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Let's get technical: A "Shitty Deal" defined

Levin says "Shitty Deal" eleven times. A rare victory for authenticy and manna for a 100 million brains begging, jonesing, for a fog-lamp or a cattle prod. It's a tough call, but this one falls in the lower left quadrant.



But damn, it's hard not to think that the Goldman-esque mindset doesn't take some actual pleasure in just breaking people because, well, just because they can. And it's nothing new...

Welcome to R-Complexville (2004):

For instance, whose "values statement" says this:

Communication. Excellence. Respect. Integrity.

Why, it's these guys: [Enron]

Guy #1: "They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

Guy #2: "Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

Guy #1: "Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."

Gracious me. That's not how college educated, customer-centric, All-American businesspeople were supposed to speak in the brochures I got. People in positions of power and responsisbility, guardians of American propriety and restraint, know better. Yes, those fellows must have been an aberration, have to be...

Okay, Tea Partiers. You wanna be ticked off? Go picket the Business Roundtable or your local Chamber or Biz School and demand to know how something as vital and potentially noble as commerce has gotten it's head so far up its ass that YOUR guts are now wrenched up in knots.

Spycams in kids' bedrooms - Taking Things

"Taking things" defined: You convince yourself that your aims are pure, you're doing your best, just being responsible and diligent; you may even be trying to prevent bad acts. Meanwhile, you're taking people's agency and using information from others who have no idea of your access to or power over them. You have vacated consideration and humanity to achieve "specialness" or your "mission."

Could be a School District in Lower Merion PA, or a big investment bank called Goldman Sachs taking short positions on investment products they make and sell to investors as value-earning opportunities.

Caution: Alicorns Next ∞ Miles

When you have to take out the Chimera - a fantastical multi-headed, fully-muxed monster - you need serious air superiority.

Bellerophon earned his fame for killing the beast - what Homer described in the Iliad as "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle." If that doesn't sound eerily like your average bureaucracy we don't know what does. The good news is that with his trusty Pegasii's help, Bellerophon, grandson of Sisyphus the rock-pusher, won. Yay! (The Alicorn is traced to early Spanish mythology also but don't know much about that.)

If you like, check the spiffy wearables heah: CafeFouro

Tea Party Visual Acuity Test

Well, since we now have several million newly minted militiamen and women, and not a few sudden experts in what the framers of the Constitution "intended," I had to go to the only place I could imagine: Teh Art, mated with half-baked ethnographic field study.

I made an iron on, slapped it on a left-over virgin blue Gildan and headed out to Ukrops (our local grocer) to do some, uh, shopping. From 30 feet, heading in from the parking lot I got a few approving looks and smiles, one guy managed a "yeah, brother!" As he sailed past the head was rotating and I think the smile had faded. Inside, well, it was more proximate and interactive. One old man next to the strawberries was not a fan. I explained that the Gadsden Flag was not a National Flag so you really can't "desecrate" it. I don't think he was convinced but he did appreciate a hand with his big bag of russets. One woman said "I love it" while her daughter's evaluation was "eww!", as she leaned in to fully assess the gross factor. The pattern repeated and it seems a great test for smoking out the Tea Partiers: Smile, then eyes widen, then furrowed brow or head shake. On the other extreme, there were enough affirmative smiles of "I want one!" that it's going into CafeFouro toute suite.

UPDATE: And, presto! Tea Party Visual Acuity Test shirt and Tea Mug

What does good corporate Culture look like?

Online friend and enthnographer extraordinaire Grant McCracken is about to publish his book, Chief Culture Officer: How to create a living, breathing corporation. He's asking for votes on three choices for his cover art so go over there and throw your 2 cents in.

The title of this post brings what seems, to me at least, a good and layered question: What does good corporate Culture look like?

I haven't read the book obviously, but I'm betting Grant addresses in some way the wrestling-smoke nature of such a necessary but hard to describe thing. The folks I most respect in the brand-building realm, of whom Grant is one, all seem to get the sum-is-greater-than-the-parts aspect of a sensibility woven of one-half feeling and one-half matter and bound up in a product or service. And, beginning in the 1980s even CEOs began to grasp the idea of fragile and often nebulous thing called "Goodwill", so much so that it now factors in valuation of many companies when merging or selling. I hope these ladies and gentlemen will respond to what Grant offers with the curiosity and respect it deserves and that they can perceive the power of the asymmetrical ideas (to balance sheet cowboys and -girls anyway) that he's likely going to present.

But still, what does Corporate Culture look like? And can you skin it and say: "Voila!"?

I think so. In my experience it's hard to fake culture in the sense that encountering it is very much like Don Norman's Threebie: We usually have a visceral response followed by a behavioural one and, upon reflection, these sum up to be spiffy and sensuous and satisfying, or not. Okay, there's more to it than that but this is a blog post - It's a metaphysical baton-passing between expectation and experience, chock full of nuance and "english." I even drew a chart once ot try and explain the je n est c'est quoi:



That's a magical gap that a lot of metrics and sliderules just aren't calibrated to recognize nor jump. So, what does Corporate Culture look like? While these aren't book covers, the need to communicate something immediately, the requirement to spark further interest, and the visual channel/medium are the same. Question is, what do they convey? You tell me.

7 minutes that tell us all that's wrong with US Business

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo makes a million-dollars a year to be this fanatically thick-headed. Roll tape:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Merit is dead.

Moonshot Day! The countdown to lift-off video, 40 years on

Stringlish - would you buy this game?

The above illustration is for a game concept I came up with last year right before the economy blew apart. I'd like your help in seeing if it's worth a damn. The concept is one that involves stringing different phrases, titles, words and cultural references together--sort of like Dennis Miller would do when he was still funny, except hopefully more fun for more people. I have used the concept when trying to warm-up or loosen-up teams for brainstorming sessions or just for breaking ice with new working groups--I welcome you to freely do the same if it seems of use. I could try and make it sound fashionably neuro-scientific but I have nothing but anecdotal proof that it works at what it's intended to do, and that people like it in it's limited use so far.

Oh, one more thing: The point? I'd love to be able to put this into some physical or cheaply downloadable format (examples, instructions, etc) via paypal and give the idea and the proceeds to my kids as a gift that, hopefully, might keep on giving as one enters middle school and the other rises to high school and they look forward to paying for college, or a start-up.

I've bored you enough already. Will you give me some feedback on what you think of the concept? Here's my original notes from an early morning, July 2008:

Okay, it was 12:30 AM Monday and I'm watching Spike's MXC waiting for Daily Show and Colbert. Did I mention MXC is a repurposed Japanese game show with dubbed English? Imagine Samurai standup mated with the old British show It's a Knockout. Yeah, some shows are funnier than others and it's likely an acquired insomniac taste for us Y-chromosome sufferers.

Anyway, one of the hosts, "Vic Romano," introduces a contestant as a "Shotgun Wedding Planner." Heh. A few minutes later, he drops another boolean job description: Trailer Park Ranger. They do that lots, in between the puns about poo, STDs and serial killer jokes.

Finally, it's 1:00 AM and time for The Daily Show.

But I can't stop the boolean job title thing running in my head and, yet, the job title thing seems so limiting. The best I can do still has the lurid themes of MXC:

Native tongue bather.
Nocturnal Emissions Checker
Maid of Honorable Discharge

Okay, I did kind of like that last one. But shouldn't it have more zing, more roll, more pointless associations? Sure..

The earlier lamo becomes the longer, lamer Nocturnal emissions check's in the mail bag o' donuts. (5 links - did u see them?)

Hmm. Skate Board of Directors Guild of America. Dining halls of Montezuma's revenge of the nerds?

Okay, by now, you're thinking two things. This fouro guy needs 1) a life and/or 2) psychiatric help. Bah, get lost in translation.

Somebody tell me there's a parlor game or meme already out there about this phonetic linking thing. And if there isn't, why the hell not? And if not, in the spirit of being aware of all internet traditions, I christen it Ringlish in honor of the fine culture that inspires MXC and the better-known mangled wordsong called Engrish.

There it is: Ringlish™, a string of known or recognizable phrases, terms or titles joined for as long as you can keep adding with the requirement that one links the next and that sustainable nonsense is the point of the thing. Extra points for efficient linking i.e.: least use of filler words between linked chains of words. For example:

Big bang a gong show me the money back guarantee (5 links, no filler!)

Employees must wash hands to work, hearts to God is in the Details Magazine stand and delivery room with a view. (8 links, one filler: Stand and Deliver is modified to Delivery to keep things moving s0 it counts as filler word!)

Am I obsessing on this? Sure. But so did Rob Angel and look how famous he is today. Ahh, mind your own businessweekend of the world as we know it.

Imagine the thematic options, extra points for staying on topic. Pencils ready? You have one minute:

MOVIES: Missile Command Decision at Dawn of the Dead Zone Troop (filler!) Beverly Hills Have Eyes of Laura Mars Needs Women in Love Story of O-klahoma. (14 unique links, but since it's topical, 2 points per, instead of 1 each.)

For those not playing at home:

Missile Command
Command Decision
Decision at Dawn
Dawn of the Dead
Dead Zone
Zone Troop[ers]
Troop Beverly Hills
[The] Hills Have Eyes
[The] Eyes of Laura Mars
Mars Needs Women
Women in Love
Love Story
[The] Story of O
Oklahoma

Here we have one filler: Zone Troop[ers] so .5 of a point deducted; one Fluffer™: Story of O is a porno (2 extra points). The is acceptably dropped from Titles, as in The Hills Have Eyes and The Eyes of Laura Mars, etc. Otherwise half the movies, songs and books written will kludge things up. Total Score: 30.5

Home of the Brave New World Order form follows function button fly fishing hole in my bucket list Maker's Mark.

13 links - did you count them all? 13 points.

Phew. Are your eyes glazed? If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Yes, I liked the name Stringlish better after sitting with it a few days. Good choice? Well, what do you think of the game?

The lost art of rhetoric: how to persuade, not assault

A great find: How to teach a child to argue. Why do something so crazy? Because conflict is basic to humans disagreeing over what matters and how to channel scarce resources and energies. And because simply relying on increasingly raised voices--cable TV "debates" between actual grown-ups for example--gets us further apart not closer to useful co-existence. Jay Heinrichs tells us about it here.

...And let’s face it: Our culture has lost the ability to usefully disagree. Most Americans seem to avoid argument. But this has produced passive aggression and groupthink in the office, red and blue states, and families unable to discuss things as simple as what to watch on television. Rhetoric doesn’t turn kids into back-sassers; it makes them think about other points of view.

I had long equated arguing with fighting, but in rhetoric they are very different things. An argument is good; a fight is not. Whereas the goal of a fight is to dominate your opponent, in an argument you succeed when you bring your audience over to your side. A dispute over territory in the backseat of a car qualifies as an argument, for example, in the unlikely event that one child attempts to persuade his audience rather than slug it...

I must admit, this hits home. I'm the product of an Oregon-born stoic, a retired US Air Force dad. But my mother was British though and through, a Merseyside/Lanacashire shop-girl who saw The Beatles when they were just a club band. I bring it up because Heinrich's makes me remember a related example of what he mentions about argument. The scene was Christmas dinner back in the mid-90s when my brother and his wife were in the states on a visit from Birmingham. Attending were Mom, Dad, my brother Malcolm, and our two wives. During the course of the meal, we lapsed into our old pattern: A vigourous discussion about some topic or other after an hour or so of dinner table conversation-lite. For us, debate was alwyas good sport and about the only non-contact way we'd found, as brothers, to have a go at each other. But it wasn't shouting, not a fight. We would argue like we were jousting, and facts and supporting details mattered.

The point of the story? It drove my dad crazy. For him, the pure-born American, watching the to-and-fro was uncomfortable--he saw the animation, heard the argument (rhetorical definition) and thought "fight!" Maybe it was his military background and a need for cohesion and measured communication. Maybe it was because we talking about something he wasn't familair with. Either way, the stoic started to get amped up.

"Dammit, will you guys quit it! This is a dinner table--I just want to enjoy a good family meal!" And here's where Mom, who's been quite happily watching her two boys of 35 and 45 bob and weave over some forgotten issue, says her piece, one that struck me as familiar to Heinrichs' point:

Jerry, I don't see my boys together very often and I like this. This is what families are supposed to do--they talk about things, argue even. Dinner comes with interesting converation. If you don't like it, go in the other room.

He did. And mum picked up her glass of wine and said, "as you were."

Read Heinrichs' piece. For me it says alot about what and why we don't say enough, or much at all very well, about what matters here in the land of "Free speech."

Busted: F-R-E-E spells $14.95 a month

Well, the boom has dropped on those seafood-serving pirates and renaissance hipsters we love to hate. Freecreditreport.com's free ride courtesy of a comatose Bush Federal Trade Commission is over.

Huffpost covers some of the ruling requiring full and clear disclosure of the fact that signing up means you get a monthly suprise on the credit card you are asked to submit to verify your identity upon registering for the "free service." It's always been a smorgasbord of outrageous puffery. The ID theft protection they "provide" means you must pay attention to all your transactions, the raw data: it's your burden to spot irregularity. Yes, that is kinda like saying green tights make you a brave and great bowman like Robin Hood. It's a shame this sham marketing has originated with a hometown ad agency that should know better. (Disclosure: The Martin Agency wrote me few checks for copywriting back in the mid-90s.)

The news of the bogus nature of these things is hardly news: NYT had a story in April 2008, "The High Cost of Free Credit Report"

Twitter: Newton's Third Law meets Groucho Marx's Axiom

"Crowne Village Apts is now following you on Twitter!"

Yay!

I'm sensing some serious market mis-timing here, namely: all the folks who jumped into Pets.com stock after seeing a Superbowl ad. And what the hell is Groucho's Axiom anyway?

Whiny 13 year-olds in $2000 suits are still whiny 13 year-olds

A new blog I found and like cuz he writes about money but good and somethin' funny: The Epicurean Dealmaker is apparently a handsome and refined practitioner of the Arts of Merging & Acquiring. Go there now as he roughly succors the holders of Chrysler bonds, gives fashion tips to GM investors and reality checks to armchair John Galts: More of a kickin' sitcheyation.

Plus: I like this quote...

"The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity." — Epicurus, Principal Doctrines

If I can make it there - The art school nude model in NYC

Time Out NY tackled the not-so-fast-paced, not-so-glamorous wage-craft of the Art School nude model. It's only NSFW if you get click-happy with the accompanying galleries as you review this important sociological topic. I like this observation about studio space:

Time Out New York: What was your first modeling experience?
Laura Noble: I was going to Rhode Island School of Design for illustration. A friend told me that she modeled for an artist who hired three models a day, five days a week. I needed the money. The other girls warned me that it was in his musty basement. It wasn’t really a bad experience, but one should generally avoid musty basements.

Wisdom for the ages, I'd say.

Prayer - are you ISO 9000 compliant?

Isn't it funny how diagrams can convey a certain legitimacy, albeit fleeting, to just about anything? Via j-walk comes this procedural breakdown for effectively petitioning the Chief Spiritual Officer in the sky...



And that reminds me of an interesting animation project emanating from the interwebs a few years back from the Vancouver Film School: Duelity.



Duelity is two videos, one borrowing scientific-sounding language and iconography to explain Genesis and, the other, using biblical prose style to explain Evolution. Worth a look if your Prayer Group's TQM is lagging industry standards and best practices.

What to wear to your next shareholders meeting

Today's installment of Disaster Capitalism is brought to you by the letter "S," and by the Shareholders of Bank of America.

[8:45 PM Update: Lewis gets bumped from Çhair after cheesy "difficulties delay tallying the vote" in order to news-manage. Looks like a surprising win. See below]

NYT: When Mr. Lewis was asked about the bank’s choice not to disclose Merrill’s weakened state, he said he could not talk about it.

“I can’t because of litigation. You’re probably one of them,” he quipped. “So if you’d like to hear more, withdraw your lawsuit.”

Several shareholders made statements of support for Mr. Lewis. “Look over your shoulder, Mr. Chairman, we’re behind you,” one said. There was loud applause for each such statement.

But as the meeting proceeded with 2,200 people assembled in the Charlotte Performing Arts Center, plenty of angry shareholders were represented in the room as well, including pension funds like Calpers and Calstrs, two public funds in California; CtW Investment Group, which represents unions’ pension funds; and individual stock owners like Jerry and Jon Finger, who sold their bank in Texas to Bank of America 10 years ago in exchange for stock.

That stock?

Bank of America’s stock fell more than 90 percent in the last year from $37 a year ago to $3.14 in March. Since then, it has recovered some and closed at $8.15 on Tuesday.

"If you'd like to hear more.... [stop threatening to hold us accountable or expecting us to have shame or honor.]"

Lovely. And we're only halfway through annual meeting season.

Now, I've heard of more than a few executives (and witnessed one) flinging something in frustration. We've even seen a shoe vectored at our previous Chief Executive by an angry Iraqi, uhh, stakeholder. Well, it's been wryly suggested by a purchaser of our Shareholder mugs that they have just the heft to make fine projectiles for such statements and are "much cheaper than flinging your Cole Haans or Weejuns at brain-dead, malpracticing executives."

We liked the joke, but we don't recommend it. Much better to plonk one down dramatically on the table at your next board meeting. Fill it with scotch maybe, and pair it with your dayplanner and a dogeared copy of The Caine Mutiny.

Disaster Capitalism @ CafeFouro

----

UPDATE via yahoo finance. - Looks like the Institutions and pissed off mom-n-pop shareholders (barely) win against the broker vote. This means he's got weeks not months most likely unless he finds a magic lamp walking the beaches of Sea Island in May.

The bank said the shareholder proposal to separate the chairman and CEO jobs had passed 50.34 percent to 49.66 percent; it was the only shareholder proposal to be approved. Shareholders re-elected all 18 of Bank of America's directors, including Lewis.

Big investors including California's employee pension fund had called for shareholders to oust Lewis and his fellow directors at the meeting, which was attended by more than 2,000 people.

One of those investors, Michael Garland, director of Value Strategies for CtW Investment Group, praised the ouster of Lewis. His group handles 33 million BofA shares and works with union-affiliated pension funds.

"It's huge," he said. "It's an enormous victory for shareholders."

"We'll have an independent board chairman, and now the CEO will be accountable to a board chaired by an independent director. It's a critical critical first step," Garland said.

At the meeting, Garland openly criticized Lewis, saying bad managment decisions led to a dramatic drop in Bank of America stock.

Irony isn't dead. It's behind the couch, exhausted, bewildered and curled in a ball

Washington Times tells us

"Free-spending liberals on Capitol Hill have already guaranteed years more of punitive taxes by passing enormous and wasteful spending bills that will saddle massive debt upon the next two generations of Americans," the conservative critics said.

The 108th Congress, January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2005:

Affiliation				Total
	Republican	Democratic	Independent
Members (shading indicates majority caucus)	51	48	1	100
Voting share	51%	49%
Notes			Caucused with the Democrats

Their Crowning achievement:

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act

* Introduced in the House as Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003 by Representative Dennis J. Hastert [R] on 6/25/2003

* Passed the House [Majority R] on 6/27/2003
* Passed the Senate [Majority R] on 7/7/2003
* Signed into law by President George W. Bush [R] on December 8, 2003

One month later, the ten-year cost estimate was boosted to $534 billion, up more than $100 billion over the figure presented by the Bush administration during Congressional debate... By early 2005, the White House Budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.

Largest single spending increase since Lyndon Johnson, 40 years previous. But what use is a physical and provable fact if it doesn't feel good or it sucks the wind out of one's rage? Skip it, no use.

Michelle Poland, 33, a project manager from Southern Maryland who subcontracts map-making projects for the federal government, stood on the fringes of the rally with a large hand-painted sign that read, "Tax slavery sucks."

"I'm completely against the way my money is being spent," Ms. Poland said. "If we already have an extreme debt, we shouldn't spend more money."

Imagine. Certain individuals walk around looking quite normal, performing the tasks of apparently functioning adults. Maybe one in the next cube.