“why should I be angry? It won’t change how you feel.”
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My anger at the world coils inside of me. It’s a directionless seething, there’s no name or face to aim at.”
The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn
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Anger is energy and energy is something to be ‘applied.’ In other words, the energy of anger needs to be used.
Which leads me to what you do when angered and how you treat others when angry.
Maybe they are the same, but I am going to treat them differently.
Desire defines what we think we need. And often defines how we act. When we don’t get what we ‘desire’ (or expect – they can be interchangeable) it sometimes can take us to places we never thought we would ever go. And it sometimes fuels us to do some amazing things as well as some amazing stupid things. Yup. sometimes we suppress it. But in the end you either face up to your actions, and how you want to act, or you will have to face the fact you are an angry person.
This desire thing has two faces: anger and disappointment. And anger and disappointment actually take up space. So much that sometime they can, without words, take up almost entire rooms. What do I mean? They can squeeze the space in a room so much you cannot breathe.
Which leads me to the fact anger squeezes conversations.
Conversations are the smallest units of change. In this case, conversations are what solves anger (as well as fuels anger). Unfortunately, anger is a problem to, and with, conversations. Everyday life is full of conversations of depth every day, some bringing a depth of joy, some bringing a depth of chaos, some bringing a depth of grief, some of anger, some of disappointment. All these conversations reflect the depth and breadth of, well, life. The deeper the authenticity, the genuineness, the integrity of conversations the deeper the meaning of conversations and, as a consequence, life. This is where the weight of kindness and unkindness shove each other. This is where guilt and contrition reside. This is where the condemning and uncondemning words and thoughts battle. This is where brute force and gentleness face each other. This is where actions have consequences. This is where learning occurs and all those action’s consequences can be redirected.
Which leads me to anger can be a gift.
Anger is a self imposed trial and therein lies its gift. Far too often we wield anger against someone, yet, rarely will it ever change how the other person feels. Anger is always about yourself not the other person. And here is where anger offers its greatest, and most tricky, gift. Anger gifts you the ability to find something where nothing exists (if you permit it to do so). You cannot carry anger, frustration, disappointment or resentment into the future. And it is rarely useful in the present. Anger is a black hole. A black hole where nothing exists – there is no past, present nor future in anger. It would be silly of me to suggest that no one should ever feel anger because it is a human thing to do. But maybe we should think of ‘anger as a black hole.’ Think about it because after anger there is typically a need for some type of forgiveness to fill the hole and move on. Maybe the mistake many of us make is to believe that we can leave the anger behind. You cannot. It leaves a hole. And holes need to be mended (or filled). I don’t have an answer of how one would ever fill up a black hole enough to ensure that which has no past, present or future ends up having some meaning. Maybe it is simply the awareness of this that permits us to be better people.
In the end.
Anger gains you nothing and costs you much, but it is always a learning experience.
I scribbled this on a random piece of paper: “I cannot be angry with you. Anger would be a waste of the moments we have and would make us weak in the face of the things yet to do.” Therein lies the gift paradox. Anger wastes moments and, yet, it offers learning moments. I imagine all I can offer is navigate the moments wisely. Ponder.
The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
Vladimir Lenin
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“No one is walking in saying, ‘Great, I’d love to pay full price’.”
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One of the things that drives me nuts is when people say how much better the economy was during the Trump Administration. It’s not really true, it was good, not quite as good as under Obama administration, certainly not bad, not really comparably as good as current economy, but that’s a post for a different day (and I encourage everyone to research economists like Noah Smith, Tyler Cowen or Justin Wolfers to read their thoughts).
Today I’m addressing the comparison elephant in the room: inflation.
Inflation is not the economy. It seems like the majority of people are judging the economy solely on what they perceive is inflation. Inflation perception may seem like an odd term. Heck. Inflation itself is an oddish thing. Economists define it in a nuanced way, people define it in a simplistic way, news defines it whatever way its own political winds blow way, and reality is somewhere in between. But where people think of inflation the most is with prices they pay (not causes).
So let me speak a little bit about pricing during the Trump administration years. Similar to the Obama administration years, in the Trump years corporate America scanned about their competition and tried to figure out how to be able to charge the highest possible competitive price and generate the highest profits. It’s kind of standard operating pricing procedure weighing “how much can I charge and still create significant demand.” That doesn’t mean that many of these same companies were year in year out doing things like conjoint testing (testing variables that affect the price that could be charged versus the demand increase or decrease, i.e., price sensitivity). Businesses are always trying to figure out how to have higher prices. That said, generally speaking, changing prices sends a shiver down the spine of every business as they worry about the demand effect. So, the natural arc of pricing is to establish your price within a competitive environment, watch your competition pricing, and establish a demand for your product or service based on that price. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that I’ve sat in endless meetings where business people wistfully spoke of charging significantly more than they currently were charging.
Which leads me to the Trump Administration years.
Business institutions had less and less wistful conversations. Not because they actually raised their prices, but because the Trump Administration went out of their way to cut corporate taxes, offer incentivized subsidies to keep cost of goods affordable, and did a variety of things which enabled businesses to increase their profits, not their sales, without ever having to raise their price one penny. Let me reiterate that the Trump Administration also did everything they could possibly do to subsidize everything (things that effected cost of goods) to keep inflationary pricing down. The consequence of this was soaring federal level deficits, but for the most part the everyday schmuck like you and I didn’t really care because prices remained fairly stable and the headlines didn’t look any different than they had always looked in the past – pointing out day after day the soaring corporate profits. We all felt like the system was rigged, the corporations were gouging us, but we didn’t really see it at the shelf or in our pocketbooks. So, we just hated business, but didn’t hate the economy.
Which leads me to the pandemic.
Instead of theoretical, conjoint-like, testing, every business was faced with market reality and a real market test. Supply chains were disrupted, commodities – costs of goods – that were essential to their production and resources needed for services became limited or asymmetrically supplied and more costly, and consequently prices changed – most typically upwards. Oh. And everything was passed along to the buyers. What this meant in practical terms, to a business, was the sellers were able to test the market pricing (elasticity) without being blamed. They could see in real time how demand was affected by disruptions and price changes. Rightfully so everybody pointed their fingers at the pandemic, but businesses didn’t really lose a lot of sleep because they maintained their profits, for the most part adapted to the changing demand, and tried to keep their profit heads above the water. Then the pandemic ended. And businesses sat around conference rooms failing moral gut check after moral gut check. And what was that moral gut check? What to do with my pricing now that my cost of goods has decreased. This isn’t to suggest that some industries and businesses were still affected by some of the ripple effect consequences of the pandemic with regard to the cost of the goods they needed to be able to craft the products they offered to the market. But for the most part the pandemic encouraged businesses to create a more resilient production model to make their cost of the goods more stable. In addition, the corporate tax cuts stayed in place … despite the current administration wanting to increase them (government is government and nothing changed there). Many of the tariffs were removed which should have eased pricing to the buyers, but many of the businesses failed to pass along the cost savings. In addition to that the pandemic market had shown many of the businesses the price elasticity and inelasticity of their products and services. For example. My geographic market prior to the pandemic. It would not be rare to see that you could buy a two-liter bottle of Coke or Pepsi on promotion for $1 (actually 99cents) and the everyday price was always below $2 (maybe $1.99, maybe $1.89.) During the pandemic of course all prices went crazy. Coke and Pepsi’s two-liter bottle prices soared above $2 every day (usually $2.99 everyday). Uhm. Post pandemic the everyday price for a two-liter bottle is now $2.50, or above, and promotions never drop below $1.25 per 2 liter. The demand has remained exactly the same and Coke and Pepsi are getting, at minimum, $0.25 gravy, at maximum, $1.00 gouging, on every single two-liter bottle purchased. Just to complete the math on this. If they sell 1 million 2-liter bottles, they make anywhere from $250,000-$1,000,000 additional profit. Uhm. And they sell billions. Anyway. This isn’t to just pick on Coke and Pepsi, Coke and Pepsi are indicative of business. The problem is most people aren’t thinking about this the way I just finished describing it. All they see is what groceries are costing them every single day, without promotion, a dollar more per 2-liter bottle. And as they wander the supermarkets, they see the same thing. In some industries the prices have certainly decreased and, generally speaking, the majority of the pandemic pricing has decreased aligned with the realities of whatever their cost of goods increased or decreased. But when you go to the supermarket you don’t focus on the prices that lowered closer to prepandemic, you focus in on the prices of the goods that you want that you’re tired of paying pandemic pricing for. And I word it that way because that’s not inflation. That’s pandemic pricing in non-pandemic time.
“The reality is that business and investment spending are the true leading indicators of the economy and the stock market. If you want to know where the stock market is headed, forget about consumer spending and retail sales figures. Look to business spending, price inflation, interest rates, and productivity gains.”
Mark Skousen
And that’s the economic gut check on the moral gut check businesses failed. I am certainly not suggesting that the Trump Administration is to be blamed for the current pricing. They didn’t plan the pandemic and the pandemic certainly affected all businesses in terms of their supply chains and cost of goods. And just as well I can’t blame the Biden administration for not doing anything about what I’m calling pandemic pricing, which is confused with inflation, because governments are not in the business of dictating pricing that people pay. Suffice it to say, no administration would ever change the prices people pay.
“I believe that it is just a matter of time before our party pays a heavy price for President Trump’s reckless spending and shortsighted financial policies, his erratic, destabilizing foreign policy and his disregard for environmental concerns.”
McKean
But, in the end, I opened discussing what drove me nuts (the Trump administration wasn’t as great as many people think it was). Inflation in Trump times was no better than prior administrations and unless you have a crystal ball there is no way to know whether inflation would be the same, lower, or higher if the Trump administration were in place now. That said, I will suggest that the likelihood a new Trump administration would lower inflation is next to nil. Any objective observer would struggle to imagine what policies the Trump administration would have in place that would lower inflation now or even what policies would be in place that would make the economy any better now.
At this time, I tend to believe the biggest culprit is institutional pricing, not real inflation. But that’s me. Ponder.
“But the brain does much more than just recollect it inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes, it generates abstractions. The simplest thought like the concept of the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. “
Carl Sagan
“We need to free ourselves from the habit of seeing culture as encyclopedia knowledge, and men as mere receptacles to be stuffed full of empirical data and a mass of unconnected raw facts, which have to be filed in the brain as in the columns of a dictionary, enabling their owner to respond to the various stimuli from the outside world. This form of culture really is harmful, particularly for the proletariat. It serves only to create maladjusted people, people who believe they are superior to the rest of humanity because they have memorized a certain number of facts and dates and who rattle them off at every opportunity, so turning them almost into a barrier between themselves and others.”
Antonio Gramsci
Velvet curtain of culture.
Iron curtain of ideology.
Samuel Huntington
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This is a slightly different discussion about speed and speedy stuff. Farnam Street did a topnotch job outlining speed versus velocity, and I wrote an entire series on velocity, but today I am focused on speedy looking less-than-important stuff and more important slower-speed human nature, in other words, meaningful cultural movement versus superficial culture movements.
Which leads me to most culture is inertia disguised in speedy clothing.
Most culture is misidentified by 24/7 culture scam artists posing as futurists, trend spotters, and social influencers, i.e., people who monetarily benefit from hype and, most specifically, ‘speed hype’
· ** speed hype is typically captured in the ubiquitous phrase “the world is moving faster than ever.” It’s not.
Most businesses, with good intentions, get caught up in the speedy inertia wheel of doom. So, let’s talk culture in two ways:
1. culture of human whims.
2. culture of human nature.
The former is about cultural shifts, or shifting, (some big, some small) and the latter is about foundational movement (the inevitable cadence that always exists). Ultimately, this becomes a battle between whims and nature. Sure. Sometimes a whim is a reflection of some deeper human truth and has some enduring nature, but for the most part whims are whims, fads are fads, and things that look good in the ‘shift phase’ look pretty stupid in a rearview mirror. But within the battle of whims and nature the word ‘culture’ is wielded like a dull axe. To be clear, as Dick Hebdige, author of The Meaning of Style, said “culture is a notoriously ambiguous concept.” Personally, I believe we shouldn’t be landing on one definition but rather, well, “the best thing about definitions, like $100 bills, is to have plenty of them” (Robert Ardrey). That said. Simplistically, culture is the elements of human nature that make up the experiences of a group. Yeah. Culture is the work of whole peoples and their interactions. It moves at the pace of language, experiences, and stories. To be clear. Events, religion, ideologies feed into language, experiences and stories, but those things are not culture, but rather stimulus of culture. Regardless, all this means cultural truths are tied to the rhythms of human nature/biology and connectivity between peoples – the cadence of humanity. I know businesses prefer talking about profitability, objectives, and KPIs, or even what culture they may ‘have,’ but the more a business can tap into the cadence of nature and humanity, its cultural truths, the more enduring the business idea will be. I would suggest that it is through culture that we make sense of our lives so when a business taps into the movement of culture, people’s lives tend to move with it.
Which leads me to inertia or, in other words, irrelevance.
Forever is a long, long time.
And has a way of changing things.
The Fox and the Hound
We accept inertia, irrelevance, far too easily/comfortably. Why do I think irrelevance is accepted? To be fair it’s easy to confuse the irrelevant as being relevant in today’s speedy FOMO world. First. Let me point out that speed can look an awful lot like inertia. So, if you think running in the hamster wheel of hype is doing a lot of ‘important things’, you are wrong, but ‘feels’ like good shit is happening. You are more likely just doing a lot of things and the business is never really moving or gaining value. Second. A misguided understanding of value. This misunderstanding is most often discovered in opportunities missed. If you emphasize the speedy stuff, or just speed alone, as offering the highest value, you will inevitably miss out the slower moving opportunities which offer foundational, and sustainable, value. Mistaking all that speedy stuff for culture is transactional value versus enduring value and, in most cases, I would argue a business is leaving dollars on the table.
Which leads me to how to navigate offering relevant value.
First. Slow down (the world is not moving so fast you will miss anything significant). Second. I would suggest find the relevant cultural movement. To be fair, it is tricky to find the natural, biological, cadence tucked in human nature. The problem is we have a collective shortsightedness grounded in “living in the now,” but in order to maintain a thriving business you need short term results without being shortsighted and you need a long-term view while ‘being’ in the short term. I have found Stewart Brand’s pace layering an invaluable tool for thinking about how brands can ‘navigate the long now.’ In other words, ground a business in culture in terms of human insights, not popular relevant(?) culture.
Let me explain. Remember. Cultural insights are grounded in human nature. These things have a bit of timelessness to them. In pace layering terms they are the slow moving truths that people gather around, or, as James Carse said: “a culture is not anything persons do, but anything they do with each other.”
These things are easy to overlook because they are the things that hold us all together when it seems like the world is moving too fast for us (while technology is shouting at us to go faster). If a business leans into these cultural truths, human psychological truths, they construct a strong but flexible structure built to absorb shocks and, in most cases, incorporate them. Instead of breaking under stress, like something brittle, the business accommodates what the world throws at us and yet its cultural truths move so slowly, they seem like they are unchanging.
Fast learns, slow remembers.
Fast proposes, slow disposes.
Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous.
Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy.
Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.
Stewart Brand
Business walks a variety of paths every day. But today rather than looking at as terrain and paths let’s think of these paths in concentric layers. I, personally, believe everyone should think about Stewart Brand’s pace layering and from a larger perspective, societally, I believe we could all use a good lesson in navigating the long now rather than focus solely on the now (and the short term). Societally we certainly have a collective shortsightedness grounded in “living in the now,” which I would argue isn’t particularly good for any of us. But for a business that is the kiss of death. An enduring, thriving, business demands a long view and I believe that long view is found within a cultural insight. Here is the harsh truth. Most businesses skate on the superficial surface of irrelevance because they ignore cultural truths. For the most part brands are ignoring these truths for temporary happiness. Far too many brands view fads, fashion, much of social media as cultural truths and, for the most part, they are not. Cultural truths are grounded in human insights – psychological, behavioral – which power our hopes and dreams and anger and happiness and, most importantly, connection with other humans. Today’s brands see ‘culture’ in the fleeting outside world of fads and fashion and style and useless gadgets-of-the-moment which are just the momentary mindless, the irrelevant, clothed in a veneer of connectivity.
Remember. Culture is not static, its transitory. Culture is a process (that which is acquired) as well as a product (that which has been acquired). Culture is both backward looking as well as future looking (nostalgic or memory grounded as well as utopian or dream looking). Culture is a refraction, not a reflection. Culture is a macro narrative made up of micro-narratives (sub cultures).
Which leads me to infinite movement.
Business is addicted to finite stuff. Projects, initiatives, weekly goals, all rolled up n KPIs. Business loves to isolate things and ‘make them perfect’ while espousing infinite value. Look. Forever, infinite, is about time and it isn’t. What I mean is we associate forever with time and, yet, it is timeless so time is almost irrelevant to ‘infinite.’ What is relevant to forever (or let’s call it ‘the long now’’) is constancy and adaptation. Please note I never said “control.”
“We control nothing, but we influence everything.”
Brian Klass
Ah. Control. Now, being the type of outcome-oriented people we are; we actually try and apply some measurement to infinite progress (yes, measuring that sounds like an oxymoron) and all it does is increase the perception of speed and encourage inertia. We look like we’re filling up time with important things, we feel like we are filling up time with important things, we even sit around conference room tables pointing at numbers that look important, but for the most part none of those things are contributing, in any significant way, to the constancy and adaptation which is the key to navigating the layers of pace every culture and business exists upon. In fact, all of those things are just attempts to take snapshots of all the blurry unimportant things speeding by. Yeah. The numbers are an attempt to convince you that the unimportant is important.
So we measure meaningless stuff and hold on to old things, including thinking, for too long. Businesses get caught in the wretched hollow in between shiny fast moving meaningless shit and the old thinking which only increases burden on a daily basis and the people gravitating to either side of FOMO or stability. Therein lies inertia. Therein lies path dependence.
Here is the crazy thing. The whole idea of infinite far too often tethers us to our past or inertia which is not very productive. Maybe worse is as we grow away from infiniteness, we grow closer to the understanding of finiteness, measurement by measurement, fad by fad, widget by widget. Paradoxically as we focus on all the shit speeding around, all the whims and fads, we reduce nature to silly things we convince ourselves are important.
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“Let me tell you a truth … no matter what choice you make, it doesn’t define you.
Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. If there’s ever a choice you’ve made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice.”
Jonathan Maberry
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Which leads me to paced learning.
Rather than discussing fast or slow, let’s discuss pacing – and learning. The reality is that organizations learn. That may sound a little odd because organizations are made up of people and we typically talk about learning in individualistic ways. However, organizations and the systems are implemented by people and in turn influence people’s mindsets, attitudes, and actual behaviors. So, when I say that organizations learn what I mean by that is that they encase their learning in programs and standard operating procedures that the people within the organization routinely execute. That is the system. The problem with this is that all of these programs and procedures typically generate inertia. And this inertia inevitably increases as the organization brings in new people and reward conformity to the system and its ‘learned implementation.’ This is done over and over and over again embedding past learning in the present (and future). As the successes accumulate the organization doubles down on the existing system emphasizing efficiency. The consequences of this are inevitable – the system itself becomes complacent, people learning slows, and inertia sets in. To be clear. Inertia and complacency is a double whammy to a business. It slows culture down and human nature (natural adaptation) down. So how should organizations learn? Well. As William Starbuck said “organizations must unlearn.” Unlearn is an awkward way of saying that systems must be systemically dismantled piece by piece and iteratively rebuilt. And what that means is that the people within the organization need to be self-aware enough in order to be able to influence not only organizational systems, but organizational learning. This is where hierarchy comes in. In most businesses organizations are constructed in a hierarchy. What this means is that the higher up the manager is the more likely they are to dominate organizational learning as well as organizational implementation. This means that most managers invest the majority of their energy in terms of learning the existing system and not unlearning aspects of the system, i.e., trying different things and innovation. It may sound odd, but past learning inhibits new learning. The only way to create space for new learning is to be able to discard some old learning, i.e., unlearn.
Which leads me to human nature (human movement).
Nature is never still. Nothing, in nature, is ever infinite other than possibly adaptability. This truth includes humans and human nature. Adaptability is a complex coherence of faster and slower moving aspects (static and dynamic). Typically, the aspects seek an optimal equilibrium situation through reactions and interactions (connectivity) where all become stable in a coherent sense enabling movement. In fact, maybe that defines infinite and progress. What I mean by that is optimal is only attainable in a temporary state (finite) therefore the pursuit is always infinite. This means true ‘achievement’ is not possible therefore progress is the only reality-based construct. Anyway. I would suggest the most interesting systems are dynamic in that they are non equilibrium systems that form order from actively dissipating entropy. Ah. Entropy (and its relationship to paces and pace layering). I would argue that entropy increases as the total surface of what is exposed to external stimuli is decreased. This decrease surface connectivity creates an overall increase of entropy. To be clear. “Surface” is a complex weave of whims and human nature at speed. Discerning between the two is important because if the ‘external stimuli’ you elect to expose yourself to are ‘whims’ that will only increase entropy (that is the paradox of speed). This doesn’t mean that there can’t be constant re-formation of order; just that there is an increased likelihood of entropy. I believe it was physical chemist Ilya Prigogine who viewed the paradox of evolution as one of an engine running down and the other of a living world unfolding toward increasing order and complexity. In his theory, the second law of thermodynamics – which is the law of ever-increasing entropy or disorder – is still valid, but the relationship between entropy and disorder is different. At bifurcation points states of greater order may emerge spontaneously without contradicting the second law of thermodynamics. The total entropy of the system keeps increasing, but this increase in entropy is not uniform or symmetrical. In the living world order and disorder are always created simultaneously. What this means is that there are always islands of order in all seas of disorder and their role is to maintain and increase their order. And therein lies another thought, one in which that speed, inertia, and cultural movement will always have aspects of order and disorder. Well. That thought will make every business uncomfortable.
“Strategy’s endgame is to spark movement. But as an intermediary measure, feeling moved by the process is an indicator you’re doing it right. Because if you’re doing it right, you do embody new people. New messages. New audiences. A new tone of voice. Strong vicarious vibes. And by doing so, things get raw. Raw precedes real. And real is something that provokes a response.”
Rob Estreinho
Stewart Brand, Pace Layering
Which leads me to cultural movement.
Let’s say this is about experience versus experiencing. I tend to believe most people are misguided when they focus on experiences, and selling experiences, rather than focusing on experiencing (which is more about human nature). Here’s what I mean. Experiences are an outcome of experiencing, and experiencing is a complex culmination of connections:
1. Connection to human nature.
In other words, the biology which creates the comfortable or the purposefully uncomfortable cadence that seems natural to us (note: this is actually embodied in a number of cultural cues)
2. Connection to context and environment.
This Is the environment which expands or reduces potential.
3. Connection to other humans.
In fact, human nature experiencing is autopoiesis. Autopoiesis means self-making. It is the main characteristic of life in that it is self-maintenance due to the natural internal networking of the system itself. It constantly maintains itself within the boundary of its own making. But it also implies that a living system is the totality of all of its mutual interactions, i.e., connections (as listed above). Through connections multiple mini transformations continuously take place and, yet, at its core the system/human/human nature maintains its individuality. Is this apparent contradiction between adaptation and constancy which actually explains a healthy system. I say all of that to suggest all living systems need some constancy and yet still need some change through adaptation. I say that to suggest human nature, culture, is constancy constantly, slowly, adapting.
Which leads me to end with the fact most people discuss culture incorrectly.
Human nature is at the core of culture. Whims and fads are simply temporary features of human nature’s more systemic rhythms. The reality of culture is that it is not a particular speedy thing. With that in mind, rather than giving so much attention to speedy stuff, maybe we should invest just a bit more energy focusing on the less speedy stuff. I seriously doubt we will miss out on anything truly meaningful in the process. Ponder.
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“It is misleading to argue that cultural circulation has been democratized. The means of circulation are algorithmic, and they are not subject to democratic accountability or control. Hyperconnectivity has in fact further concentrated power over the means of circulation in the hands of the giant platforms that design and control the architectures of visibility.”
“That proves you are unusual,” returned the Scarecrow; “and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
The Land of Oz
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
John Stuart Mill
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Let me begin in an odd place. Progress is the inevitable increase in complexity. This means when we speak of a simpler past, in many ways, we are correct. The less things are connected, the more simple it is. And if there is one thing one could say about civilization’s progress, it is that we have been quite good at inventing things that connect us. The consequence of that progress is, well, increased complexity. This complexity has a variety of different consequences, but let’s focus on individuality today.
Which leads me to self-expression as a tool for individuality.
Today’s world demands that we each, individually, cultivate a habit of constant self-expression. More and more we are encouraged to ‘be yourself,’ “bring your whole self everywhere,” and more and more we are encouraged to become more aware of our ’emotional selves.’ This is encouraged whether we want to or not or whether it’s healthy or unhealthy with regard to the health of “me.” This happens because we live in a self-expressive culture and society. In addition, we are constantly encouraged to trust our instincts and our impulses above anything else. In other words, trust the things inside ‘me’ and distrust the forces outside that we perceive discourage our instincts and impulses or even suffocate what is best for me. All of this means self-expression is a weapon against a world attempting to make us less unusual, less distinct, and less of ‘me.’ I would argue this isn’t really a true battle’, but I don’t think it’s too far off to suggest that everyone wants to etch a sense of self in the walls of the world – through behaviors, habits, and attitudes. The trouble arises in that, paradoxically, self-love has a nasty tendency to encourage unhealthy focus on instincts and impulses. Unhealthy self-love isn’t always ego-ism, but it does encourage ignoring wisdom from others and the outside world. Along those lines, true love demands connectivity and through that connectivity it has a nice tendency to counter unhealthy instincts and impulses by balancing them out with what other people value. In fact, true love eliminates the distinction between me and you. I want to be careful with the word eliminating. I do not mean to suggest that ‘me’ is completely erased, but rather me has a reflective mirror with which to objectively and subjectively reflect upon itself. “Me’ becomes a bit of a blend of all the people one has met and all the conversations one has had. Its kind of like Hanzi Freinacht’s transvidualism. Anyway. In other words, your personal and unusual no longer reside solely in the purview of ‘me,’ but also in the context of the collective. I would argue this is where the healthy unusual resides.
Which leads me to ‘me’ and competition.
I don’t think it’s a big stretch to suggest society encourages competition as a means of maximizing one’s “me potential.” Well. That is fraught with peril. For example. In recent research lower social-class university students (and other adults) do worse than their higher-class counterparts on a reasoning task only when they’re led to focus on outperforming others. Competition, in other words, exacerbates social inequality. In other words, competition constrains potential. I would posit this occurs because people with higher status, and wealth, believe life offers them more chances even if they get something wrong, while lower class people feel like there is less margin for error. I would also posit competition encourages ‘less unusual’ among the masses, i.e., conformity enhances probability of survival/some thriving, as well as encourages mediocrity. I would argue that in a competitive world, every ‘me’ must to start with where power lives. This is counter to self-reliance, self-responsibility and ‘power of me’ narratives because all of those things suggest you should think in terms of your influence on the world. Instead, in a competition-based world, you need to first and foremost understand your influence is in the hands of the existing power. This is painful to say, but there are no real independent individuals in this world. I would be remiss if didn’t point out technology has exacerbated this issue. Technology makes us feel more independent and, yet, the reality is it makes us more dependent upon other people’s opinions, attitudes, beliefs and input. We have, in other words, become tools of our tools. Which leads me to communities of unusual.Communities of unusuals may seem weird to suggest. And, to be clear, I am not suggesting a conformity of a certain type of unusual, but rather I am suggesting a coherent community of those who are unusual in some way. I suggest a community because when you are in groups, you can be very powerful. You can change things. You have confidence when things go wrong that you don’t when you’re on your own. It changes the concept of power. In fact, it is Grace Blakeley, at the end of Vulture Capitalism, who reminds everyone that when people work together, they have more power than any system.
Which leads me to eccentricity (the word most associated with unusual).
I, personally, do not believe unusual is equal to eccentric, but let me explore eccentricity a bit. I could find the only person to have looked into eccentricity: David Weeks, an Edinburgh psychiatrist and co-author of the 1995 book Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness. What he discovered during a ten-year study of 1,000 peculiar people < including a Chippewa Indian who walked everywhere backwards and two Californians who hypnotized frogs> might surprise you. I think most people believe that extreme eccentricity is a short step from serious mental disorder. But, in fact, Weeks’s subjects suffered less from mental illnesses such as depression than the majority of the population.
Fewer than 30 had ever been drug or alcohol abusers. He also found that eccentrics visit the doctor 20 times less often than most of us and, on average, live slightly longer.
The study conclusion? People benefited from non-conformity. Simply put, those who don’t repress their inner nature in the struggle to conform suffer less stress. Consequently, they are happier and their immune systems work more efficiently. Overall, Weeks found that eccentrics tend to be optimistic people with a highly developed, mischievous sense of humor, childlike curiosity and a drive to make the world a better place. Well. Kind of maybe makes you start thinking about envying eccentric people rather than laughing about them, huh?
Anyway. I believe eccentrics are the people who tend to see problems <and life> from new and unexpected angles. Their slightly odd, off kilter, perspective allows them to conjure up innovative solutions. They are the visionaries, even within smaller individual life moments, who make giant imaginative leaps. Weeks, in his study write up, suggested maybe that like the occasional mutations that drive evolution, eccentrics may provide the unusual, untried ideas that allow human societies to progress. Not too shabby for folk who are very often dismissed as cranks and crazies and nutjobs.
“No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.”
H.P. Lovecraft
Which leads me to I am worried about the world.
Society, and communities, appear to have abolished any type of eccentricity <or individuality> within meaningful power positions. Society, which tends to dictate behaviors, seem designed to promote the rise of the ‘accepted and acceptable’ behavior. Think about that. One can be fairly sure that you won’t find too many Teslas surfacing in the next few years as they are weeded out early by the application of standardized policies designed to produce standardized human beings. When I was younger it seemed like businesses had their share of quirky, slightly nutjob, people and they added color to the office. They added a dimension to the work, and workplace, which sometimes made a tough day better and a tough assignment less challenging. Not always, but at minimum it made the experience more interesting by far.
Anyway.
Look. I am not suggesting more people be eccentric, but maybe possibly less people should find conforming as important as they do. Maybe embrace being, well, unusual. That’s it. If for no other reason than a research study suggests you may be happier.
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
In the end I imagine the challenge remains that we reside in a world that glorifies individual success, yet, our greatest power lies in our ability to come together. A truly empowered and resilient society can only arise from a sense of unity and collective purpose, not self-interest. How can we reclaim the power of the collective without losing our sense of self? Maybe we should be asking how we can create more communities of unusual. Maybe it will be the communities of unusuals who will be most likely to have the ability to navigate increased complexity and ensure progress for civilization. Ponder.
“There’s a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.”
Vera Nazarian
==
“Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another.”
George K. Simon Jr
==
Trump has probably done over 100 things, okay, thousands of things which make me sure he is unqualified to be the country leader <and make me doubt he could lead a turd out of a flushed toilet>, makes me sure I dislike his business acumen and makes me sure his moral compass <assuming he even has one> is not working. That said. Its all a game to him. He wants a “story a week” so everyone is talking about him every day and every week (if not every hour). He is of the old school “there is no such thing as bad PR” belief with a twist – he has a cadre of alternative universe storytellers who twist everything he says into some false equivalence or even “you really didn’t see, or hear, what you really did” spin. Regardless. He is playing a game. And he is playing a game with democracy and elections and the presidency. And he isn’t even hiding the fact he sees this as one big game and he is going to do whatever it takes to win his game.
He demeans us, he demeans business, he demeans democracy, he demeans the country and, maybe most importantly, he demeans the office he is suggesting he is qualified for.
It is infuriating. He treats the political process like a game show and I’m angry at the people in leadership who permit this to happen. And I’m angry that we, the ordinary people, are so angry at some shadowy ‘establishment’ that we cannot seem to assume some thread of responsibility for what is happening.
And let me tell you how angry I am about the ‘gaming.’
Because Trump has given me the opportunity to be angry hundreds of times before. The truth is that in a fairly remarkable mixture of bombastic rhetoric, double-talk, vagaries, an outright onslaught of relentless lies, he says repulsive things every day. Realistically to keep your sanity you can truly only focus on one of them at a time <which is part of his game because if I focus on one and everyone else focuses on another one and so on, how the hell can anyone put a thumb on this stupid, slippery, slimy, carnival barker? I admit, his ignorance <with regard to the constitution, global realities, everything else, was amusing at first, but it truly is Trump’s disregard for constitutional principles which is most likely the most disturbing <all the while holding up the Constitution verbally as his guiding principle>.
He doesn’t believe in freedom of the press <unless they say something nice to him>.
He doesn’t believe in freedom of speech <unless it agrees with him>.
He doesn’t believe in … well … let’s just say he is free of morality and principles which underpin the country <torture is good if the other guys do it, killing families of enemies is okay because it deters future enemy action, and ‘I’ will trump ‘we’ in decisions>.
Article II directs the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Article VI provides that treaties are part of “the supreme law of the land.” These treaties include the Geneva Conventions, which govern the conduct of war. Yet in direct contradiction to these treaties, Trump has said that the United States should have stolen Iraqi oil and that we should kill the families of terrorists. As he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “Everybody believes in the Geneva Convention until they start losing and then they say oh, let’s take out the bomb. OK. When they start losing. We have to play with a tougher set of rules.”
Let me be politically incorrect <kind of along the lines of Trump himself>. While I am not holding my breath I would be delighted if at some point he stood up and said “I am sorry. I have been a psycho. I don’t really like myself that much and I have been an unapologetic asshole for my entire life.”
He will not. Shit. He cannot even apologize for … uhm … anything.
Donald Trump is a liar. Period.
He is a crooked con artist.
He is a spoiled rich bully with an unhealthy relationship with his own mirror <and a desire for fame>.
Trump has seemingly called everyone a liar at some point over his entire lifetime, let alone the election period, all the while offering us an onslaught of his own lies. A liar telling lies, but calling everyone else a liar, is not just an asshole, it is a reflection of the fact he believes he is simply playing a game.
He is a repugnant and ridiculous imposter with no integrity.
He is simply a game show host stirring up interest to a television audience who is only going to find that what is behind the curtain is not the dream vacation we have always wanted, but a plastic blender which runs at one speed.
Which leads me to May 26 in North Dakota:
“Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for 50 years. I’m the only one.”
Uhm. “I will give you everything.” If that were not so stupidly arrogant, I would get angry with someone running for president saying something like that. I am completely disgusted. He is a flagrant scam artist playing games with America. It gets a bit crazier because the MAGA people claim they like him because he is no nonsense and unapologetic. Well. I don’t like it because I believe it is cowardly to not face your own lies and poor words and poor choices and you are stubbornly unapologetic when you are 100%, no, 100% to the nth degree, wrong or lying to people.
But I continue to say the worst is that he is unapologetically playing the election like a game.
Gaming the press.
Gaming the people.
Gaming the system.
Gaming the overall construct of what is right, what is wrong and his basic strategy is confuxing everyone.
He is fucking running for the president of the United States; not the smartest game show host on tv.
Let’s be clear. Like him or not, Obama is an American and he treated his role as president seriously and with dignity. Like her or not, Clinton is an American and was serious candidate running a serious campaign understanding it is a serious role. Like him or not, Biden is a decent man, an American, and treats his role as president seriously and with dignity. Trump is an American who doesn’t really believe in America (the idea and ideals) and he is a relentless liar who cloaks himself in false patriotism to hide his lack of knowledge and overall ignorance for how serious being a president is. He is not sane nor interested in workable solutions. Trump is unwilling to put in the serious work to match the seriousness of the position. We should demand our president to lead by example and lead by assuming the mantle of responsibility, all responsibilities, of the position. Every day is bizarre, and a slap in the face to democracy and the democratic process and to the citizens, and in the realm of the Trump carnival barker show, every week seems to attain a new low.
“Talk about a lack of intestinal fortitude. Anyone who wants to try to put Joe Biden on the same plane as Donald Trump should have their mental health checked because that is just an absurd false equivalency. This is a very black and white issue here. You’re either pro-democracy or you’re not. All the other issues that we disagree about – and there are many – don’t matter if we don’t have a functioning democracy.”
Which leads me to the most dangerous part of his game.
He doesn’t really believe in democracy, he embraces autocracy. If it were just simply that, it’s important but controllable. The problem is he also believes that transactions are negotiated one on one based on a relationship. So he builds relationships and affinities with autocrats. The most obvious autocrat he’s developed a relationship with is Vladimir Putin. It has often been discussed the 2016 Trump campaign links with Russia and whether Donald Trump is actually a Russian plant. I would actually just suggest something a foreign intelligent officer said: “It doesn’t really matter if you believe that Donald Trump is a Russian asset because assets come into all shapes and sizes. And some assets don’t realize their assets. They’re the best kind.” It is undisputed that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. No sane person debates that. The Justice Department, the Mueller investigation, even the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed all of that. Everything portrays senior Trump Advisors eager to obtain assistance from Russia. Read any of the investigations and you’ll see a detailed list of a complex web of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians linked to a Kremlin and the Russian intelligence services. The most obvious one was Paul Manafort who was compromised having earned millions of dollars representing pro Kremlin political candidates. It is a fact that in Europe Paul Manafort handed 2016 voter targeting information to a Russian intelligence agent. Whether he knew it was a Russian intelligence agent or not is irrelevant; he handed it to him. But getting back to Donald Trump. While in the Oval Office Trump heaped praise on authoritarian thugs, entertained anti democratic European populists at the White House, rolled back US efforts to promote democracy around the world, and disrupted relations with allies. And to the chagrin of all intelligence officers around the world, during an Oval Office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and ambassador to Washington, Trump divulged highly classified intelligence supplied by Israel. Intelligence that was so sensitive it was not shared widely within the US government. And while the breach put at risk an operation that had given Israeli intelligence a look on the inner workings of Islamic state in Syria, the consequences of it were worse. Israel as well as the majority of other intelligence allies stopped giving the United States critical intelligence because they believed that nothing was safe once Trump had heard it. All of that is undisputed fact. He thought intelligence was a game and he shared that game with autocratic leaders, and particularly Vladimir Putin. And then of course there was Trump’s obsession with undermining NATO. Tied to his peculiar fealty towards Vladimir Putin, Trump challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence community that Moscow had meddled in the election. I would also be remiss if I didn’t note that Donald Trump met one on one with Vladimir Putin in five meetings of which there is no detailed record anywhere within the files of the US government. These are all facts. You may not like them, but they are facts. I’m not asking anyone to draw any conclusion other than Donald Trump does not take democracy seriously.
And then there was January 6th. Three and a half hours where rioters roamed the temple of American democracy smashing windows, breaking down doors, ransacking offices, defacing works of art, stealing documents and computers, defecating in the building, and searching for lawmakers to kidnap or kill -including the speaker of the house and the vice president. Emblems of racism and hate were everywhere. One wore a sweatshirt that said ‘Camp Auschwitz.’ Another carried the Confederate battle flag. Americans allies stunned by what they had witnessed, condemned the president’s actions (and inactions) and used words usually reserved for 3rd world tyrants and thugs. Even the Turkey autocrat called the insurrection the disgrace that shocked humankind. This may sound offensive to some people, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest it was the darkest day in American history since 9/11 – although somehow slightly worse. For the attack had been launched not by a distant enemy, but by the occupant of the Oval Office. It was a warning to all of us that democracy can never be taken for granted, and maybe more importantly with regard to Donald Trump that he grants democracy no or little value.
But resounding with the truth of things prophesied,
But of things with truth resounds
Но вещей правдою звучат
No v’eshchej pravdoju zvuchat
Its lips are covered with blood!
Lips covered with blood
Уста, запекшиеся кровью!
Usta, zap’vekshi’esa krovju!
——
Ophelia’s Song: Alexander Bok
=================
“Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.”
–
Leonardo da Vinci
=================
59squared.
3,481.
3481squared.
12,117,361.
12,117,361squared.
1.5 billion.
That’s three degrees and I am at almost 1/5th of the entire world. Yeah. The numbers are really not that neat, but you get the point. With a single event, a single death, one person can set off a chain of events that will affect hundreds of thousands, millions and even billions of people.
Some people call this “6 degrees of separation” <although I showed it to you as only 3>. I didn’t make up the squared concept. In some form or fashion it reflects the truth of the internet of things and connectedness and it shows the likelihood that the majority of us have some connection to any event in which 5, 59 or 559 people are part of.
I say this because it makes a lot of things, well, personal. The main point here is that a person now has access and is aware of more people <true friends as well as web based friends> and can have more frequent communication due to the ‘digital revolution’.
Yet.
Social media is simply the fact that the traditional benefits of an acquaintance network <personal or professional> and friendships can be more expansively realized than before <it amplifies>. This means that truth resounds more quickly & clearly & bluntly than ever before. The other truth is that our own experiences, and Life, can then be at the mercy of crowds of friends & acquaintances — crowds providing unsolicited input & feedback & experiences all influencing hordes of additional people’s thoughts on a daily basis. This means whether you are present in one place, or not, you can be impacted in the present place you stand. You are a nomad in which the world remains your home.
Our world is now one large network consisting of two basic things – people and connections. And while many times we look at this as some forced or constructed network <Facebook, twitter, etc. provides hubs and constructs> the reality is that most people networks & connections are organically constructed. So while we like to draw out nice symmetrical shapes to define how connections work and networks are constructed the reality is that networks are more often not symmetrical.
The unique patterns in the connections determine the shapes. We reach out in asymmetrical ways to places, events and thoughts and bring them near in seconds. In addition the ties between the connections can be complicated – spanning from intense or passive.
In the business world we try to characterize networks and connections in a variety of ways. The trouble is that people are not that orderly and certainly not stagnant and they actively reshape their connections, interests and networks all the time.
But I am not here to discuss how the internet can, or cannot, affect personal relationships or a sense of individual isolation but rather this is a thought on how the internet can make things, and Life … well … smaller.
On most days the ‘quasi-truth’ that resounds in the echo chambers of what we talk about and ‘think we know’ is that the internet is isolating us … disconnects us from reality and social interaction.
So … is it possible that the internet increases connection and decreases connection at exactly the same time? Yup. The Internet connects and it isolates.
The usual assumption that most of us make about our computing and communication environment is that we are ‘always’ connected. Indeed, most of us are ‘nomads’ when it comes to computing and communications. We live in a disconnected world much of the time as we travel between our office, home, airport, hotel, car, coffee shop, bedroom, etc. We now recognize that access to computing and communications is necessary not only from one’s `home base’, but also while one is in transit and/or when one reaches one’s destination.
It is an anytime, anywhere access world. It is also, paradoxically, a ‘be anywhere at any time’ world.
That is the connected aspect which creates the whole disconnected aspect.
Well. Let’s just say we feel slightly disconnected in a connected way, of course, until something happens that tightens all the lines of connection.
It is within moments like that where the supposed 6 degrees of separation becomes less degrees and more links all of a sudden the 59squared aspect of connectedness occurs.
The world gets smaller … in fact … really fucking small.
We are brought together and something that happens to 5 people, maybe 59 people, or even 559 people, becomes an experience within our own grasp.
Which brings me back to truth and resounding.
The majority of our social networking constructs today are on the internet <or have a foundation on the internet>. Simplistically, we, the people, are connecting via the internet. What this means is that the internet muffles or amplifies our voices, events and truth <as well as lies unfortunately>.
What this means is that … well … an event, a moment, a death, an injury, resounds … resounds as in 59squared.
What THAT means is we have to face a truth whether we want to or not. Now. At that point we have a choice – see what we face or don’t see what we face. And if we refuse to face it we will remain disconnectedly connected in our little asymmetrical networks of friends & acquaintances.
That was a sad sentence to type.
At this point, my conclusion, I imagine it may be relevant to remind everyone of 59squared and the fact that I can do one thing, one right thing … or one wrong thing … and it will resound.
“In a world with abundant computational resources where nothing is forgotten and where we are connected in pervasive, unexpected ways beyond our choice, it is reasonable to stop and ask ourselves just what kind of world we hope to create.”
Grady Booch
==
Generally speaking, how we ask ourselves what kind of world we hope to create will inevitably find that ‘how’ battling between two conflicting views. One view is that human beings are inherently altruistic and that greed and selfishness is not actually part of human nature, but rather constructed from the norms, and what is valued, of society. The other view is that human beings are centered on self and that the pursuit of self-interest is absolute. Unfortunately, this binary thinking creates some flawed structural thinking impeding how we can actually create the kind of world we hope to create. The flawed “how” creates a flawed foundation from which to build upon. What would help would be to understand people are neither inherently altruistic nor selfish. We are actually what researchers call conditional cooperators and altruistic punishers. I believe this is called ‘social reciprocity’ and is defined as a predisposition to cooperate with others and to punish, even at a personal cost, if necessary, those who violate the norms of that cooperation. Reciprocity behavior is grounded in an inherent understanding that teamwork and cooperation and working with others will always create “more” than what one individual can create alone. I also believe that this binary framing conflicts against a general understanding that the most extreme, or purist, implementation of any ideology, model or belief system is not effective, i.e., effectiveness is not achieved through simplicity. For example. State run systems turn into bureaucratic nightmares and free market constructs lead to dysfunctional societies.
Which leads me to suggest, generally speaking, most people have reached a pragmatic consensus that markets and governments each have a role to play in society.
Despite this understanding the vacuum between is wretched. And it is within this vacuum within which society and humans and humanity continue to evolve typically at a snail’s pace – despite popular belief everything is rapidly changing. And even within this slow evolution there is conflict because humans get trapped in-between the fact we slowly evolve endosomatically, through our genes, and the fact there is a more rapid evolution exosomatically – through our culture. This conflict means that we will constantly drift from order to disorder, entropy and energy, self and collective, all wrapped up in an uncomfortable blanket of uncertainty.
Circling back to my opening, within this wretched inbetween we ask ourselves not only what world we want to create, but actually how to build it. Within this ‘how’ we enter into the next conflict: closed system versus open system. Closed systems always have a predictable end state. Humans like that. To be clear there will always be some unpredictable things occurring in the closed system. Regardless. All closed systems eventually find their future resides in entropy. Open systems are significantly more complicated and complex. They oscillate between stable equilibrium states and complex and unpredictable patterns far from any equilibrium (or anything that would be comfortable to greater society and people). Open systems are uncomfortable to people because if an open system continues to be fed energy and resources, it is impossible to predict its ultimate end state (or whether it will ever even reach an end state). People hate that kind of shit especially if they are thinking about how to create the world we hope to create. Unfortunately, the world, itself, is an open complex adaptive system – a system of interacting parts and pieces that adapt to each other and their environment over time.
Which leads me to what should we hope to create.
Let me begin with some economics. Ultimately, economically, the objective should always be helping poor people to get richer rather than economically punishing the rich This is easier said than done because it is never as simple as rich and non-rich. A bunch of things, and how people think, get bundled up in this discussion (individual power versus environment systemic issues being the main framing). That said. If we focus on non-punishment, then we just focus on a positive vision of growth which gets fairly distributed. And that conversation, in today’s world, gets warped in a confusion between value creation and value extraction. As Mariana Mazzucato said this has serious economic and social consequences. The main consequence is we would need to dismantle, in some form or fashion, how the existing economic system incentivizes, and rewards, those with power who thrive on extraction versus creation to offer value. Now I am going to get nerdy (but this is about what kind of world we hope to create, so …). At the core of this confusion is a misunderstanding of marginal utility. The marginal utility theory of value states that ‘all income is reward for a productive undertaking.’ Without saying anything else, I believe it is obvious that that is not the way our current economic system works. Well. Certainly for the majority of the working people. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Marx becomes essential reading on this. His labor theory of value was not simply an abstract idea, but an act of critique of the system. He asked, if labor produced value, why was labor continuing to live in poverty and misery? He asked, conversely if a group of people did not create value, how did they become so rich? I point that out because all of a sudden, a positive vision of growth then becomes a little bit more complex. What I mean by that is that there can be produced value growth and, separately, there can be individual wealth growth. I say that because we often look at GDP as tied to production growth in how we view whether the system is economically healthy (referring back to Mariana Mazzucato; it is not). The problem gets compounded by the fact that the outcome of production growth (as defined by today), and the growth and distribution of wealth – indirect & direct – created from that production, may actually be quite unhealthy for society. This isn’t to say that I don’t understand that everything must come from somewhere (extraction) and once something has been created it must actually go somewhere (distribution), but what we hope to create will need to be shaped from a reshaped system.
Which leads me to shaping.
If we seek to shape the world we want to create, we need to shape the extraction and distribution. By “shape” I only mean constraints, parameters and nudges; not direct activity. And, yes, shaping often refers to government. And therein lies the next conflict we need to resolve in order to create the world we hope. Does government enhance productivity and add value or does it hold back the economy because it is actually unproductive and can even destroy value? Once again, just as I stated at the beginning of this piece, the truth resides somewhere betwixt. Government, in and of itself, is not bad. Regardless of how you specifically define the role of government, I believe most of us can agree the future will always reside in some combination of reducing activities which inhibit the society and economy and increasing activities which more closely create a truly productive activity and a productive healthy society. Government has a role.
Which leads me to the mindset necessary in the kind of world we hope to create.
We need an adaptive mindset. An adaptive mindset is pragmatic while still embracing possibilities. It values doing shit over doing nothing and values tangible facts about today more than guesses about tomorrow. This mindset doesn’t expect that everything will work out as planned and prefers lots of smaller failures to big ones even while embracing “going big” over “going home.” This paradoxical thinking is willing to say we learned something new and now we need to change course. Basically, we learn by doing and to end up doing what is necessary to make progress. But maybe one of the unsaid things within an adaptive mindset is the fact that it embraces a belief energy potential is the key to pragmatism, possibilities, the present, and the future, i.e., energy is abundant and accessible – if you choose access it. This leverages an idea physicist James Prescott Joel: “nature, itself, is stingy with its energy and energy is neither created nor destroyed, but converted from one form into another.” I bring that to the forefront because what this suggests is that the energy within a system is one of the few guaranteed resources available. Energy always exists and if we want to create a world, we need to control and employ the existing energy. Which leads me back to an adaptive mindset (rather than talk about encouraging massive change). An adaptive mindset recognizes the pragmatic innovations in the present which can be leveraged to do the things to create the world we desire. This is helpful because it is always easier to create something from something rather than create from scratch. To be clear. This is not to suggest we should not challenge ‘the past imaginations.’ I would argue imagination is iterative thereby naturally inventing the future rather than resurrect the past. And from there we need to acknowledge that in the past almost all innovations, and imagination, were limited by their dependence upon nature in some form or fashion. Today’s innovations often strip the limits of nature often optimizing the potential of nature. Solar energy is the prime example of this. Anyway. With that we can begin to envision a world in which machines and technology result in an economy that “potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings.” (Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution, 1964). While this offers some possibilities, it also creates additional issues because machines produce, but do not consume (that’s the job of humans). And the warning here resides in Vonnegut’s Player Piano where we see a dystopian future of an automated economy in which an industrialized business world is managed by few technological elite who do the work while everyone else in society faces a meaningless existence and hopeless future. It is easy to pursue this dystopian thinking especially because advancing technology is clearly pushing us toward making business, and the economy, significantly less labor intensive. It is here I posit: but what would help is if we designed a world to which we purposefully shifted to. It seems like that is the path to make things work out for people rather than simply offer theories.
“but in the end, it did matter.”
In the end, let me remind everyone it was Marx who reminds us that capitalism inevitably creates its own grave diggers. Yeah. If we seek to find the kind of world we want to create, we will have to wrestle with capitalism. Why? Capitalism will always seek to innovate, but those innovations will almost always surround a more efficient productivity and production process. Neither of those things guarantee a more effective society or a better world for people nor create a world we hope for. And maybe that is where I will end. What world do we wanna create? I would suggest if we can imagine it, we can create it, but, uhm, we may need to destroy some things to do so. Ponder.
** postscript: “hoping to create” is a big idea, in a typically little idea world. What I mean by that is often the future is envisioned by ‘fixing’ the existing system or iterating from what exists. That’s, well, little idea thinking. A ‘bigger’ idea is thinking about what kind of world we want to create – and then go about creating it. But you gotta believe you can do something like that or, well, you get stuck in the little idea world.
I wrote this back in 2010 and have resurrected it with the news that Dan Hurley, currently the coach of defending NCAA basketball champions University of Connecticut, is talking with the Los Angeles Lakers about their open head coaching job. Regardless of how you slice this, life decision, career decision, ambition decision, or money decision, the money involved is a life changing salary. Coach Hurley, similar to Coach K as discussed in 2010, earns a salary the majority of us will never attain. Its a good salary. But he is now going to be offered money 99% of us cannot even imagine earning. As I tuck in later in the below piece – “you have to listen.”That said. My real point is that we often talk about how life is more than money, a career is more than money, and, well, money isn’t everything. All true; until is not. Sometimes the money is so ‘more’ that it suffocates all the other possible ‘mores.’ Ponder.
====
According to multiple media sources, the Russian billionaire (and owner of the NBA Nets) Prokhorov wanted to make a big splash by hiring Mike Krzyzewski as coach and GM (he has since turned them down). According to the report, Prokhorov was prepared to offer him $12-15 million (salary without extras) per season. Mike Krzyzewski’s 2009 salary as coach of the Duke Blue Devil’s men’s basketball team is $3.5 million.
When I read about this I started thinking about life changing career decisions. And mostly ones based on money. All I really can say to Coach K is if Mikhail Prokhorov is willing to pay that much, well Coach K, you should probably listen to the Nets’ job offer. Listening doesn’t cost a thing.
Because this is life changing money.
Look. Have I ever been offered 15 million a year? Nope.
But have I ever been offered twice or maybe 3 times as much as I was earning for a new job? Yup.
One sports announcer said “How could you not even at least consider it? Its life changing”.
Now. To us little people it’s hard for us to fathom 3.5 million to 15 million (plus extras on both) as life changing. But 30k to 150k. Or 100k to 350k. Or 150k to 500k. You get it.
Yes. It is life changing. And it makes you evaluate what is important to you. And some people will argue “I will do it so that it frees me up to do something else later on.” And that kind of logic is as good as any I have heard. But. In the end. It is most often a life changing decision. And not just moneywise.
I did it once. I took the money. And it was wrong for me (that’s a personal decision and I am not suggesting everyone should think of it the same way). I ended up quitting to do what I felt was right for me.
Yes. I sacrificed a lot of money.
Yes. I thought about it afterwards.
Yes. I made the right decision (for me).
But that decision helped clarify some later decisions. And made some following similar decisions a little easier. But. Not easy … just easier.
Why just easier (and not making everything clearer down the road)?
Because Life changing money is just that. Life changing. And no matter how good you felt about the last decision you made if and when the next one rolls around a lot of money is a lot of money.
Should Coach k have listened? Sure. Listening never hurts. Should he have taken it? Well. That ain’t for me to say. He is a great college coach. I would envision just like the rest of us he thinks about what’s next when you have existing success. And then all the rest of things get put into the decision blender and you come out with a decision.
I guess my point here is about life changing money decisions. It is easy to say life and career is more than about money. That is until someone offers you double or triple or more what you are currently earning. Then money makes you forget about a lot of other things.
Coach K passed on this one. Does falling back on 3.5 million a year make it easier? Sure. I am sure it does. But 15 million is 15 million.
Making 4 times what you are already earning?
Gosh. Even at the most measly salary level that would make anyone pause and think.
Suffice it to say career choices, and decisions, are life decisions. Do not ever fool yourself into believing anything else. They are so intertwined it is difficult to separate. Especially when money is involved.
“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
Robert Frost
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This is my companion piece to “business and what you have to say matters.”
I believe that is more important than ever that individuals speak out with regard to what matters to them. Of course, I prefer that the people who do so articulate those thoughts well and emphasize the rich nuance in most of the important things that should be talked about. With that said at the end of the piece I’ve included a quick thought with regard to being canceled or canceled culture because it seems inextricably linked to encouraging people to say what matters because it matters what you say.
Which leads me to say I say what matters to me; a lot.
Well. I write a blog. A couple thousand pieces and a couple million words. In my mind I have something to say and I say it. Maybe it all means nothing and as Frost suggests: “I am one of those who have nothing to say but say it.” Regardless. If I say it, I own my words. I say this because we are edging into a world where people are of an age that are shifting into leadership positions, positions of influence, who, well, have a history of some sort of online writing. And, uh oh, they are being demanded to justify their words, thoughts, and ideas. In other words. They are being asked to own their words. They may have had nothing to say, but they said something and now they have to explain something about their nothing.
This is all incredibly interesting <and slightly amusing> to me because if you go online, you will find thousands of writing advice columns <usually formatted in the heinous listicle style and written by self-righteous older people> written to the attention of young people warning them of the dangers of what they put online and how it can affect their future employment.
The amusing part? I found none <zero> advice columns directed toward, well, people of my age.
And you know why? Because we older folk are supposed to know better.
Sadly.
Some of us do not know better.
There are lawyers seeking higher positions, business people seeking a seat in a C-level suite and even doctors seeking to shift into a more general business world who are finding that their words are following them <and they need to own them>. To be clear, no,“it was just my personal opinion on my personal blog” doesn’t hack it. If you shared a thought, you own the words in how you shared it, therefore, you own the thought AND the words. There is no personal/professional split, they are thoughts and words you own. That said. Personal thoughts and professional behavior split IS doable and actually a ‘thing,’ but that another piece for another day.
Anyway. To be fair I will spend a second in the tricky part of ownership.
Is the past a predictor?
Should we waste our time revisiting the online writings of someone who most likely sat down and vented personal thoughts on things of matter?
And, maybe more importantly, should we be held accountable for words we decided to put down and share on the world wide web?
Simplistically, I would say of course we should be held accountable for the words then just as, of course, what we said then may be different than what we would say now. We need to own all the words <and justify the difference>.
Simplistically I would say it is indefensible to solely make a stand on ‘you said it because you can’ and, simplistically, it is indefensible to simply say ‘that was then and this is now.’
If you write, you own the words. Therefore, use words with care.
If you make a point, you own it. Yeah. You own the words you use to make that point.
I make no mistake when I post something in that I know when I open my mind and share my words, they represent a potent formula that can be drunk with pleasure or peril. I know whether it is a large presentation, a one-on-one discussion or a 998 word post on my blog I am doing so as a public speaker.
I own my words. I own my thoughts.
====
“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”
Yehuda Berg
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I say that because I am surprised when older people get trapped in business discussions having to discuss things they may have written as if the words should remain ‘there’ and why should we discuss it ‘here.’ Its nuts. Its nuts because anyone with half a brain knows words are a constructive force or a destructive force. With either path I own what I construct as well as own what I deconstruct; and I don’t understand how you can get to a certain age, or a certain level, and not know that..
Now. What also surprises me a little is that older people who have blogs or write opinion pieces are not young inexperienced people but, if you are making a point, you really do know that simply ranting or using some childish phrasing or hyperbolic rhetoric diminishes what you have to say.
And I say that knowing I am free with the swear words and generous with snarkiness.
Anyway. I may not communicate what I want to say simply, but underneath the swear words, the snarkiness, the faux intellectualism and the casual use of grammar resides a desire to hit what I have always believed is the message simplicity bullseye <by the way … anyone, blogger, opinion writer and even a communications agency can use this simplistic guide>.
The bullseye.
On one axis you are bookended.
On one end is whatever issue & solution I can offer — functionally what I have to offer <my experience, my ideas, my thinking> — followed in toward the bullseye by … well … me, the writer, and who I am and what I stand for <so that my thinking gets filtered through who and what I am … lets call that my character>.
On the other end is the need or want or desire – functionally what is needed – moving toward the bullseye by what the situation, or people, may desire <or think they desire> so that pragmatism gets filtered through the sometimes random irrational minds of people.
The other axis is even simpler: hero, conflict and resolution. It is basic story telling applied to ideas. I want to offer a hero <it can be an idea> which can enter into a conflict unflinchingly or flinchingly if appropriate, and offer a resolution.
All this permits me even in my most dry pieces to attempt to offer my version of a story which, as stories are supposed to do, address deeper and enduring emotional levels tapping into personal “issues” such as self-esteem <conformity versus individuality>, self-doubt and economic wellbeing.
Everyone who writes should have a story. They shouldn’t toss out words thoughtlessly, or worse, irreverently. Anger doesn’t guide a good story <typically> but as long as you continue to aim forward the bullseye even an anger driven critique can end up in an okay place when viewed by someone in the future. And all of that matters if you assume at some point someone will demand you own your words.
Regardless. No matter the words, what you say, what I want today should be aligned with what I believe in. I can take a fairly hard stance on a variety of issues, and I have, but I also hope that my heroes & resolutions reflect adaptability to other’s views and the situation at hand. When I do meet new business people or people I haven’t seen in a while and sometimes they bring up something I have written, let’s say 5 years ago, I am good. I may not think exactly what I did then but my basic principled beliefs have not changed.
It surprises me when some fairly qualified people have not assumed that stance in what they have written.
And.
I certainly have no patience for those who are more than willing to toss out their own past words as “I said that then but now …” or “I wish I had chosen my words more carefully.” I will not suggest we should all get our words right every time <I surely don’t>, but not all words are created equal and the really important ones, the potent ones, the ones that can construct or deconstruct, you should get right. Well. At least right enough that someday in the future your career will not hang in the balance over poorly thought-out communications. Conversely, if you did think it out and your career can hang in the balance over it, well, you made a stand**. Good on you. And backing off that stand simply to get to where you want to be is, well, not good.
Look. I am very much aware that what I say today is probably the reason more people do not speak out. The consequences are often real and harsh and unforgiving. So don’t say what matters to you if that is what you choose (albeit I would note that silence is empty space for someone else to suggest something about how you feel about what matters). But if you do speak out, I have no time and I have no patience for people who do not own their words. And they should be ashamed of themselves for discarding thoughts and words so easily just to get something they want now. Thoughts and words are far too valuable to be that disposable. Ponder.
** hanging in balance when you take a stand. So let me make a point about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘being cancelled for speaking out.’ I have written before cancel culture is bullshit. Everyone who has supposedly been ‘canceled’ is somewhere in the communication system, with an audience, screaming what they have to say at the top of their lungs. They never had their tongue cut ut and the never lost access to some platform. That said. Let me tell you DOES get cancelled – stupid poor communicators. You can have a minority point of view, you can even have a horrible point of view, and if you articulate it well, you do not get cancelled. If, conversely, you ‘dull axe’ your communication – which is usually simplifying something down to an idiot soundbite – you get cancelled. Yeah. Truly the only people who get cancelled are the ones who say stupid shit stupidly.
“You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.”
David Ogilvy
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“One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”
Victor Hugo
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I know businesses are hesitant to wade into social issues. It is fraught with peril. That said. Look at this Google chart Axios offers us with regard to topics. It was an absolutely crazy time in the world as Trump offered the world an onslaught of crazy shit. I would argue it was impossible to not engage, therefore, the question a business had to answer was “how do I engage.” And if that is so, I would argue it would behoove all business people to think of it as “convergence opportunities charting” where if you engaged in a relevant thoughtful way – what would your business look like in the eyes of people as it spoke out?
Now. Crazy lightning rod topics or not, businesses kill for convergence moments in which #’s of people coalesce, if but for a moment or two, to say something to them. That’s why businesses do events. That’s why health clubs look at towel dispensers as communication/experience opportunities (while members may all do different workouts 90% stop at the dispenser). Twitter is like the workouts & the convergence moments are the towel dispensers. Scan someone’s thread & it centers on their interest (cats, climate, bad jokes, community, politics, etc.), but when a convergence topic hits everyone pays attention. Even if you hesitate to weigh in on issues it is difficult to not see these as opportunities to not only elevate your business brand socially, but also to expand your business. Personally, I believe all businesses should make their personal stand on society issues as part of their brand. But that’s me.
Yeah. I believe businesses should take a stand on social issues.
I am in the minority, but I believe business should get involved in society issues. Maybe not all, but they should take a stand. To me silence is not an option. I believe if you have a podium and the opportunity to speak you should accept the burden of responsibility and try and ‘lift society to a higher level.’ And if you don’t give a rat’s ass what I think, Peter Drucker also thought business should be involved in society.
So let me take a moment and comment on business responsibility and their choices with regard to what they say in communications. I do so because in today’s heightened sense of politicism and divisive rhetoric a shitload of people are making noise about “advertising should honor the event and not use it to make a political statement.” That’s is nuts to me.
Uhm.
If not then, then when?
Uhm.
If not me, then who?
Yeah.
There are surely consequences for your actions. But far too often this discussion devolves into a simplistic binary choice – an ‘either/or’ choice. You stand for this therefore you hate that. In other words, you cannot be pro-choice and yet respectful or understanding of pro-life, you cannot desire stronger immigration rules and still be accepting of immigrants, you cannot believe in your religion and still accept that how others worship, or not worship, is meaningful. It’s all wrong because Life, in most cases, is not some simplistic binary choice. You can, and should, believe in something and yet still can, and should, be accepting and respectful of others views. To do this not only would we need to embrace respect, but also assume that most people, let’s say maybe 99% of people, do the best they can and make the best decisions they can <no matter how flawed those decisions may look in our eyes>.
That said. I believe communications, in general, should always seek to highlight the opportunity for us to see the better, or best, version of who and what we are. And that is where I believe business marketing and advertising should not fear speaking out. And I would point out that is not political nor is it divisive, but a general point of view on contributing to a better society.
Look. Companies make statements all the time. Maybe they do more vocally internally, but part of any good organization is a sense of what they believe is right, versus wrong, and how they may define integrity & values. Frankly. We need more companies standing up and vocalizing this publicly. This is not about saying “you are wrong for believing this” or “we do not agree with you,” but rather more about normalizing what is right.
I talk with a shitload of business people, not about advertising or marketing per se,, but rather about simply being successful in the marketplace.
I focus on distinction and not differentiation.
I focus on worrying about “me” and what I want to say rather than finding some elusive, and most likely nonexistent, ‘white space’ in some industry.
I focus on saying the right things and doing it the right way and suggesting that if you tell people the right way to think about things that eventually people will see you as ‘right’ rather than ‘wrong.’
This is not about free speech or any political motivation, but it is about how business, and work life, is an important part of the societal fabric of who and what we are and how and what we think.
In my eyes if you really want to discuss how political correctness has gone awry, it would be in the business world. It wasn’t too long ago that business played a significant role in shaping society. Yeah. I said that. As Peter Drucker pointed out back in the early 1990’s in something he called “salvation by society” businesses understood that work made up a significant portion of people’s lives and therefore they had some responsibility to investing in the fabric of society and communities. As time and views have shifted toward ‘making a dollar’ and profits the work place became less and less an extension of society, but rather simply ‘a place to work and get a paycheck’.
What an empty thought that is.
Our work lives, like it or not, represent a significant portion of our lives not just in terms of sheer hours, but also in terms of thinking we are exposed to, accepted behavior and general attitudes on what is right & what is wrong. For a business to avoid that ‘fabric of society’ responsibility is shameful.
Once again, there are absolutely consequences for your actions. But that is what business positioning is really all about. Distinctness and forcing people to think – think about you, think about what you are offering and thinking about how they feel about you, your message and, uhm, themselves. That is what business positioning and marketing and advertising, at its core, is all about. We dumb it down into some ‘selling shit’ soundbite, but that is dumb.
Yes.
I know.
People will debate with me and, to be fair, this whole discussion wanders along the razor thin line of inclusionary versus exclusionary. If your message is effective, concise and clear, it will absolutely be inclusionary for those who see themselves in what you have to say and offer and potentially exclusionary to others at exactly the same time. However, when done well, a business’s communications captures the brands’ distinctness <which is a campfire to those who want to be included> and offers a better version of people <so that people do not dislike you, they simply think ‘they are not for me’>.
But to do what I am suggesting a business has to set political correctness off to the side, not think about politics at all and simply think about people. The people who they desire to try their products and services and how they would like to showcase those people as the best version of themselves. And then after doing that they have to place the burden of responsibility upon their shoulders, open the door and stride out into the word to share it with people.
Yes.
I am suggesting business, and the people within it, have a responsibility.
Yes.
I am suggesting business is something more than simply selling stuff.
——
“All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society.
We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”
Bill Bernbach
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“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it.
We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them.”
Bill Bernbach
——-
I would suggest to any business person reading this that responsibility is responsibility. All responsibility is only as overwhelming or ‘whelming’ a you make it. And if you do not accept your responsibility to tell the truth as excitingly and convincingly as you possibly can, lies will win. If you choose to vulgarize the society or brutalize it or even ignore it <all under the guise of ‘understanding what the consumer wants’>, society will lose.
To be clear.
I honestly do not despair when I look at business in today’s world, but I do get aggravated.
Ok.
No.
I get angry.
I get angry that we are not accepting the responsibility.
I get angry that we are not strong enough to accept the burden.
I get angry that many do not even presume the responsibility is within their purview.
Business, whether you like it or not, shapes society.
What we do matters.
What we say matters.
Selling stuff may matter to our bottom line and the existence of our business, but we cannot ignore that a thriving business actually contributes to a greater good — the existence of a healthy society.
Far too often by simply focusing on ‘selling stuff’ the byproduct of our ignoring the larger responsibility is that we brutalizing society in some form or fashion.
Am I suggesting that selling stuff or being profitable isn’t important? Of course not.
All I am suggesting is that HOW you sell stuff and be profitable matters. And that you have a responsibility in HOW you do what you do. Because HOW you do things impacts society. It shapes society. It can vulgarize or brutalize … or invigorate or instill good.
HOW you do things has a power way beyond simply you or what you do in that moment.
HOW you do things is a pebble dropping into a pond.
Responsibility assumes you are neither impotent nor harmless.
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“Advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is not a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and real change.
The power to prevail.”
Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988
——
Your responsibility in business is sometimes subtle, but always real.
I worry that business people everywhere, but in particular communications, have become so focused on getting shit done and ‘attaining the bottom line’ that they have forgotten the responsibility.
I worry that business people worry so much about politics and ‘political correctness’ they have forgotten that when good people remain silent the only one who wins is bad.
Just think about what thinking I offered today.
This isn’t about causes.
This isn’t about social responsibility <or the welfare of people>.
This is about understanding that what you do impacts people.
This is about whether you, as business people, accept the burden of responsibility to help shape a society which is a reflection of the best versions of who and what we are.
I will say while I’m not trying to ruin the mirage that business is just about business, I’d like everyone to think just a bit harder that with determination and with potentially a little unjustified confidence, you can not only get through the times of uncertainty, but maybe shape a better world. Ponder.