CAPE COD — Yes, it’s not fair to spend a week or two here every few years and make some big assumptions.  So let’s just call these some observations.  Asides. 

As always, you can be quickly impressed with the core ‘brand’ of America.  It’s a patriotism that is remarkable for a country that is so young [...]]]>  

CAPE COD — Yes, it’s not fair to spend a week or two here every few years and make some big assumptions.  So let’s just call these some observations.  Asides. 

As always, you can be quickly impressed with the core ‘brand’ of America.  It’s a patriotism that is remarkable for a country that is so young and so disparate.  We’ve seen school teachers singing God Bless America at baseball games, flags draped from every surface and people who are so secure in where and who they are that all other worried seem to drop away.

But America is changing.  The core is constantly moving.  And the country and the people in it seem to also have an in-built ability to accept and quickly adapt to change.

Here are a few examples:

1. The end of the newspaper

It really makes me sad to say, but they’re dying.  Even the New York Times, which I have long looked forward to like a healthy, meaty salad of good things that I often didn’t know I enjoyed.  It’s got nothing much in it anymore.  And in a world where I want everyone to know more about current events, the NYT is writing about topics that even I can’t get excited about.

My own hometown paper went from 7 days a week to 6 last week.  It’s basically an advertising circular.

2. Politics is boring

I hate to say that too.  But it is.  The issues that America is grappling with are not that exciting.  Healthcare.  A foreign war.  The radicalisation of the media and the political parties.  There’s only so much you can read about it.

So it seems to be changing.  Local, quiet activism — where many national and state politicians are coming from — is the order of the day.  There’s less name-calling and more action.  And it’s working.

3. Subsidised lifestyles

It’s impossible for any foreigner (except one from the Middle East) to pass a petrol station here and not be amazed at the cost of gas.  It’s less than half that of London.  And even UK prices are subsidised.

Quality schools, public transport, and social services are all better than most Americans recognise.  You can hear seemingly normal people here talk about the ‘creeping socialism’ in America.  Like a monster under the bed.  But in many ways America invented a new, commercial socialism years and years ago, and has been refining the model ever since.

4. Common ground on the environment

Americans don’t like their heroes to be pious in any way.  So Al Gore will never be sainted in this lifetime.  But America has taken environmentalism to it’s heart.  It’s not something that you paint as extreme anymore.  No one is saying the Gulf of Mexico is okay.  People are buying cleaner cars.

You can get a $15,000 fine for littering on the local roads.  By my calculation you could get the same fine if you were caught driving at roughly 1,510 miles per hours.

Hmm.

5. Integration and adaptation

It’s easy to be dismissive say that America is a melting pot and therefore no cultures survive.  But that’s rubbish.  It is clear that there is a functional common ground of language and culture.  But it’s not legislation that drives that.  It’s size and force of will.

There is every kind of person in America.  Every culture.  Every language… even every kind of pasta.  So you can’t get a decent Tikka Masala or french baguette… but you can get amazing films, wines, sports equipment, books and anything else that the world might produce… including proper tortillas.

We can learn from America, just as America learns from those who come here.

When it comes to change management America knows what the goal is.  They know the change path.  they recognise a burning platform and they mobilise themselves to get there.

It works.

/df

CAP COD — I love my trips to America.  It’s probably any change of scenery that makes you think twice.  But here you learn so much in a short amount of time.  Today I am learning sales from the shopping networks and even the carved wood signs in this faux-modest summer haven.

“Free Air” a grage down [...]]]>

CAP COD — I love my trips to America.  It’s probably any change of scenery that makes you think twice.  But here you learn so much in a short amount of time.  Today I am learning sales from the shopping networks and even the carved wood signs in this faux-modest summer haven.

“Free Air” a grage down the street trumpets on a hanging engraved sign.

“No transfats” it says on the side of a tin of iced tea mix.

Well, that’s good.  I think maybe Able and How should take a lesson from this.  What do you think?  “No animals harmed in our consulting.”  We could put that on our website.

My shampoo here — a brand that probably says the same thing in England — has “effused with sea mineral essence” on the side.  As a way of making me feel better.

I do, of course.

Today I was told off as I cycled down the local roads (the ones that didn’t have prominent signs saying “PRIVATE ROAD” that is.)  I was told off for not saying hello to someone as I walked by.

We don’t do that in Montreal.  Or in London, for that matter.

Maybe we should.

/df

SW6 — It’s been a really great World Cup.  I am watching it with some South Africans.  They were the ones saying it might be a train-crash of a tournament.  And now they’re proud.

And they’re suddenly feeling quite Dutch too.

Here are 5 things I have learned that also translate into the workplace:

1. The [...]]]>

SW6 — It’s been a really great World Cup.  I am watching it with some South Africans.  They were the ones saying it might be a train-crash of a tournament.  And now they’re proud.

And they’re suddenly feeling quite Dutch too.

Here are 5 things I have learned that also translate into the workplace:

1. The noisiest manager aren’t necessarily the best. (Stand up England, Argentina, France…)

2. Pretending to be sick, creating dramatics and appealing to higher authorities regularly doesn’t advance you career.

3. Sometimes things are unfair.  Suck it up and carry on.

4. Sometimes you can prepare for years, practice like crazy, travel a great distance… and get stretchered off after 5 minutes.

5. Even when you get a result, you will be penalised if you take off your shirt and run around screaming.

/df

BELGRAVIA — It’s sometimes worth pushing your chair back and having a moment to think.

What do you make of this picture (above)? 

It’s from this week’s media and is a photo of the Argentina football team coming home.

I love it for all that is obvious about it.  And also all that is incredibly weird about it.  [...]]]>

BELGRAVIA — It’s sometimes worth pushing your chair back and having a moment to think.

What do you make of this picture (above)? 

It’s from this week’s media and is a photo of the Argentina football team coming home.

I love it for all that is obvious about it.  And also all that is incredibly weird about it.  If you left this planet even 10 years ago you would have no idea what all the little blue lights are.

But to us, it seems quite normal.

Why is that?

Could it be that the future has arrived?

Monday there was a great hoax for anoraks like us.  It was said (and shown) that Monday was the day that Doc programmed into the clock in the car for in Back to the Future.

It’s a shame it’s not true.  Like most good hoaxes it seems credible. 

Maybe the future is here when have more toys than we know what to do with.  And we’ve stopped waiting for the rocket cars.

/df

HYDE PARK — I watched an episode of Mission: Impossible with my 11-year-old yesterday.  It was 1968 and they had to trick a bad guy into believing it he’d been frozen for 12 years.  So they froze him and he “woke up in 1980″.

It was great to see what 1980 looked like from 1968.  There [...]]]>

HYDE PARK — I watched an episode of Mission: Impossible with my 11-year-old yesterday.  It was 1968 and they had to trick a bad guy into believing it he’d been frozen for 12 years.  So they froze him and he “woke up in 1980″.

It was great to see what 1980 looked like from 1968.  There were rocket cars, flat screen TVs, lots of buttons to push, and no more money. It was all just cards.  But, yea, there was still an attractive woman to take your order and/ or your bedpan.

I often wonder how far short we have fallen of my grandmothers’ sense of what the future would hold? 

Last week a lady came in for a visit,  she’s been laid off while on maternity leave and had been told convincingly by someone that ‘mothers never get their good jobs back’.

That winds me up.

She’ll need flexible hours and maybe short weeks, but she’s ready to work… and yet she’s convinced the world is not ready for her. 

There must be a better way. 

We’ve got the flat screen TVs, the Internet, we’ve even got cars that go like rockets.  But 51% of the population think they can’t work and have a family.

/df

PICCADILLY — My dad used to say that sometimes you had to wait for a few parishioners to die before you could make changes to the church.

It was typical of his kind of wry sense of the ridiculous.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.  It is a great truism that people have to [...]]]>

PICCADILLY — My dad used to say that sometimes you had to wait for a few parishioners to die before you could make changes to the church.

It was typical of his kind of wry sense of the ridiculous.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.  It is a great truism that people have to be able to adapt, or no progress can be made.

Looking today at the speculated new list of England players for World Cup 2014 (did you think we wouldn’t start talking about it yet?!), they’re almost all new.  As they should be.

I remember the shock when The Dreaded Sven brought in a whole new generation and shipped out the old.  But, bless him, it worked.

And then you have work situations:

• The newly merged company boss who wants to know why they can’t just use his old company’s ways

• The head of department who wants to turn her team upside down, but doesn’t want to upset anyone

• The process of replacing the unhappy employee that looks for the same kind of person for the same kind of job

• The business that can’t serve it’s clients and wants a contractor to do it at no loss of revenue

• The organisation that cannot change so they have brought in consultants, and won’t let them change anything

It’s perhaps symptomatic of the way people are.  We know the medicine, we just regularly ‘forget’ to take it.

/df

PICCADILLY CIRCUS — There’s a nicely dressed lady sitting in front of me on the bus – hair done, Dolce glasses.  And she keeps falling asleep.  It’s 7:50 am.  And she’s on her way to work like the rest of us.

I am nervous for her neck, which keeps snapping.  We don’t have the natural dexterity [...]]]>

PICCADILLY CIRCUS — There’s a nicely dressed lady sitting in front of me on the bus – hair done, Dolce glasses.  And she keeps falling asleep.  It’s 7:50 am.  And she’s on her way to work like the rest of us.

I am nervous for her neck, which keeps snapping.  We don’t have the natural dexterity of a Pez dispenser.

I have the bad luck of often getting mini-cab drivers who fall asleep while driving.  I once shared a car across France with a business friend, and his driver fell asleep at the wheel on the autoroute. (We were stopped in traffic.)

But what is it about this modern world that causes people to constantly be exhausted.  Even my 7-year-old wakes up looking like he’s spent a night on the tiles.

There’s got to be a better way to live.

/df

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging [...]]]>

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging around late in cinemas just to stare in awe at the screen. Why do we need to have “credits” for the caterers assistant?

Why do the arts and the softer sciences need to be so self-congratulatory?

It does none of us any good.

Can you imagine a great big banner being pulled behind an aircraft: “And the guy who polished the wing was called Gus…”?

/df

OXFORD STREET — At my local Starbucks everyone this morning was ending their sentences with “…for you.”  I think if I worked there I’d start doing it too.  It’s a cross over from a number of European languages that add the possessive to sentences for emphasis.

We don’t really do it English so much.

Except we do [...]]]>

OXFORD STREET — At my local Starbucks everyone this morning was ending their sentences with “…for you.”  I think if I worked there I’d start doing it too.  It’s a cross over from a number of European languages that add the possessive to sentences for emphasis.

We don’t really do it English so much.

Except we do now.

And why not?

We were cheering for Mexico in my house last night.  My kids are 1/4 Mexican.  And word from the other side of the ocean is that my mother-in-law was shouting at the TV and my macho brother-in-law was crying.

But we’ve actually spent far more time in France.  Cheering for the winners is maybe the fun bit.

There’s a story in the paper today about how the UK is suffering the creeping influence of Latin America.  Apparently there’s an Brazilian ice cream shop in Newcastle.

My British business partner has just gone on holiday in his native Italy.  With his Indian wife.

What have we become!

Pluralistic.  Open-minded.  And a damn sight more interesting.  Is the answer.

In my native Canada we’re still pretending that arguments about French and English matter.  In the UK we’re pretending that Class is an issue.  It’s not.  Ask the England football team.

Let’s more on. 

Is that okay, for you?

/df

HOME — I used to have a Klingon cookbook.  No, it was Lt. Uhura’s Cookbook.  But there was Klingon it it.  That was in university.  More than 20 years ago.

I never cooked anything from it.

Are you kidding?

But I moved it from dorm to dorm and house to house.  I thought its simple existence was funny [...]]]>

HOME — I used to have a Klingon cookbook.  No, it was Lt. Uhura’s Cookbook.  But there was Klingon it it.  That was in university.  More than 20 years ago.

I never cooked anything from it.

Are you kidding?

But I moved it from dorm to dorm and house to house.  I thought its simple existence was funny enough.  (Yes, not everyone shared my sense of humour then either.)

However, my daughter has just brought the world of Fan Fiction to my attention.  It seems that Star Trek was even a pivotal modern outburst of it.  Followed by Star Wars… And today people like Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling, for the Twilight and Harry Potter series, even actively encourage it, saying they read it.

It’s a really interesting phenomenon.  And not one without it’s legal and copyright implications.

So my question today is: Why don’t brands do it more?

People write Star Trek cookbooks because they are obsessed with the show.  And one assumes they buy other people’s Star Trek cookbooks.  But what about great brands and companies? 

Imagine some of the great BP fiction that could come out of the Deepwater Horizon situations?!

Okay, maybe that’s not the best example.

But what about other, more day-to-day examples?

I think it’s a heck of an idea.

I think I’ll talk to some clients about it this week.

/df