A Touch of the Old Shrum Magic


British PM Gordon Brown has made a big splash at the Labour Party Conference. The dour rumpled technocrat came out swinging with a new hairstyle and a new passionate speaking style.


He’s certainly saying many of the right things regarding terrorism in the clip below (except for the absence of the verboten word “Islam.”) Note the special guest cameo appearance by Smeats, the Glaswegian Jack Bauer. Also, is it me or is Gordon Brown an unnerving combination of Richard Nixon and Dan Rather? Another reason to outlaw human cloning.



But fast forward and listen from about 3:40 onward. Sound familiar? It should if you’re an American voter.

Do you hear the revealing personal anecdotes, the sticky compassion dripping from every word, the shameless tugging at heartstrings? The Times online via An Englishman’s Castle has done a bit of pattern mapping to refresh your memory and it seems Gordon’s words bear the mark of the beast:


Al Gore 2000 nomination acceptance speech: I know my own imperfections. I know that sometimes people say I'm too serious, that I talk too much substance and policy.
Gordon Brown: Sometimes people say I am too serious and I fight too hard and maybe that's true.

Al Gore 2000 nomination acceptance speech: I pledge to you tonight: I will work for you every day and I will never let you down.
Gordon Brown: This is my pledge to the British people: I will not let you down.

John Kerry 2004 nomination acceptance speech: And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know
Gordon Brown: And this is my moral compass.

Bill Clinton 1995 State of the Union: As we move into this next century, everybody matters; we don't have a person to waste.
Gordon Brown: This is the century where our country cannot afford to waste the talents of anyone


Of course, that treacle you hear is extruded by none other than Bob Shrum, wordsmith to every formerly rising star in the Democratic Party.

For those unfamiliar with Shrum, he is the Angel of Political Death, the sea anchor on the ship of state, the losing-est political consultant since Joseph Goebbels.

Fresh from the John Kerry campaign, trailing clouds of glory and having exhausted all possibilities for defeat among the now canny Dems, has Shrum turned his magic on old Blighty?

I’d say that doesn’t bode well for Gordon Brown.

But more importantly, why would a mature political organization like the Labour Party want to imitate the transparent insincerity of the American political culture? Are American campaign consultants actually respected outside of the U.S.? Do overseas statesmen think these hacks are going to help them win elections?

And how can it be that the least imaginative consultant in history, a man who clearly cannot conceive of a single new talking point and therefore must recycle Spotted Dick from a decade ago, how can this guy support himself as a communicator?

And I ask you Washington, D.C. . . . what do you have to do to never work in this town again?

When No News Is Good News

Last week, UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer secured his spot in the media relations Hall of Fame by issuing perhaps the greatest holding statement ever written:

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”

The beauty of this is that, except for extraordinary situations, any spokesman for any organization can issue the exact same statement and mitigate whatever bad news is also being announced.

Try it.

"Sales of our most important product offering were down this quarter by 48% in the United States. But we categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

"We have failed in our attempt to cut funding for American troops in the field and secure an ignoble defeat for our nation thereby disgracing ourselves and the U.S. Senate. But we catregorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

Plus, the statement can be positioned as a potent but thinly veiled threat simply by adding the word "yet" to the ending.

Brilliant.


(via things)

Culture, Corporate

Since most of us spend the better part of our waking hours at work with a bunch of other people we probably wouldn't communicate with unless we were forced to by an employer, corporate culture is vitally important to our feelings of personal growth, achievement and self-worth.

As Eliot Noyes said, corporations, like people, give off clues to their characters in the ways they present themselves. Here are two video clues presenting two very different corporate cultures.

The first is from Ernst & Young and the clues coming off of this video couldn’t be more clear. Working here is awkward and stultifying. Join us and be a drone. Give us thirty of the best years of your life and we’ll give you a lovely keepsake timepiece at the end of it.



Jeez, it’s like a commercial for WhiteWorld.

Now compare that to this time waster from Connected Ventures. Just as white and probably even more insufferable but a whole lot more fun. They're saying, we get paid for being competitively outrageous. We have no shame about trendy eyeglasses and we can almost grow beards. BTW, this video will only look cool for approximately two more weeks.







Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo


These two videos have been making their way through the corporate blogosphere and I found them on KnowHR and Johnnie Moore.

Perhaps it’s not fair to compare an accounting firm with a bunch of beer swilling twenty year olds who spend their time designing funny tee shirts, but surely in between the two is the perfect work environment . . . and most of us know instinctively on which end of the spectrum our environment lies.

Keep in mind, Ernst & Young spent good money on that trash and the other one was made in one take with a handheld camera. The biggest cost was in lost productivity as the whole office goofs off for a half hour.

You’d think a bunch of global business consultants would know better. But there’s an honesty in their effort. They can’t sing, they have no rythym, they’re geeks who belong firmly behind a desk. That truly is the E&Y culture.

And all that’s all fine because I’d never buy a funny tee-shirt from E&Y and I wouldn’t let those kids near my P&L statements.