Vy Blog

And we're back

Back from a rustic week in Yelapa at Casa del Sol.   Nice break and a good restoration of the all-important perspective.

No breaks now.  I'm in L.A. at two industry events.  Blogging as available.

I'll hear it on the Coconut Telegraph

Folks, I'll be offline for a stretch, soaking up some vitamin D, scuba diving and recharging the batteries. 

See you in a few.

Two very good posts that I recommend reading right now

Michael Arrington: Apple's Only Unfair Advantage: Their Products Rock

Hugh MacLeod: Random Thoughts On Being An Entrepreneur

Excellent both.

Into the weekend

I see it glitter in the sun
Then it's freezing in the moonlight
Never look back, never look back
Never look away

If you head is made of bone, stay off the phone

I need to wait to see his top two, but for now there's no topping the aggravation I have toward cell phone addicted airline passengers.

Worse yet, those obviously important and so trendy I-have-my-phone-clipped-to-my-ear runners of the mouth.

More on keyboard cowards: I wish I had written these two pieces

Oh, man, how do I.  On my pet issue of keyboard cowards, the get-a-life people who descend immediately into the mud with the launch of the first comment.

John Wagner puts it more intelligently than I have in more than half a dozen attempts at it:

We are "word police," always on the lookout for something that we don't like, something we can criticize.

That type of attitude is a major detriment to true communication, and a real reason why so many companies/organizations/people are afraid to truly dialog with others.

Most importantly, it takes a medium that has great potential to increase understanding and help people find common ground -- the internet -- and turns it into one big shouting match, with no one really learning anything other than how to pick apart another's point of view.

Exactly, John.  It's like a Jerry Springer show.

John makes reference to this piece from Dorian Lynskey, the British music critic, who got a whoopin' for daring to criticize Bruce Springsteen.  Oh the humanity.  Lynskey writes:

The most belligerent voices on the blogs speak with either a weary, condescending sneer or a florid pomposity redolent of Ignatius J Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces. If, as they imply, their taste is flawless and their intellect mighty, then perhaps they could find a better use for these prodigious gifts than taking potshots on websites. Just a thought.

Why am I so exercised about this?  Because it's such a giant waste of potential.  What could be valuable and helpful ends up an exercise in defensiveness and anger. 

And any of you who disagree with me obviously have not read what I wrote.

I think Kevin Murphy is on to us

Kevin Murphy is bureau chief for Computerwire in San Francisco.  (Disclosure: He's covered the industry I'm currently involved in.)  He knows his crap and has a ferocious wit, as you'll see.

He writes a post today about "How to Blag an Interview" that will look not only familiar, but exactly familiar to, oh, about every single PR agency operative of the most recent generations.  In my opinion, it should be required reading for the next several to follow -- it shows how staid, predictable and all-too-full-of-pretense briefings have become.

This is uncomfortable to me as well because I've conducted briefings like this one.  Many times.  But I hope my thinking has evolved now to the point I can find my way clear to do something more valuable for both sides involved.

What would be better?  How about a conversation?  One where there's genuine listening going on, where everyone in the room asks smart questions about what's interesting to the other?  How about some brainstorming on what the journalist wants to cover, and where he can find some useful resources? 

And here's a barn-burner: How about doing this before you ever launch a product?

Touchstone

I keep running into that word in various marketingspeak I've seen.  It feels like one of those words that is sort of airily used without really saying much: "Our positioning will be the touchstone of our strategy and messaging."

I admit I didn't exactly know what a touchstone actually is.  If you want to know, according to the actual definition, in the root, literal sense:

a black siliceous stone formerly used to test the puruity of gold and silver by the color of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal.

In the modern, the correct usage would be with this concept at the fore:

a test or criterion for the qualities of a thing

As an example, Henry Kissinger said once that "the qualities of courage and vision that are the touchstones of leadership."

He means if you don't have courage and vision, you're not a leader.  To meld the figurative and the literal, you test for leadership by rubbing someone on a touchstone -- if courage and vision don't show up on the streak you leave on the rock, you don't have a leader.  According to Henry, that is.

So, I'm pretty sure this is used incorrectly more often than not.  I think people who use it are trying to allude to something that is a foundation element, or the nucleus, or some kind of non-negotiable standard-bearer.

Am I right?

More pretentious names at my kids' basketball games

The latest batch:

• Dagny (female)
• Sebastian
• And one dozen Tristans

More on pitching

Mostly I don't like anything that has to do with "how to pitch like a pro!" because usually it's pretty superficial advice.  But some of what's here is pretty good, because the common thread is "have something real," which is my own personal cardinal rule.

Like this one:

Damon Darlin, New York Times
Damon wants PR pros to say, "Look, here's the background, here's the problem we're facing...I'll put you in touch with these executives and they'll tell you how they're going to solve the problem." It's brave, we know, but weekly we hear from journalists looking for this level of honesty.