Metaphor Country

And Still Traveling...

A lot of work going on behind the scenes to get some new photos posted -- will shortly be turning this back into a photo blog with just some occasional commentary.  One of them is worth a thousand words, or so they tell me.

But in the meantime, am still caught up over here.

Do stay tuned.

A Quick Note from the Road

I'll miss the debate tonight -- will instead be hanging out on Amtrak Train 175, on the way back from this week's gig on the Alzheimer's World Tour.

Just as well.  I'll let somebody else worry about the Big Issues.  Will instead stay occupied running the Alzheimer's support system that I cobbled together myself because, you know, we don't want institutions taking care of those things.  "We must trust the American people," as I think Bush said the other night...

Whatever.  Things are what they are.  And in the near term at least, the ambulance is not coming.  Once you realize that... well, you don't get self-reliant all at once.  But you do start to relax.

Last Saturday when I was hanging out with the Zen guys at the Zendo, and we were doing some Zazen (I was looking forward to writing that)... last Saturday... right after one of the more experienced guys had been going on about koans and enlightenment (they're Rinzai, so they do that), I was sitting there and toward the end of the sitting this thought came to me: your entire life is a fucking koan.

And I started to relax.

Side note: Zen is not primarily about relaxation, as they'll tell you over and over.  But it doesn't hurt.  And since at the moment I'm dealing with this, among other things, I figure I'll look for help in multiple quarters, Zen being one of them.  Nothing like focusing on unmediated reality to get you straightened out...

Side note II: am also thinking about Job as the most Zen (Zennest?) thing in the Bible.  Might say more about that at some future point.

In that spirit and in that general mood, I came across this.

After you've read it, check out the comments here.  They're a hoot.

Actually I should be more respectful.  I understand the objections, and might even be inclined to agree with some of them.  But in spite of that, the piece struck a chord.

For the moment, let that be my character note.

All Unquiet on the Alzheimer's Front

Sorry -- still fully engaged on the Alzheimer's front.  The latest here.

No time or inclination to be clever or verbose or issues-oriented.

Am working up some photographs which I'll post shortly.  Photography is keeping me going.  Looking at things has an appeal at the moment that words, and opinions, and trying to impress you with my critical faculties can't quite match.

Back soon.

Issues and Candidates and Other Noise Overhead

There are elections and people covering elections and candidates and such and I really should be paying attention, but I'm not.  I've been busy over here, mostly.  And keeping a finger stuck in the wind to see where the local economy's going and where there might be project work to be had.  And happily waiting (ok, waiting) for one or another of those candidates to wander down from the abstract plane and connect with something that might actually be going on in my life.

I'm sure connections will be made and viewpoints will crystallize and I'll set myself a political direction.

In the meantime, as pilots like to say during cockpit fires, we're a little busy up here...

O'Connor, Alzheimer's, and Narrative

Three years ago it was framing.  Now it's narrative -- the new magic communications thing that, if you have it, will make your campaign succeed and guarantee that everything will be all right.

At least that's true in political circles.  My private-sector friends are still going on about branding, which is another matter for another time.  To the extent there's crossover, political types want to hear all about that private-sector branding mojo.  The private sector hasn't yet caught on about narrative.  But given the fascination in business communications for all things political, that will come.  The grass, as they say, is always greener.

Now, as to narrative -- compared to framing, it's an improvement, at least to this extent: it shifts the focus from technique (how to spin things) to reception (how they're understood).  That's a plus.  As a mentor of mine used to say about business growth, framing is a bad goal, but it's a good result.  If at the end of the day people are persuaded, that's something.

Which is not to say that narrative is the magic bullet.  It's not.  The current talk about narrative assumes that either you have it, or you don't.  It blows past the critical question -- which narrative.  And the other critical question -- is your narrative grounded in the facts?  Or does it blow past them toward some generalized emotional conclusion.  If the latter, it's not going to live long.

What got me thinking about this was the news about Justice O'Connor, her Alzheimer's-afflicted husband, and her willingness to sanction his affair with another patient.  To say that this reflects well on her is to put it mildly.  Nevertheless I had a somewhat irritable reaction to the whole thing -- well, not to the whole thing, but to the slant of some of the coverage.  You can sample my ill temper here.

What I'm against is the O'Connor narrative that says, "Alzheimer's brings out the best in us, so let's all feel good about ourselves.  What a wonderful spiritual experience."  Sure it does.  Or it can.  And maybe it is.  But there's also the narrative that says, "Your loved ones brains are dissolving and you live in a world of bad choices -- go ahead and make one."  That's a narrative I can relate to.  And I'm not going to listen to the first one until you agree with me on the second.

The point here is that a one-sided narrative that leaves out half the facts isn't any better than framing.  Which is to say it's just spin.  Those two narratives don't contradict each other.  Maybe they complement each other.  If you can hold them both in your mind at once, then you might be on your way to something better than narrative -- such as, for example, reality.      

Deutsche Telekom to Magenta Users: Drop Dead

Ah, no, the headline isn't word salad.

Was taking a moment off from my personal entropy festival to catch up on corporate news and came across this (scroll down to the third item), which led me to this, which led me to this.

Yes, it seems that Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile are asserting service mark rights to the color magenta.

Clearly much thought and foresight went into this great moment in corporate reputation management.

Mike Johnston at The Online Photographer is busy renaming his car a T-Mobile (pronounced tee-mo-BEEL).  Though my nod goes to Color + Design Blog for "All Your Magenta Are Belong To Us."

To be filed under "how not to do it" in the Corporate Reputation Zone...

Is the Engine Supposed to Look Like That?

Have been continually busy in the Alzheimer's cockpit but I took a minute today to glance out the window and noticed that the presidential election is a year away and Pakistan is collapsing and outside my window it's November 5th and the leaves are still green.

Some of these things should not be.

I'd really better start paying attention -- before this turns into one of those "controlled flight into terrain" episodes that you sometimes hear about...

Religions as Brands, Brands as Religions

In today's Wall Street Journal, Naomi Schaeffer Riley comes down hard on James B. Twitchell's Shopping for God: 

Mr. Twitchell manages to reduce this profound idea to the dictates of basic consumer theory. Sacrifice, he says -- not least, tithing -- signifies value. The more you sacrifice, the more you visibly value the product for which you are giving something up, and the more you show other people that you value it, too. "Why do true believers sometimes puncture themselves, walk on their knees until they bleed, fast until they are skeletal or join a monastery and go mum?" Mr. Twitchell asks. "Brand allegiance."

And so on.  I'll spend some time with Twitchell but I basically buy Schaeffer's point that:

...consultants can only do so much, and the point of church outreach surely has less to do with improving "brands" than with saving souls. Mr. Twitchell concludes by noting that, "in the Land of Plentitude, the customer is king." Thus he asks: "Why should religion be different?" The answer to that question comes from another book.

And I'd add only this -- Twitchell is spending his time trying to turn religions into brands.  Whereas most of my friends in the marketing disciplines spend their days trying to turn brands into religions.

Feel like something is broken here?

Just possibly -- on both sides of the equation.

More thoughts on this soon.

More Housekeeping

Now that the Alzheimer's blog is up and running (click on "Dementia Nights" at left if you're curious), time to get this one back to its original focus, which is (was/will be) issues in communications.

Some of the other specialized topics will move offshore soon. 

Meanwhile, back to our regular programming, already in progress.

And Now, A Blog About Alzheimer's Called...

...the Alzheimer's Blog.  The Alzheimer's Blog!  The Alzheimer's Blog!!!

Sorry -- was thinking for a moment of the Gumbys introducing The Architect Sketch.  If you need a reference, click here and scroll down to the fourth cue.

The blog is actually called Dementia Nights and you can find it here.

The Alzheimer's narrative is getting fairly thick, and as noted earlier, I thought it deserved a space of its own.

Besides which -- here on Metaphor Country, we've got new territory to mark... ah... map... ah, you know what I mean.

So, for the moment, it's family entropy on Dementia Nights, and everything else over here.

Hope that makes sense.