Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Culture, Diversity, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Prejudice, Relevance, Resonance
In the 20 years before Einstein died, he almost never accepted invitations to speak at universities.
In 1946 he broke his self-imposed rule to give an address – and accept an honorary degree – from a small, traditionally African American, university in Pennsylvania.
There he declared:
“The separation of the races is not a disease of coloured people*, but a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.”
Now on one hand, the fact I hadn’t heard him say this before means that maybe he left it too late to not be quiet about it … but that aside, that is advice we should all be adhering to.
As I wrote about a while ago, I used to think it was enough to simply not think that way.
It’s not.
We have to act.
We have to stand up.
We have to make sure the actions and behaviours of those who wish to define and undermine others are met with resistance.
Words are – sadly – not enough.
Sure. they’re a start, but we need more than that.
People from other heritages and backgrounds have consistently shown their support for rights and freedoms we enjoy every day – and yet we think it’s enough to just ‘say’ we support them back.
It’s not.
It’s embarrassing we think it would be.
But if anyone needs more reasons to help make the change that should have happened and needs to happen, then how about the fact we would all end up benefiting if this happens.
Of course that shouldn’t be the reason we do it, but as I wrote about giving equal opportunities for female leadership, the benefit of letting hundreds of millions of smart people, with different experiences and ways of looking at the World means they can see ways to push us forward in ways we may never have considered.
And I say ‘all’ because unlike [many] white males, they’re generous with their ambitions and aspirations so actively bring others on the journey with them rather than leave them behind.
We have a lot to benefit from fighting for equality.
But we have to fight.
As Einstein worked out years ago.
______________________________________________________________________
* The term ‘coloured people’ is obviously wrong, but in 1946, I imagine that was the acknowledged universal term … which shows how little we have progressed in that time.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Creativity, Culture, Data, Devious Strategy, Differentiation, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Marketing, Marketing Fail
Let me be clear, I really like Netflix.
I like them for the programming they make.
I like them for how they reinvented themselves when they saw their business die with DVD’s.
I like them for putting craft back into content and arguably making this the golden age of telly.
[Yes, I said TV, because some research said Netflix was mostly watched on the old box]
But I digress …
There’s one thing I don’t like about them and that’s how they talk about data creating the show ‘House Of Cards’.
I’m not doubting data played an important role in their thinking, but the way some people talk about it, data was the whole reason the show was made, ignoring the fact that a team of talented and creative actors, directors, camera men and film crew were needed to actually bring it to the screen. But even more than that, House Of Cards had already been made by the BBC years earlier, so it was an ‘update’ rather than a brand new creation.
However the main reason I doubt that narrative is that if data had proved to be so successful, why haven’t they done it again … and if they have, why is there no show that has had the same level of impact?
Alright, there have been a few that have definitely captured cultures attention, but they seem to be more because they’re talking about an event that captured the World’s attention [Fyre Festival] or simply offered a show featuring a Hollywood star at a time where people were desperately looking for content [Sandra Bullock’s, Bird Cage, which came out at Christmas]
OK, I’m being pretty unfair as Netflix is pretty awesome, but I suppose I just get wary of people claiming data made their creativity happen when the reality is [1] it didn’t and [2] if it did, then there is a hell of a lot of content on that network that is a great case for not relying on it entirely.
Data has a very important role to play in almost every industry, but when you claim – and trust – it can do it all without needing the understanding, imagination and craft of talented and creative humans, then you’re about as blind as the people who fail to see Bird Cage’s ending was rushed, contrived and massively underwhelming.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Freddie, Prejudice, Queen
So this post is about Queen.
The band, not her royal highness.
Do I need to call the Samaritans for you now?
Anyway, as many of you know I’m doing a weird, long-term, creative project with a famous Rock band.
As part of that, their management connect me to all manner of weird and wonderful people and recently, they arranged for me to talk to someone who knew Freddie Mercury.
I should point out, him knowing Freddie was not the reason they connected us up, but it soon became the reason for me.
I couldn’t let such an opportunity pass and so after our chat about the task in hand, I told him I was a huge Queen fan and that I’d heard he was a long-time friend of Mr Mercury.
I was over-the-moon when he started telling me some personal anecdotes about Freddie, but there was one thing he mentioned that particularly grabbed my attention.
According to him, part of Freddie’s brilliance was that he was a ‘high class problem’.
He used those exact words.
What he meant by that was Freddie would never allow his issues or ideas to be ignored or fobbed off – by band, management or record company – because they knew if he had a problem, he would not let it pass until it was discussed or dealt with.
The reason I found this fascinating is that we now live in a time where more and more companies value ‘colleague complicity’ above all else. Where anyone who has a different opinion – especially a different opinion to management – is seen as the enemy, even tough in many cases, the motivation behind the challenge is simply a desire to have a better understanding of the viewpoint or wish to help the company achieve at a higher level.
With that in mind, I think it should be the goal of everyone to be a high class problem. It might be hard, it might be met with resistance – but if you are doing it for the right reasons, it’s the right thing to do however, as Mr Mercury’s friend told me, you better have earned the right to be that way or you end up simply being a “dickhead diva“.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Chaos, Creativity, Culture, Management, Metallica, Packaging, Relationships
So a few weeks ago, I came home to find a Metallica album.
Not just a Metallica album, but a special edition – box set album.
And not just a special edition, box set Metallica album … but one personally signed by each member of the masters of metal themselves.
Now while that would be nice to think this was an act of love and generosity, the reality is it was an act of cheeky bastardness because for reasons I don’t understand, the band and their management have decided to bestow the nickname ‘St Anger’ on me and by sending me an album of the same name, this was their way of rubbing it in.
I admire their evil genius.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Management, Marketing Fail, Money, Perspective, Prejudice, Relevance, Resonance, Unfair Life
So as you read this, I’ll be on a plane to NY.
Which means there’ll be no blog posts for a whole week.
Better yet, when I’m back, there’ll only be some rubbish for a few days because I’ll be going back to America for 10 days.
Seriously, I don’t know why I moved given I’m spending so much time there.
Oh hang on, yes I do …
Anyway, while I’m gone I hope to set up my response to the post I wrote regarding the systematic destruction of employee confidence and optimism by bad managers.
As I mentioned a while back, when I wrote that post, someone wrote to me asking if it was about them.
I told them that if they feel guilt, then maybe they need to take a look at how they conduct themselves because I mentioned no names or places in my post.
Which led to the idea of setting up a blog of corporate gaslighting.
I would love to fill it with anonymous stories of systematic corporate abuse so that anyone who goes there and thinks a story is specifically about their actions, they will be forced to look at their attitude and behaviours and hopefully change them.
As much as I was tempted to name names and destroy careers, the reality is that would just make me as bad as them.
I know that sometimes good people do bad things – often influenced by issues going on in their life we have no knowledge of – which is why my hope is that if they go to this site and recognize some of the behaviors that are being described, it might help jolt them back into the right frame of mind and actively work on changing their approach to their role.
And if it doesn’t?
Well then they’re not a good person and they deserve all they get … which, I hope, will happen more because this site will give the people subjected to this abuse the confidence and reassurance they’re not alone and can take a stand against it, with our backing.
Ultimately, I just want to try and change a situation that is happening much more than people seem to think. Part of this is because the people who subject others to this abuse, make them feel so worthless, they believe it’s all their fault and so reporting it would ultimiately be like advertising their own inadequacies.
Being told you’re wrong is fine when it’s done by people that you feel genuinely care about your improvement. But being told you’re wrong by people who are doing it to protect or further themselves – especially at the expense of someone elses self belief – is abuse, pure and simple.
I recently registered the domain for the website …TheyTriedToKillMeButI.Live
I hope people will help me populate the site and spread the word.
See you in a week.