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Pippa Middleton, sister to the Duchess married to Prince William, has followed Lady Edith Crawley of "Downton Abbey" into journalism.
THE NEW YORK POST reports that Pippa is now a columnist for the grocery business. Her column is called "Pippa's Friday Night Feasts."
A lot of journalists around in the UK and the US might be starving but not these two well-placed gals.
When we heard that Daniel Day-Lewis was depicting Abraham Lincoln we knew the portrayal would be a brand of Lincoln we hadn't encountered before. And sure enough it was. Lewis's Lincoln, for which he won an academy award, was as complex and enigmatic as Ronald Reagan. All the myths about this leader as a selfless earnest creature blow up in the first 20 minutes of watching the film "Lincoln."
In body language, facial gestures, rhetorical tone and the content of conversations, the president we met was a brilliant politico, never out of his role of the man who had to save the nation. Totally manipulative, Lincoln used every tactic to get what he wanted. Those ranged from distracting his audience with funny stories to lying (unlike the boy who grew up to be President George Washington, he did tell a lie). He had a lawyer's cunning.
The challenge for the film industry is to find the next right role for Day-Lewis which is large enough for his talent.
We know from our nursery school days that the kids who most of the others (both kids and adults) liked had an easier time of it in life. Maybe they didn't get to the top like the bullies and the self-absorbed but they did well enough and on their terms, without a lot of drama. When bad things happened such as a death or job loss, support was right there, and from all corners.
Back in the late 1980s, Washington D.C. journalist Hedrick Smith analyzed likability as one source of power. It was not the only source but definitely a way to get, keep, and grow power. The book was "The Power Game."
Now, executive coach Michelle Tillis Lederman has provided more detail on how likability happens. Her book is "11 Laws of Likability." Most of the information is common sense to those of us who have observed professionals who have staying power in organizations as well as entrepreneurial life. They are likable because of the reasons Lederman points out. The strengths of the guide are the narratives illustrating what impedes or helps likability.
The "law" which I have found most useful is "listening." Once I began to do that when a prospect contacted me, instead of selling myself, more deals got closed. The days I am feeling insecure and work orders have been slow are those in which I tend not to listen. Of course, nothing good happens, not professionally, not personally. Obviously, I'm not likable.
Mindfulness, or the meditation practice which trains the mind to focus on the present, is becoming more accepted and acceptable in business.
The LA TIMES reports that a course in it is, for example, offered at the Drucker School of Management as well as corporations such as Google and General Mills. The fact that Steve Jobs embraced mindfulness to stay centered at Apple has, of course, helped this ancient art be taken seriously in capitalism. Also, in art circles, many know that the Beatles practiced meditation. Their lyrics reflected the tenets of Eastern philosophy such as "let it be."
However, mindfulness still remains in the early adopter phase among professionals. When I listen to clients complain about stress, I bite my tongue and don't share what I am gaining at the New Haven Zen Center. I have a hunch they would perceive my story as something rooted in mysticism, not science. They are men and women brought up on the scientific method, along with a growing awe of math (think predictive analytics in the investment industry).
Ironically, the benefits from meditation have been researched and documented by neuroscientists. Actually this is a growing niche in academic circles. When I had my private session with New Haven Zen Center leader Ken Kessel he explained the evidence that mindfulness changes metabolic activity.
What I have noticed is that those changes might correlate with my new-found ability to pause before I do something. That has been a game-changer in earning a living in the glut field of writing. Instead of leaping to answer a question from a prospect, I stop, reflect on it a few moments, and reframe it to become a platform for how I can sell myself. Recently, out of 300 and then the 100 who had replied to two help-wanted ads for ghostwriters, I nailed down both assignments.
Mindfulness also cushions rejection. Last week I assumed (we never do that in the Kwan Um school of zen) I had gotten a lucrative assignment. Turns out I was wrong. For about 10 hours I fell apart. Then I contacted a zen monk who walked me through surrendering to whatever. At the end of that stroll, I didn't even have to conjure up negative feelings about those who had given me the thumbs down.
Why do too many professionals still resist trying out mindfulness? Fear of unknown methodology, probably.
Reviewers of Jim Croce's music frequently commented that his art clearly showed his pain. The ordeals he sang about, they speculated, he had experienced directly.
And Baby Boomers from ethnic families will recognize that much of that suffering had been rooted in Croce's father's inability to accept that his son wasn't going to take the road more traveled. Even later when he became famous, his mother decried his living like a gypsy as he toured the country singing.
Ingrid Croce, Jim's widow, chronicles that history in the biography "I Got A Name: The Jim Croce Story," which she wrote with her second husband Jimmy Rock. Even into his young adulthood, Jim would have his face slapped by his Italian father who wanted his son to get a secure job, live at home until he married, and sit around the table consuming the huge meals the mother prepared. The father would send Jim those zinger letters we Baby Boomers remember receiving from our ethnc parents when our lives weren't conforming with their marching orders.
But unlike many of his peers, Jim couldn't shake off the intrusions of his family. He remained tormented, shut down, and incapable of enjoying his success. No surprise, he turned to drugs and destroyed his marriage. Had he not been killed in a plane crash, he likely would have gone the way of passive suicide.
Ingrid captures the hold families used to have on our generation and how too many of us spent our lives running from their values. Only now in my 60s am I finally healing from my own family's shame that one of their daughters was "different."
On Odwyerpr.com, Greg Hazley reports that the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism released an RFP for an agency to promote the state. For this summer the agency has a lot more to feature than just a week by the Atlantic Ocean. There's all the destruction from Sandy to tour.
Fortunately, a lot of the ruin remains a ruin. Ocean Avenue is still closed in shore town Belmar. Homeowners haven't gotten the funds to fix their property. And there are holes where cottages used to be.
The agency can start with setting up The Sandy Museum. It can showcase the myriad photos taken during and after the Act of God. So much of media coverage was through those photos. Next they can have tour guides expert in engineering leading crowds through how Sandy reconfigured an iconic symbol like the Point Pleasant boardwalk in a matter of hours. Then there will be the policy lessons on how government and the private sector partnered to save the communities from the sea. Maybe the agency can get a few drop-ins by Governor Chris Christie.
Sandy could be the best thing which happened in New Jersey tourism since the Hamptons got too pricey even for the plain-vanilla upper middle class.
Ghostwriters may be missing out on a lot of new opportunities, both full time and contract, because they are not responding to help-wanted about "copywriting." Increasingly, our executive communications experience, skills, and insight are in demand closer and closer to the point of sale. There has been shrinking need for us in that glamorous lucrative niche of planning and penning content for opinion-editorials published in brandname media such as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE NEW YORK TIMES.
I feel myself blessed to have in portfolio recent clips from what I ghostwrote for THE WASHINGTON POST, FORBES, FOX BUSINESS, AMERICAN BANKER, MOTLEY FOOL, BANKRUPTCY STRATEGIST, SEEKING ALPHA, and PR NEWS. It's reassuring that I still have the whatever to produce copy that is picked up by those establishment powers-that-be. And the compensation is above average.
However, I see the future and it is called "copywriting." Instinct told me to reply to a help-wanted for a "copywriter" for a new kind of service targeted at the investment industry. I nailed down the assignment which involves, to begin, ghostwriting the material for the new website, scripts for the online video, direct mail, LinkedIn profile, and correspondence with other vendors seeking bids.
I have a hunch I won out over the 100 other content providers who applied and the two I was directly competing with because my pitch was a totally focused this-is-how-we-can-get-results. Yes, it was built on a sales-oriented platform, not the gentility of old-line editorial. In addition, I embedded hustle. For instance, I researched and then sent links to competitive websites that had to be factored in for everything from SEO to mode of presentation. I pushed to meet the prospect in person, despite the cost of gas.
The good news is that the closer the work is to the point of sale, the more of it there will be. As we gain more insight into what coverts into action we can branch out into other forms of marketing communications. Those of us who are aging have to surrender to the reality that BigBusiness is unlikely to hire us full-time for those plum executive communications jobs. Therefore, we have to learn how to exist by our talent, wits, and flexibility out here in the world of free agents.
At a time of job scarcity in many nations, robots are being perceived as a menace, not the cute creatures like R2-D2 from "Star Wars." Whether it be in China or the U.S., businesses and policy makers face the challenge of how to brand this high-tech force which can replace human beings in the workplace.
Some expect trouble at China's Foxconn's plants when robots are introduced. TECH CRUNCH reports that the plants have a hiring freeze right now. That could be because the robots will be "installed." Or, it could signal a slowdown in orders for Apple's iPhone.
Not too long ago, I published an article in IP WATCHDOG on how the integration of robots in industry, medicine, and person care will depend on lots more than the excellence of the technology. Here you can read it. One obstacle, of course, is labor's push-back on robots' taking their jobs. In addition, are the anti-machine attitudes about having Mom in the nursing home fed by a robot instead of a kindly CNA.
"Star Wars" will be returning. But this is one situation in which Hollywood probably won't make a difference.
A well-done documentary, the film "2016: Obama's America" predicted a bankrupt America if a liberal administration was re-elected. Conservative Dinesh D'Souza narrated it. As POLITICO reports, box office receipts were excellent, given that it was a documentary, not pure entertainment like the film "Lincoln."
But, in these times of more liberal values, it is no surprise that "2016" was not nominated for an Academy Award. Also, Hollywood tends to tip toward the left.
POLITICO notes that D'Souza is philosophical about being ignored. I wonder when it will be that conservatives are taken seriously again. With their chief strategist Karl Rove getting pounded, both by his own party and by liberals, the situation could get worse before it even stabilizes.
It happens all the time in fast time. A powerful figure is designated as the cause of an organizational disaster and becomes the scapegoat. Now, that is happening to conservative strategist Karl Rove.
POLITICO chronicles how diverse constituencies, both conservative and liberal, are beating up Rove. That is no surprise. The issue, at least for us in the communications business, is the question of how Rove can rebrand himself for changing times. His situation is especially difficult because, like Coca-Cola, he is an iconic brand.
Brands which aren't iconic have had an easier time of it. Although Hillary Clinton, as wife of iconic brand Bill Clinton, had been a high-profile figure she was not iconic. Therefore, she could adeptly rebrand herself from First Lady to U.S. Senator to presidential candidate to U.S. Secretary of State. Now that she is an iconic brand the shift to The Next will be more challenging.
For the interim, Rove might lay low. He is back at Fox but should use that forum to cautiously explore the issues of the day. Slowly he could take on the identity of the wise analyst who is available to provide recommendations on strategy. Never again should he attempt to assume leadership of conservatism in the U.S.
