People: Sylvester

people-first-stories

“They come for three months - they stay for four years - and I welcome that. That’s how we learn. They see us up close and personal and we see them. A lot of countries that they come from have very different governments, with different rules. We get to learn about each without the filter of what they are told. I wouldn’t say that when they leave we fully understand each other’s cultures, but we are surely better off than we would have been if we hadn’t.”

“We bring people in from all over the world, staff and customers. So, why would we treat anyone differently? Them, Us, Staff, Customers, Family … each one of us is part of another’s world. And I mean all of us.”

“I don’t know much about those large companies you hear about in the news. You could fit our entire community into one of their office blocks. They have their ways. We have ours. So we’re different. Except we’re not. None of us are. They just haven’t worked that out yet.”

“Turns out, we have more in common with ‘foreigners’ - like you” (he smiles and points his finger at me) “than some of the people from our own country. Turns out that the ones that are just here to ‘party’ are the odd ones out. That’s why we came up with the ‘Silly Bugger’ rule.”

“It goes like this. When you come here, you can work and you can party. But that’s on your time. If you play ‘silly bugger’, there is no second chance. You are out on the next boat. That’s how we build and strengthen our community. Everybody is welcome until they make themselves unwelcome.”

“Maybe that’s something else those big companies could learn from us. If they did, we wouldn’t charge. That’s another thing - we don’t charge to learn - learning makes us all better.”

“There is no harm in our criticizing foreigners, if only we would also criticize ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little more of the old humility.”

G.K. Chesterton

A Letter | Groucho

”Dear Junior: Please excuse me for not answering your letter sooner. But I have been so busy not answering letters lately that I have not been able to get around to not answering yours in time. Love, Groucho.”

Groucho Marx

Postscript : Ad Tracking

Are we winning? Well a whole lot more than we might have been pre-internet. 

Ad blockers are used by some 25% of internet users in 2019. In real terms, this means that 25% of internet advertising that uses trackers will not reach their intended audience. (It’s quite a bit more complicated than that, but the point is that somehow the word got out that people were being tracked and it was those pesky Ads doing all the tracking - enter Adblocking and so an industry was born and an ‘arms race’ ensued.)

The peak of the internet searching for the term ‘Ad blocker’ was September 2015. 

Me - I call it ‘tracker blocking’. There are sites that allow advertising and do not track. Ad blockers don’t work there - because there is no tracking to be blocked.

But there is no escape that at one point people were increasingly aware of ad blocking - what it was doing and most importantly - what it was doing to them. They got interested. And then it all fell away.

That’s the mistake - we need to keep piling on. Keep reminding people what is going on.

Postscript : Marketing

AIDA is a marketing model that is well over 100 years old. It has gone through countless iterations, twists and turns. It has been cast out - only to reappear with different words. More stages. Less stages. The ‘Young Turks’ who run today’s corporate marketing department will be using some version of the AIDA model. It is a simple, timeless truth that goes something like this:

For a product, service or idea to gain traction with an individual, that person needs to be attracted in a way that Attention is garnered. Once you have that attention, the person needs to become sufficiently Interested to learn more. To educate themselves. With that education, the person should then develop a Desire to adopt the service, product or thinking so that the Action of purchase of ‘adoption of idea’ can be completed.

There’s more. While it takes two to tango, it takes an army to change thinking, because the opposition to established ideas, general knowledge and ‘plain common sense’ is hard. But important and necessary.

NO need to start a discussion here on civil rights. Is there?

Michael Porter published “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors” in 1980 and introduced the world to The Five Forces Model

• Competition in the industry
• Potential of new entrants into the industry
• Power of suppliers
• Power of customers
• The threat of substitute products

It’s a longer discussion, and maybe not immediately obvious - but we can apply this thinking, with the AIDA model, to build a solid series of campaigns and programs to start to change the dialogue and remind everyone that

Technology is a tool for people to use - not be used against them.

Postscript : Climate Change

If you are old enough, you will remember that the French Government blew up a boat belonging to Greenpeace in the Auckland harbor, New Zealand. (If you aren’t old enough - trust me - this is not a movie - this is history.) That was 35 years ago - 14 years after Greenpeace was founded to protest the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Since the early 90s Greenpeace has had a broader goal that puts Climate Change front and centre. They are but one organization fighting that particular battle.

It took until 2016 for The Paris Agreement to come together and really is only the world’s united effort to start to fight climate change. The only countries recognized as ‘significant emitters’ that have not signed are Iran and Turkey.

Anyway - must be all going smoothly. Right?

Captain Peter Wilcox was the skipper and onboard the Rainbow Warrior in 1985. He still is the skipper of Rainbow Warrior (the third).

“I’m scared that we have lost the battle against climate change. But this stuff gets me up in the morning…..I say we’re losing, does that mean I’m gonna stop? No. Absolutely not. I’ll go down fighting. We’re not winning, we’re not succeeding. Global warming is getting worse, and worse, and worse and we haven’t even started to change the way we live on the planet”.

Captain Peter Wilcox

If you feel helpless - imagine how Peter feels.

If I stop using plastic bags, recycle and am I ‘carbon neutral’? What good is that in the fight against climate change? What can a single person do? I don’t know … but don’t tell the mosquito in a tent that it is ineffective.

Moreover, The United States of America has pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

Meanwhile, climate activist Greta Thunberg has risen from relative obscurity to Time Person of the Year and nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in less than 18 months, all the while being made fun of by bullies like Donald Trump and Steve Mnuchin.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

I think we are around stage two/three on ‘climate’.

Newsletter Postscript Chunk

From time to time, my newsletter gets a little TOO long and then I cut and move some of the more self-contained chunks to here, so that people can read the newsletter and if interested can jump to here for more detail. This is one of those chunks.

On Reading

“Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man, who has read steadily that which he ought to have read sixteen hours a day, from early infancy. … My leisure has been moderate, my desire strong and steady, my taste in selection certainly above average, and yet in ten years I seem scarcely to have made an impression upon the intolerable multitude in volumes which ’everyone is supposed to have read.”

Arnold Bennett, Journal, Oct. 15, 1896

There’s A Gap

if it’s not a job

Over here I share a lot of Gaping Void’s work. Hugh Macleod more often than not nails it. But this one needed a comment.

Boom! That’s the way it works, for anyone in the innovation or creative business. History decides what is ‘art’, history decides what is ‘important’ …

Meanwhile, you’re just doing your job, you’re just showing up, trying to be a pro, you’re just trying to be a grownup, you’re just trying to get paid.

Hugh Mcleod - Gaping Void

Whilst I don’t disagree that ‘history’ decides what is important - Hugh of all people knows that ‘history’ is not neutral. An example would be that ‘History’ for the longest time did not recognize art that came from (say) Africa, because we ‘superior’ Westerners were writing off thousands and thousands of years of ‘art’ - because it didn’t fit into our Western sensibilities and so classified the art into Natural History Museums.

Example essay on this topic

But there’s more.

I reject the idea that just because you aren’t ‘recognized as an artist’ then you are not an artist. That is just wrong.

During his Blue period, Picasso wasn’t recognized, was destitute and nobody was buying his paintings. Was he not an artist until he was ‘discovered’ … sounds a bit like the ‘superiority gene’ is kicking in again.

Sorry Hugh - wrong!

Capitalism is Dead.

Buying Power

… Long Live Capitalism.

Here’s a snippet from a long-form interview of Yvon Chouinard in Fast Company.

Yvon Chouinard

Question : In the past, you consulted with folks at large companies, such as Walmart, and came away not so convinced of their actual ability to pursue sustainability. If we’re looking to create a better version of capitalism, what do you think should be done with publicly traded companies?

You’ve got to reinvent capitalism altogether. It leads to a whole bunch of poor people and a few extremely rich people. Ultimately, capitalism is going to lose its customers. There won’t be anybody to buy the product because everybody is going to be so poor. The whole thing is going to crash before the next election, probably. We’re going to get another huge recession, and everybody’s going to lose out on their stocks. There we go again. It’s a system that’s got to change. The whole stock thing is dependent on growth. Look at Amazon. Amazon doesn’t make a profit. They don’t pay any taxes. Nothing. But they’re growing like crazy. It’s all growth, growth, growth—and that’s what’s destroying the planet. I’m dealing with that myself. We’re a billion-dollar company, over a billion, and I don’t want a billion-dollar company. The day they announced it to me, I hung my head and said, “Oh God, I knew it would come to this.” I’m trying to figure out how to make Patagonia act like a small company again.”

“There won’t be anybody to buy the product because everybody is going to be so poor.” As we have it here at People First ….

Take Three Words

just 3 words

I discovered the three words process only last year from Chris Brogan. It worked nicely for 2019, so I repeated the exercise for 2020. Since publishing the three words in my annual new year newsletter, a number of people have asked questions;

• where did the idea come from?
• what are the rules?
• can you tell me more about the process?
• is it ok to have four words?

etc etc

So first - not my idea. I got it from Chris Brogan - but I don’t think he started it. To fill in some gaps - this is what Chris has to say.

What is My 3 Words About?

The My Three Words idea is simple. Choose 3 words (not 1, not 4) that will help guide your choices and actions day-to-day. Think of them as lighthouses. “Should I say yes to this project?” “Well, does this align with my three words?”

My take : Rules are made to be broken. I get why three is better than one … for me - but whatever works for you. This is an exercise to help you shape your thinking and actions in a consistent way throughout a year.

How to Choose Three Words

I started this process back in 2006. Back then, my 3 words were “Ask. Do. Share.” I picked these very simple words and they served me very well. One of my best years ever. When I asked questions, I learned. When I took action based on what I learned from asking, I made more ground and took over more of the universe. When I shared what I learned with everyone, I made connections and some friends.

Choose any three words you feel will guide you forward. I can tell you a few things about this:

• Don’t make it a phrase. “Publish the book” is a terrible choice. “The” is wasted.
• Try to make the words actionable. “Expand” is better than “bigger.”
• The more utilitarian the word can be, the better. These words have to be your compass.
• Stick with the 3 words all year. Every time I’ve changed one a month or two later, the year mucks up. I can’t explain it. But I can report it.
• Years where I’ve tried “fancy” words with layers of meaning, I lost the thread. Use plain words, maybe.
• BUT the words don’t have to mean anything to anyone but you. Don’t worry about explaining them.

My take: Can’t argue with anything here. That last one is probably the most important. The three words are not for you to explain to others. They are your words, for you.

Review Them Daily

The more you review your 3 words, the better. I have mine built into my daily planning guides and action stacks. I try using them for a mantra when I can. Sometimes on walks, I just repeat them over and over. I like to reflect on them and meditate a little with those words in mind.

My take: I didn’t do this last year. I am going to try this year, particularly since this year’s words have a very specific direction in mind, whereas last years was more of a broader ‘raise the boat’ theme.

My Three Words

I have decided to follow Chris’ example and publish my words in a single place and so annually, will revisit this post and update.

2019 - Uncertain - Less - Different [published here]

2020 - Believe - Move - Ascend [published here]