Observation from a wall.

You've pissed me off.

Dear Creative People:

It is important to speak and write in clear, concise English.
It can be colloquial, it can be profane, but it can't be sloppy.

We cannot use the word "robust" to describe every web site and every experience.
Robust is a cliche and means nothing because people do not hear cliches.
Their overuse means they wash over us like toxic sludge pouring from an unregulated defense contractor's factory.

You cannot modify the word "unique." Stop doing it.
Stop saying "somewhat unique," "very unique," "really unique."
Unique is an absolute. It means "single, sole or having no equal."
Therefore it cannot be modified.
Just as a sports fan can't say "We're the most number 1!," you can't say this is
"most unique."

Remove every word from everything you write that doesn't need to be there.
Extraneous words do not make you look smart.
They make your presentation or copy labored, boring and self-conscious.

Finally, read this: http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/862

It's an article titled "Lazy Language, Lazy Thought."
I particularly liked this paragraph:
"Anyone trying to impress, to sell or to obfuscate is likely to brutalise the language. Prominent offenders are businessmen, with their on-board customer-service representatives, collision damage waivers, non-incremental growth opportunities and enhanced information-management activities, providing innovative solutions and significant leverage in the use of resources, and thus permitting an increasing percentage of senior professional time to be expended on value-added solutions."

Language should be alive, fun, vibrant.
It shouldn't be flaccid and dumb.

8 predictions.

1. It will get worse before it gets better.
2. It won't really get any better.
3. It's always darkest before the dawn.
4. The dawn isn't coming.
5. We haven't seen the last of anything we wish we had.
6. It will come back with even greater vigor.
7. We won't prevail but we will convince ourselves we have.
8. Convincing ourselves will cost hundreds of billions.

Metrosexual Diary: Day 1.

Talent I worked with recently gave me as a gift (or should I use the au courant "gifted me with) about $500-worth of Kiehl's products.

So, after a lifetime of washing and thirty-five years of shaving, this morning I had to learn how to do it all over again. I slathered this, I rubbed in that, I exfoliated, I energized, I stimulated, I rinsed and repeated.

Now I am as smooth as a pre-pubescent cue ball. I'm shiny. My long-absent abs are peaking through my un-buttoned silk shirt.

Look out, Ladies...Here I come!

W.C. Fields' punchline of the night..

From the Dummocratic debate in Cleveland, Brian Williams says,
"We'll be back live from Cleveland."

Speaking of W.C. Fields, the prop newspaper he used in many of his movies was called
"The Picayune Intelligencer." Would that they were covering this election.

God in the 21st Century.

We've heard it from pony-tailed pundits. It's been uttered by affected Brits in boardrooms across this great land of ours. It's been echoed by two-bit pishers in myriad meetings. "This is the era of Consumer Control."

And now today's New York Times writes "Poll Finds a Fluid Religious Life in the U.S." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26religion.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1204027223-0MfF/m6rHdKcETNpcLKdzA This article "depicts a highly fluid and diverse national religious life. If shifts among Protestant denominations are included, then it appears that 44 percent of Americans have switched religious affiliations.

"For at least a generation, scholars have noted that more Americans are moving among faiths, as denominational loyalty erodes."

This got me thinking about Don Tapscott's new book, "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything."

Has it changed religion as well. Have we moved into an era where authoritative religion, or authoritative god, is dead. Is god no longer Charlton Heston (god forbid) and more Steve Carrell. Just thinking.

I suppose god has always been what we've made her. But has consumer control gone even farther now that we have institutional decline? Have we embraced and do we pray to the Wiki-Deity?

Sometimes I doodle.

I often draw during client meetings. It helps me think and focus on what is being said rather than who is saying it. Though I'm drawing, I'm listening and thinking. I think I have dual core processors so I can listen and think and draw all at once.

Most times my drawings reflect my moods while in that meeting. Here's one I did recently. I suppose it was from a typical meeting.

Dumb tagline of the night (on the Oscars.)

For GMC, "This is what happens when you never say never."

Customer Service (my shibboleth.)

As regular readers of Ad Aged know (we call them either Georgecolytes or Ad Agedistas) my marketing Shibboleth of late has been customer service. That is, a brand promise not backed up by customer service is more than just an empty promise, it's marketing suicide.

This week's BusinessWeek has an article on this topic and the survival of Sprint http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_09/b4073054448185.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story
A topic Ad Aged covered just about a month ago here: http://adaged.blogspot.com/2008/01/another-one-bites-dust.html

OK. If you want your marketing news first and fresh, keep your web dial tuned into Ad Aged. And if you want to stay in business, tell the truth and remember the Golden Rule.

Two numbers.

Earlier this week Commander in Chafe George Walker Bush pledged $700 million to aid Africa. Yesterday a single B-2 Stealth bomber costing $1.2 billion crashed.

Aid to Africa: $700,000,000.
B-2 Bomber: $1,200,000,000.

Priorities.