The heart of the matter.

When I’m busy, very busy, I have prodigiously intense powers of concentration. When I’ve got a ton to do, you could march a snow-white elephant in front of my desk followed by 20 or 40 ululating women, and chances are I’d hardly lift an eye-brow.

Being able to concentrate in such a manner gets people miffed at me some times. I skip meetings. Don’t respond to questions and work till the wick is low. Annoying as it may be, it’s always worked for me. Even if I were capable of changing my behavior, I’m not sure I would.

I was in one of these concentrative-stupors the other afternoon. I had a boatload of copy to write, no discernible brief, and a client meeting less than a day away. It was a lot of stuff and even the agency’s “culture,” (people playing bad music loudly) couldn’t keep me from my appointed rounds.

Then, perhaps a bit like Poe’s Raven, I felt my phone vibrate. I ignored it. It vibrated again. After a third or fourth vibration I could ignore it no longer. I picked it up and fairly barked at whoever was disturbing me.

“What,” I George’d.

“Hey, it’s Rob. I need some help.”

Rob and I go way back. Though I was more than a trifle annoyed, I was ready to lend a hand.

“George, I just read an article in Ad Age and I think I need you.”

“I’m all yours, friend. You’ve bailed me out enough.”

“So in this article, it said that ‘content strategy has to be at the heart of your digital transformation.’ At the heart of my digital transformation.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, half returning to my typing. “I might have read the same thing.”

“Here’s the problem. Shit, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, listen,” I answered. “Getting panicked isn’t going to help.”

“I just went looking for my content strategy and you’ll never guess how I fucked up. I put my content strategy at the pancreas of my digital transformation.”

“The pancreas? That is serious. The pancreas is nowhere near the heart. If you’re doing digital transformation, what’s your content strategy doing way down there?”

“It must have slipped. I wanted my content strategy at the heart of my digital transformation. But next thing I know…”

“Pancreas.”

“Dude. I’m 56 years old. They could fire my ass for this. Remember McNally?”

I didn’t.

“He placed his content strategy down at the duodenum of his digital transformation. He was out on his keister the next day.”

“Poor McNally,” I lied. “But look on the bright side. The placing your content strategy at the pancreas of your digital transformation is much closer than placing your content strategy at the duodenum of your digital transformation.”

“Your solicitude is not helping matters any,” Rob barked.

“Rob, Rob…”

He slammed down the phone.

A ringing reverberated through my nose the rest of the day.