Weather report.

You would think the Earth had spun off its axis and was hurtling through outer space away from the sun, growing colder colder colder with each blink of the eye. Americans had learned a new phrase over the past couple of days, "polar vortex," hyperbolic meteorology for what used to be seasonable cold weather.

The radio said the temperature was about 10-degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and thanks to a gusty wind the wind-chill was 20 or 30 below. Buses decided not to run and cabs were as scarce as teeth in a hen or a spine in an account guy.

The weather is Topic A in the chatter that fills our lives, as if the Mastodons were returning and we should be swathing ourselves with animal skins for warmth. Yesterday, the conferencinistas (those who spend the better part of the next few months going to conferences about who-knows-what) had taken to Facebook and Twitter and more to herald their own personal arrival at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They had suffered travails and indignities to get there--similar to what Stanley and Livingston went through, or Aguirre as he mosquito-raped the Amazon.

But they're there! Hurrah! And soon we'll hear more about wearable computers, refrigerators that talk to watches and curved glass devices that are "cool."

What any of this means to the communications business, I can't fathom.

But no one wants to be in the communications business anymore. That's so yesterday. They want to be in the business transformations business. They want to create new models and new ecosystems. So conference they must for a better world. Soon, page after page of powerpoint decks will be regaled with ideas that have no practical application, based on spurious sound-bites overheard from some windbag who's never had to make a dime the hard way.

That's our business today.

Instead of focusing on our jobs...defining, demonstrating and disseminating brands, we dilettante ourselves into spheres we know nothing about. We tighten our belts another notch, stand up straight and spout. And others, other spouters, that is, hear that spouting and re-spout. We create a tsunami of bullshit and it levels everything in its path.

It's 8AM in my office.

The cool kids are in Las Vegas.

Most everyone else is home--it's early yet.

And a good portion will be working from home--claiming it's too cold to come in.

I'm at my desk.

I have work to do.