Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Good Riddance: Jack, Suzy, Maria

Maybe that's one the reasons that BUSINESS WEEK was on the block:  The most popular reads in it were the columns by lovebirds Jack/Suzy Welch [remember how she had her arm on him] and Maria Bartiroma.  Says something about the both the quality of the publication and the overall sophistication of the readership.  After all, I wasn't alone in judging those two columns boilerplate at best, nothing much at worst.

Jack, Suzy and Maria announce they won't be part of the BW 2.0, that is the Bloomberg version.  That indicates there might be hope for BW 2.0, even in that cluttered, no longer hot, category of business publications.

Jack Friday School Of Sales

No surprise, in this era of less is more and little time, Jack Friday's name came up on the popular TV show "Numbers."  Friday was the laconic no-nonsense detective on "Dragnet" who demanded just the facts as he and his partner Frank went about investigating crime. 

It's also no surprise that when I incorporated this highly focused, just get to the point approach into my sales calls, my close rate tripled.  I dropped all the branding cute stuff entirely.  I immediately jump in with:

• Tell me where your business is and where you want it to be in five months.
• What have you already tried that worked, didn't work?
• Would a mini-proposal with costs start this rolling?

Most of what came in I have to do myself.  Blogging, I suspect, has created a brandname for me.  The clients ask: You will be doing the work? You bet I answer: Yes.  I then take 12 seconds to explain that the contract writers, editors, proofreaders, and researchers I employ are restricted to routine tasks.

Here's what I suggest:

• Create an online identity prospects can review before the sales conversation.
• No small talk, including praise for their organization or promise of anything.  Trust is below zero.
• Start sales pitch with questions.  Let the prospect hear your listening. 
• Sum up the situation.  Ask if you heard them right.
• Propose a no-obligation proposal.  Specify when you're emailing it.
• Research the prospect, the industry, the competition.  You will pick up the language, opportunities, and constraints.

Move on if the prospect doesn't bite.  The market for freelance aka low-cost vendors is exploding with pent-up demand. 

Discover Card: Am I a Victim of Bait & Switch?

I am asking Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd and Discover Card Vice President of Customer Service Clint Morley to investigate this one.  I want to find out if I were a victim of a bait and switch.  Here is my side of the story Download Discovercard.

Time will tell. 

NEWSWEEK Cuts Go Ugly?

The ritual of long-term employees leaving the building with their boxes is also a cruel symbol of the worst of capitalism.  At NEWSWEEK, one former employee is pushing back.

On Gawker, Hamilton Nolan reports that Vicki Bosie, former Coordinator for Ad Traffic Production, sent a exit letter to the powers-that-be at the publication.  Among other things Bosie went on record as witnesssing "how poorly the layoffs and the transitioning was handled."

Nolan can kick off a new career by airing these observations in an organized fashion on YouTube, blog posts, a book written totally on Twitter, or a print book analyzing what went wrong at icons like NEWSWEEK.  Use it or lose it.

Over-60 and Blossoming: Clint Eastwood

Born in 1930, Clint Eastwood did his most critically acclaimed work after he was 60.  That included "Unforgiven" [1992], "The Bridges of Madison County" [1995], "Mystic River" [2003], and "Million Dollar Baby" [2004].  Not that his acting and directing were mediocre before then.  It's just that they never reached the greatness of the later performances and vision.

This question of late blooming is coming up a lot.  University of Chicago  economics professor David W. Galenson researched and wrote about it in "Old Masters and Young Geniuses."  Galenson's theory is that some with talent get their direction on how to apply it young, as with Mozart, and some struggle with that direction until they are older, like Hitchcock.  Then the genius bursts forth.

For Eastwood that doesn't seem to be the explanation.  His blossoming seems more built on his ability to simply keep growing.  Remember he was a big name even before "Unforgiven."  The issue seems to be why does a man like Eastwood keep growing when many others stop or never start?

In his new biography "American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood," Marc Eliot depicts this actor and director as someone who wasn't constrained by public opinion, convention, or the assumption that someone or something was going to help him get what he wanted.  Reared during the Great Depression, Eastwood seemed to conclude that he had to look out for himself and he would do that in his own way.  And he never wasted energy defending anything.  To call his marriage "open" would be an understatement.  He never concealed his affairs.  He just didn't care what others thought.

Perhaps that's the "secret" for us geezers to remain creative and, more to the point right now, employable: Be determined to take care of ourselves, do it our way, and don't be the least bit self-conscious about what the world is clucking about.  Those of us who have stayed in the game or had amazing comebacks - Steve Jobs, T. Boone Pickens, Lou Dobbs, Bill Clinton - seem to live that. 

Had they paid attention to anyone or anything but themselves they might have surrendered to society's expectation that they are finished.

Here is my ebook which looks at some of that Download Geezerguts.  And here are the first few chapters of my first novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" about people who are unable to grow at any age Download FGFGchapters1,2.  It'll be for sale online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and more in about six weeks.

Full Disclosure: I was brain-dead until I was 58.

"Ugly Betty" - Eric from "CSI: Miami" Guest Stars

Several weeks ago, on "CSI: Miami," Eric confided to Cali that he was leaving the unit.  He indicated he would tell the rest of the team later.  On the show that never happened.  Eric hasn't appeared since.  That means he was out of the loop on the three-part series joining CSI teams in Miami, Nevada, and New York. 

But his fans will be happy to see him again.  He's a guest star on "Ugly Betty."

AP CEO Tom Curley to Staff: No, Layoffs Not Over [embedded message]

The emerging employment game is just-in-time, even if you have a traditional full-time position with benefits. 

If you read between the lines, that's essentially what AP Chief Executive Officer Tom Curley told staff.  Specifically he noted that, no, the layoffs are not over.  But the message embedded in that seems to be no job is a given.  It can be taken away at any time.

What are the implications for all of us in the communications field?  Plenty.  We have to continue to acquire new skills and contacts, both within and outside the organization.  We can't get into debt since we have no employment security, that goes for both those who consider themselves "employees" and for those of us who making a living through self-employment.  Regarding the latter, the client could get fired, retire, go bankrupt or find a vendor better and cheaper.  If we are in debt, we should make it a priority to exit for that. 

Here's a little more.  Renting trumps buying, at least right now.  Upscale branded clothing, including in size 12, can be purchased in the exploding number of consignment shops.  GoodWill, in fact, has become bigbiz.  Public transportation gives writers time to daydream and eliminates the fixed cost of maintaining a car [been carless since June 25, 2009 when my trusty Ford Escort '03 was stolen].  Bring beverages from home vs. buying them.  And best-selling books are on the shelves of the public library, usually in multiple copies.   Soon enough the public library stocks the DVDs of current films.

How did I get the hang of this new no-income-security way so quickly?  That's how I grew up in an immigrant household in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey.  There was little money but lots of cunning about how to survive.  In 2003, I again embraced that mindset Download Geezerguts  Download CUsersjasneDocumentsjg.

The Coming of Non-Cute: Get Ready Marketers, Policy Makers, Trial Attorneys

It was downright refreshing last night to tune on "Criminal Minds" and the plot not contain a bit of cute.  The story line was all about goth subculture, brought to its extreme: Vampires.  The powers-that-be behind the wildly popular series might have picked up on the peaking of cute.  Marketers, policy makers and trial attorneys might also start feeling for the undercurrents of non-cute.

As we all know, everything is cyclical.  And the current cute phenomenon is in overdrive.  Jim Windolf chronicles the sweep of cute in the December edition of VANITY FAIR.  Even social media can't resist this pull force.  YouTube videos about laughing babies keep being clicked and clicked and clicked. 

That tells you something, at least if you make their living being smart about trends.  Eventually someone is going to give us a cute stuffed teddy bear and our stomachs will churn.  We can't take one more personal - or commercial - bit of cute.  

Remember how the free-spirited nature of the counter-culture gave way to the rush to business schools and jobs at GM?  The gentle humor of Nice Guy Jay Leno is losing viewers to the hard-edged naughtiness of Dave Letterman and Craig Ferguson.  Flaunting wealth has become downright politically incorrect.  And working-class cred is downright cool, as in the policemen getting all the babes in the bar.

So how to take advantage of the passing of cute?  Temper it in positioning and packaging.  Explicitly say, "No, this isn't cute."  Mix in dark images, ambiguity, no easy answers, struggle.  But, don't over do it.  T.S. Eliot observed that we human kind can't bear too much reality.  So go easy on what in life is not at all cute.

No TV network for Too Tame and Too Harvard

The naughty Craig Ferguson is eating Jay Leno's and Conan O'Brien's lunch, dinner and breakfast.  NBC's ratings are plunging.  Seems like Too Tame and Too Harvard [e.g. self-conscious] don't sell.  Not any more, not post-crash.

If only Henry James were here to see America throwing off its Puritan background and its reverence for old-line institutions like Harvard.  Our nation has grown into its own.  We are what we are.  We won't be otherwise.  And maybe just being our oddball hypomanic selves [read John Gartner's book on that] will dig us out of this economic hole and make us the cock of the rock again.

Next, Letterman for PLAYGIRL?

Publications aren't dead.  Most are just lacking leadership savvy about gimmicks.  PLAYGIRL is riding a high with its Levi hook.  To sustain or even boost this momentum there's no end to candidates for future editions. 

At the top of the list is Love Den Boy David Letterman. Sure he's no spring chicken but he certainly does get around. Other males to be featured?  How about Clint Eastwood, Anderson Cooper [the gay rumors make that especially titillating, for both sexes], and the new cunning Mickey Mouse from the video game Epic Mickey.   Barack Obama might consider doing it for charity.  And Nick Cage because he really needs the money.