, Inc.

I am so annoyed by the branding of the world.

In my job I have reason to deal with a lot of companies and the publishing of their names. Do you have any idea how much time I spend checking and re-checking that the comma is in the right place or the "Inc" is two spaces from the end of the name blah blah blah.

People really...when did our sensitivity to brands become so sensitive we can't move anything forward without ten approvals from what's left of middle management?

The brand police are everywhere and all these little details designed to make something stand out or be official does nothing but clog the message. Hello brand people please make it simple and move on.

So true

"audience choice is increasing, which makes one pay a bigger penalty for mediocre product."

Tom Staggs


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Thought

Sometimes the why behind the art is more interesting then the art


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Thought

Story should never be ignored in the name of art


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Oscar just walked by

On Tuesday I finally got to see God of Carnage. The Tony winner for Best Play by Yasmina Reza has the original cast back in for a limited run and was my - ok I'll pay full price - ticket of the season. The play was wonderful, but the show I discovered was after.

I'm standing outside the theatre waiting for a friend. I'm poeple watching and reading my Playbill enjoying the energy that happens in Times Square when the shows let out, all is perfectly normal. I notice there is a large crowd at the stage door of the theatre next door. I didn't think much of it. New York regulars don't notice crowds very often, because there are always crowds. I see Hope Davis, one of the stars of the play I had just seen scoot out of her stage door into a waiting tinted window SUV. How cool, I thought and wow is she thin.

I continue to look around, minding my own business when all of the sudden flashes, screams and roars (an I do mean roars) come from the crowd next door. "Hugh" "Hugh" - "Daniel" "James". Oh my goodness it sounded like I was in the bleachers at the Oscars. Two women go running past me on their cell phone telling someone that they had just seen Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in "A Lot of Rain". I fought the urge to yell after her "the play is called A Steady Rain", but I know the name of the play was secondary to having seen Wolverine and James Bond in person.

I paused. While I have heard very good things about the play and their performances it was this expression of pop culture that bugged me. Epically when, as these women were running by calling everyone they know Marcia Gay Harden came out of the stage door. She has a Tony, an Oscar and has appeared against and stolen scenes from some of the best that Hollywood has to offer and no one was screaming. She was walking out of the theatre after doing her job probably off to meet friends for dinner. I almost went up and asked for her autograph because I didn't want her to think that she was not just as good, no better then the guys next door, but I didn't. I didn't because I got sad.

I didn't like that there weren't as many people screaming to get her notice, she deserved it, but this was reality. Mutants and British SIS members get all the fans. Talent walks out quietly and disappears into the crowded street unnoticed.

Thought card

When you find the real opportunity, the unique opportunity where you can make the greatest difference, zone in on it and reassess and reassess and reassess. This is a discipline. This is not being brilliant, it is being conscientious. This is not looking at needs alone, it's looking at need and opportunity.

Pete Drucker

The Great Stuff Exchange

The great stuff exchange happens this weekend. I think this is the worst part of any breakup. The bags filled with underwear, socks, t-shirts, the extra razors, a belt, two yellow silk ties, a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt featuring a band logo. Separately will be the work shirts, the navy blue suite and the burgundy sweater. The burgundy sweater was always my favorite – he looks so good in it. I’ve washed everything and folded it as neatly as I can. He will have to refold everything because my folding abilities never could match his. We used to say in our household he was in charge of laundry and I would do dishes. He never liked washing dishes and I never could be bothered to fold a fitted sheet. From the consistency of his technique you would have thought he worked at the Gap for years, but it was actually his military training that taught him to be such a great keeper of his cloths – join the military and learn how to pack a suitcase.

I won’t be there when he arrives – I can’t be. I don’t want to see on his face the pain I’m feeling, it would break me and neither of us want that. I‘ve been debating leaving a note for him or a card – something that acknowledges that this is the right decision even if it is a hard one. I want to tell him I am proud of him knowing I'm not the one for him and I suspect he will be married within a year to someone just right. But I don’t know if I can say simply what I want to say and this is not a moment for long winded prose.

I want to be far away when he walks into my place for the last time. I will leave him his keys, maybe using a piece of ribbon from the last gift he gave me to collect them – he will notice a detail like that. Where will I be? I don’t know yet. Where is the right place to hide when the man you once thought you would merry comes to get his stuff? No where seems to be that right mix of private, public, exciting and somber – because I need all of that and a glass of wine.

Thought card for today

All meaning accures in duration - sometimes you have to just slow down and look.

Ken Burns

Thought Card

I collect thoughts….not necessarily just quotes but ideas, fun phrases, great words, sentences that gave me pause, names, ideas etc.

Traditionally I have displayed this collection the brick and mortar way by actually writing them down on an index card and either posting it by my desk or adding it to a pile of “thought cards”. I suspect I have a few thousand of these cards. Well its time to take off the rubber band and enter the digital world. Today I offer you a randomly selected thought from my collection:

“You can’t startle a goat.”


Discuss….

Is it ok to cancel?

Guilt has got me and thanks to my Mothers use of it during my childhood it has the impact of a Vulcan death grip.

I have a new friend that I want to get to know and unfortunately my schedule the last two times I was supposed to see her didn't line up - I had to cancel at the last minute. I hate that. I hate being the person who cancels especially when I said "let's go out" or "I want to be there".

At the time the outings were scheduled that was absolutely true, then life happened. I was tired, I was in a meeting that went too long, I had not been to the gym in days or I was just not in the mood to socialize. This morning I pondered what is better - do I go anyway and hope that I will get my second wind or is it acceptable to cancel?

There have been many times when I did "go anyway" and I found that I was not present for the person. My mind was so numb from a day of emails, meetings, stress and life that I would be sitting across the table watching a mouth move but only registering how good the wine tastes.

I was thinking about this guilt and its connection to how the world seems to work now-a-days. I have been around long enough to remember a time when things really were slower, that is not just something old people say when they can't figure out the internet. The first office I worked in had a multi-line phone and was considered high tech. Now my day never ends and I feel bad when I decide to get off the ride for one evening instead of finally catching the person I have been trying to connect with usually for weeks at a time.

I hope my friend understands that I do want to see her; I just want to do it when we are both able to be present for each other. Friends deserve more then just a quick get together. Friends deserve an ear that is really hearing, a heart that is really open and attention that is focused on them.

If I can't deliver that I hope everyone I know will understand my cancelling and reschedule with me for a better time.