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Politicians and Decision-Making

We are now at that point in history where collapse seems inevitable: political, social, environmental, civilizational. The decisions our politicians make are killing us.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” — Proverbs 29:18

In Texas, we can applaud our fearless Governor Greg Abbott and his Republican mafia for destroying any pretense of serving the public good (see exhibits A and B). Every decision made by leaders in the Republican Party is made based on ideology, not reason, science, or even common sense. Some argue we live in the Age of Social Murder. The Democrats, for their part, are slightly better — but certainly not equal to the task which lies ahead.

It’s time to depoliticize decision-making.

Either that, or our time is up.

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Are over 50% of the accounts on Facebook fake?

According to PlainSite, Facebook has been lying to the public about the scale of its problem with fake accounts, which likely exceed 50% of its network. Its official metrics–many of which it has stopped reporting quarterly–are self-contradictory and even farcical. The company has lost control of its own product.

Fake accounts affect Facebook at its core in numerous ways:

  • Its customers purchase advertising on Facebook based on the fact that it can supposedly target advertisements at more than 2 billion real human beings. To the extent that users aren’t real, companies are throwing their money down the drain.
  • Fake accounts click on advertising at random, or “like” pages, to throw off anti-fraud algorithms. Fake accounts look real if they do not follow a clear pattern. This kind of activity defrauds advertisers, but rewards Facebook with revenue.
  •  Fake accounts often defraud other users on Facebook, through scams, fake news, extortion, and other forms of deception. Often, they can involve governments.
Download the report here >>
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A Defense of Philip Kotler

Recently, my dear friend and mentor – Professor Philip Kotler (yes, that Kotler!) got entangled in a squabble between Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, and Rahul Gandhi, the dynastic leader of the Congress party.

The fun began when Professor Kotler presented the Prime Minister with the inaugural Philip Kotler Presidential Award, an award that recognizes Shri Narendra Modi’s leadership qualities on the global stage.

Because his physician had advised him not to travel, Professor Kotler chose his friend Professor Jagdish Sheth, an eminent marketer in his own right, to present the award on his behalf.

The award was presented by a delegation led by Professor Sheth on January 14, 2019. Also part of the delegation were representatives of the World Marketing Summit which had held a conference in Delhi in December of 2018.

modikotleraward.jpg

The Reaction

The next day, this tweet from Rahul Gandhi poked fun at the award, seeking to undermine not just the PM, but, more importantly for me, the integrity of Professor Kotler as well:

Almost immediately, the comments inspired by the post fell into two categories – insults and praise; insults from Rahul Gandhi followers and praise from PM Modi supporters.  The tone of these comments was shrill, with many attacking Professor Kotler directly.

Professor Kotler and I were shocked.  The article questioning the award was written by a leftist outlet which casts doubt on the award:

The government’s press release makes no mention of jury members, nor the exact organisation behind the new award.

The media pounced on the story and added to the controversy:

Even one of my literary heroes – Shashi Tharoor – piled on, going so far as to call the award a fake.

Questions & Answers

As questions were raised, I decided to collect and answer them:

Is the award real? (“…little information has been shared about the provenance of the latest award, or the organisation presenting it.”)

Yes, it is real.  And why would people like Tharoor assume it was fake? The “journalists” in Rahul Gandhi’s tweet did not follow the first rule of journalism which is – check your facts with the source.  How easy it would have been to Google Philip Kotler and contact him through his Northwestern faculty page.

Who is Philip Kotler?  What qualifies him to give this award?

Along with Peter Drucker, Professor Philip Kotler is considered to be one of our greatest management thinkers. Who is the leading business scientist in history? According to the Hirsch-Index its Philip Kotler with an h-index of 163, followed by Michael Porter with 159.

Ask any MBA student anywhere in the world, and you will find that they have studied Professor Kotler’s books. He has received 22 honorary degrees from around the world, and published over 70 books. His 50+ years of work with the Kellogg School of Management has resulted in building the #1 Marketing department in the world.

Professor Kotler is a man with great integrity and openness. He is also one of the smartest thinkers to grace the planet. He is in the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame (2013), and is featured as a “guru” in the Economist.

Who chose the award? Why is there no jury?

Professor Philip Kotler made the final decision after a committee for the World Marketing Summit came up with a list of possible candidates.

Professor Kotler explains via a letter published on his blog:

lettertopmmodi_small.jpgWhy is Kotler’s twitter account not verified?

Because Twitter has stopped verifying accounts, and Prof. Kotler never thought to ask. I messaged Jack Dorsey to ask him if he could make an exception for Professor Kotler.

Why was there no mention of the award on the Kotler website?

Professor Kotler’s site is not updated often. When the Indian press started questioning the authenticity of the Award, Professor Kotler tweeted about it:

Why was the Indian site for the World Marketing Summit taken down?

After an event is over, often times the microsite that’s used to describe the event and/or register participants is usually taken down.  The global site for the World Marketing Summit, Kotler Impact and Kotler Awards are still running.

What could Professor Philip Kotler possibly know about India?  

Professor Kotler is not just the “father of modern marketing.” He is an economist and studied with some the greatest Economics teachers on the planet.  His involvement with India began in 1955, when he spent a year working on his PhD thesis in India. If the journalists bothered to read My Adventures in Marketing, they might have known that. Since then he has visited India often to teach and speak.

What could Professor Philip Kotler possibly know about democracy?

Professor Kotler has published books and written numerous articles on capitalism and democracy.  See: Democracy in Decline and Confronting Capitalism.

How to Argue 

Bottom line, I’m disgusted with the trash-talking that I see from the left-leaning Indian journalists and social media participants.

Too many of our disagreements fall in the bottom two layers of Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement:

Graham's_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.jpg

If someone wants to question PM Modi’s track record, they would do far better through Refutation rather than Ad Hominem and Name-Calling.  Let that be a lesson for you, young Rahul, and for all who would seek to look childish: focus on the substance instead.

Professor Kotler, please excuse the mess caused by this controversy. 

DISCLOSURE: I have worked and continue to work with Professor Philip Kotler on several projects, including The Marketing Journal, ActivistBrands.com, and FIXCapitalism. We’ve written a book together titled Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action (the print version is forthcoming).  No one asked me or paid me (in India, as elsewhere, paid-journalism is a thing) to write this.  I simply felt compelled to stand up for a learned man of great integrity. 

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Brand Resuscitation: Can TESCO be Saved?

There’s plenty of advice out there for UK-based TESCO’ s new CEO Dave Lewis as pledges to return to the core of Tesco’s business, “in price, availability and service.”  

For me, there’s a critical question: what one change will deliver an 80% difference in results?

I think I know.  I spent 6 months visiting TESCO at least twice a week when I was in Hertford, and all I can say is “wow.” If you just view TESCO with the eyes of a typical US customer, it’s obvious what that 80% difference is. 

There really aren’t as many difficult calls as it seems.  

So, what’s the one thing TESCO has to focus on?  Restocking shelves to meet demand during and after peak traffic.  

Every evening, right after after-work traffic died down, here’s what the TESCO produce section would look like:

Screen Shot 2014-09-09 at 2.13.53 PM.png

Seriously.

And that’s not all, their soft drinks are not replenished either. So if you go buy a Dr. Pepper in the morning, and then come in the next day – guess what?  No availability.  

This was a problem all over England.

Dave Lewis, just fix it.  Whatever it is they do here in the US to keep stocks replenished, copy it.

That’s it. The one thing that will save TESCO.

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Inclusivity: Will America Find Its Soul Again?

I know what some of you are thinking – “Well, did America have a soul to begin with?” I happen to think it did. For me the soul of America is “We, the people…”

Furthermore, I’m quite sure that people, as defined by our founders, did not mean corporations. (See what Charles Handy has to say >>)

But to get back to the topic of inclusivity, I’d like to make a shameless plug for our new book, co-authored with University of Michigan’s Professor Michael Gordon, called Inclusivity: Will America Find Its Soul Again?

inclusivity bookbuy now

BUY now >>

So what’s all the fuss about? The book is about asking questions:

  • How can companies take better care of their employees–and thrive?
  • Why don’t they see the opportunities in creating social value?
  • Do Americans think we have a fair distribution of wealth?
  • What are new means of putting our collective talents to work?
  • How can communities take the lead in creating opportunity?
  • How can public education prepare all students for the future?
  • How can better health care be made available without doctors?
  • How can communities do something about global warming?
  • How can you make a difference?
  • Why should you care?

Inclusivity: Will America Find Its Soul Again is a book of questions, hints, and suggestions about creating more opportunity for more people–starting with the USA, but looking at and learning from the rest of the world.

The very idea of the “United” States is based on the principles of inclusivity–all men and women are created equal under the law. But we seem to have lost our conviction that inclusivity is possible or even to be desired. The current divisive political climate, along with economic uncertainty, has fostered an atmosphere of fear and narrow-mindedness across the country.

What can we do in the face of this reality? The choice is not easy, but it is clear. Either we will decide to be more inclusive, or we will turn against each other – finding reasons to divide ourselves, not just from each other as citizens, but also from a shared future.

The USA, unless we decide otherwise, will become simply the SA.

This book is dedicated to an inclusive future for all our children, including my daughters M and K, and the idea that the United States is still the last best hope for democracy and inclusivity. We won’t have one without the other.

The book includes the following sections:

  • What Is INCLUSIVITY?
  • Inclusive World
  • Inclusive Entrepreneur
  • Inclusive Economy
  • Inclusive Cities
  • Inclusive Education
  • Inclusive Health
  • Inclusive Leadership
  • Inclusive Future

Let us know what you think!

P.S. – We don’t want this, do we?

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Saving Barnes & Noble from Itself

I’m guilty. 

I go to my local bookstore, drink a coffee and browse the shelves. When I get home, I rush to the computer and buy the books I fancied – online! If it’s a business book, I download a copy on my digital reader, and if it’s a literary work, I buy the physical book at a discounted price. 

As a way to assuage my guilt, I’ve thought of some ways to help my local bookstore survive – because, like so many of us, I love the physical bookstore experience – nothing beats the Zen practice of disinterested info-grazing – and I’d like to continue to enjoy it.

However, I notice at my local Barnes & Noble that they’re busy selling Nook ereaders in every cranny. [Do they really think they can compete with the iPad or even Kindle?] Is this really going to save the physical store?  Nope. 

Most likely, it’s an idea dreamt up by the financial types at headquarters who’ve been “missioned” to tap into the digital value-stream. After all, why should B&N just stand there and watch their profits drift lazily down a South American river? It’s important to note that despite B&N saying the Nook is a “success,” they still rely on brick and mortar stores (retail and college bookstores) for over 75% of their revenue and the competition is going to become even more intense with dozens of new tablet and reader devices being introduced this year.

And how does B&N take a trip down the Nile? Apparently, the secret sauce is that they allow Nook owners to take their devices into any B&N physical store and read any e-book for free. Nooktalk tells us  that in reality, it’s not exactly a seamless reading experience.

And now that Amazon allows Kindle owners to “lend” books to each other, the Nook may find itself in the, ahem, corner.

So what can your local bookstore do to take advantage of its strengths? 

Here are three suggestions to shake up the physical bookstore business model:

Daily Book Rental
Why can’t the bookstore become a pay-as-you-read library? As a kid growing up in India, I remember borrowing books (alright, some these were Asterix and Tintin comics) from the bookstore for a daily fee.  This business model shows some reverse innovation promise. Can you imagine “tiered pricing” linked to free coffee rewards?  Sign up for the all-you-can-read buffet. And of course, we get to pay fines if we return our books late.

Publish and Distribute Local Books
What if a physical copy of your book gets published in-store and sold in your town’s bookstore?

Can you visualize a “Newbie Authors” section where one copy of your book gets to sit on the shelf for a week?  If it doesn’t sell in a week, you can either pay for shelf space or you can buy your books back.  The minute you or your mother buys your Great American Novel, a new one is printed and placed on the shelf. The top 5 bestsellers in each town get national distribution and placement for a week.  Book fest!

Nurture Communities of Interest
Some book stores think they are already doing this by sponsoring author readings and cheese tasting events.  But what we need is more focused on the actual needs and interests of the customer – practical and impractical.  Here are some examples of the types of participatory communities that could be grown and nurtured in your local bookstore:

  • Healthy Living
  • Relationships
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Food + Wine
  • Storytelling/Writing
  • Music
  • Art History
  • Travel

How does a bookstore do this?  If you’re Barnes and Noble, you could hire retired teachers to do this; pick people who are enthusiastic and spread their love of the subject.  If you’re a small bookstore, you can still find enthusiastic community leaders to do the same – in fact you can specialize, and create a niche around the main clientele in your store.

Does all of this sound a bit off the wall?  Good, then it’s worth a try.  The Nook, I’m sorry to say, isn’t going to save Barnes & Noble.

P.S. Over at HBR, Sarah Green gives us another suggestion: Amazon should partner with Independent Bookstores!

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Design Your Life, Change the World

Michael Gordon‘s book, Design Your Life, Change the World: Your Path as a Social Entrepreneur [A GUIDE for CHANGEMAKERS] is for changemakers – the people and organizations that want to make a difference in the world. 

book

The book tries to answer two questions, says Professor Gordon:

1) How can organizations best address important societal problems such as poverty, inadequate health care, sub-par education, and an unhealthy planet?

2) What’s the best advice for students who want to address these issues and still live lives of relative comfort?

The reason I’m helping the professor is because now, more than ever, we need the brightest students to tackle the world’s biggest problems. And the oil-coal-nuclear lobby isn’t making things any easier…

Are you a changemaker?  Go find out >> 

P.S. – you can download the PDF version here >>

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The Promise of Integrated Development

I first met Bob Freling at a board meeting of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) in San Francisco several years ago.  At the time, I felt that here was an NGO doing innovative things but not getting enough visibility for their work. They were solar way before solar was cool.

What struck me is how informal and close the board members were.  One of the board members – Larry Hagman (good ol’ J.R. Ewing) – did a brilliant set of solar commercials which I think says a lot about his character and wanting to make the world a better place (quite the opposite of his TV character!). But I digress.

The story here is that SELF pioneered the use of solar power to fight “energy poverty” across a spectrum of applications with their “solar integrated development model” – from clean water, to drip irrigation to improve food security, to electricity for health clinics, schools, and micro-enterprise.

In his blog post about the $300 House Energy Challenge, Bob explains:

“It’s simple really. First, solar energy powers pumps and filters for clean water. This also enables drip irrigation for critical crops. Once people have those necessities, the solar energy is used to power health care facilities which can power equipment and refrigerate vaccines, for example. This increasingly healthy population can then open schools which are powered by solar to provide computer and Internet-based learning. Finally, these well-fed, well-cared for, well-educated villagers can begin community and entrepreneurial activities to grow their economy.”

Bob’s optimism is tempered with reality. The Millennium Development Goals won’t be achieved without energy access, he explains in another blog post.  In case you forgot what the MDGs are (as I often do) they’re listed as:

1) eradicating extreme poverty and hunger;
2) achieving universal primary education;
3) promoting gender equality and empowering women;
4) reducing child mortality;
5) improving maternal health;
6) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
7) ensuring environmental sustainability; and
8) building a global partnership for development.

Note that they are interrelated, ecosystemic problems – and that from Bob’s perspective, energy is the key factor which makes all of them feasible.

With the $300 House project, my eyes have been opened to the fact that the approaches for dealing with the poor are often not very constructive, and sometimes end up doing more damage than good.  That’s what  $300 House adviser Stuart L. Hart is talking about when he says we need to create smaller problems. It is also a concern of our critics on the $300 House. When I spoke to Matias Echanove recently, he was concerned that mass produced housing could in fact disrupt the local economy – the small businesses that are based in informal slums around the country. I hear him.

Our $300  House project is exploring ways to integrate services and jobs into the ecosystem as well, and we’re reaching out to talk to the leaders in the communities that are interested in this approach. In India, we’ve just completed a survey – with the help of THL – that covers 15 villages in three of the poorest states in India – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand.  I’ll go into more detail in a later post.

For me the question is quite simple – we see an explosion of interest in  developing integrated  townships for the middle class in India, but why is there nothing comparable for the poor? To borrow a phrase from the US, why can’t we build “master-planned communities” for the poor?

Is it too much to ask that governments, NGOs and development institutions, and businesses work together with the communities involved to build integrated solutions?

integrateddev.gif

Unfortunately, there are far too few examples of collaborative development. This is something we all need to look at urgently.  There is also a problem of ownership.  The development community, NGOs, and most governments think they “own” the problem.  Unfortunately, without a business mindset to make solutions scale, their is so little real progress.

The poor remain poor. 

And that’s why the work Paul Polak is doing is so important.  He’s looking at making small changes at the bottom of the pyramid; small changes that make a big difference in the earnings of the poor. This is also the approach advocated by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Bannerjee in Poor Economics.

At a much larger scale, we see an example in the Gates Foundation‘s approach – which is all about examining the ecosystems of poverty.  A common criticism of the Gates Foundation goes along these lines: “How can people like Gates, living in a different universe, help people at the bottom of the pyramid?”  This is a false and damaging argument, but answered quite well by Sam Dryden:

“Some people may ask how my team and I–working at the world’s largest foundation located in a prosperous corner of a rich nation–can relate to a subsistence farming family in Ethiopia or Bangladesh. This is a very reasonable question to ask. The farmer has a direct connection to the land and we are considerably removed, both by distance and culture. We begin by realizing these differences and humbly listening to farmers and their families, learning and respecting their cultures, ways of living, and knowledge of place and home. The solutions we seek are those appropriate and welcomed in this context, not those imposed by distant values or interests.”

And finally, perhaps there is an alternative to the giant top-down programs, and incremental bottom-up “Let the Poor Do It Themselves” approaches we’ve encountered.

With the $300 House, we’re thinking micro-development – is it possible to build integrated micro-solutions at the village level?  And in cities, at the neighborhood level? 

Why not?

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The Ecosystems of Poverty

When I first started working on classifying online ecosystems, I had no idea that my thinking there would influence my thoughts on the $300 House. But now it seems like the systems approach to understanding wicked problems is pretty much the only way to go.  None of this is new, of course, but I’m still impressed at the power of ecosystem thinking.

Here’s how Nobel prize laureate Gunnar Myrdal was thinking about the problems of race and poverty:

myrdal.gif

The “vicious circle” has not yet made its way into our political thinking though, if we judge the policy makers of today’s Congress. Heck, they can’t even bring themselves to accept the effects of global warming – in no small part thanks to our lobbyist friends.

The idea of poverty as the outcome of a dysfunctional ecosystem is explained here as well:

wickedcycle.gif

Note that this applies to poverty in the US as well, not just the emerging world.

So, part of tackling the issue of affordable housing for the poor is to try to understand the interconnected nature of these problems.  I tried to draw causal arrows between the various problems, but gave up. In essence, we have a problem of insecurity, in which all of these factors must be addressed simultaneously if we are to change the vicious cycle of poverty, disease, and suffering.  Here’s what I ended up with:

insecurity.gif

The poor live in an insecure, unbalanced universe.

I’m calling it the “ecosystems of poverty.”

Next we’ll look at the idea of integrated development (another old idea) which fell out of favor, but must be re-evaluated in today’s light if we are serious about poverty alleviation.

UPDATE — SEE:  From “The Ecosystem of Poverty” to “The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems” 

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The Middle Class: An Endangered Species?

reich1.gif

The story is captured in this snippet borrowed from a larger infographic from the New York Times. The middle class is under historic assault in the US, explains Robert Reich, and this bodes badly for democracy, not just here, but all over the world. 

Here’s the money quote:

Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During
periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total
income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation
as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. We created a virtuous
cycle in which an ever growing middle class had the ability to consume
more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby
stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats.


During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as
between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the
present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered
giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the
top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007
— the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.

reich2.gif

We’re losing our competitiveness, as well as our ability to lead.

There’s a growing sense in the business community that we must find a way to work together again. To do this, we have to reject political terrorism – the political brinksmanship which prevents us from finding common ground or even beginning to look for honest solutions. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, recently created a stir when he suggested that it was time to halt all political donations. Warren Buffett did the same with his no-nonsense plea to raise his taxes.

Welcome to the third world, America! Looks like we’re headed on the fast-track back to serfdom.  Brought to you in large part by the GOP and corporate Democrats.

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Quit Twitter & Improve your Marketing ROI

For the past two years I have been conducting some extensive testing with a number of my clients in various fields – software, consulting services, academics, non-profits, entertainment, and self improvement – and here’s what I came up with at the end of the study. I’m interested in one metric – conversion to sales.

social2sales.gif

Conversion to Sales

Website: 29.5% of sales
Facebook: 4% of sales
Twitter: 1.5% of sales
Print: 2% of sales
Book: 9% of sales
E-book: 7% of sales
Email newsletter and blog combined: 42% of sales
Seminars: 5%

The old rules of online marketing beat social media by a mile, period.

See you later, FB and Twitter… 

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Shameful: The Business Roundtable CEOs

Writes Floyd Norris in the New York Times:

The Business Roundtable, a group comprising 200 of the largest companies in the United States, is out with a “study” that claims to show that the United States levies excessively high tax rates on companies. It actually shows nothing of the kind.

This is the sort of thing that makes business look E-V-I-L.

What is the Business Roundtable?  Another version of the US Chamber of Commerce? And just who are the members of this august organization?

Surprise! They’re only the CEOs of the “most respected” companies in the US.

Have they no shame?  No sense of decency?

The CEOs should be embarrassed, but instead they keep playing this absurd, deceptive game. We have come to expect this sort of behavior from the oil and coal lobby, but not you. To Bank of America, General Electric, Xerox, Wal-Mart, UPS, Target, SAP, Pepsico, Microsoft, and Procter and Gamble: Grow up, ladies and gentlemen. You are hurting both democracy and capitalism. Not to mention your brand.

Good on you, Google and Apple, for not being part of this institutional lying machine.

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Minding the Gap: A Failure in Intuitive Intelligence?

The Gap screws up with their logo redesign. A giant failure of imagination in the boardroom.

But Umair Haque asks the right questions:

  • Do designers have a seat in the boardroom — or just in the basement? How often does your CEO ever talk to a designer?
  • Are designers empowered to overrule beancounters — or vice versa?
  • Is the input of designers considered to be peripheral to “real” business decisions — or does it play a vital role in shaping them? Is design treated as a function or a competence?
  • Are designers seen just as mechanics of mere stuff — or as vital contributors to the art of igniting new industries, markets, and catgeories, sparking more enduring demand, building trust, providing empathy, and seeding tomorrow’s big ideas?
  • How much weight does senior management give to right-brained ideas, like delight, amazement, intuition, and joy? Just a little, a lot — or, as for most companies, almost none?

Seriously.

We all need to wake up. The Chamber of Commerce approach to design isn’t going to work anymore.

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9/11: Reject Hate

9/11 shows us just how divided our country still is. On the wrong side you have the threat of Koran burning from a lunatic preacher. On the right side you have President Obama making a plea for tolerance and true freedom.
For me the lesson of 9/11 is pretty simple: reject hate.
Here’s some stuff to think about:
Alex Bogusky: God issues recall
Michael Moore: If the ‘Mosque’ Isn’t Built, This Is No Longer America
Byron Katie: Inquiry – Terrorism and The Work
Tom Friedman: What If 9/11 Never Happened?
Adam Weinstein: America’s Jihad on America
Will Ferrell‘s Dubya impersonation
We still have a long way to go.

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Russia burns; will the US be next?

The global-warming deniers are quiet as the world’s forests burn.

Across Russia, the political drama adds to the horror as this, the hottest summer on record, takes its toll on the poorest Russians as they lose property, homes, and even lives:

russiafire.jpg

For those of you who are ready to say this is “God’s punishment,” I can tell you we’re probably going to be next. Maybe not this summer, because we’re getting far more rain in the West than usual, but perhaps the next.  The reason I can say this with near certainty is that our forests are already dead or dying. So my guess is that all these dead trees are going to burn across North America pretty soon.  The map looks like this (it’s an overlay of the extent of the pine-beetle plague):

us_fire.gif

None of this is normal.

NASA watches as the carbon footprint grows.

Our politicians do nothing. Our Republican Senators have been owned by Big-Oil and Big-Coal forever.  And the poor Christians haven’t yet figured out that they’re being taken for a ride.  For them, I say – check your Revelations 11:18 – at some point you have to say “enough!” Why do you support these people who are destroying God’s Creation?

Sen. Jim Inhofe, this is on your head. Your grandchildren won’t forgive you, even if they think you’re just swell right now. This is not “global warming deception” as you call it in your Luntzian language of deceit. It’s g-l-o-b-a-l w-a-r-m-i-n-g, period.

Have you no shame, Senator?

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The $300 House-for-the-Poor

Ever since the Haiti earthquake, I’ve been thinking about why we don’t have a quick-build house made of sustainable materials at a price point that the poor can afford (with micro-credit if needed).

300house.gif

The $300 House-for-the-Poor is an extension of the concept of “reverse innovation” (inspired by my client and friend VG) in which innovations developed in poor countries are then brought back for use in developed countries and other parts of the world. Housing impacts health, energy, education, and security.

What if we could build sustainably designed houses for the world’s poor at an affordable cost? What if these same designs could provide relief to refugees and victims of natural disasters? The we I’m referring to is a collaborative of companies, governments, and NGOs.

This type of a structure will be engineered in the same way the TATA Nano was engineered – without the traditional assumptions.

Once built, the $300 house should be used across the globe – from Haiti, to Africa, India, and yes, even in this country, to help the homeless.

So what are we waiting for?  It’s time to get busy designing the $300 House!

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The Journalism of Hate? Joel Stein and TIME magazine

Anytime we see people dividing people based on otherness,
it’s time to worry.

Joel Stein‘s My Own Private India is not the kind of journalism you expect from TIME magazine. But it does show you how immigration in the US has become an irrational issue – charged with racism and tones of hatred.

Never mind that Stein and TIME have apologized. How could either one have assumed that this could pass as journalism, or commentary, or even satire?

Sandip Roy‘s commentary in response: Joel Stein and the Curry Problem – provides some insight into just how irrational we have become.  His point, that some “good” Indians have sided with Arizona’s nuttiness, should not be lost on us. 

Maybe we should all go watch Fiddler on the Roof – including Joel Stein. Either that, or everyone needs to “go home” – and leave the U.S.A to the Native Americans.

Happy July 4th, everybody!

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Marketing ROI: Notes on Advertising Effectiveness

For the first time, in 2010, online advertising will pass traditional advertising on TV and print:

admoney2010.gif

While this is remarkable, I can tell you where the highest ROI is. 

It’s with the Republican party.  You can buy every single Republican vote for a paltry $34 million, as the health care circus has shown us.

Wow. Who needs Google when all you need is the budget for one Superbowl ad.  Think about that: all it takes to buy the entire GOP is one Superbowl ad.  There goes the future of our country. 

PS – On a side note, I wonder what it takes to buy our Supreme Court… 5 bucks to Clarence Thomas’ wife?

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Forrester should have talked to Jakob Nielsen (What You can Learn from their Mistakes)

Just a few days ago I praised Forrester‘s decision to create individual blogs for all their analysts.  So they finally get it, I thought.  Boy, was I wrong!

Yesterday I noticed how their migration to the new blogging platform was executed:

forresterkaput.gif

Yes, that’s the dreaded “The requested page could not be found” message. 

Apparently, for Forrester, moving to a new platform means all old URLs die.

This is just so wrong. Linkrot is a common mistake that companies and institutions make all too often. For this to happen at an institution like Forrester shows me they don’t understand web basics.  Don’t get me wrong, a lot of big companies have made this mistake, but for Forrester it’s inexcusable!

Maybe Forrester should have a chat with Jakob Nielsen.  Check this:

Any URL that has ever been exposed to the Internet should live forever: never let any URL die since doing so means that other sites that link to you will experience linkrot. If these sites are conscientious, they will eventually update the link, but not all sites do so. Thus, many potential new users will be met by an error message the first time they visit your site instead of getting the valuable content they were expecting. Remember, people follow links because they want something on your site: the best possible introduction and more valuable than any advertising for attracting new customers.

and

At other times, it becomes necessary to re-architect a site and impose a new structure. Even then, the rule continues to be: you are not allowed to break any old links. The solution is to set up a set of redirects: a scheme whereby the server tells the browser that the requested page is to be found at a new URL. All decent browsers will automatically take the user to the new URL, and really good browsers will even update their bookmark database to use the new URL in the future if the user had bookmarked the old URL.

I remember when the same stupid mistake was made by Harvard Business Review back when they switched domains from hbswk.hbs.edu to harvardbusiness.org. Overnight, they destroyed their online ecosystem, as Forrester has just done.

What’s the big deal, you ask?  In today’s connected world, this is brand destruction plain and simple. Not the way to build an attention platform.

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Liu Xiaobo: China’s Nelson Mandela?

FREE_XIAOBO.gifWhat a wonderful world. While you were wrapping Christmas presents, China decided to lock up Liu Xiaobo and throw away the key.

Xiaobo’s crime?  He drafted Charter 08, which demands the open election of public
officials, freedom of religion and expression, and the abolition of
subversion laws.

His wife’s cell phone mysteriously stopped working so she could not be reached by the press. Nice touch.

See Wikipedia >>

More info from PEN >>