high

This blog about corruption at the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department is a sign. It is a sign of the arrival of the new communications paradigm.
If the custodians of communications for organizations of all kinds don’t recognize the importance of this and respond appropriately, we could have a French Revolution kind of scenario. I’d prefer an American Revolution kind of outcome.

It occurred to me the other day that “doing the right thing” has really basically two meanings: doing what is dictated by convention, and doing what is dictated by your conviction.
I think that everyone gets these two meanings mixed up and mixed together a lot. In spite of this, it generally seems that most people tend to favor convention, and a much smaller group of people tend to favor conviction. Like Tevye, I think they’re both right. Or at least, both are necessary.
Sadly, I think people in both camps tend to demonize much more than they accept or appreciate the other camp. Those who care for convention say of those with conviction that they are (to borrow a meme from fark.com – see this thread for examples) “trying to be special”. Those with conviction call those who care for convention “sheeple” (for examples, see the Wikipedia entry for “Goth Subculture”).
I can understand why the conflict is present and I even suspect there are ways in which it should be seen as healthy. What’s more, I think “doing the right thing” is more than a question of “what”; it’s at least also a question of “when”. So there’s more to the story to be investigated, but it seems incredibly useful to remember that what may appear to be “doing the wrong thing” may very well be someone’s very genuine attempt to “do the right thing”.

Like most in or near the ballpark of our discipline, we hate spec work. I think it tickles a nerve near to this dirty business, excerpted:

Do the intellectual property rights to student work produced in the normal activities of a regular course belong to the student or to the University in which the student is enrolled?

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There’s something about breakdancing that, whether I can or not, makes me want to try it. I probably should have started when I was a nimble, back-flipping, pre-adolescent gymnast with health insurance.

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The great minds in advertising have long championed the emotional sell. As in, a Mercedes SL is sold on its sex appeal, and not, say, the work of the metallurgists on the new alloy used in its body. As I’ve said myself elsewhere, 90%+ of consumers don’t give a damn about your flux capacitor.
I’ve noticed an interesting parallel in sales in general. It seems that with exceptions, even if your product or service is mediocre, as long as you have developed a compelling relationship with your client or prospect, you make the sale. In fact, the relationship clearly does far more than any attempt to extol the virtues of your offering. This isn’t really a revelation. Salespeople everywhere know it.
Perhaps this is why advertising has gotten away with shamelessly lying all these years. Perhaps this is why customer service almost universally sucks (I think, in part, because it is viewed as product support and not part of the relationship.) Perhaps this is why the U.S. Congress is more predisposed to pork than sound policy.