie’s blog we find the following business inquiry: “Having More Customers Means Having More Profits” in which a biz-dev manager starts questioning his team’s belief that “more customers equals more profit.”
The process is described as business inquiry.
Here are the manager’s conclusions:
“Having fewer customers means having more profit.”
“One, we could focus on the customers that have the strongest cash positions, the ones who are most likely to weather the recession.
“Two, we could stop wasting time on difficult customers, the ones that keep changing their orders. They’re very high maintenance, but we keep them because we think we need them to meet our numbers.
“And three, we could stop serving customers that don’t pay in a timely manner, the ones with poor payment history.”
More at Byron Katie’s blog >>
Will Hunger Disrupt Civilization?
The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.
Read all about it in Scientific American >>