Specialization Is At The Crossroads Of Tech And Design

As tempting as it might be, don't count the Apple watch out yet. Despite the cottage industry created to deride its entry into the wearables category, sales are steady even if the expectations were off.

The Apple watch was never going to see the same kind of adoption that the iPhone did. And if you thought it might, then you don't understand anything about watches. One size could never fit all. 

If anything, the opposite holds true. The evolution of technology and communication isn't ubiquitous generalization. It's specialization, with the caveat of collaboration — hardware that emphasizes one or two features well while providing access to select applications currently associated with phones.

The Marshall London, The Copenhagen Wheel, And The Leica Q.

There is no shortage of specialization beginning to take hold in the marketplace. And while many of them can be equated a luxury segment, emerging markets a fueling new luxury buyers and their influence over consumer behavior is spreading toward design and specialization. 

  

The Marshall London is an exquisite looking Android Lollipop specially designed for music lovers. Some features include dual headphone jacks, five-band equalizer, and a gold scroll wheel for volume. There is also a dedicated processor for high resolution audio (including FLAC files) at the core of it.

The Copenhagen Wheel is hardware that transforms ordinary bicycles into hybrid e-bikes. But more than that, it transforms any bike into a smart bike, capable of adjusting your workout based on environmental conditions, conveying real-time traffic and road conditions, and even giving you a boost when you need it most.

The Leica Q is a high-end, full-frame camera with a 24MP sensor and no anti-aliasing filter. The design is classic, but the camera doesn't compromise on modern tech specs. The interface enables photographers to use a touch screen or the lens and still delivers the fastest autofocus of any impact full-frame camera. A new WiFi feature also allows for remote shooting from a smart phone.

All three illustrate a shift away from total market disruption and the emergence of tech specializations that fall in line with the convergence of communication and the customer experience. Expect to see such specialization in future renditions of wearable tech too. 

People don't want a fully functional iPhone on their wrists as much as they want a classic timepiece that can also put their database on any screen they happen to direct it toward. But short of that, they are happy with wearables that do only one thing very well too.

Technology and design will reverse the move toward generalization. 

As Apple learns that the design of any watch needs to be significantly more malleable and personal than their initial offering, there may be a reassurance of interest in digital technology. The Apple Watch is certainly a step in the right direction. Now all we need are watches that are watches first (but can power up a display screen too) much like the Marshall London is a music phone, the Leica Q is a camera, and the Copenhagen Wheel is a wheel. And yet, they are so very much more.

How Social Automation And Social Absenteeism Are Different

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of social automation. I generally advise clients to mostly avoid it, with "mostly" being the operative word. There are opportunities when social automation can be effective.

So why do I advise clients to mostly avoid it? Because the advice isn't meant to frighten them away from automation. It's to make them keep thinking so their automation doesn't turn into absenteeism.

How social absenteeism made social automation a dirty word. 

Social absenteeism can be defined by all signs Danny Brown listed it in his article about automation. He included bots that burp out content followers, communication shifts from conversation to broadcast, and a constant number crunching addiction that appeals to less social savvy companies.

In all three cases, it isn't automation as much as it's absenteeism, with all of it disrupting the value of social media. But let's be clear here. It doesn't disrupt it entirely. Social still drives more than 30 percent of web traffic, with Facebook dominating the top platforms, while search continues to slump.

Those numbers provide a proof of sorts. Search used to be the go-to answer for everything, even finding love as illustrated by this classic commercial about an American finding love in Paris.


While this spot is fun and clever, it doesn't always hold true anymore. Nowadays, people want to be told what to find as often or even more than they want to find something. In essences, we've seen a  social shift that makes search the go-to when you know what to ask and social the go-to if you don't.

The point was punctuated in a modernized version of Parisan Love. It features a man who is stuck someplace for a few days. Rather than sulk, he asks his social network friends what he should do. They offer up suggestions and he loads clips of his daily adventures drawn from their ideas. It's a clever commercial, proving that even accidental vacations are more fun with input from friends.

The spot represents the best of social media: interaction, engagement, inspiration, reciprocation, and reward. Social absenteeism, on the other hand, would have produced something else entirely because absent automation has no context for circumstance. It doesn't know where you are, what you need, or what you are doing. It's scripted regularity that points to the same products or people or places.

Unchecked, you can easily consider it a cousin to black hat SEO and email spam in that the objective of the communication isn't designed to help anyone except the broadcaster. It's their method of getting clicks, capturing followers, maintaining a presence, and executing content formulas. What's in it for the customer or consumer? Not too much. It favors a marketing agenda over customer experience.

Absenteeism doesn't require automations. Humans can be boring too.

There is a sandwich brand that asks its followers what sandwich they like (or some such variation of the question) every day. No matter what anyone says, the brand affirms they made the right choice. It's monotonous. Most people only follow the account for coupons. The rest they put up with to get them.

Most people would be surprised to find that the account is managed by a human, given that there is nothing human about the communication. It's shallow and empty, celebrating the brand not the fans.

It's not all that different from sending out blind pitches to journalists or sending out a discount on jeans just after the customer bought five pairs. Both examples are empty actions, contrary to some of the suggestions offered up by Brown. Content testing to improve communication, scheduling tests, action tracking, list culls and dead account purges are all smart automation tactics because they are all designed to enhance the customer experience and not detract from it. The difference is in the intent.

It isn't even confined to social media. Automation runs the risk of becoming absenteeism across all communication disciplines with content formulas, empty actions, and unjustifiable frequency. And in a world where the communication has become part of the product, for better or worse, you can't really afford to cheapen it by thinking the solution to every problem is an apple just because you sell them.

The PR Call To 'Be The Media' Is A Misnomer

There's no question that social media has become an important part of the media/public relations landscape. Given that the media have completely integrated social media into journalism, it makes sense. And social, after all, has been integrated into every facet of communication and beyond.

It has become such a big part of public relations that there is even some ground swell over the notion that public relations could eventually "be the media" with equal footing. And why not?

Some firms even say that it's essential if businesses want to "reassume direct control over their reputations and news flow." Others say that it's a surefire solution "to become a producer as opposed to a facilitator" and earn a larger piece of the MarComm budget. And yet others think that in doing so, they can "skip the media middle man all together." It might even be vital to do so in some cases.

Being the media is not an evolutionary step for public relations. 

You don't have to subscribe to the notion of content shock to see a real problem with companies attempting to circumvent the media. The real problem is that it moves public relations away from its core tenet to strengthen the relationships between the organization and various publics in favor of a top-down communication — the same one that social was once purported to solve once and for all.

It also changes the perspectives, objectives, and outcomes of the communication. As quasi media, companies are incentivized to measure the reach, engagement, and conversion outcomes over programs designed to ensure mutually beneficial and measurable outcomes for the organization and its publics. And while it's true both efforts can work in tandem, the thinking is light years apart.

Reputable public relations teams would never view the media as a 'middle man' but rather as one of its very important publics — a reasonably objective (hopefully) voice that assists in bringing clarity to important issues, even those that are relatively niche. They also also understand that the increasingly diminished role of the media leaves an organization front and center as a direct source that must compete for attention against anyone who is looking for link clicks.

In other words, skipping the so-called media middle man further fragments communication, with each organization vying for its share of spotlight. It also opens up cause for corporations to supplant independent news, justified by the mistaken belief that the concept of objective journalism is a myth.

It seems nowadays that many public relations professsionals (and journalists) fail to understand that objective journalism works because the method is objective, not necessarily the journalist. And when objective journalism is allowed to work, it serves organizations and the public by vetting any claims, setting the agenda, and supporting the truth when the facts are paramount to the public good.

The evolutionary next step of public relations is collaboration.

Don't misunderstand the message here. Content marketing, social media, and corporate journalism have become vital components for any communication plan. But all of these tactics work best when they are employed in tandem with media relations, public relations, and other collaborations — something that even marketers see as having tangible value across multiple media venues.

Sure, I've always been an advocate for integrated communication, direct-to-public public relations, and teaching public relations professionals to think like a journalist. And at the same time, when it comes to public relations specifically, I also remind students that the simplest definition of the field is to transform "us and them" into "we," which would include a shrinking pool of pure journalists.

Lions And Labels And Agendas, Oh My. They Made Me Blind.

"How we can get people to actually solve problems instead of pushing agendas?" — Amy Vernon 

This is a question that has been rolling around in my head since Amy Vernon asked it in response to an open call for conversation last week. My short answer coached the problem in politics, but the problem is much more hardwired into human beings than we might think. If it wasn't political labels that drive the diatribe and prevent problem solving, it would be something else.

It might be religious labels. It might be ethnic labels. It might be occupational labels. Or it might be the books we read. The music we like. The clothes we wear. The activities we pursue. The experiences we've had. The places we live. The places where we were born. The people we know.

We wake up every day with several thousand labels around our necks. We let them shape us and allow them to shape our perception of other people. We make ourselves slaves to them. And there is no end to how many we might make up. It's why we have nice things. And it's why we can't have nice things.

We've been indoctrinated into addiction. It took our entire childhood.

The truth is we spend most of our childhoods being indoctrinated into labels that make life easier and harder because every label carries an agenda. That's the point. Someone invented them to give life directions, expectations, and excuses. And then our parents and guardians conspire to pass them along just as most of us will when we have children too.

They aren't the only ones. Every peer and role model you ever had did the same thing, for better and worse. Many labels are moving targets, falling in and out of popularity with minorities and majorities.

It doesn't really matter what those labels might be. They blind us by casting bigger shadows than the people who wear them, they bind us to limitations and opportunities, and they consciously and subconsciously tint the lens that we wear when we try to solve problems as individuals and groups.

The only people not overtaken by them have to make a conscious effort to recognize them for what they are, strive to be objective even when it feels impossible, and struggle to retain their sense of self-esteem while not subscribing to stereotypes that the greater society values. It's one of the most difficult things anyone can do in life because people are genuinely afraid that all they can be are their labels.

Who would you be if labels didn't define you? Besides happy, I mean. 

I once had a friend who was struggling with motherhood. She insisted that she wasn't a good mother. The idea was pretty absurd to me because my perception of her abilities vastly eclipsed her own self-perception. So I gave it my best shot. She needed to free herself from the shackles of a "good mom."

After I asked her to write down the definition of everything she considered to be a "good mother," we both took a breath to admire the sheer weight of expectations. Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that the label she had placed on a pedestal was unreachable and unachievable.

Mostly, her list included everything she thought her mom did right, the opposite of everything her mom did wrong, several dozen expectations that are currently popular in society, several dozens values dedicated by faith (even though she was agnostic at the time), and so on and so forth. Once she took it all in and could laugh at how grandiose her job description was, I offered an alternative concept.

"Just like your husband married you and not the idea of a 'good wife,' your son wants to be raised by you and not the idea of a 'good mother,'" I said. "If you are you and do everything from a perspective of unconditional love, then you will be better than a 'good mother' because no one can be you better."

You would be surprised how great people can be when they aren't paralyzed by labels. She did fine.

So what does that have to do with solving problems? Almost everything. 

Have you ever noticed that some of the most explosive companies in history have come out of nowhere? There is a reason for that. They are generally started by entrepreneurs solving a specific problem or changing the status quo.

Why can't big companies do the same? Some of them can, but the advantage belongs to the startup in that they haven't saddled themselves with labels, policies and office politics. People focus on the objective at hand, without any other distractions. Their teams aren't always proven as much as they are ready to prove themselves. And whatever idea they've been turning over is all that really matters.

So let's say the problem is more altruistic, like thirsty children. How do we solve it? Charity: Water says the best way to solve it is to build water projects that put clean, drinkable water closer to the source.

All that stands in their way to deliver it is labels. Some people don't like their business model. Some people don't like that the founder is Christian. Some people don't like their partner organizations. Some people don't like that the program helps people abroad as opposed to at home. Some people worry about project sustainability. Some people want to support another charity. And the list goes on.

We add in additional angst if we make a political issue, where political labels complicate the process. Instead of dealing with the problem. Suddenly, who solves how much of the problem under what criteria and conditions as well as how do they go about it all become subject to the agenda purview of this party or that party and all those special interests, with little concern for actual outcome. The net result becomes a thousand-fold document that costs one hundred times more to accomplish significantly less than what is required.

Nobody is exempt and the test is self-evident. Think of an agency that solves our water problem. Now impart different labels on it, one at a time inserting the label ahead of the word agency. Like this: "_______" agency for water.

Christian. Islamic. Jewish. Satanic. Democrat. Republican. Libertarian. Jeffersonian. Secretive. Communist. Domestic. Conservative. Liberal. International. African. Jamaican. Japanese. Home-Based. Government. And so on and so forth. Which one would you give to?

If you're being honest, certain descriptions might have elicited a positive or negative emotional reaction. It might have been slight, but your prejudices exist, possibly based on your proximity or positive and negative experiences with people who have claimed to represent those things or what you have been told to expect from such people. In swapping the labels, you may even forget the problem.

How do you overcome prejudices and agendas to solve problems?

My oversimplified definition of public relations applies here. While I have more academic definitions, I often say that public relations is the art and science of making "we" out of "us and them." If you want to solve problems without being plagued by agendas, the only possibility is to ask people to temporarily check their labels (not their values) at the door.

It's a tall order to be sure, especially because most people don't even know they exist. They do. They exist on a grand scale, such as those who judge us by the color of our skin. And they exist on a small scale such as how much we might weigh or the shine of our shoes. So if you find someone to set those things aside, even for a little while, then hold onto them tight. They are rare individuals.

At least, that is what I think. I would love to know what you think. I'd also love to know what Dr. Steve Nguyen thinks, and Roger Dooley, and Sandeep Gauntam, or anyone who makes psychology a primary interest as opposed to me, about two classes short of that degree (it was my minor).

Of course, we need not stop with psychologists or people with a bent for the human condition. Anyone can chime in, especially Amy Vernon, who opened the box on this relevant topic. And if this topic is too far removed, that's fine too. What would you like to talk about? The comments are open. Let's talk.

Bob Fass Beats Everyone In Social Media. Good Morning, 1963.

Ask any social media expert what he or she knows about Bob Fass and most will stare at you blankly, head bobbing but without recognition. They never heard the name before. He isn't "known" in social. He doesn't have a klout score.

And yet, he ought to be known in social media. His ground-breaking work in social media using radio as his medium started long before many social media experts were born. And frankly, he did it better than most people do today.

"But wait," you say. "Radio doesn't count. It's broadcast."

While that might be true for some shows and stations, it was never the case for Fass. Beginning in 1963, he became a pioneer of free form radio. Anyone who called in was given an opportunity to speak about any subject under the sun. There was no plan. There was no format. There was no automation. He didn't fake it.

He didn't even concern himself with a niche. He never worried about his identity. He never once thought of himself as an influencer. He never did anything to chase down listenership. He was merely human, looking to elevate the unsung heroes of New York City from midnight until the break of dawn.

As a result, anybody and everybody was allowed on his show, especially counterculture figures like Paul Krassner, Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Arlo Guthrie, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg (to name a few). Listeners were allowed to call in and talk to any of them. One even suggested Dylan sing better, a comment that gave everyone a good laugh. Nobody was hurt by it or needed counseling.

It was a scene where the freedom to think and hash things out made sense. And most of the time, people just called in because they wanted to have a good time. For a few hours every night, they weren't alone.


The scene mostly played out much the same beyond the station too. The so-called virtual community that Fass had created eventually spilled into the streets. He hosted a Fly-In at JFK airport. He organized a Sweep In to clean up city streets. He had a hand in Yip In at Grand Central Station. His listeners marched on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968. His measured results made history.

But even as they did, Fass never let it go to his head. He wanted to connect with real people. He invited two-way communication. He wanted people to experience life in real time. And he still broke convention at every opportunity. If he liked a song, he might play it once or all night long. His call.

Social media wants to be Radio Unnameable but can't reconcile the business side. 

There is a certain level of inauthenticity in most social media programs because, well, they are programs. At the end of the day, most want you to do something because they are commercial enterprises. There is nothing wrong with that, but sometimes people seen as leaders forget that.

What makes almost all of them fundamentally different from pre-social media mavericks like Fass is that Fass didn't necessarily have an agenda (certainly not a commercial agenda). Social media experts, whether purists or public relations practitioners, don't have the luxury anymore. Most can only pretend to be authentic as they are serving an agenda to capture more leads, listeners, exposure.

This isn't a criticism. It's an observation. Many social media enthusiasts that started five or ten years ago had to abandon their hands-on approaches in favor of scalability. So, almost without fail (there are exceptions), the solutions they turned to came from the same media they had once ridiculed — a mass media model built on number of messages, listeners, clicks, and shares — while rewriting history just to say they thought it up first.

So what is the alternative? And if there is an alternative, just short of open mic night, does encouraging it make any sense from a professional or commercial standpoint? My guess is probably not because the answer lies somewhere in the balance of those two opposing ideas. But what do you think? And by that, what you do you think about anything?

If this space was more like Radio Unnameable, what would we talk about? What you would like to talk about? I'm curious so feel free to suggest anything at all. I'm listening and I'm not alone. The comments are yours.

Setting Education Standards: Is Meeting Them Good Enough?

When my son comes home with a C on an English paper, I usually don't give it much thought. There are always other opportunities to earn an A on something else to balance everything out. This time was different — the teacher had forced a four-point project into the five-point letter grade system.

In other words: 4 points equaled an A, 3 points equaled an C, 2 points equaled an F, and 1 point didn't even register. When my son asked about the grade (because we don't accept C work without explanation), the teacher said not to worry about it. He met standards. Meeting standards is C work.

Never mind that there was some confusion over what was taught. The teacher had taught the students how to meet the standards, but did not cover the much more subjective criteria to exceed them. She didn't know how to because the school district had recently adopted a new system called Springboard.

Program adoption and the trouble with education.

To be fair, I don't know enough about Springboard to comment. Basically, it is a foundational component for the College Board's College Readiness System, offering a "proven Pre-AP program that increases participation and prepares a greater diversity of students for success in AP, college and beyond – without remediation." That sounds good, except some teachers have said they don't get it.

Since they don't get it, they don't know how to teach it. And worse or equally bad, my understanding is that the school district rushed the implementation of the new program without developing a transition stage between the last system they had adopted that promised to do all the same wondrous things but didn't.

The reason a transitional cycle would have been useful is because while a sixth grader would enter this new program at the opening, an eighth grader would have missed the first two years of the program and also have to unlearn any unique attributes of the last program. After all, most education programs pre-introduce specific concepts at different times and presuppose that others have already been introduced.

The people who make decisions for educators don't always understand this, but it's not rocket science. Gaming developers, social network developers, technology innovators, and smart organizations do this all the time. They assess what people know and then build products based on easing them into an upgrade system. Ergo, it's easier to introduce people to smart phones as opposed to smart paper.

But beyond new program adoption, there are some problems (and solutions) to the entire process — enough so that we can break them out. They apply to real world management as much as education.

Problem 1: Expectation. Never give people a set of standards without the benefit of what they could do to exceed those standards. While I have dozens of examples, this concept was one of several I applied while serving as president of a local IABC chapter a few years ago.

In addition to giving the board members a list of expectations, I included a second punch list of what they could do to exceed expectations. What happened? Nine of 10 exceeded expectations, with the comparative weak link on the board opting to meet the baseline requirements.

The lesson is simple. If you show people (students too) what they need to do to excel, they will excel. Otherwise, most of them will be complacent in meeting the standards provided (with few exceptions).

Problem 2: Evaluation. The concept of the A-F grading scale is largely pervasive in society, especially educational institutions. For most education systems, it replaces the E, S, N model used in elementary school, even though A-F is still implied with the introduction of the S+ (B) and S- (D).

As an instructor at a state university, I've always considered an A-F grading system less than useful beyond a benchmark to show progress up or down. Otherwise, it's somewhat misleading. For example, the so-called C performance that meets standards inside academics doesn't measure up in the workplace. Employees that maintain a C performance don't last long. It's hard to win with a 70-79 percent effort.

Problem 3: Education. Perhaps more troubling is that the A-F grading scale has another downside. While the school system recognizes 70-79 percent as meeting standards, the reality is that 70-79 percent could be indicative of how much of the material the student retained.

If they only retain 75 percent of the material, chances are that they will be starting at a deficit when they enter the next class. This is especially telling in foreign language courses. Students who score a C in their first year are more likely to go down than up in subsequent years because "meeting standards" does not provide a strong of enough base to move forward with confidence.

Problem 5: Enthusiasm. Confidence is critical to any education. Having taught for the better part of 12 years, I've seen this in my classes with some students. There are always some who are surprised by receiving benchmark papers that score considerably lower than they expect. It puts them at risk.

It takes a special effort to pull these students up after resetting their expectations. If I don't, some of them will purposely underperform or give up all together. At my son's age, this presents a challenging proposition as kids his age carry these feelings forward as opposed to confining them to one class.

As plenty of teachers and I have concurred, course subject is only 50 percent of the educational criteria. The other 50 percent is instilling a love for learning that transcends the subject. The last thing you want to teach a child is that all they need to achieve is a C or, worse, that a C is what they are supposed to achieve. Not giving students (or employees) the opportunity to excel by earning an A or B is the same as setting them up to fail.

The solutions for education start as early as possible and then pay it forward. 

As classes become more encapsulated in high school and college, I am confident my son will eventually learn that teachers tend to have a greater impact than the course material. Some teachers you survive. Other teachers inspire.

As long as he can discover his own love for learning, it will be easier to dismiss those poor misguided teachers that teach to standards without inspiring excellence rather than assign any misgivings to the subject. The same holds true for managers. While people don't always see the connection, they are often teachers too.

Changing Conversations: Can We End Partisanship?

Because of the presidential race and recent debates, there has been plenty of conversation about the role of government. And frankly, it seems to me the national discussion often causes more confusion than clarity for anyone attempting to follow it.

Part of the problem is that there doesn't seem to be any real authority in reconciling the federal budget. If you want to give it a go, start with Wikipedia. Otherwise, you will find different sets of numbers that categorize how the government spends its money. Almost all Americans know is that the federal government spends more than it collects.

They also know that we can't keep doing that. It's a lose-lose proposition because not only do we continually lose every month, but the interest rates on debt erodes purchasing power. Ergo, if you have $100 and spend $110, borrow $10 to cover the difference, and then pay back $10 plus $5 in interest, you'll only have $85 the following month. So to maintain $110 of spending, you'll have to borrow $25 next time. And so on.

Except, in the case of the U.S. government, it's worse. It is more likely to ask for $115 the following month, thereby increasing the rate of the debt and its inability to catch up. We all know it has to stop.

Why what should be simple math becomes partisan and complicated.

The simple math problem illustrated above becomes complicated because in order to solve the debt spiral, the conversation centers around the question "how does the government find more money?" In other words, both parties want to find a way to collect the $110 it needs (maybe $112.50 to pay for past debt) so it doesn't have to borrow any more money.

Two partisan positions eventually surface: raise taxes (and who to raise them on) or increase the number of the employed people who pay taxes while decreasing the number of people who need help (via economic growth). Both have risks.

The risks associated with the first is that if you try collect $112.50 instead of $100, then the number of contributors might diminish revenue to $98. The risks associated with the latter are related to the speed of recovery. For every month more contributors aren't added to the labor pool, the debt spiral continues (perhaps at a faster rate if you temporarily reduce taxes to $98 in order to stimulate growth).

What is even more difficult is attempting to talk about the other side of the coin. Maybe you don't have to collect $110. Maybe you can collect $100. Most politicians don't like to talk about it because cutting $10 means that somebody will lose something. For example, some people think if $450 million is cut from PBS, then there might not be PBS. (The federal funds represent 15 percent of its budget.)

Although PBS would likely weather such a cut, the outcry is generally emotional. There are dozens (maybe hundreds) of expenditures just like PBS. All together, some estimates place federal, state and local governments near $1 trillion in welfare and social programs (more than $700 from the federal level and $210 billion on the state level). Depending on where you look, some consider it to be significantly higher and others significantly lower. Regardless, it's a big number and there is outcry with each program cut.

We need to change the conversation and evolve our culture.

I am not sure that we can change the conversation. In the last decade, politics has become overwhelming partisan — enough so that I avoid most political conversations unless I can tie it to a teaching opportunity for communication. (Political mistakes tend to make for pronounced examples on both sides.)

And yet, the conversation needs to change. We need to find ways to move more welfare and social programs away from government and make corporate and individual giving part of our culture.

This isn't partisan. It's math and morality. The return on investment for government-funded social and welfare programs is paltry compared to direct giving to fiscally responsible nonprofit organizations.

When people give $1 direct to a nonprofit, 80-90 percent of that dollar directly benefits the person in need (assuming the nonprofit is fiscally prudent). When we pay taxes, the value of that same dollar is diminished by bureaucracy and oversight on the federal side and nonprofit expenditures related to pursuing grants, lobbying efforts, and administration costs.

I'm not sure if there has been a study, but I wouldn't be surprised if the value of that $1 drops to 50 cents before reaching the program (and then another 10-30 cents is deducted by the nonprofit), leaving 20 to 40 cents for the people who need it. If we found out a nonprofit was delivering 30 cents for every dollar raised, it would be a scandal. When it's government, we expect someone else to pay more — even if government further erodes the benefit by borrowing to cover the loss of value.

It's also not uncommon for many government-reliant programs to think differently about government funding. They don't think of it as taxpayer money. They look at it as earned money. Earned money doesn't inspire the same frugality as charitable donations. It tends to be spent in the least efficient areas.

At the same time, for every tax dollar increased, people have less to give. It's not a coincidence that tax increases tend to reduce charitable donations, thereby driving more people to government programs.

Still, we won't see it during this election cycle, and maybe not ever. But it would make a lot more sense if the so-called millionaires for higher taxes started writing checks for social and welfare programs instead of insisting other people write checks to the government for a lower return on social investment.

If you can afford more taxes, then you aren't giving enough to charity.

If they and others started to donate more, maybe we really could reduce spending to a hypothetical monthly budget of government to $95 or $85 instead of $110, with $10 borrowed. And maybe, if other people follow by example, we could start to make charitable giving such a strong presence in our culture it would lower the need and demand on government.

As much as I like PBS, that might even be a good place to start. The $450 million in tax dollars it received is nothing compared to the $1.5 trillion or more that was spent on political campaigns this cycle. Maybe the government could ask the private sector (that already donates 60 percent of the PBS budget) to cover it. Or maybe consumers can just buy an extra Elmo. There is some very big money in Sesame Street merchandising. I've been an avid contributor over the years.

The more programs we could take off the government books with affluent individuals and corporations agreeing to adopt in lieu of tax increases makes much more sense. It would also empower people to prioritize their own giving instead of entrusting a third party to take some and spread it around.

Thinking Different: New Ideas For Solar

Sometimes watching the various communication gaffes and tit-for-tat soundbite stalking during campaign season is almost unnerving. It makes for a case study example of all the most basic public relations rules (e.g., there is no such thing as private communication) and sometimes entertainment, but it really doesn't move much forward. It's an exercise in attempting to drive up negatives. That's about it.

But what the nation really needs are solutions, and I don't mean some of the solutions that are typically presented as contrasts during the political season. I mean the kind of solutions that don't subscribe to red-blue ideas. Here's one example of what we ought to be hearing from a presidential candidate.

How to make alternative energy work without the nonsense. 

There have been many schemes cooked up around solar energy. The worst of them, probably, was Solyndra. It received at least $70 million from a Department of Energy loan guarantee without much of a business model, proving why government is best left out of corporate investments based on preferred policy and not profitability. Government could have created the market instead of the company.

What might have worked is a government program that gave distressed homeowners (and then later expanded to other homeowners) guaranteed loans to have solar panels installed on their homes. They could make the purchases from any U.S. owned and operated solar panel company, creating jobs fueled not by government directly but by consumer choices in the new market.

The loans would be paid back, plus a modest interest rate, from any excess energy sold back to power companies (not the already distressed homeowners). The immediate benefit for the homeowner would be a reduced power bill, thereby either increasing their disposable income or stretching any benefits from local, state and federal programs. The immediate benefit for the power company is that it can sell any excess back on the open market. And then it gets better.

Once the solar panels are paid off, the distressed homeowner could collect excess income from the power the solar panels generate. If they are on a federal program, half of the energy sold could be deducted from what they normally receive in government aid (giving them a modest boost and freeing up government program money) and move them closer to independence, not further away from it.

It would also reduce the environmental impact of solar farm schemes that aim to turn large parcels of land into solar wastelands (and displacing whatever ecosystem that exists there). Instead, it moves solar panels where they belong — on real estate already wasted (e.g., roofs). At the same time, the guaranteed increase in demand would eventually lead to cheaper solar panels, opening the market to people who can purchase them outright without having to wait 25-35 years to see a return on investment or seek government assistance.

This kind of program wouldn't necessarily work everywhere, but it would in Nevada and many other states with a similar climate. It would have been especially worthwhile to Nevada because the state doesn't currently export any significant energy (fossil or otherwise). Indirectly, however, it would benefit every state because this idea would lead to energy independence and possibly rein in volatile energy prices.

Diatribe is dangerous because it depresses new ideas. 

What does this have to do with communication? Everything. As long as people are polarized between moving toward alternative energy (without a clear understanding of it or its economics) and tapping traditional energy solutions, everybody is too busy trying to sell their plan without looking for new ideas. How can they? They are too busy selling whatever is on the table.

While I am certain that my little idea isn't perfect and would probably need some fine tuning (thousands of pages if it is a government job), it's an illustration of what might be possible if people invested their time in solutions rather than whose idea and ideology it might be or what they can get out it.

Instead of politics, it produces a win for every stakeholder, while stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, and nurturing energy independence. It helps people in need, opens a new market, lifts the economy, and brings in private enterprise (without looking like a payoff to past campaign donors). It is absolutely ridiculous these things need to be at odds. At least, I think so. What do you think?

Managing Change: Public Relations Can Be Proactive

By most accounts, the biggest hurdle in the Chicago teachers' strike has been performance evaluations. It's not new. Los Angeles and Boston recently adopted performance evaluations too, some of them signing on with reservations. They are afraid the evaluation process will be unjustly used to let teachers go.

The good news is that the Chicago strike may be nearing an end. Among the concessions: Evaluations of tenured teachers during the first year could not result in dismissal and later evaluations could be appealed. There are some new benefits added in an effort for both sides to make concessions.

The question that always looms is how long will these concessions remain viable? There is, after all, a big difference between negotiation and compromise. The first involves two groups working together toward a solution. The second involves two groups offering concessions, which sometimes looks like a solution but often breaks down because it isn't a solution. It just moves things forward.

Where public relations professionals can affect positive change. 

Strikes are often publicity generators for hardened deal makers. But if public relations professionals were allowed to interject on the more strategic aspects of a crisis, something else might happen.

If we adopt and expand the definition of public relations beyond communication as it had been in prior definitions (and assume practitioners embrace it) rather than confine it, public relations may have prevented the Chicago strike because it could have helped mitigate an evaluation process designed by teachers and the administration as opposed to just the administration well before it made it into a contract negotiation.

They had the time. Falling test scores is hardly new. It has been noted for a long time. But the debate about it usually becomes heated during contract negotiations and elections. That's when most evaluations are made on an "accept it/reject it" basis. The fact that it becomes a sticking point so late in the game undermines the intent of the evaluations in the first place.

In theory, evaluations usually have several functions. They can help evaluate student knowledge. They can show teachers where to improve or what works. They can provide benchmarks to map trajectories.  So on and so forth.

Most of that is tactical so it needs to be pulled back a bit. The real issue here is that students are not prepared to advance because they lack fundamentals but they somehow are advanced anyway. And perhaps more importantly, some of them do not develop the critical love for education that they need (the one area where charter and private schools seem to excel more than any other factor, it seems to me).

Everybody ought to be asking the same question. How do we instill a love for education and help children succeed? Ideas from all quarters ought to be proposed, worked out, and tested by a mutually agreed upon evaluation system (phased in as suggested before) before it becomes the law of the land.

This requires open communication, which is a potential function of public relations. Why do the teachers think students are failing and is this belief valid? Why do the parents think their children are failing and is this valid? Why do the administrators think education is failing and is this valid?

This would have been a better approach by the administration. Preventative public relations.

Another lesson for public relations in negotiation. 

Although the Chicago teachers' union seems to have found some language that makes these evaluations more tolerable, there is a better lesson for public relations practitioners. Every "accept it/reject it" demand can be better met with a counter solution.

A counter solution is any measurable program that offers a better outcome than the proposal. Had the Chicago teachers' union (or teachers on their own) proposed a potentially better or provably better evaluation system, then the media would have been less likely to zero in on performance, salaries, etc. as a contrast to the evaluations proposed by the administration.

Instead, the media would have likely compared the two evaluation systems. And teachers, like I believe most do in their hearts, would have looked like they were interested in the students more than what they get. That is what teaching is all about it, isn't it? In fact, it's why I lend some of my time as an instructor.

For the public relations practitioner, the point is pretty simple. Always consider that you may not have to make a choice based on a "black/white" scenario laid out in front of you. You can set the communication and solution parameters by being proactive in planning or be better prepared to change the conversation for the benefit of equally important publics.

Being Quotable: Akin To Politics

"The interesting thing here is that this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology but somehow missed science class." — President Obama 

That is the most recent quotable from President Obama, shared during a fundraiser in New York City. Expect more of them. The President and his campaign team believe that running against select members of the Republican Party is easier than their opponents. It also distracts from real issues.

The outrageous quote from Senate challenger and Congressman Todd Akin won't last as long as the President would like. It's flash in the pan, especially since most members of the GOP (along with the Romney/Ryan campaign) readily denounced it and asked Akin to step aside. After Akin apologized, he says he won't step down despite his high profile quote being published everywhere.

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Rep. Akin said.

With one poorly thought-out quote (and questionable science sourcing), Akin proved that proverbial campaign killing silver bullets may exist, provided they are self-inflicted. Rasmussen noted he dropped in the polls to 38-48 percent of the vote, down from leading 47-44 percent. The reversal is so strong that even his opponent, Claire McCaskill, has said that the Republican leadership should leave him alone and let him run. She sees a win ahead. She's not alone.

As Rasmussen pointed out: most Missouri Republicans want Akin to quit the race while most Missouri Democrats want him to stay. Without any doubt, Akin is still hurting himself while continuing his apology tour too. He might be apologizing without proper explanation, but it's for the wrong thing.

Breaking down the Akin blunder from a communication perspective. 

People really focused in on the word "legitimate" as the catalyst for the crunch. It's also the word Akin has taken to in framing an apology. There is no such thing as a "legitimate" rape, he has said.

But the real problem with his statements was something else (beyond demonstrating an almost unforgivable lack of empathy). It's this idea that women can prevent themselves from becoming pregnant. It was such an odd statement that I had to look it up.

The Los Angeles Times believes it comes from a book published in 1971. Mostly, it notes that the trauma associated with rape makes pregnancy less likely. There are other unrelated fertility studies that can be misused to bolster the concept beyond trauma. But none of it is as conscious as one could infer from Akin's quote. Likewise, even if people assume the occurrence is rape, then exceptions still exist.

The reality is that while the GOP party is seen as largely pro life, the majority of its members fall somewhere along a very broad spectrum (much like Democrats do along pro choice) of what that means. So there is no question Akin bungled it. After all, abortion is a hard enough topic to address without picking up on the even harder and more extreme issues that revolve around it.

Akin would have been better off considering former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's position, a carefully weighed opinion that separates his personal belief from what is politically manageable. Akin makes it unmanageable because before you start addressing exceptions, you have to reach an agreement on more basic principles, e.g., when does life begin. Until that question is answered in the political conscience of the U.S., it's nearly impossible to discuss fringe issues.

In a nutshell, the Akin's personal position is that life begins at conception and therefore, any new life ought to be protected regardless of circumstance. That is what he meant. It's an extreme pro life position, because it also extends the psychological and physical damage (which is horrendous enough) from a single event to a minimum 9-month ordeal.

I get that he brought it up because he wanted to paint himself as someone who doesn't run from his convictions. But he omits another fact. It's unlikely, if not impossible, to think one congressman or future senator could readily enforce such a belief. Even if he could muster enough bipartisan support to make this into a law, it would still face legal challenges from laws like Roe v. Wade.

The dilemma of dangerous issues. 

Having previously worked in politics, I know discussing pro life/pro choice issues is difficult for candidates. It forces them to take a position, even though most people haven't made up their minds across every nuance. Why would they? Most people cannot muster an authentic soul-searching response until they face the choice.

In some of the less usual circumstances that surround abortion, none of us really knows what we would do or could do. On this issue, many people also experience an opinion shift as they are confronted by those experiences. Yet, there are many voters who demand an answer (with some being single issue on this point) despite the fact it is a personal issue and always subject to change.

The law on the other hand is less subject to change. Most proposed laws are pinned to funding and time. Generally, the debate around funding is a question of whether it is fair to use taxpayer money to fund projects they are morally opposed to or whether limiting any such funds unfairly limits choice to those who cannot afford to make such a choice on their own.

All of this is important to consider before making any communication observations, especially because it underpins what Akin says he wants to do but never did. He said he wanted to have adult discussion.

Should Akin drop out of the race? It depends on who you are.

At the end of the day, Akin bungled it more than he realizes. He chose a topic that requires empathy and demonstrated none of it because empathy isn't exclusive to one party but all parties.

Does that mean he should step aside? Given the race is under 90 days away, there is time for him to recover even without party support (short of his party organizing a write-in candidate that might split the ticket). His electability is up to the people of Missouri and their priorities. Someone on the outside can only guess whether his personal position and careless comment outweighs whatever else he is running on.

If he wanted to pursue a long-shot recovery, it seems to me that he would need to demonstrate he learned something about being human (beyond semantics), demonstrate he can have adult conversations about abortion (arguing a fringe position is not a discussion), look into the science that made his argument sound so ignorant (unless it's a conscious choice, it doesn't count), and learn how to address the issue and then shift away from it toward issues that are important to the people of Missouri (which he hasn't really done) so it's not all about him.

That and, even if he has lost the support of his party, he ought not whine about it. He needs to accept their rebuke and find his funding elsewhere. Like it or not, some people share his views.

Naturally, his party would be better off without him for the short term and maybe the long term as Akin will likely remain the poster child for ... what? Politicians who confuse 'having values' with 'wanting to legislate values.' Sigh. Maybe we'll learn that no one can really legislate 'values' in either direction one day. I somehow doubt it.

At the same time, it seems that some Democrats are relishing what Akin said too much. It may or may not be a campaign killer for him, but it's still a pretty thin case to act like he's a rule and not an exception. If they keep pursuing the easy potshots, it only solidifies their overemphasis on vilification.

Alienating Publics: Every Message Is Public

You would think communicators would get it by now. While it always pays to tailor your message to an intended audience, there are no intended audiences anymore. Everything is subject to global opinion.

In 2008, Yahoo! became a public relations class example when it failed to consider that announcing cutbacks might have unintended consequences. The layoffs were announced to shareholders first, with smiles to suggest that the company was turning a corner. The lack of empathy impacted employees.

Flash forward four years and communicators have come full circle. President Obama is still trying to correct the misstep with his infamous "you didn't build that" speech. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had a similar experience during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. And CEO Dan Cathy did it when he was explaining his stance on same-sex marriage while speaking to Baptist Press.

Communication is never isolated to a single audience.

It is the easiest lesson to take away from the Chick-fil-A controversy. In considering his audience, sharing what he believed to be similar values with those who would read the Baptist Press made sense. Chick-fil-A wants to convey itself as a family-friendly restaurant chain.

Where it doesn't make sense is within the purview of a global audience. Words, even if there is no evidence of action, have consequences. But this isn't a just lesson for Cathy. It is a lesson for Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno too.

Moreno has been attempting to brush off his announcement that he will block Chick-fil-A's effort to build a second Chicago store. He has since backed down, simply saying he wanted to review their anti-discrimanation policy. At least his message is better than Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has resorted to saying that he doesn't want to say any more and inflame the situation he already inflamed.

The aforementioned stories also have the best possible quote from Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She said to Emanuel: "You're alienating conservatives in your city. It's difficult to alienate that many people in one lump. To do it concisely and memorably is a major accomplishment."

To alienate people concisely and memorably is a major accomplishment. 

No matter who you feel it fits best, it's the most concise and memorable lesson anywhere. The art of communication is hard not because people are afraid to be straight, but because they have to communicate their mission, vision, and values in such a way that it is honest without being hurtful.

Pretense: "Honey, do I look good in this dress?"

Pick one: 1) "The other one has always been my favorite." 2) "It makes you look fatter."

While some people are remiss that I haven't come out swinging with a stance on this issue, we can learn more by appreciating the finer art of communication. Think before you speak. And if you don't, take a moment to think about who you might have hurt with that last comment. You don't need fists to be a bully.

It's a lesson that Chick-fil-A has taken to heart. Consider the statement about the "Kiss" Day protest.

"At Chick-fil-A, we appreciate all of our customers and are glad to serve them at any time. Our goal is simple: to provide great food, genuine hospitality and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A. — Steve Robinson, executive vice president, marketing, Chick-fil-A, Inc. in response to "Kiss" Day.

Being Candid: It's Easier Than You Think

How well do people communicate when faced with a face-to-face communication dilemma? According to a questionnaire created by the Travel Leaders Group, not so well. The research found that many air travelers do not know how to react in uncomfortable situations.

The questionnaire presented a series of scenarios and asked participants how likely they were to handle a situation based on the response offered. The Travel Leaders Group said that airline passengers aren't sure of proper etiquette while traveling. However, given the questions relate to broad scenarios, it might mean that people aren't sure how to communicate in many circumstances, whether they are traveling or not.

Highlights From The Travel Leaders Group Survey. 

1. If another airline passenger seated near you won't turn off his/her cell phone while in flight, what would you do?

34.5 percent would call a flight attendant.
27.1 percent would say something to the person.
23.9 percent would sit quietly and do nothing.

2. If another passenger seated near you is using headphones to listen to music or a movie and the sound is so loud that everyone around him/her can also hear, what would you do?

47.5 percent would say something to the person.
26.5 percent would call a flight attendant.
17.3 percent would sit quietly and do nothing.

3. If a child was seated behind you on an airplane and constantly kicked your seat, what would you do?

62.8 percent would turnaround and say something directly to the parent or child.
10.2 percent would call a flight attendant.
9.7 percent would sit quietly and hope the parent will stop it.
6.7 percent would ignore it because children will be children.
6.1 percent would turn around and glare at the parent or child.

4. If you were flying alone and a couple asked you to switch seats to that they could sit together, what would you do? 

44.7 percent would gladly move, regardless of the seat.
27.2 percent would move if the new seat was not a middle seat.
13.6 percent would move if the new seat was an aisle seat.
6.4 percent were not sure what to do.
4.4 percent would move if the new seat was a window seat.

5. If you were traveling with a companion on a vacation and you received an upgrade to first class, you would... 

38.4 percent said it depends on who they're traveling with.
29.9 percent said they would pass on the opportunity.
11.8 percent weren't sure what they would do.
7.8 percent would give it to their traveling companion.
6.3 percent said it depends on the length of the flight.

6. If you placed a small bag in the overhead bin and were asked to place it under the seat in front of you so someone else could put a very large roller bag above, would you... 

54.6 percent would do so without a second thought.
22.1 percent would do so, but grudgingly.
9.9 percent would politely decline.

7. While passing through a TSA security checkpoint, if a traveler in front of you is taking too long removing shoes, etc., would you... 

51.3 percent said they would patiently wait.
37.8 percent said they would wait, but be frustrated.
9 percent said they would jump in front of them.

While the survey did not seem to include the best possible responses, it is an interesting statement on communication. In most scenarios, the best possible answer is to say something directly to the person.

The hesitation is largely the result that many people don't know how to communicate directly, honestly, and politely. For example, if someone is using their cell phone, asking if she or he heard the announcement to turn off the cell phone might suffice. Or, if a child is kicking the seat, politely asking the child to stop first will usually be enough. Or, if someone is taking a long time in the security line, asking if she or he if needs help might be appreciated. Maybe they'll suggest you skip ahead.

Allowing yourself to become quietly frustrated or immediately resorting to rude behavior only hurts you. Likewise, the questions revolving around courtesy are equally solvable. Unless you have a physical reason for not taking the middle seat, you move. And if someone needs you to move your bag, you move it (perhaps mentioning that they might consider checking such a large bag next time).

This applies to business too. People are frequently afraid to be candid, causing them to accept deadlines that impact quality, make deals that aren't win-win, etc. Most of the time, open and honest communication will suffice and everyone will be better for it. Don't assume, ask questions and find out  if more flexibility is available (assuming you need it). It's very much like flying on a plane. Fly right.

Making Milkshakes: Personal And Public Relations

There was plenty of enthusiasm at my daughter's kindergarten class on Wednesday. They graduated.

What makes a kindergarten graduation special is that it's considered their first major step toward education. When they return after the summer, all of them will be in grade school. Their next major transition, of course, will be the fifth grade when they leave grade school and head off to middle or junior high school.

As my daughter was one of the beaming students in this graduating class, there were many memorable moments for me as a proud parent. But those personal moments aren't the ones I want to share today. Something else stuck, and it applies to communication, social media, and relationships.

How making a milkshake can be an effective communication and relationship technique. 

When the principal of the school trotted out with a blender, milk, ice cream and other ingredients, most parents weren't too sure what to think of it. The kids knew what to think. They wanted some.

Except, the lesson she had to share with them wasn't how wonderful milkshakes can be (or maybe it was). The milkshake making is how she captured their attention. She described to them how she never considered herself a good cook, but she was always good at making ice cream.

The ice cream she had was indeed homemade. It was vanilla, made with nothing more than cream, sugar, ice, and a dash of vanilla extract for good measure. She spooned out two generous scoops as she talked, adding them to the milk in her blender.

As she did, you could see every student — from kindergarten to fifth grade — begin to lick their lips in anticipation. They knew it was going to be good. And the room erupted in applause when she asked for volunteers to taste it. Except, before any of the students were picked from the crowd, she stopped.

The milkshake, she said, was pure. But what would happen, she asked, if she added one ingredient that wasn't so pure? Not a lot, she said, holding up a silver bowl with the mystery addition. Just one piece.

The sheer horror on their faces will never be forgotten as the principal dangled a single piece of raw liver over the unspoiled milkshake. Several students even cried out in anguish as she let it fall in with a plunk. Amidst the growing angst and protest, she gave the blender another spin, giving the creamy white ice cream a grayish-pink tint.

Half of the would-be volunteers who wanted to sample the milkshake weren't so interested any more. And just to be sure there were no brave takers, she then dumped half of the contents from the bowl into the blender. With a final whirl, the once white milkshake turned maroon-gray and lumpy with little unground bits of the contaminant floating freely to every corner of the drink.

All relationships start off on a note of natural purity until we alter them. 

Think for a moment about every relationship you might have ever had or will have in your life — acquaintance or friend, classmate or coworker, colleague or partner, reporter or public relations practitioner, employee or employer, contractor or customer, lover or spouse, online connection or offline passerby. It's doesn't matter which ones you think of first. In this story, all of them start out equal. All of them are just like that milkshake.

They start out pure, natural, and delicious. They can remain that way for a long time — filled with nothing but enthusiasm for the next job, next date, next gathering, next opportunity to share, serve, sell, and celebrate. But how long that lasts is up to each pairing.

Relationships are fragile things, like snowmen in spring, I once wrote as part of the prose in a company Christmas card. But even so, I don't think I realized how fragile they were until watching the principal destroy a milkshake at my daughter's school.

It only takes one piece of liver — one white lie, one unreasonable expectation or demand, one broken promise, one unfollow or meaningless connection, one malicious manipulation, one infidelity, one single dose of spam, or one time you need need to be right at all costs — to give it that uncharacteristically grayish-pink tint. And even while most of relationships are anything but pure white over time (because of one party or the other; one mistake or another), one might wonder just how murky someone can make a milkshake before it becomes undrinkable. Most of the time, it seems, people color them up pretty good because we're all human.

Still, the truth is that we don't have to carry around muddied, chunky milkshakes. Since every relationship starts out with the same set of pure ingredients, someone has to be the first to toss in a little piece of liver (or maybe the whole bowl). And while there are plenty of people in the world who are really good at doing it first that doesn't mean we have to beat them to the bullshit finish.

If you want to really change the way you think, work, and live, take a moment to assess all the milkshakes that you have in your life. Are they all white? And if they are not white, how much of the liver did you intentionally or unintentionally dump into them?

Chances are that some of them need to be poured out (those destructive forces in your life), some of them need to be drunk up so you can start over (the ones you messed up all on your own), and a tiny few of them need to be preserved (those lucky few or any that have started new). And then, assuming you are lucky enough to minimize the sludge after the cleanup, maybe you can carry the wisdom in the lesson for the rest of your life — you don't have to ruin your milkshakes. And you don't have to keep the ones that someone else ruins either.

Appreciating Education: Lessons From Five Teachers

"The most decisive factors in education are the student's hunger for knowledge and willingness to learn, coupled with the teacher's passion in their material and faith that the student is capable of learning anything." — Rich Becker

After teaching as an adjunct instructor for continuing education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for more than 12 years, I don't believe anything else matters in education. It's one of the things I learned this year from my gang of six (the smallest class size since I started teaching).

After I racked my head trying to determine why this group broke all previous records and vetted every other possibility, there wasn't anything left. These students delivered 100 percent attendance, 100 percent assignment completion, 100 percent rewrite completion, and did extra credit (even if they didn't need to).

Every student showed marked improvement, approximately two letter grades, with four of the six either earning or having the potential to earn better than 90 percent. In other words, the equivalent of an "A" in a professional field that I frequently tell students consistently produces "C" level work, with few standouts.

In previous years, only one student typically scored better than 90. Last year, not even one of them did.

My original thought was that their performance was the by-product of class size, the general evolution of my presentation material, or because I literally read the five things writers need to teach themselves out loud. But it really wasn't any of those things. At the end of the day, this class was hungry for knowledge and had a willingness to learn. It made my job easy because I am passionate about communication (especially written and visual communication) and believe anyone can learn it better than the industry's low standard.

Teacher Appreciation Week Is May 7-11, 2012. 

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. And even though teaching is something that I can only afford to do part time, I thought it would be fitting to thank five teachers who probably had the most influence on how I teach today, along with what they taught me beyond their subject material.

• Richard Pyle (7th grade, junior high school). He taught me to always work outside comfort zones because it is outside our comfort zone that we are most likely to find something that will change our lives.

• Ms. Duffy (9th grade, high school). She taught me that we're not doomed to repeat history as long as we're smart enough to study it and understand it without putting our own bias into it.

• Betty Sabo (9-12th grade, high school). She taught me that we alone ultimately make our own choices and, in doing so, determine whatever outcomes come our way.

• Warren Lerude (sophomore/senior year, college). He taught me how perception makes most of us only one or two questions away from changing our minds despite our strongest convictions.

• Ron Cooney (junior year, college). He taught me the most clever idea in the world isn't worth beans unless it can be executed and then presented in such a way that it delivers results.

These lessons had an impact on how I teach because I include them in my own lessosn: the importance of research, the ability to be empathetic, the character to be accountable, the courage to challenge ourselves, and the fearlessness to pursue our dreams.

It might not be what one expects from people who taught subjects like reading, history, forensics, media law, or copywriting. But one has to have an open mind for those teachers who have the audacity to believe in you. I'm grateful. And I hope that you have teachers who have touched your lives too.

Talking Complexity: So What About The One Percent?

There are dozens of economic models, formulas, and ideas that people share and cite. I tend to read many of them because I have interests outside communication. At the same time, I'm also always thinking about how these non-communication subjects intersect with communication because the ability to communicate them is equally important, if not more important, than the ideas themselves.

Yesterday, Andrew Smith reminded me about one by Dani Rodrik. The non-communication idea is sharp enough, but what's especially refreshing is the way in which two students at the Unversidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal wrote it. They used the Simpsons to convert the idea into a fun presentation. You can find a link to the presentation in Rodrik's introduction to Disruptive Politics and Economic Growth.

What the presentation reminded me is what a terrible job Republicans do in explaining their economic position to a majority of Americans. And, until they get it together, the message will never resonate.

Communicating about complex topics can derail companies and break nations. 

There is a very good reason why the current administration's message tends to perform better than their opponent's message. Income inequality has created a lower median income, and the people who fall below that median have an increased propensity to vote for higher taxes to make up their shortfalls.

The downside, however, is that the opposition is right in actuality, if not popularity. Increasing taxes on capital endowments (which the administration wants to do) has an adverse affect on growth, which increases unemployment, which in turn moves the median income even lower. Eventually, the pattern repeats with even more people who favor higher taxes. And eventually, the economy collapses.

This economic principle is one of the primary reasons Republicans want to hold the line on all taxes. But they have trouble communicating it. They struggle with it because it is generally reframed into the sound bite that "they represent and want to protect the rich."

Of course, that isn't true either. Wealthy people call the shots in both parties, and one side is not more altruistic than the other. If they were, we wouldn't need more taxes because they would donate what's needed as opposed to raising taxes.

Sure, the current administration likes to talk about how they have extended certain "tax breaks" and nothing has happened. While this is true, they omit the psychological impact of increased regulations and the constant threat of new taxes on people with capital. In other words, it would be like your power company telling you that next month your energy bill will be ten times as much for the indefinite future. You would probably hold on to any cash you had. They are holding.

Frankly, the dynamic of all this is remarkably acidic. And I'm not sure there is a good message.

What a capitalistic model might look like if all parties rethought politics. 

A better approach might to be realign the overarching goal into objectives that are obtainable and much more easily communicated. For illustrative purposes only, consider four fundamentals as examples.

• Government. There is no question the government should never directly invest in private companies. It is especially bad at it. If it is going to invest, it ought to invest in government-owned infrastructure, with most funding in research and development (and then contracting out labor).

This is one of the reasons I am a proponent of the moon colony concept. It would be the modern equivalent of Hoover Dam. (That, and I know too much about small grant awards and waste.)

• Business. As much as many people appreciate Ayn Rand, many more misunderstand her. They must, because the takeaway that some people seem to have is that she places a high value on the individual, which is somehow selfish. When I read Rand, I take away something different.

Businesses, regardless of size, ought to invest in communities, states, and countries, not because government forces them to do it but because it is in their best interest. If businesses want an educated workforce, better infrastructure, and safeguards against taxation, then a capital investment in the communities that help them succeed is commonsense. Businesses used to do it all the time before the government took over charity. As a backgrounder, see the comment in this post, written 10 years ago.

• People. A higher standard of living might be desirable, but a society built on overconsumption is equality problematic. If the early movement toward a more meaningful economy is valid, then we might nurture it along by measuring the merit of our lives not by the cars we drive but by the values we leave behind. Legacies are not built on mountains of discarded stuff.

As long as social media remains relatively free of social scoring and continues to lift people up as opposed to protecting the higher ground, its early success can be carried forward. It has proven invaluable in finding new talent and discovering otherwise hidden thoughts from great people who make the world a better place with both inspirational and tangible results.

• Nonprofits. As long as nonprofit organizations set sustainable action in motion rather than aiming to increase their own case loads to pad budgetary need, they are vital. In many cases, they can replace the need for some government funded services, assuming they stay away from the infusion of politics that usually comes with government grants.

In fact, had someone considered it 20 years ago, a nonprofit health insurance alternative might have helped this country avoid any pressure to create an intrusive national model. And that touches on one of the key areas we need to improve because overlapping nonprofits can dilute impact while leaving other needs underserved (like health care). General guidelines might not be bad either; some nonprofits love to pad executive salaries, upgrade training packages, and receive transportation perks.

While not everyone would necessarily agree with these illustrative ideas, all four represent nonpartisan objectives that can be understood. Smart government sets the stage for success and protects it. Purpose-driven businesses make profits and then invest them. Conscientious people value education and find meaning in their lives regardless of their titles. Nonprofits help organize groups to meet unmet critical needs.

If we had all that, then most people wouldn't care about the one percent or 99 percent. I think that would be a good thing too. Because at the end of the day, we still need 100 percent to work.