I THINK THEREFORE I AM

Mom wasn’t right.

When we chose to double-major in English and philosophy, the parental unit had a fit.  “Completely worthless!  What will you do with that kind of education?  Explain the jobs you’ll be able to apply for … (and so on).”

[And we went right ahead anyway.]

The latest in business thinking vindicates our choices.  No less august an institution than the Carnegie Foundation issued a report on undergraduate business education, saying it was too narrow, it didn’t challenge students to question assumptions, to think creatively, and/or to understand the place of business in a larger context. 

The solution:  Major in philosophy.  It teaches not what to think, but how to think, looking behind blind assumptions  to question supposed answers.  Philosophy also trains us to manage complexity and make solid decisions for the company as well as for society.

Way back when, we studied all manners of philosophers, from Plato to Heidegger (our main prof had a weakness for Martin).  In class, we argued and fought, constructively, figuring out how to logically refute and look for options.  Outside, we explored the whys of existence, the purpose of us, and our relationships to institutions and society.  It was pretty heady stuff, somewhat forgotten when we became journalists.

Today, a number of consultancies have risen from philosophical underpinnings.  Senior tech execs, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, for one, tout their beginnings in this discipline.  Most important:  When you share your worldview, you’re creating a connection with another individual or institution (a/k/a alignment).

Should we all become philosophers in pinstripes? 

ALL ABOUT EYEBALLS

A year or so ago, we lamented the demise of magazines – and reminisced about our fondness for print.

That decline hasn’t changed.  In many cases, Publishers’ Bureau reports it’s gotten worse, with digitals grabbing market and ad and visual shares everywhere.  [Except for celebrity, men’s fitness, and ‘focused’ mags.]

But the sadnesses really struck home when Ladies’ Home Journal announced it was out of the subscribers’ business this July, moving to quarterly newsstand issues.  Sure, its heyday was in the ‘40s and ‘50s.  Yet we as PR practitioners in the late 20^th century worked with editors and columnists to promote client wares and stories, and celebrated when they said it was a go. 

For those who naysay the medium, contrast it with Web experiences.  How many times have you surfed a specific topic, and gotten lost in the maelstrom that’s Google search?  Or clicked on one link and found, like Alice, that you were falling quickly through hours of unsorted (and sometime un-validated) content?

There’s a finite beginning and end to a magazine.  Something that limits our thoughts, in fact, concentrates it into our memories.  A reportorial coup like Steven Brill’s dissection of our health care system (Time magazine April 4, 2013) is meant to be dissected, digested, and discussed.  Few Web bytes can claim that.

At the end, everyone says, print will die because increasing costs and decreasing ads don’t make financial sense.  Yet, like LHJ, we “never underestimate the power of a woman.”

THE PARTY LINE

Conference calls get our goats.

First, the dogs barking.  Vacuuming in the next room.  Or other distractables, like e-appliances, overloud conversations, random paper shuffling, texting.

Second come the introductions.  But only once.  [It’s hard to voice-ID during a business conversation if you’ve heard the name and the voice just one time.]

Third:  The sidebars, the jokes (when you’re not there), the awkward gaps.

Got the [silent] picture?  There seems to be a real need for a uniform manifesto for conference calls, with everyone agreeing and signing up, and with rules posted online and in our faces.

Sure, we’ve all been guilty, at one time or another, of multitasking, checking emails or smartphones when we think no one’s watching.  Still, since a meeting is a meeting is a meeting, we need to get things done.

Here are our demands:

• Appoint a moderator who’s sensitive enough to tease people out of their shells and strong enough to just say no to monopolizers.
• Stick to the topic – and to the time.  We all have other things to do.
• Start right away.  And that doesn’t mean 11 on the dot; it means 10:57 am.
• Pay attention.  Though email use can’t be monitored, it’s not hard to tell when folks are following the agenda.  Or not.
• Test the technology … ahead of time.  Not on our watches.

Researchers state that business’ spend on conference calls will grow 9.6 percent yearly through 2017, with 65 percent of those being audio.  Being active and good listeners (and participants) simply equates to good corporate ­citizenship … and good communications.

FUTURE SHOCK REVISITED

Grrrrrr …

That’s our reaction when well-intentioned marketing futurists start thinking broadly, dis-remembering some communications 101 principles.

The latest example:  The 2025 grocery store, debuting at Food Marketing Institute 2014 (the association for nearly 40,000 U.S. food retailers), sponsored by some big-name powerhouses. 

In ten years, or so the presentation goes, we’ll experience frictionless checkout (read:  a ready-to-charge-it app); micropersonalization, or the customization of products based on our purchase history; and stores that physically transform, depending on the seasons, the times of day, the weather, even traffic patterns.

All cool and not unexpected.  Many of us already swipe our smartphones at Starbucks and other foodie outlets.  Get mailings from fave stores that feature products we just bought.  And, no sleight of hand:  Watch as movable partitions and other ingenuities help merchandise the goods.

So what frosted us?  The mention of lifestyle advisors, store employees who’ll now help people shop (they’re moving on from the check-out aisle).  Why?  Because that involves a new talent profile, a huge investment in learning and development, and a positioning that – except maybe for Whole Foods and occasional store nutritionists – just doesn’t register with us.  At least right now.

Consider your most recent interaction with a supermarket clerk.  Did you ask where a certain product is shelved?  [And how many people did it take to get the answer?]  Inquire about a special order – only to wait for weeks until someone picks up the phone and says, “it’s here.”  Request a quickie course on cooking, say, a Copper River salmon versus the regular kind?  How long will it take for our helpers to respond to these shopper queries, let alone the more proactive kind?

No cynicism, just common sense:  Hey, is this a job for newly retired boomers?

IN DEFENSE OF FANCYPANTS* ... SOMETIMES

The just-finished Scripps-Howard spelling bee got us thinking.

[As did the two winning words:  Feulletion and stichomythia.]

Whatever happened to big, sometimes elegant words in today’s communications … great tongue twisters like grandiloquent or right-on descriptors such as innocuous?

Is it because:

• we’re reduced to 140 characters or less,
• our attention span is split into seconds, not minutes,
• we text everything to everybody, or
• we read and talk in short bursts?

We submit it’s due to all of the above – and none.  The College Board, in its effort to make SATs more indicative of success, has dropped obscure-isms, and instead substituted words that shift definition in context (‘synthesis’ is one).   And in the mid-aughts, Princeton psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer picked a number of texts and replaced simple phrases with flowery language, using both as writing samples for 70+ students to evaluate.  The results?  No duh.  As language complexity increased, rated opinions of the authors’ intelligence decreased.

Our argument:  That there are valid times when the word nerd in us appears.  No, it’s not because we need to impress our audience.  Nor do we want to sound smarter.  It’s just that words are the basis of our business – and, because of that, we deliberately choose those phrases that nail the situation and the event.  Many of us write for the ear, so “live” and “inhabit” will resonate differently, depending on the circumstance.  And contrast the meanings (both literal and figurative) of “angry” with “furious” or “splenetic”; they’re all different, best used in different ways. 

Why not take advantage of our rich language – and our sesquipedalian instincts? 

*Tina Fey, we’re sorry.