We are every one of those 50 shades of grey…

Yes, I’ve seen the movie and bought and read all the books. I am 50 Shades of Grey literate. I watched the live debut in London yesterday afternoon, on the internet, complete with the red carpet walk, and interviews with the producer and the writer who said she never dreamed she would be at a debut of a movie made from her books.

I thought the movie would not live up to the books, such as they are.  Regardless of the success, or not, of the movie, the success of the books cannot be denied – if you judge success on books sold and money made.  100 million women anticipated to have read it.  The formula these days seems to be in writing trilogies and in something that lends itself well to images, blogs, and social media – to hype the hype.  50 Shades has all of this.  The book – as in any book – brings images to mind. Images that are as private as the image of each of us reading the book – in our easy chairs, in bed, late at night, on our computers, or ipads, hidden in our offices, or even reading on our cell phones, if we didn’t want to have the book in the house.

As the movie has come closer to opening, we hear a variety of words – anticipatory giggles, “when are you going”, “are you going with your husband”, “…with your boyfriend”, or “with the girls”?  We hear angry words, mainly from women.  Women talking about violence towards women, disrespect, abuse, and challenging each other to boycott the movie on behalf of the cause of feminism.  Or we hear psychologists talk about the damage it will cause to young girls.  We hear little from men.  They say it’s a chick flick. And they don’t know what it’s about.

The Valentine’s Day opening was moved to the 13th, so ladies could go with their lady friends and still have their date nights on the 14th.  Would couples attend together?  Would there be giggles?  Shifting in one’s seat?  Sighs of mutual acknowledgement? Nods to each other when we leave the theater?  Rushes to our cars?  Would we post our thoughts on Facebook? Or would we be as quiet as we were in the private time when we read the book?  Alone with our thoughts.  With our ponderings. With a smattering of confusion.The theater was filled.  Mainly women, but a few with male dates, too.  We began with quiet applause, as if we had all been waiting a very long time in our lives.  Popcorn at the ready, we snuggle down.  Women in sweat pants and comfy clothes, no dress-up needed. There is humor in this film.  Mainly it is comedic timing and natural instinct by Dakota Johnson.  Jamie Dornan does not meet our expectations of Mr. Grey as neatly.  How could any actor meet what each of us had imagined and created in our own minds?  A little too slim.  Curling up of the upper lip makes him always appear as about to giggle. Shoulders not broad enough. Though his hands are striking, and brought about an audible gasp from the audience as he clasped a table edge.

In my opinion, the movie is not about BDSM or violence against women.  Or degradation. Or disrespect.  It simply isn’t about any of that.  It is about the fantasy.  The fantasy of what women – mainly older women – might think about – sometimes.  Maybe it’s even an offering of a fantastical thought, should the woman have run fresh out of them. The exploitations that may roll around in one’s mind, while the reality of acting upon any of it would equal the chagrin of a couple watching mid-core porn in a hotel room. Really, honey? But we might think about it. We might.

So, just what is the appeal of all of this experimental sex?  What were the sexiest moments?  Were they the riding crop, or were they by the piano listening to him play a haunting melody?  Were they the necktie around her wrists, or were they taking her up on an air glider, a day completely planned by him, from beginning to end?

As I sit writing this I am listening to some “national expert” talking about the grave damage this movie will do to young girls….and I think about Bill Clinton and his declaration of “I did not have sex with that woman”.  I think about how oral sex replaced intercourse by definition for young girls in an instant.  And how a “goodnight, I had a nice time” with a kiss, became lost to the acceptable act of quick oral sex.  One sided, I would add.  How has HPV been spread exponentially?  By young people – men & women – believing an STD could not be spread this way. Because this is not sex.  The president said so.  Talk to young women today.  The sexual act, for many of them, is about their performance with their man.  Not about receiving pleasure, or sexual skill of their partner.  It is yet another giving act – much like making dinner, and doing the laundry. And if the money equation is tipped on the male’s side, even more.

50 Shades of Grey is fantasy.  Speaking as a feminist, I believe men probably don’t get it (nor will they take the time to read or watch), so we need to tell them how we are feeling about it.  It is not the black and white of sexual pleasure.  It is the grey of our lives, of our minds, of our exhaustion.  It is the grey of our feelings – of what might be, or could have been.  It is a lifetime of fairy princesses and handsome princes, with broken promises for our lives, watched when we were very young. To be followed next by Donna Reed and Lucy and Laura & Dick Van Dyke. We have the ‘right’ to equal pay and our careers.  Yet our “before” lives and responsibilities remain largely intact, too; just with more stacked upon it, very little removed or replaced. Many of us do all of this while also being the sandwiched caretakers of our aging parents. And still we hear we aren’t doing enough and that we need to “lean in” and do more. Be more.

The fantasy is freedom. It is putting our shoulders down and not worrying about what is for dinner or the buying and cooking of it, or where we will go if we go out (pick the restaurant, arrange for the babysitter, get the concert tickets, call the friends).  It’s not worrying about buying our own car, or servicing it. Or paying all the bills.  It’s not even thinking about what we will wear.  It’s about looking good, being fit, being healthy, being taken care of. It is a fantasy of release.

But as the books and the movies are clear to reveal, the control in this fantasy is always the woman’s.  She realizes it herself, half way through. Nothing is done to her she has not consented to, or actually asked for.  Her inquisitiveness did take her a little too far, but sometimes that happens with a safe situation and a mind free to wander.

This movie is not for the young, and certainly not for tweens.  Much damage has already been done by an ex-President, and what we watch on our televisions every day. Sex mixed with violence is power.  Not sex.  50 Shades of Grey is none of those things.  It is mature content, for a mature life.  It is a gentle, ‘what if’. It is not a blonde princess spinning on the ice singing about her true love. It is, however, fodder for conversation between couples about that private part of their lives.

The fact that this movie is about to enjoy success at a time when the popular movies are showing some of our more famous female actresses at their worst – no makeup, abused, beaten, raped, going through physical challenges, etc. is an interesting coincidence.  This time, we seem to want another fantasy. In the yin and yang of life, this time we want to be the woman offered an easier life, love, and consensually great sex (and of course we want control).  But sometimes we also want to be seen as the woman who has been torn to the ground and has risen again, scathed and damaged, but alive, and the wiser for it, too. A survivor.

We are a complicated hot mess. We are not black and white.  We’ve earned every one of those fifty shades of grey.

“We” are not amused…

It is almost a knee jerk reaction.  I hear a politician tell us “I need you to…” or “I will be asking for this in my budget…” and I’ve already had a gut reaction to the start of the sentence, such that I really don’t hear what comes after that.  I imagine myself on that podium, saying that sentence.  And I realize that the word I would be so hard for me to utter.  In writing, yes, I can use it.  But in speaking?  To a group?  No, I just sticks in my throat.  But why?

Linguistically, there is the use of the royal “we”.  First, made famous by Queen Victoria when a vulgar joke was told in her presence. When she replied, “we are not amused”, she “clearly intended to speak on behalf of the other ladies whom she knew were equally offended.” Later, used by royalty to note the collective body of a politically organized nation – most commonly used as a term of separation – them and those – we and they – the intelligentsia and the peasants.

The use of pronouns such as I and we are called functional words.  When used by politicians, the choice can mean the difference between claiming authority and creating community.

There are even studies done about one’s mental state and the use of these functional words.  More people who are suffering from depression use I as opposed to we or they.  Kind of fascinating.

Having spent almost an entire career in the world of nonprofits, I learned quickly that the use of we was, indeed, to build community. And not at all spoken like the “royal we”.  What seemed so odd, at first, became rote.  “We hope you will…we ask you…we thank you.”  Sometimes I felt almost like turning around to see who else was standing there with me.  Never the bolder use of I.  Never as though the individual, the staff member, even existed, except as a title of function, certainly not a separate person. What mattered was the greater good, the cause.

“I would like you to donate a major gift towards research.” Imagine! “I would like you to?”  “We need you to donate a major gift towards research.”  OK, but who is the we?  The we is you – and me – and collectively, all of us.

So, staff were in the background, writing the words, designing the photo opp, poised with conductor’s baton, or wind up key, if you will.  It was an adjustment – to deny one’s self – personality – personae – to become invisible.  But soon I came to understand the benefit of this group-being. So, for 20 years I was on behalf of and quite content in that role.  It was deemed to be a best practice of success for a nonprofit.

Today, the role of staff in a nonprofit is quite different.  Today the staff member is often front and center.  Someone whose life has never been touched by the disease du jour is speaking at a podium about the tragedies of some type of cancer they’ve never had.  Often, the volunteers or ‘survivors’ are right there, and willing to speak, but they are not invited to do so.  It is the staff member’s job now.  One they may truly love and be dedicated to.  But one with distance built all around it. Between community – and cause.

All this goes through my mind when I hear the word I spoken by an elected official, over and over again.  What is the purpose?  It must be to reinforce one’s role of power, surely not to build a sense of community – not to sing kumbaya with the people at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA

I think about the organization I worked for and how the tagline, or slogan, it used, changed over the years, reflecting part of this new word order. “We’re fighting for your life.”  Outwardly focused. Inclusive. Involving. Engaging.  “I’M not fighting for your life.  YOU are not fighting…WE are fighting.”  Kumbaya. Exponential engagement!

Today, that slogan has morphed to several others, with degrees of warm and fuzzy. “Learn and Live”  (don’t listen to me and you’ll find out for yourself);  “Your Life is in Your Hands” (it’s up to you, do what you want, you know what you need to do)’ and, today, “Life is Why”. (we’re tired of giving you all the reasons why – you should know why by now).

We have made today’s politicians into caricatures of themselves.  The media has done that.  And we expect it now.  We tweet about the color of the Governor’s jacket and how her hair looked on any one day.  Our obsessiveness would lead one to believe that we have relegated them to use the “royal we”, yet we have created a new level beyond that. Today politicians ask us to do things, to support things, in first person.  I need you to do this.  There is leadership in that, and a sense of authority, but I suggest there is no sense of community or coalition building.

If I were the speech writer I would reserve the authoritarian use of “I” for select moments of crisis.  Rather, I would bring back the royal we, the friendlier we.  For, “it’s all in our backyard”, isn’t it?  It’s not your backyard, or my backyard, it’s ours.  How might we all better respond if we brought back the use of the plural personal pronoun?  Just as your mother saved the use of your middle name for “those times” when obedience meant right now, and no discussion, politicians might command a more communal sense of engagement with the use of we, forgoing the assertive first person singular pronoun for crisis and woe, for that time when “we are not amused”.

Ice buckets and broken hallelujahs…

Is there a coincidence that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has played out in such a dramatically successful way – literally all over the world – at the same time we have been victimized by some of the worst news stories in recent memory?  Piling up on us so rapidly, it seems surreal.

Beheadings!  Good Lord…the thought.  And threats to our world, right here, in the USA.  Threats this time that aren’t about bombing buildings; threats that look quite different indeed. Evil does walk on this earth. And it tapes itself and goes on YouTube for the world to see. And – we – watch.

Ebola!  Spreading wildly and uncontrollably – watch the maps, watch the countries turn “red” with notations of new outbreaks.  No known cure.  A doctor and a nurse in full white and plastic protective bubbles.  Will they live or will they die?  And when – but not if – will it be that someone flies to our shores on a jet plane and infects thousands. And they will. And will this potential drug work? And if it doesn’t, will this be the plague to wipe out millions? And so on….

Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!  Almost in the dead center of our country – Ferguson, Missouri. A young black man, perhaps guilty of shoplifting a few cigars, maybe shoving someone, or having a scuffle with law enforcement, maybe even a little high, gets shot dead with 6 bullets riddling his right side, starting with 2 in his head, and down his right arm that witnesses have said was raised in the universal “Hands UP! Don’t Shoot” symbol. And his body lays in the street for 4 hours; with his parents watching the flesh of their flesh, and the blood of their blood oozing into the hot pavement.  No white sheet gently shrouding him.  No priest saying words and drawing crosses.  He just lay there, getting stiff and cold, in the heat.  And the world in Ferguson ignited like a match carelessly flicked onto anxious, hot embers of a community who has had enough – a world which now sings back “We are Michael Brown”.  And how did we get here?  I think back to the race riots in the 70s, when white girls were afraid to walk on the very white East Side of Providence.  When flames of anger made it unsafe.  When young black people tossed rocks out of cars, and more, at sheer desperation of their lot.  Of their life.  Not a lot of guns and knives back then…but rioting and fighting and fear were weapons enough.

Israel and Gaza in their non-holy war, blowing each other up in the sacrilegious name of religion.  Picking up pieces of dead children, men, women for quick funerals, ‘as required’.  Then calling for “ceasefire” so all can cleanup.  But at halftime, someone launches a rocket, and we’re off again. Like some insane WWW fighting match, but there are, and will be, no winners here.

Putan-esque horrors in Russia & the Ukraine, reminding me of the ominous music in elementary school, when we would watch those videos, in our dark classroom, of the Red Dragon and the spread of Communism, surely “coming to a country near you”.

Deport them!  Illegal children rushing over barbed wire and fences, wading through streams, and now just walking in and over to law enforcement saying – here we are, arrest us, give us a court date, and my God, we’re home free…we’re home now, we’re in A-me-ri-ca.  And they disappear into our states on hot buses and trains. Wide eyed they go to the light of their cold and broken Hallelujah.

We’ve pretty much lost sight of the children.  And the Ukraine is bubbling in our minds.  Israel & Gaza, for this week, nowhere near the front page. What has captured us in this time of such woe?  What has given us joy at this hot and humid summer’s end?

The Ice Bucket Challenge. A moment in time. A silly, personal action that we share with millions on social media, inspiring laughs all across computer tops, iPads and iPhones – in a nanosecond.  The Ice Bucket Challenge existed before this summer.  It has popped up every once in awhile for different charities and causes.  But this year.  This year was so different.  An obscure disease – actually called an orphan disease – afflicting “only” 30,000 people in these United States.  Maybe the small numbers reminded us of how we feel against the global times we live in and the hopelessness we carry around with us to effect any change at all.  In a time when we surely feel like pulling up our drawbridges and watching out very carefully for just our own.  A time when for some inexplicable reason purchasing four cans of Dinty Moore beef stew to put in the basement next to the two cases of Poland Spring water seemed, well, proactionary.

But there was this thing you could do.  This cold bucket of ice thing.  And you could dump it over your own head.  Shock your own self.  And take a video of it.  And share it.  On YouTube.  And all the rest. And call out your friends – and your not so friendly friends – hey, I’m making you do this, too.  Ha!  And then go to your computer and donate money – lots of money – to this writing, over $70 million dollars, nationally.  Approaching $1 million in the state of Massachusetts, alone. And it’s spreading around the world.  Israel, Gaza, the Ukraine, probably not.

And for two or three weeks the little worlds we live in threw buckets of ice water over our heads.  A personal moment of control over this bombardment of grief in our world.  Have you done it?  Even on a really hot day, it jolts you.  It’s as if the memories of a beheading, of a boy lying in the street oozing blood into the pavement, of dirty, homeless children flooding this land of made-up dreams, of rockets red glare, red dragons, and bleeding eyes, were put out of our minds and our hearts for just a little while.  We took control over our mental anguish and turned it positive, and joyful, and helpful, and hopeful.

A bucket of ice.  Who knew?  Who knows the power it will have on inroads to a cure?  But in each of our small worlds, magnified on the screen of social media, we took control, we chose to laugh, we chose to do something rather dramatic, rather beautiful – we chose to be the essence of who we can be, each one of us.  We chose peace for a moment or two, or maybe because we shared it in those nanoseconds, the peace lasted a little longer. And in our gigging, shivering, wetness, how beautiful are we!

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: Rev:19:6

 

Swimmingly Disruptive

Heat. Water. Poverty. Children. Bureaucracy. Politics. Convening like a perfect storm in the summer of 2013. A community pool was empty. In the heart of the inner city of Providence. More than empty, it was riddled with damage. Rusted and old and hot, the sun reflecting off its chipped and peeling white paint. A pool shouldn’t be hot. It should be an oasis. This one had a history of being more than an oasis. It was a lifesaver. A veritable lifesaver to children who had nowhere to go in the heat of the summer. Adults remembered learning the lifelong, lifesaving, skill of swimming. For others it was a diving board out to a pretty cool life of success.

Last summer, in the throes of heat and humidity, the absurdity of the situation steamed to a flashpoint. Open the pool. Fix the pool. When would it be done?  A poor neighborhood with small children who wanted to swim in the heat of the summer waited. And then the answer came – it would not be opened. It would be destroyed by a city administration hellbent to make a “cement pond” (to paraphrase Ellie Mae Clampett) out of the whole thing.  Maybe make a water “park”, with little fountains spraying up out of concrete. Or, as one radio talk show host said – let’s watch the kids get their crotches spritzed instead of learning how to swim.

It seemed like an outrageous injustice that would bring so such negative press that surely the administration would see the error of their ways and reverse themselves – maybe even throw a pool party to prove their mea culpas – and ‘what were we thinkings’.  But alas, the wingtips of a politician, and maybe more than one, who all should have known better started to grind into the sand. The more the people asked ‘why’, the louder the silence from the brick office space became. A grinding, seething silence that grew deeper each day. The incredulity of it all was shocking – almost to a one.

Figuring out the ‘why’ is usually what happens next.  But there was no time – there was no time.  Cement trucks were hovering in the dark people thought.  They might have been.

What happened next happened without plan, yet it was exquisitely executed.  It did not involve parading young sweating children out to beg for their pool.  The tactic was a classic disruptive model for change.  For those visual learners, here is a graphic to illustrate the paradigm.  (Credit here to Ted Santos, CEO of Turnaround Investment Partners).  What happened could have been planned out but it wasn’t. It happened by instinct, and was fueled by expediency – and the injustice of it all.

People began to talk – each coming from their own perspectives and interests. There were advocates for the black community, one coming with a historical perspective who began to organize under the banner of Swim Empowerment.  He even put his own money towards a comprehensive study of why many African-American children and adults do not know how to swim as compared to their white neighbors. He held a community meeting. More people came and talked. The director of the department of health attended and shook his head. Local legislators came. Swim professionals from the “Y” and coaches got involved.  All establishing the bottom of an effective disruptive change pyramid – people with integrity, responsibility and accountability.

Social media began to flicker as social media does. The conversations rose to a din. The din rose to outrage. People felt passionate and didn’t hesitate to say it.  A “Save the Pool” page on Facebook was born and hashtags developed.  A solid core of people were “in” – they were a committed core, giving this life. The next tier – commitment.

The engagement of a local talk show host quickly won an ally to the cause. Daily he raged on and on, and was joined by others – demanding the official who was ultimately responsible return his calls. No return calls. Silence. More talk show chatter. Support came as a gushing splash, spurred on by the silence from the hot brick building downtown. The community had taken its stand. (see tier 3 of our pyramid).

Compromises began to be discussed.  “How about filling in part of the pool so it wasn’t deep enough to dive in?” No, the group said. You can’t learn how to swim in a wading pool. “No money to fix the pool.”  Legislators and contractors and community leaders rose up and said – we’ll fix it for free.  “We need to study this whole thing.” “And, oh, by the way, we’re going to fill in the other pools in the city.” By now it was clear the short summer season was passing by. Don’t touch the other pools, the group said, not to everyone’s agreement – but if you don’t touch them, we’ll agree to a [dreaded] commission to “study this”. The goal was clear – the only purpose of the commission was to get the pool open for 2014. We will “study” how we will do this, but we WILL do it. A declaration was made.

Early in the process – the action step – began. The pool would reopen. Not to be fooled again – and recognizing the devilish details, questions were asked – when, where, how, who. Pressure. More pressure.  July 1st. The pool will be repaired and it will open on July 1st.

Construction began this June, and it was watched diligently, for any possible delays. In the last week of June, the repairs were completed. The water flowed into the pool. And it waits now – warming up – for its debut as this community’s oasis.

It will open tomorrow with a press conference. This year, the talk of making more water parks or cementing in of deep ends is gone – the whole crazy no-pools issue has had a complete breakdown.  There is talk of swim lessons. Around the city. And BBQs for families around the pool. There have been no apologies or explanations – still silence. There will be a lot of people to thank, but for fear of omitting, perhaps it’s best to say this: the story is about the kids smiling, happy to be swimming in the pool, not about the politicos who will want to claim victory or credit in a big splash. Not about any one person really.

This spontaneous, informal, beautifully executed disruptive model – one where people risked possible retaliation, their jobs and votes – bolstered by historical data and facts – spurred on by the urgency of it all and permanency of any failure – with its effective use of the raising of voices and the disruptive media of talk radio and digital news – what can we learn from this stunning success? I don’t propose an answer, but I do pose the question – and I think we should pose it more often.

It is said – “The Disruptive Leadership Model™ empowers organizations to purposefully reach that point which is outside of the business as usual current instead of depending on hope and luck. It is a very effective model for empowering people and organizations to responsibly come out of a comfort zone and produce results that would have never occurred in the paradigm of business as usual. In fact, most breakthroughs change the future of the person or company [or organization] forever,” – Ted Santos.

In this year that has witnessed the loss of Maya Angelou and before that, of Nelson Mandela – what causes speak to you?  What change do you want to see? Make a little noise. Tweet a louder tweet. There are great tools today to bring disruption into very staid systems. Think less about the same ol’ way of doing things if you want to see big change in this, your, lifetime.

Try being more disruptive.  Once you dive into that pool and you learn how to swim – you might very well have changed your own future – and society will be the better for it.

 

The Stalling Time…

Another treatise on women lacking confidence has come out and met with the usual national PR splash.  Put it in on the shelf next to the one that says we aren’t leaning in.  The lacking confidence one is by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in The Atlantic’s May 2014 cover story, called “The Confidence Gap”.  Kay and Shipman write that, despite being just as qualified as men, women often hold themselves back.

Well, let’s look at that for a moment, as a truth.  Why would that be?  Is there a reason we would hold ourselves back?  Back from the tippy-top positions.  The ones that require you to be super-glued to your job, working 12 hour days, being a bit ruthless to succeed, and for a time, putting everything – family, spouse, and self – on the back burner.

A colleague of mine who is, by any measure, at the very top of her field, has written a book – “Sweet as Pie, Tough as Nails”.  She has had personal sacrifice to be there, at the top, some of which I wouldn’t write about, but which would not settle well in my sense of success, balance, life.

In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled.  Stalled!  Now that is an interesting word choice.  And I would agree.  We have “stalled”.  But I believe it is a deliberate and intentional stall. And a healthy one. Men should try it.

When men tell women what they lack or how they should change or do something differently, it comes with a certain “oh, well, they don’t really know us” – but when women receive accolades and get interviewed on national talk shows because they are “eating their own”, telling other women that yes, we don’t lean in enough; we don’t reach for the very top, we aren’t equal, we lack confidence, women perhaps rush to buy the book, rush to be better, to work harder, to read advice columns on how to ask for a raise, or how to lead, or how to get less sleep, and fit more hours in the day.

We once again measure women’s process and accomplishments against the “gold standard” of the same for men. I don’t suppose it’s very popular for women to write books for men with titles such as, “Think Before You Reach” and “Hard as Steel, all the way through….”.  When do you see women advising men on public talk shows that they should think a little bit more before they act – and try aiming to do the right thing, not just any thing.

What is disheartening is that it is accomplished women telling ‘us’ we fall short, once again.  But, are we going to buy that message?  WHY have we stalled?  What are we waiting for?  What are we doing while we are stalling?  In all this equality, perhaps we are thinking – a little “too much” some might say.  We are thinking about success.  What measures our personal success?  What is it we want to accomplish?  That will be different for a 20-something and a 50-something.  For some, yes, we want that tippy-top position, we want it all, and I’ll be the first to stand up and cheer for those who get it.  Ladies who do?  Remember to be kind to those behind you.  Remember to offer a hand to them, to help them up the rungs.  Not turn away as you fear losing your spot to someone younger, more educated, more connected, and heaven forbid, prettier.  Yes, it is still a factor in today’s modern workaday world.

As we sit here in our “stalling time”, let’s think about our success.  I won’t attempt to define it here.  Because that would be as wrong as telling us what we need to do.  For each one of us it will be different. For some it will be family, children, and being there for a period of time to fully participate in it all.  For others it will be years and years of education and then – a role as a doctor or researcher who will quietly save lives every single day, without time to think if she’s leaned in or not.

As the pendulum of home – work – home – work continues to sway, we seek equilibrium, most of us.  We seek balance and energy.  To walk through our lives energized, and not exhausted.  To not need Ambien to sleep and drown ourselves in coffee, or worse, to get on with our day.

As I look back at my 50-something advice to my 20-something daughters I say, go ahead and stall.  Now’s a good time.  You’ve got the education and the path is before you.  Stall, just for a while.  Watch your path.  Measure your life.  Lean in one way – or lean in the other way. Or lean a little bit in both.  Think of your tombstone and read the obituaries.  How would you like yours to read?  Think of, gulp, me.  Where do I fall short – and why?  What choices did I not have freedom to make?  What would the choices have been if I was free to make them?

Stall.  Define yourself.  Lean in for no one. Have the confidence to stand still and think. When you put your foot forward on your path, you might know more about where you want it to go, rather than jumping on for a ride you may not want to go on.

Think about balance.  Think about pendulums.  Think about standing still.  Being quiet.  Look at the ocean.  Write your 5 year plan.  Write your obituary.  Write mine.  Stall as long as you want.  And remember, you can always come back and stall – again.

T-Shirts, Buttons, Songs vs. Tobacco and Addiction

Something great was supposed to happen 14 years ago.  They said it would.  We celebrated the day, the very day that would come – in the year 2000 – that the goal would be reached. 

The year was 1988.  We printed little t-shirts for 5 and 6 year olds.  They were bright yellow.  The kids looked so cute in them as they put them on and the shirts went right down to their knees, leaving little sneaker feet showing.  We had bright glossy banners and stickers, too.  Wow, did they like the stickers.  Their principals and teachers didn’t as they later found them stuck to the lockers and books and walls – sorry about that. 

There were healthy snacks brought in and parents invited, too.  There was lots of press that day, the first day of school in 1988.  We picked the John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Providence for the press conference.  Mr. Kane was the principal.  I was in my 30s and I believed that if you could get these kids when they were little, then you could make it happen. You could make a difference.  I believed in that.

When they were 18 years old, in the year 2000, these bright-eyed children would graduate high school as the first “Smoke-Free” Class of 2000.  They would go forth into their adult lives living without the scourge of tobacco in their medical history, waiting like a stealth device to engage and rob them of their health and their lives, years later. Their children would be smoke-free, too.  And their grandchildren, and so on, and so on, and so on.  We were going to eliminate the use of tobacco in this country.  Nothing less.

We even had a song.  “Healthy hearts! Healthy lungs! We don’t have to stop! Because we will never start!”  We are the Smoke free class of 2000 – Two – 0h – 0h – 0hhhh!  That’s the way to go!”

 http://youtu.be/RiTY-6KqNrY

In RI, Keisha Knight Pulliam, who played Rudy on The Cosby Show, and served as the national ambassador for the SFC2000 came to visit.  I spent the day with her taking her around in a limo to schools and programs, ending at the John Hope Settlement House with Mayor Buddy Cianci.  I still remember “Rudy” saying, “Mr. Mayor, can I call you Bud?” in her fetching way (Bud was her little boyfriend on TV). The kids went wild.  There was no doubt in my mind that these kids would get it.  They would be smoke-free as 18 year olds.  We jumped for joy and sang and cheered and passed out those t-shirts, coloring books and stickers.

Over the next few years, the hoopla faded away.  The program disappeared as a priority rather quickly, and no one talked about it anymore. Notably, since the late 70s, one national health agency has raised in excess of $750 million in schools for their health program initiatives, with events held in every state.

50 years ago this year we mark the first US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking OR Health.  The report came out in 1964 and directly tied smoking to chronic diseases – specifically heart disease and cancer – but also other health threats.  It’s estimated that the rate of highs school seniors who smoke has fallen from over 38% to 16% today.  That’s more than a 58% decline.  We also know that each day, almost 3,900 kids under 18 try their first cigarette and more than 1,000 kids become new, regular smokers.

So how did we do with our t-shirts, vim and vigor?  And how are we doing today?  We do know a lot more about behavior change and about how hard it is to break addiction to tobacco.  We’ve nearly eliminated smoking in public places (including restaurants).  Yet we see the creep in cigar and hookah bars and efforts to smoke on beaches and in public parks taking on a civil rights tone of right wing America.  We see drugstore chains beginning to cave, under the leadership of mega-CVS to make tobacco harder and harder to purchase.  We are taxing tobacco to oblivion and beyond (and are making our state budgets dependent on it, too).

What else is going on?  We are seeing sales of individual cigarettes and flavored cigarettes rise.  And now we have e-cigarettes flourishing.  If you go to an Ivy League college watch what the students are smoking – long, thin, dark brown, European cigarettes, unfiltered – they are cool, man – cool from Europe kind of cool.  Tobacco companies have taken their wares and gone oversees – travel to Paris, China or just about anywhere and the stifling waft of smoke overcomes you in restaurants, bars, and just about everywhere. 

Our campaigns now focus on adults and on photos of people with half gone faces from jaw surgery and videos of scarred and mutilated women begging us to stop.  We have very direct warnings on cigarette packages. We have tobacco cessation programs anywhere you want to find them – and Nicorette – and fake cigarettes you can hold.  I have a colleague who walks around with a half smoked cigar – he lights it up about twice a day and takes a big puff, and then stamps it out.  He has custom made shirts and cufflinks and drives a Jaguar.  With this little brown rotting cigar butt clasped between his fingers.

In this 50^th year of the Surgeon General’s report (also the 50^th year of recognizing February as Heart Month), I don’t hear a call for the “Smoke-free Class of 2028” from any of the health agencies. The only website of the 3 who began the original program that even speaks to smoking and children in any significant way is the American Lung Association. 

The five year olds who began as our nation’s Smoke-Free Class of 2000 are today about 31 years old.  The majority have probably taken much of the same path – gone through school, natural rebellion times, their own personal trials, wins and misses, and are probably settling in a career path, finding a mate, and thinking about having their children, if they are not already parents.  So, now, they have bright shiny faces looking up at them. 

The Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius has said that if smoking rates continue as they are now, 5.6 million children who are alive today will ultimately die prematurely from smoking.  One of every 13 children.

I ask the question but I don’t have any firm answer or even a guess – who will ask these children to be smoke-free?  It’s probably not even talked about that much in our homes as drug and alcohol an texting while driving, and HIV and other issues have taken front and center.

So, what is the tobacco industry doing to recruit its brand new members today?  You can be sure they are not giving out t-shirts, and buttons, and singing songs.

Dogs and Wolves – Reconnecting with my professor…

Dogs and Wolves.

This, above, is the blog of Dr. Elaine Chaika. Check it out!

Elaine was my professor of linguistics tens of years ago when I was a freshman at Providence College in Rhode Island.  An elective, at the time, Linguistics, soon became a weekly fascinating class for me.  This was a unique time to attend Providence College.  I was in the first full class of women.  Elaine was also a rarity in that year – one of the first female lay professors – much less a person of Jewish faith in a campus of Catholic priests and nuns.  PC was stretching and straining at the time – and all these years later it has done well for it and by it. A few incredible glitches recently, but that is a story for another day.

I lived on campus and had two roommates who were both from New Haven, CT.  We had friends on either side of us also from Connecticut.  PC drew quite a few Connecticut girls in that first year.  Sometime in January, sitting in our rooms getting ready to go out and having a few cocktails ahead of time, we all seemed to have gotten quite sick of each other, or at least noodgey with each other.

That very well may have come from living in such tight quarters.  In addition to our space issues we also had issues that came from the educating of the Dominicans on campus.  Such as, no, padres, women do not shower in one big shower room (they having just moved us into what before were male dorms).  And, no, it is unsafe to put metal bars on our picture windows on the 1st floor to protect us from boys who may have thrown caution out the window in favor of raging hormones and decided to leap in and fetch us) – because, well, dear Fathers, suppose there was a fire.  How would we get out in an emergency?

I digress.  After having a few drinks, we were picking on each other, and I was trying to play peace keeper.  Then someone said – “you know, none of us can understand anything you say – we never have”.  You blab on and on and we laugh at you because you speak so “funny”.  I couldn’t wait to bring this up in class – with Dr. Chaika.  And I did.

We talked about dialects and there being no “right and wrong” about speech.  I felt better.  But yet, I found I became acutely aware and self-conscious, as I equated sounding “funny” with sounding “dumb”.  Soon, meticulously articulated “r’s” came into my vocabulary.  And enunciation of familiar RI words became rote.

I went home in the spring and had dinner with my extended family – 6/7ths of them Portuguese.  My mother said – “I don’t understand anything you are saying.  You are talking ‘funny'”.  And so it went.  I now sounded “funny” wherever I was.  I’d only hoped I didn’t also sound “dumb”!

I remembered Dr. Chaika’s easy ways, common sense approach, and I recall thinking she was truly one of the most intellectual professors I had ever had.  Not merely teaching out of textbooks, but philosophizing about life; putting lessons into context of society and history.  She was a favorite memory of a strained and odd time at this college.

Tens of years later, Dr. Chaika is my client!  We re-met on Facebook.  She is a woman of high technology, and at our first meeting she taught me things about computers and the technology of writing using resources that are “right there, dear!” that I didn’t know. She is an author, reviewer, collector, but mostly a scholar. 79 years old wearing tight corduroys and 3 inch mules, running up and down the stairs to share things with me, with her two Maltese dogs scurrying around to catch up with her.  With Nooks and iPads and laptops scattered in every room – and her office with a four foot graphic designer-type computer screen – what a treat.

Today I am happy to share her blog.  That is the link you see, above, Dogs and Wolves.  Elaine is writing a new book about dogs and communication, perhaps to be titled, “How Dogs Civilized Humans”.  She will talk about the interconnection of dog and wolf.  And so much more.  It is my pleasure to support her in growing her social media strategy and her brand as her book grows and develops. The little ones you see, below, are Skeezix and Scamp – one hesitant and a little worrisome – the other – ok, let’s do it!  They say we all have our yin and yang inside of us…

If you would like to follow Elaine, she has a plethora of ways to do that:

Her blog:  http://dogsandwolves-smartoldlady.blogspot.com/

Her other blog:  http://smarthotoldlady.blogspot.com/

Her website:  http://elainechaika.com/

Her FB page:  https://www.facebook.com/AmazingDogsYoursAndMine

Her Twitter:  @OurAmazingDogs – https://twitter.com/OurAmazingDogs

Are YOU the story?

In the last few weeks of 2013, there were several stories involving the media that were not about the issues they were covering or the content they were seeking to cover.  Instead, the story became about the ‘journalist’ or media personality.  The story became lost in an inopportune use of a word or phrase, an open microphone, a misguided Tweet, or an on-air gaffe, that when judged in a short time frame decidedly came out all wrong.  And in a nano-second of social media the ‘journalist/personality’ BECAME the news.  The cause, the issue, the rich content, was lost, and all cameras turned inward on the reporter.

The traditional definition of a “journalist” is:  “a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television”, while the traditional definition of a “reporter” is similar:  “a person who reports, esp. one employed to report news or conduct interviews for newspapers or broadcasts.”.  Also, a “commentator” is defined as “a person who discusses news, sports, or other topics on TV or radio”.

However, we are living in a time of citizen journalism, and definitions are changing rapidly.  We are also living in a time of incredible speed pressures on reporters, journalists, etc. to get the news out there – “social it” while you are still finishing the last line of copy, in some cases.  No time to go back and check accuracies or choice of words – do that later.  “Say it” – becomes the mantra designed to target ratings, sweeps, or simply radio phones to ring.  Or to be first.  Always, to be first. And in all of this – a question:  ‘where did the news go’?  What happened to the point of the story? 

Did the reporter – or spokesperson – say something that I refer to as “red flag words”?  We all know what those are.  Those of us who work in the field of public relations and crisis communication know it far too well.  An example:  Vice President Biden leans in to President Obama and comments on signing of a major healthcare bill.  Straight into his open mic go the words, “this is a big fucking deal”.  Healthcare got lost in a hushed rush to dissect the line, get it on ‘the news’ – and there it goes….out to the masses. (PR people the world over simply closed their eyes, in a thought of solidarity – ‘oh, Joe…’).  Another example:  The Pope recently issues a statement that talks about the importance of training men in the clergy.  And he remarks that failure to do this and make the right choices creates “little monsters”.  Really?  Can you write the lead headline? 

Using these examples as well as one recently by Melissa Harris-Perry where she made humorous remarks about a photo of Mitt Romney’s huge white family, complete with a single African-American grandchild placed on his knee, went very bad.  This reporter/commentator was raised in an interracial family – as a matter of fact, she relating to being that single black child in a large white family, herself.  In moments, moments!, the story was lost in an ever thundering query of a poorly placed racial joke.  Made by a black reporter.

Click here:  http://youtu.be/fleGFsjmC_8

So, while it can be an average person who makes these gaffes, it is particularly troublesome to see the media do so.  It seems altogether out of professionalism to see the reporter not standing behind the story, but come out in front of it and become the story. 

This usually happens quite by accident, but with increasing frequency.  And what do you do when it happens?  In the world of crisis communications, most professionals abide by a “never say ‘no comment'” advice line to clients who find themselves in situations with a demand for comment from the media.  You can say nothing, but you must say something, is the way I’d prefer to advise.  But ‘no comment’ is a lightning rod.  It implies you have something to hide.  Or you doubly agree with your gaffe.  Or something worse is happening behind you.  And the media (once your friends) – and the public – dig in.  The story festers.  History, if there is history, gets dragged out, and the story reinvents itself over and over and develops, what we call “legs”. 

People, be careful of your words.  Don’t let a word become a story, or take your story and stomp on it. 

CLICK HERE:    http://youtu.be/VMkx2ZDJFjU 

Here is Toronto Mayor Rob Ford dancing to Bob Marley’s “One Love” – does anyone know why he was dancing?  (To celebrate jazz in Toronto, which was being recognized in congress that day).  This came after Ironically, a response Ford gave to the speaker of congress who had asked him for an apology:  Ford said, “How about, ‘I am so sorry’? Is that as good as I apologize? Or, ‘So sorry?’ Which one do you want, Madam Speaker? Like, ‘Super, super, super, super, super, super, super sorry? So sorry?’ Do you want me to dance around?”

Oh, well…..

“You don’t have to die today…”

Those were her words.  The words of Antoinette Tuff, an elementary school bookkeeper, who found herself the only thing between a 19 year old shooter and hundreds of children.  Her actions or inaction were critical.  But how many of us think we could come even close to being an Antoinette?  Some say a higher power was acting that day.  Antoinette says, “I’m no hero – I just give it all up to God.”

Interviews have been happening with negotiation experts, people who have trained all their lives for incidents no where near what Antoinette faced that day.  Experts who get tears in their eyes and stumble in the interviews because with no training at all, Antoinette displayed everything necessary, and then some, to be that hero on that day.

I must admit to being fairly mesmerized by this story…I’ve listened to the audio tapes.  I heard her say, “I love you, I’m proud of you.”  I heard her retell his explanation that he should have gone to a hospital; that he was off his medication, and more details that would be helpful to the 911 operator she was talking to.  But I also heard her say something else.  That last year her husband of 30 something years left her and she tried to commit suicide.  A little later I heard her talk about her child with multiple physical challenges.  You could literally feel the space between this young man and Antoinette disappear.  Now they were eye to eye, figuratively.   And their hearts were on the same plane.

Years from now hostage negotiators and conflict resolutors will diagram and dissect what Antoinette did this day.  They will attempt, and fail, to teach how to do what she did.  You can’t teach that.  You can make someone a better negotiator but to do what Antoinette did, well, you’d have to be a special person – you’d have to be Antoinette!

I think about two things.  One is how we educate people.  How we test them and evaluate them, but how little we know about personality and inner strength.  How we need more information to match people with sensitive jobs.  Doctors.  Therapists.  Lawyers.  Who will be those who excel, and why?  Also, what does this say about how we hire people for almost any job – what foolish questions we ask (i.e., tell me something you handled poorly at work, and why, and how you should have handled it better) – when we should be asking questions to reveal personality – trustworthiness, loyalty, honesty, strength, character, courage.  It makes me wonder what questions we should ask – (i.e., what in your life gives you strength, or who are your heroes, and why?).

This also makes me think about the power of our own stories.  The power to reach out to someone to help by revealing something about ourselves.  Find a common plane.  Be bold enough to share.  What do we really know about a lot of the people we spend time with?  What significant interaction do we have where we work, at networking meetings, on social media?  We live in a fast paced, and every increasingly so, environment.  Social media has even trained our eye to make it difficult to read long form media, multi-page articles in magazines.  Our commercials are now 30 seconds, because 1 full minute is just too long.  And I think about how the world slowed down for Antoinette and this young man.  How time stopped, there, in the school office – just the two of them, and a listener on the other end of the phone – and now we are the listener, the world is listening.

“You don’t have to die today…”

“I love you.”

“I’m proud of you for giving up.”

“We all have things that happen to us.”

“I’m not a hero…I just give it up to God.”

Every Picture Tells A Story, Don’t It?

This image was captured from a website of a law firm.  Rather than click around for the information I was looking for, it stopped me right there on the opening page.  What was the message?  Why did the web designer AND the company choose to take a very bland and corporate site and feature this artwork – these TWO pieces of art, in a contrast of bright color and provocative imaging.  The message might have been termed subliminal if it was a small image, but the creativity of this messaging and utilization of it on a website gives one – pause.  Reasons for accolades – kudos – smiles.

How often are we met with obvious signage – in obvious formats – in obvious and expected colors and shapes.  Go Slow.  Detour.  Caution.  Sale.  Enter.  Welcome.  Exit.  Watch Step.

Our minds may pick up on them if we are especially attuned for some reason – bad weather, unfamiliar road, new building.  But more often than not the simple messages fly right over our first degree awareness – surely our brains pick up on the message, but we may not hear or see or take their advice or caution.

When I was a child I was stymied by the yellow triangular sign – “Go Children Slow” – my brain stopped every time to ‘cifer this – what is “children slow” – or “go slow, [children]” – whatever the concept it still stops me as my brain ponders the multiple meanings.  We’ve probably seen the viral video of the woman who thought it was awful to have “Deer Crossing” on a highway – why would we lead deer to a dangerous road and then tell them to cross?  Oh, well…..

Are there more creative ways to communicate simple messages – yet, as in the case of this law firm, exquisitely unique and important concepts?  Left brain.  Right brain.  Left brain.  Right brain.  THAT gets our attention.

Art.  Music.  Color.  Appeal to the senses.

I walked into an elevator the other day in a very modern office building and was greeted by a sexy female voice which said, “you are go..ing….up”.  I immediately thought of a female “Hal”.  I smiled, but also knew that after 3 or 4 or 5 times in this elevator, people who frequent it will no longer smile at “She-Hal” – they will just ignore her.  I wondered if she has a vocabulary of sentences for various situations – “the elevator has encountered a problem  –  we are not moving – have no fear – we will be moving again soon” or “would the last person on please step off – our weight limit has been reached” or “that is a handsome suit you are wearing, sir”…think of the possibilities.

Next time you need to communicate an important message but once that is rather obvious or common – think about alternative messaging – right brain, let brain – and how, in one delightful moment you can capture the conscious moment of the person and not only communicate the concept, of say, “shhh”, but also, “this firm values your privacy highly in all ways and at all times – you are safe with us”.

http://youtu.be/6iqoBN6Rw78