Category: Business

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Business

On the Importance of Belonging to a Scooby Gang

Promotional Photo from Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, showing , Xander, Giles, Buffy, Cordelia, and Willow.
Buffy's original Scooby Gang: Xander, Giles, Buffy, Cordelia, Willow. (Original? Yes! Scooby Doo’s gang was called Mystery Incorporated.) Credit: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 Promotional photo via buffy.fandom.com.

An old friend of mine asked me the other day what kind of job truly makes me happy.

I thought about how much I loved being a copywriter. I was good at it, and thanks to an ever-flowing stream of products, services, and clients it was never boring.

But as much fun as it was, it never truly satisfied me.

I thought about what did.

My time at Marvel.

My time running QED Games.

My time at StarTalk.

And then I realized what all three of those experiences had in common: I had the opportunity to lead great teams, often ones I’d assembled.

At Marvel, it was my luck to lead a team that included acclaimed illustrator, artist, and educator Viktor Koen, noted promotions and package design superstar Keith Manzella, designers Cathy Colbert and Scott Williams, and writer LeeAnn Stiff. Together, we helped build Marvel’s nascent corporate marketing efforts into Brand Week’s Kid’s Marketer of the Year. (Marvel, of course, had plenty of great teams, including Dana Moreshead’s, which revolutionized comic book licensing, and Jim Brennan’s, which took a chance on me.)

The QED Games team included critically acclaimed game designer Evan Jones, legendary award-winning game designer Dan Gelber (Paranoia), noted comic book artist Kathryn Un, slyly seditious artist Lori Walls, graphic designer and production wizard Stacey Simons, and one of the most capable people across virtually any spectrum of skills I’ve ever encountered, Jay Watt. (He’s gone on to rescue people in Mississippi during Katrina and served as a combat medic on a Blackhawk in Afghanistan.) Our little independent game company created, among other things, a critically acclaimed Civil War card game that a West Point professor used in class and a revolutionary diceless roleplaying game for Marvel that still has a strong cult following to this day.

Most recently, at StarTalk, I was able to train and put together a stellar team of social media mavens, including Ben Ratner, Jen Walsh, Sarah Cotten, Ian Mullen, and Stacey Severn. We’ve moved mountains as part-time consultants and volunteers and created a best-of-breed social media presence that constantly surprises experts with how much we’ve done with so little. That’s hardly surprising: our team’s “day jobs” often reflect their industry leading expertise, while what they do for us they do mainly out of love and passionate commitment to our mission. (Special shout out to my boss, CMO Laura Berland, our own Nick Fury, who brought me in to do exactly what we’ve done!)

One of the accomplishments of which I am most proud is how often members of my various teams have told me that I empowered them to do some of the best work of their careers.

Which brings me to Joss Whedon. (Tell me the truth: you were beginning to wonder if I’d ever get there, weren’t you?)

Joss Whedon has been responsible for putting together some of the coolest, most important teams in popular science fiction: Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Scooby gang, the employees of Angel Investigations, the crew of the Serenity, and the Avengers.

And while he might not have created all of them (Earth’s Mightiest Heroes predate Whedon’s birth by a year or more), what’s more important is what he did with them.

His teambuilding skills are fierce.

So are mine, albeit in the real world.

One of my current clients is at the forefront of the new wave of compassionate leadership that is rethinking old leadership modalities in favor of a less-alpha type dominant, more inclusive, more empowering model. This model is supported by scads of new scientific scholarship, human resources wisdom, and bottom-line economic results.

And one of the core attributes of this new emphasis for business is the importance of building engaged, committed, empowered teams.

I say it’s about time.

And here’s the thing I love most about teams, the good ones, anyway, and every single one of mine, and all of Joss Whedon’s. They are made up of talented individuals who each bring that which makes them unique to the benefit of the group. Everyone contributes on a team if you create an environment where they can feel safe, take chances, be brave, and be themselves.

In other words, every team can be a Scooby Gang.

And can someone please explain to me who the hell wouldn’t want to be part of their own Scooby Gang and save the world?

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Branding Business Misleadership

Can you trust Hamas? The Better Business Bureau thinks so.

As Internet marketers, we learn all about reducing stress and anxiety in the user experience. We put “VeriSign Trusted” certificates on our websites. We us HTTPS and put tiny lock icons all over the place to assure our visitors that their information is safe.

This isn’t a new concept. Businesses have always known that reassuring their customers and earning their trust is a critical component of the sales process.

Trust is why we our parents felt reassured when they saw the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” on products from spray starch and dishwasher detergent to cake mixes and cereal. And trust is why we all feel a little more comfortable when we see that a company has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau.

But are we right to trust The Better Business Bureau? What exactly do their ratings mean, and how does a company get rated?

According to their own website…

BBB Accreditation

BBB has determined that COMPANY NAME meets BBB accreditation standards, which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints. BBB Accredited Businesses pay a fee for accreditation review/monitoring and for support of BBB services to the public.

BBB accreditation does not mean that the business’ products or services have been evaluated or endorsed by BBB, or that BBB has made a determination as to the business’ product quality or competency in performing services.

And from their explanation about grading:

BBB letter grades represent the BBB’s opinion of the business. The BBB grade is based on BBB file information about the business. In some cases, a business’ grade may be lowered if the BBB does not have sufficient information about the business despite BBB requests for that information from the business.

BBB assigns letter grades from A+ (highest) to F (lowest). In some cases, BBB will not grade the business (indicated by an NR, or “No Rating”) for reasons that include insufficient information about a business or ongoing review/update of the business’ file.

BBB Business Reviews generally explain the most significant factors that raised or lowered a business’ grade.

BBB grades are not a guarantee of a business’ reliability or performance, and BBB recommends that consumers consider a business’ grade in addition to all other available information about the business.

So, according to the Better Business Bureau itself, “BBB grades are not a guarantee of a business’ reliability or performance” and BBB accreditation “does not mean that the business’ products or services have been evaluated or endorsed by BBB.”

So why should we care about a BBB rating? What is the actual value of being accredited by the Better Business Bureau?

Back in November 2010, ABC news reported on a scandal at the Los Angeles BBB, where a group of business owners accused the BBB of “running a “pay for play” scheme in which A+ ratings are awarded to those who pay membership fees, and F ratings used to punish those who don’t.” To prove the point, they paid $425 to the LA BBB and obtained an A- rating for a fictitious company they created called Hamas, named after the Middle Eastern terror group. The ABC News investigators even went to the organization with 2 small business owners and were told their grades of C could be raised to A+ if they paid $395 membership fees.

Picture of the Better Business Bureau A- rating for Hamas, a known terrorist organization
Photo courtesy of http://www.bbbroundup.com

Of course, you can’t find the BBB rating of Hamas anymore. And the BBB investigated the LA BBB for violations and actions they claimed did not follow their policies. On Dec. 22, ABC News reported that William Mitchell, the CEO of the LA Chapter of the BBB resigned amid that ongoing investigation by the national headquarters.

But if you think that the questionable ratings ended there, you would be sorely mistaken. Here are some other companies and their ratings as of 2/18/12:

  • Monsanto A+ (2 complaints closed within the last 3 years)
  • BP America, Inc. A+ (16 complaints closed in last 3 years, BBB knows of no significant government actions involving BP America, Inc.)
  • Charter Communications Inc. A+ (5527 complaints closed in last 3 years, 1488 closed in last 12 months)
  • Citi A- (6383 complaints closed in last 3 years, 2,539 in last 12 months, multiple government actions)

In case you don’t know who Charter Communications is, they were Business Insider’s Worst Company in America 2010. Monsanto is widely considered to be one of the worst environmental criminals in the US, and was the company upon which George Clooney’s movie, Michael Clayton, was based. Citigroup is, well, Citigroup, and just agreed to pay the U.S. $158 Million to settle mortgage fraud claims, which is in addition to the $1.8 Billion Citigroup has to pay the Justice Dept. as part of the $25 Billion mortgage loan settlement from the nations top lenders.

But for me, the real kicker is BP America’s A+ rating, with only 16 complaints in the last 3 years. 16 complaints? No significant government actions? For those of us with short memories, the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank on April 20, 2010, triggering the worst oil spill in history. Since then, the Justice Dept. has investigated the spill, as has the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and President Obama issued an Executive Order establishing a bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. No significant government action indeed.

Just to summarize: you can claim to be an organization that blows up buses full of innocent women and children and get an A+ rating from the BBB. You can engage in fraudulent business practices to the point that the U.S. government fines you nearly $2 Billion dollars and you can get an A- rating from the BBB. And you can poison the Gulf of Mexico, destroying the ecosystem and eviscerating the fishing and tourism industries of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and get an A+ rating from the BBB.

Can someone please explain to me why anybody should ever trust a BBB rating?

Categories
Branding Business Misleadership

Fabuloso looks good enough to drink

Let’s do a little roleplaying. Pretend you’re a kid. Say, 5 or 6. And you’ve been playing, and you’re thirsty, and mommy has just come back from shopping, so you ask mommy if you can have some grape juice, and she says yes.

So you go to the bag of groceries and find this bottle of Fabuloso. Looks like grape juice. Different brand than Welch’s, but mommy always buys different things depending on what’s on sale that week. You’re pretty sure you’ve heard the word on the label. You think it means really cool.

So you twist open the top… it’s hard, like some caps are, but you get it. And you pour some into your favorite sippy cup. And you only spill a little on the counter and a little more on the floor. And then you drink it… and it burns going down, and you cough, and your tummy feels like it’s going to explode… and then you pass out, vomit, and choke to death on your own vomit, all before mommy finishes unloading the car.

Well, that was fun. Luckily, it was just roleplaying. No 5 year old would ever drink cleaning fluid, right? Especially not when it looks like this…

Fabuloso multipurpose cleaner: brightly colored, fruity smelling, and packaged in bottles that look like soda or sports drinks
Pretty bottles all in a row. Delicioso? No, Fabuloso!

Oops. Yes, my friends, that is a picture I took today of a supermarket shelf full of Fabuloso in all its glory. What beautiful packaging! What clever branding! What a great idea! Let’s make our multi-purpose cleaner look like a sports drink or juice and smell like one too. Cleaning is yucky, but everybody likes Gatorade.

What the heck were they thinking? And by the way, if you don’t think anybody would actually mistake Fabuloso for a sports drink or juice, check out this article in The Roanoke Times from 2006 that cites research by a physicians group that documented 94 cases of accidental ingestion in the first 6 months of that year in Texas alone. According to the article, many of the cases were children under 6 years old.

Perhaps that’s the most amazing thing to me: Fabuloso, which is made in Mexico, has been on the market in the US looking pretty much just like this since 1997, and according to Colgate, meets the standards of the U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission. (To be fair, they added a child-safety cap in September of 2006. And everyone knows how foolproof those are.)

Somebody at Colgate Palmolive made the choice to color bottles of Fabuloso like sodas or juice drinks. Somebody made the choice to package them in plastic bottles that look just like a sports drink. Somebody made the choice to make them smell fruity. And somebody made the choice to name them Fabuloso, which sounds absolutely… delicious.

So can someone please explain to me why didn’t someone else with half a brain and an ounce of common sense try and stop them?

Categories
Branding Business Misleadership

Artificially Sweet and Intentionally Misleading

Do you use artificial sweeteners? I don’t, but I’ve been around enough people who do to know that they don’t say, “Pass the Equal.” Right? People say, “Pass me a pink.” or “Are there any yellows in there? No, then I’ll take a blue.”

Until recently, if you asked for a pink, you got a Sweet’N Low. Request a blue and you got Equal. And tell someone to pass you a yellow and you got Splenda. But just the other day I was in a restaurant with my family and when my mom asked me for a blue, which I dutifully handed her. As I did so, though, I noticed that all three packets – blue, pink and yellow – said NutraSweet on them.

That seemed wrong to me. And to my mom. And so I did a little research. The yellow packets, normally Splenda, are expected to contain Sucralose (sucrose combined with chlorine – yummy!) and not aspartame or sugar. The pink packets, normally Sweet’N Low, are supposed to be made of saccharine. And the blue packets, normally Equal, are usually made of Aspartame (derived from aspartic acid and phenylalanine.)

But in that restaurant, the yellow was a blend of cane sugar, ace-k (acesulfame-K), aspartame and neotame. The pink was actually saccharine free and contained ace0k and neotame. And the blue was a blend of Aspartame and ace-k.

Many people who use artificial sweeteners do so for health reasons. They may be diabetic, and need to avoid sugar. Or they may be on a low-carb diet, and have read that aspartame can damage the brains of people on low-carb diets. And they may not be paying very much attention as they reach for that little yellow packet that is now full of things they are trying to avoid by choosing a “yellow.”

Now who would go ahead and play fast and loose with the colors on artificial sweetener packets, and why?

Turns out it’s a partnership between Domino Sugar and NutraSweet, who have developed a brand of sweeteners intended to steal market share from their competition. Who cares if some innocent old lady who forgot her reading glasses grabs a couple of yellows and ends up in a diabetic coma?

The packets began showing up in restaurants and other food service locations first, long before normal consumers could buy them, which meant that the average consumer was unaware the new products even existed. And if you don’t think Domino and NutraSweet were counting on that, think again. According to NutraSweet CEO Craig Petray (as quoted in “A Bitter Sweet Battle Stirs Up Confusion: The Sugar Caddy Wars” on allbusiness.com), “We decided to go into each category — each color — and develop a product that was unique and better…Our goal is to shake everything up a little bit and see what consumers prefer…There are just four colors out there. How many colors are there in a rainbow?”

So is this good business or bad branding? Brilliant packaging or deceptive misrepresentation? Can “Let the buyer beware” absolve a company of deliberately camouflaging a product to look like a different product when the consequences to consumer health can be serious? And more importantly, can someone please explain to me where the FDA or the Consumer Protection Agency are in all of this?

Categories
Business Misleadership

The Johnny Cash Project: moving celebration or grave robbery?

I may be late to this party, but a friend of mine just turned me on to The Johnny Cash Project.

It’s an amazing example of crowdsourcing, billed as “A unique communal work, a living portrait of The Man in Black.” Basically, artists get to draw an image of Johnny Cash to be integrated into an animated music video of Cash’s song, “Ain’t No Grave.” For me, one of the coolest aspects is that because people are constantly adding new content, the video is always changing. And you can choose to view the video by watching Highest Rated Frames, Director Curated Frames, Abstract Frames, Realistic Frames, and more.

I highly recommend checking it out. And thanks to my friend, surfer, homeopathic physician, and killer folk music artist Acoustic Apothecary, for sharing this with me. (Check out Acoustic Apothecary’s You Tube videos here.)

But of course, I’m not here simply to bring you the new and interesting (at which I’ve failed miserably given that this has been around awhile). I think there’s a much more important issue at stake here: who owns a creator’s work, and what rights does the creator have as to it’s reproduction and use.

I have written before about who actually owns a creator’s work (please read my posts about Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and The Who’s My Generation). In this instance, while “Ain’t No Grave” is Johnny Cash’s final studio recording, this video is posthumous.

Because it was created with the support of the Cash Estate, I’m sure all the legal bases have been covered. But what about the moral ones? (Including whether his estate is the right authority to make that decision, when its interest in continuing to make money on his creativity may be in conflict with its responsibility to protect the integrity of his legacy? For more on this, see my post, “I See Dead People…”.)

Specifically, would Mr. Cash approve of his fans collaborating with him on his last song? Is he the kind of artist who would have micro-managed every aspect of creative interpretation, as many do, or is he the kind that would willingly allow fans to play in his creative playground, as a growing number of transmedia creators are doing?

Companies and brands face this dilemma whenever they decide to allow their customers to create user-generated content. There have been disasters, like the Chevy Tahoe crowdsourced commercials, and successes, like the Doritos Super Bowl ads.

But what about artists? How do artists feel about covers? Some, like Prince, are against them, and even take their battles to court. Others, like Lady Gaga, who clearly understands the power of social media, are thrilled to death, and tweet about fan videos she finds and likes.

In other words, different creators make different choices about who can use their work, and how. And I believe it is their right to do so.

So, as much as I love The Johnny Cash Project, and as much as I am personally in favor of letting fans play in my own playground (which I am currently developing as part of my “Spirit In Realtime” science fiction series I’m writing), can someone please explain to me whether you think it’s okay to steal and use a dead man’s song for any purpose, even that of celebrating his life?

Categories
Business Marketing Misleadership

Who did Groupon and FTD think they were fooling?

Question: When is a 50% off sale not really a bargain?

Answer: When a company has jacked up their prices first.

In the days before the internet and smartphones that let you scan a bar code and get competitive prices instantly, it was common practice to jack up prices before putting them on sale. Customers who didn’t do their homework (and this kind of homework was much harder back then) would think they were getting a deal, when they really weren’t.

Even today, this practice is widespread enough that Bob’s Discount Furniture has cut a swath through the discount retail furniture business by offering everyday low prices and comparing themselves to the trumped up sale prices at their competitors.

But this latest scam by FTD combines 21st century tech with 20th century chicanery.

If you haven’t heard, FTD offered Groupon users a $20 Off Coupon for Valentines’s Day flowers. According to CNN Money, nearly 3,300 users signed up for the deal. Sounds good, right? Sure, except that it turns out that FTD sent these Groupon users to a separate landing page with prices that were higher than their regular prices. The high service and shipping charges depleted the savings further, so the claimed 50% off was virtually negated. And to add insult to injury, the flowers wouldn’t even be delivered until after Valentines Day.

Groupon cancelled the offer and FTD has already taken down the offending landing page.

Now I’m not a big fan of Groupon to begin with, at least from the marketing side of the equation. I’m sure there are bargains to be had for shoppers, but the jury is still out as to whether companies that use Groupon are making any money. There have been many successful Groupon campaigns, but the abrupt and often unmanageable influx of business, frequently by Groupon members who rarely if ever convert into loyal customers for the retailer, combined with the cost of the promotion and rev share with Groupon, often leads to failure. Some Groupon retailers are getting burned, like Posies Bakery & Cafe who blogged about their negative Groupon experience back in September. Or Gregg Gibbs, whose Chicago Bagel Authority netted $15,000 for $80,000 worth of food, according to this article in the Chicago Tribune.

But regardless of whether you like Groupon or not, FTD is the real culprit here. According to TechCrunch, the coupon only worked if you went through the Groupon link. Going to the regular FTD site landed you on a page where the $50 Groupon flowers were sold for $40. So FTD knew what they were doing. They deliberately increased the price shown to Groupon members. And they charged a service fee.

Can you imagine the marketing meeting where FTD discussed this plan? What were they thinking? Didn’t anybody at the meeting point out that if at any point anybody went to FTD via any path other than the Groupon link, they’d see a different, cheaper offer?

Can someone please explain to me why FTD thinks their customers are cyber-savvy enough to use Groupon, but too stupid to spend a couple of seconds clicking around to check out the actual value of the deal?

Categories
Business Education Misleadership Value for Value

The Revolution In Education Part 2: Let them eat virtual cake

A financial crisis brought about by foreign wars and financial mismanagement and malfeasance. An administration, desperate to meet the demands of the people and stay solvent, forces through legislation that is opposed by many in the government and by the people. The first lady, when told that the people had no bread, replies, “Then let them eat cake.” (Well, technically Brioche, though it turns out the quote itself was probably just made up by a tabloid journalist, in this case, some hack named Rousseau.)

I’ll bet you thought I was talking about the current United States, until the bit about the cake, right?

The point, continuing from my last post, The four R’s: Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic and Revolution!, is that revolutions, be they French, American, or educational, share similar characteristics and causes. And the French Revolution provides the recipe for this week’s post.

How many of you have read the article, “In Florida, Virtual Classrooms With No Teachers” in The New York Times? You’d remember it if you had: it’s the one about the high school students in North Miami Beach who walk into their first day of precalculus class in their senior year to find that their teachers had been replaced by… computers.

No, this is not a scene from my cyberpunk science fiction novel Spirit in Realtime. (Shameless plug — I’m still looking for a publisher! Tweet me: @jlsimons) It’s the sad reality for over 7,000 students in the Miami-Dade County Public School system.

You see, in 2002 Florida passed the Florida’s Class Size Reduction Amendment, which limits the number of high school students  to 25 students per classroom for core classes like math and English. It also limits 4th-8th grade classes to 22 students and pre-K-3rd grade to 18.

In order to meet these legally mandated limits, Florida has instituted what it calls e-learning labs, which are not legally restricted. In these virtual classrooms, students have no teachers, merely a “facilitator” who takes care of any technical issues that may arise. Supposedly, the facilitator is also present to make sure students “progress,” but I’m betting their primary raison d’etre is to keep the kids from going Office Space on the computers… and each other.

Now I’m not against virtual classrooms. Quite the opposite. I think they satisfy a growing need and, when approached properly, can outperform the real ones.

For instance, Mashable cites a US Department of Education report from 2009 based on 50 independent studies: “the agency found that students who studied in online learning environments performed modestly better than peers who were receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The world of online and virtual education is blossoming. I can watch a free lecture on the Special Theory of Relativity by Yale Professor Ramamurti Shankar on Academicearth.org along with dozens of other lectures and full courses in philosophy, biology, chemistry, literature, physics and more filmed right in the classrooms at MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, NYU, Columbia, and other leading colleges and universities.

I can learn anything from basic math to differential calculus, with the French Revolution and “The Role of Phagocytes in Innate or Nonspecific Immunity” thrown in for fun, from Salman Khan of The Khan Academy, a non-profit dedicated to their “mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” They’ve delivered 37,295,405 lessons (according to their website) and count Bill Gates as one of their most vociferous supporters. You can watch Salman and Bill talking about The Khan Academy below, and I promise, I didn’t tell Bill what to say at all. (Thanks for the support, Bill. The check is in the mail.)

The point I’m making here is that I can choose to watch those lectures and lessons, not that I am forced to watch them. (Which is good news, because I can’t tell a phagocyte from a Lymphocyte, and, in all honesty, the entire subject makes my brain hurt.) When students have the liberty to choose online education, and the motivation, there are no limits to what they can learn.

The students in Miami had no choice. Their parents had no choice. Some of them didn’t even know about the virtual classrooms until the day they walked in and saw the computers.

To quote the Times article,

Alix Braun, 15, a sophomore at Miami Beach High, takes Advanced Placement macroeconomics in an e-learning lab with 35 to 40 other students. There are 445 students enrolled in the online courses at her school, and while Alix chose to be placed in the lab, she said most of her lab mates did not.

“None of them want to be there,” Alix said, “and for virtual education you have to be really self-motivated. This was not something they chose to do, and it’s a really bad situation to be put in because it is not your choice.”

At 15, Alix already knows something that school administrators do not. Or worse, they know, but they don’t care. Or even worse, they know, they care, but they have no choice based on the new law.

Bingo! Again, quoting the Times article:

School administrators said that they had to find a way to meet class-size limits. Jodi Robins, the assistant principal of curriculum at Miami Beach High, said that even if students struggled in certain subjects, the virtual labs were necessary because “there’s no way to beat the class-size mandate without it.”

So, to sum up, an overwhelmed bureaucracy struggling to do its job comes up with a solution that seems to solve the problem, at the expense of the very people they were supposed to be helping. And the students are forced to eat virtual cake.

And not all of them, just some of them. Where is the equality in that? The fraternity? Will a college looking at these students give special consideration to the differing quality in instruction they received compared to students, some in the same school, who had an actual teacher to explain a difficult concept to them? Will their grades be asterisked? And what will the long term impact be on a student who repeatedly ends up in virtual classes in, lets say, English, starting in 7th Grade in one of the six middle schools using e-learning labs in Miami and continuing through senior year? Will the “facilitator” be able to awaken within that student a love for the rhythm and rhyme of good writing, the heart and soul of a poem, the nuances of meaning in serious prose? Or will we leave it to HAL9000, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey:

“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.”

Then again, maybe not.

Can someone please explain to me why an education system that can exile students to virtual classrooms during the time they are most in need of nurturing, guidance and, for want of a better word, teaching, shouldn’t be overthrown?  To the barricades, citizens. (More to come…)

Full Disclosure: My client, StraighterLine, is one of the disruptive and revolutionary forces actively engaged in changing education by offering self-paced, online college courses at ridiculously low costs. My relationship with StraighterLine is the reason I have been following developments in the field of education. While I am otherwise compensated for my marketing efforts on behalf of StraighterLine, this series of posts is not one of those efforts. The post is mine and I am in no way being compensated for writing it.

Categories
Business Education Misleadership Value for Value

The four R’s: Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic and Revolution!

What does the start of a revolution look like from the inside?

Revolutions don’t have a precise starting point. It is easy to say that the American Revolution officially began on July 4, 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But was that really the start of the revolution, or merely the official notification of a movement that had been brewing for years?  We know now that the Boston Tea Party was a clear step on the road to revolution, perhaps even one of the opening shots, but at the time, for the participants, as there was not yet a revolution to lead up to, it was “merely” a principled protest in defense of their rights (or, I guess, just a rowdy Thursday night in Boston.)

But I think we can agree on a few of the basic characteristics of the period leading up to a revolution:

  1. The pervasive, powerful and dominating institution about to be revolted against has become unresponsive to the needs of the people whom it supposedly exists to serve.
  2. Forces within the institution who recognize its failure and wish to change find themselves in conflict with forces against that change.
  3. Voices, both inside and outside of the institution, begin to address shortcomings and suggest solutions to the institution itself and to the public at large.
  4. The people most at the mercy of the institution begin to cry out for their needs to be addressed by the institution.
  5. The institutional bureaucrats and apologists fight back against their accusers, both internal and external, and frequently crack down on dissent, especially by their constituents.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. If we’re talking about governments or religions, then historically, what happens next is invariably violent, bloody, and disruptive (with one or two notable exceptions that prove the rule, such as Gandhi’s India).

But if we’re talking about economics, what happens next may be disruptive, but it’s not necessarily bloody or violent. Certainly, people will be displaced, livelihoods will be lost and fortunes will vanish. There may be riots. But any bloodshed connected to the Industrial Revolution pales in comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, etc. etc. etc.

We live in an era of change and disruption across multiple industries: publishing, journalism, marketing and advertising, media and entertainment, manufacturing, health, finance… well, you get the point, right? Any of these sectors may be on the verge of revolution (and nearly all are impacted by even bigger global revolution of virtually simultaneous, planet-wide shared awareness, perception and discussion about which I blogged in October.)

But if we want to find a flawed, failing institution that meets the five aforementioned characteristics, there’s one that really stands out:  education.

Here’s a nice juicy statistic to get us started:

45% of the 2300 undergraduates at 24 institutions analyzed for “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning On College Campuses,” (University of Chicago Press) demonstrated “no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college.” Even worse, 36% didn’t “demonstrate any significant improvement in learning”  over four years of college!

According to the publisher, “As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise—instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list…Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa’s report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.”

Reporting yesterday on the book for Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik wrote, “the book acknowledges that many college educators and students don’t yet see a crisis… The culture of college needs to evolve, particularly with regard to “perverse institutional incentives” that reward colleges for enrolling and retaining students rather than for educating them. “It’s a problem when higher education is driven by a student client model and institutions are chasing after bodies,” he (Arun) said.”

Now in case you haven’t noticed, dear reader, my posts tend to run long to begin with, and even I can see that this isn’t a bone I can finish gnawing in a single meal. I’m going to continue to address this issue in upcoming posts.

So for now, I’m going to leave you with a simple question, to which I humbly ask for your answers and opinions: can someone please explain to me how we can, in good conscience, counsel our children to mortgage their futures under a mountain of student loan debt when 45% of them won’t get much out of their first two years, and 36% won’t get much out of their entire four years of college?

Full Disclosure: My client, StraighterLine, is one of the disruptive and revolutionary forces actively engaged in changing education by offering self-paced, online college courses at ridiculously low costs. My relationship with StraighterLine is the reason I have been following developments in the field of education. While I am otherwise compensated for my marketing efforts on behalf of StraighterLine, this post is not one of those efforts. The post is mine and I am in no way being compensated for writing it.

Categories
Business Misleadership

Who really owns Huckleberry Finn?

Like so many of you out there, I am outraged at the sanitizing of Huckleberry Finn by replacing the “N” word with “slave.” At first, I assumed Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books must be doing it to sell books to schools and libraries that banned the original, riding the wave of political correctness and sensationalism to the best seller list.

But then I read the article in Publisher’s Weekly and came to the realization that Gribben really thinks he’s doing the right thing:

“After a number of talks, I was sought out by local teachers, and to a person they said we would love to teach this novel, and Huckleberry Finn, but we feel we can’t do it anymore. In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable.” Gribben became determined to offer an alternative for grade school classrooms and “general readers” that would allow them to appreciate and enjoy all the book has to offer. “For a single word to form a barrier, it seems such an unnecessary state of affairs,” he said.

The article ends with a quote from NewSouth publisher Suzanne La Rosa:

But the heart of the matter is opening up the novels to a much broader, younger, and less experienced reading audience: “Dr. Gribben recognizes that he’s putting his reputation at stake as a Twain scholar,” said La Rosa. “But he’s so compassionate, and so believes in the value of teaching Twain, that he’s committed to this major departure. I almost don’t want to acknowledge this, but it feels like he’s saving the books. His willingness to take this chance—I was very touched.”

Sounds reasonable, right? Even noble: Making Huckleberry Finn accessible to everyone, at the cost of one’s reputation. I mean, after all, the book is considered one of the great American novels, perhaps the greatest. It’s the ultimate indictment of those who judge people by how they look, or the title or position in society they hold, or even their familial relationship, rather than judging them by their actions and their hearts.

And wouldn’t that message be just as strong without the “N” word or “Injun” scattered over 200 times across its pages?

Who cares? That’s not the issue here.

The question is: Who owns Huckleberry Finn? And I don’t mean who owns the right to publish it. I mean, whose book is it?

It’s not Gribben’s book. It’s not our book. Librarians and school teachers and school boards and offended readers don’t own it.

It’s Mark Twain’s book. He wrote it. He could have used the word slave, but he didn’t.

Good intentions don’t justify censorship or the mutilation of art, whether you’re a teacher or the Pope. (Sorry, Pius IX.)  And I don’t think anyone who has ever read Mark Twain would suggest he would approve of Gribben’s actions. This is exactly the kind of misguided sophistry Twain would skewer with his rapier wit. Rather than openly fight the injustice of censorship, our brave hero slinks in shrouded in a cloak of acceptability.

But mostly, it’s just wrong. Twain is powerless to defend his words against Gribben’s literary rape.

Isn’t there a word for depriving someone of their right to self-determination, when you treat them like an object to serve your needs rather than as a human being deserving of respect?

Can someone please tell me who gave Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books the right to treat Mark Twain like a… “slave?”

Categories
Business Value for Value

Looking for Mr. Right on my cell phone

Don’t you hate it when people rant about the good old days? I know I do.

“You young whippersnappers may not remember this, but in the good old days, Ma Bell ran the phones and you could hear a pin drop on the other end of the line. At least, that’s what the teleeevision commercials said.”

Well, I was talking with a friend yesterday and he pulled out his Droid and fumbled with the touch screen, trying to find the phone, and the vitriol that dripped from his voice as he said how much he hated that phone was the kind usually reserved for villains who stole your bible and shot your dog.

It got me thinking about cell phones. I use a Voyager, an aging pre-smart phone that browses the internet and gets emails, but not all that well. Its best feature is the real keypad, which for me is critical. But the fact is, the sound quality sucks.

It’s not the network. I’m on Verizon, and after using MCI, Sprint and AT&T, I can tell you that at least in my experience, Verizon delivers the best quality in the tri-state area.

No, the fact is that the sound quality on most mobile phones sucks these days. 5 years ago, on a basic LG flip phone, the sound quality was fine.

But today?

Think about how many calls you get from people on cell phones where you can barely make out what they’re saying, even if they’re not on the streets of NY but in their own home.

And what if you’re receiving the call on your own cell phone? The problems are magnified beyond measure.

We all make excuses for our phones. We overlook the problems: the abysmal quality, the crashes, the dropped calls, the lost contacts, the notepad messages that can’t be transferred, the calendars and text inboxes that seem to have smaller capacities for storing data than a 5 1/2″ floppy and the battery life that runs out quicker than you can say “Honey, where’d I leave my charger?”

We move from phone relationship to phone relationship, hoping upon hope that the next one will be “the one.”

In other words, we are serial enablers.

I’m in the process of looking for my own “Mr. Right.” (Yes, my phone is a he. It’s not a ship, or a car, or an airplane. It’s a phone, and to me it’s a he. Lucky for me. If it were a she, she would have dumped my sorry, abusive self years ago.)

I’m probably going to get a Droid 2, because I need the keypad, and it’s better than the Droid’s, and I want a bigger screen and I want a tricked-out phone that runs Flash  and has apps and synchs with my Google Calendar. Plus, I want to stay with Verizon, which means the Samsung Epic 4G is out.

So I’ll suffer through unfathomable interfaces and lousy call quality because I want all the technological bells and whistles. I want to be able to run Tweetdeck on my phone and connect to Facebook with a click and visit sites that use Flash and type with real keys instead of pounding my non-conductive fingertips against the touch screen until I’m red in the face and ready to stroke out.

But can someone please explain to me when it not only became acceptable to tolerate lower quality in return for “better” technology, but required?

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