step on the peel: July 2004

Saturday, July 17, 2004

There will be time

There will be time to step on the peel (there is always time for that). However, writing about it will have to wait a small while as I simply must shower.

Friday, July 16, 2004

addendum

the purpose of the previous rant was to make a point. one of the realities that we are in the business of massaging is the self-perception of organizations. now, the thing to ask yourself as honestly as possible is: how do i want to imagine my organization behaving? how does it actually behave?

everybody wants to think they're the good guy - everybody has a rationalization for everything they do. if we all looked at the naked truth about ourselves...well...we'd all be living naked in huts, probably. which sounds rather attractive to us, but that's a separate discussion.

this society, this culture, this economy/market runs on carefully tailored, well groomed, deeply researched, tested and proven, organized constellations of pure bullshit.

here's the thing: bullshit doesn't fall from the sky, nor does it lie around like rocks. bullshit has to be shat by a bull, eating something. grass, maybe. or, old bullshit.

do you catch where we're going here?

the most supportable business model, then, is one in which overhead is completely circumvented by successfully feeding the clients their own bullshit.

The Blind Leading The Naked

Quickly - what are the correct completions for the following statements?

It is contingent upon businesses interested in taking money from people to:

1. Provide quality goods and/or services
2. Provide quality goods and/or services as advertised
3. Provide goods and/or services as advertised
4. Provide goods and/or services
5. Provide something
6. Not get caught
7. Know the judge personally

It is contingent upon businesses interested in continuing to take money from the same people to:

1. Answer all questions and requests positively
2. Answer all questions and requests punctually
3. Answer all questions and requests, eventually
4. Ask all callers to "Please hold for the next available representative"
5. Offer an email address, which doesn't work either
6. Declare bankruptcy at close of sale
7. Know the judge personally

It is contingent upon businesses interested in securing investors to:

1. Pitch an exemplary product/service that makes more money than it costs to produce
2. Pitch a product/service that might end up making back what it cost to produce
3. Deliver a really cool prototype
4. Deliver the design for a really cool prototype
5. Deliver a PowerPoint about nothing in particular
6. Stay awake all the way through investor meetings
7. "Thank you for your email. I am currently away from the office..."

Thursday, July 15, 2004

doing business in a culture of damaged trust

as professional snake oil salesman, the culture of mistrust in which we live in this first decade of the new millenium isn't a challenge - it's a goldmine to the adventurous, to the daring.

how could this be so?

let me put it to you straight. until now, business was done by pulling the wool over people's eyes. making silk purses out of sow's ears, and vice versa. holding one's customers - one's constituency, if you will - in contempt. the idea was to eat people, basically - or burn them like presto logs, make lampshades and soap out of them. k. w. jeter's prophetic novel, noir, described the concept of "TIAC™", or "Turd In A Can", which is really a hyper-realization of typical pre-millenial practices, being replaced with "TOAW™", or "Turd On A Wire" - no turd, not even any can - just robbing people. or as some people glibly call it, Dotcommunism.

naturally, most intelligent human beings, assuming there are any left, don't trust us, as well they shouldn't; and the rest will follow wherever they lead.

lying to people the old way isn't just bad for business - it's not what's for sale any more. instead, we are proposing a new format:

catering the lies to the self-deceptive whims our clients require.

people more than anything want to buy an idea of themselves. the question is, how durable is j. crew's idea of the self, or gap's idea of the self, or banana republic's idea of the self? let alone, target or wal-mart's idea of the self? well, we know some ideas of the self that are very durable:

1. white/black/etc.
2. jewish/catholic/muslim/etc.
3. democrat/republican/etc.
4. liberal/conservative/libertarian/etc.
5. american/french/etc.
6. marxist/capitalist/etc.
7. gay/straight/bi/trans/etc.

let's leave the list at lucky 7 for now.

our premise is that even these ideas of self are up for grabs, and soon discerning clients with capital to spend are going to want new ones.

some new fulcrums/pivot points where we may be able to aim our laser beams in the future:

1. "human/post-human"
2. "terrestrial/extra-terrestrial"
3. "biological/post-biological"
4. "mortal/immortal [or post-mortal]"

you get the picture. what's important to recognize is that these are about ideas of self, not so much actualities - so it's irrelevant whether people are, in fact, post-human, extraterrestrial, actual blood sucking vampires, etc. - just that they enjoy thinking of themselves that way and will pay us money to help them sustain that illusion.

so the fulcrums/pivot points for the consumer vs. marketer relationship here, then, are as follows:

1. sell me an image that looks like what i dream of being but no amount of excercise, diet, surgery, or costume change could ever make possible - and remember, that's the image, no thing itself - no clothes or accessories, that's for some other mook to dick around with
2. sell me a world where a creature like that moves - and again, not a real "world", not a ticket, not even a movie with great special effects, just the pitch
3. sell me exclusivity - in other words, keep others out.

now the important thing to note here is that in the 21st century and beyond, the new infotech/infoecon prevents real exclusivity, so a large part of what we sell is a sort of imagined, ideational exclusivity.

the way you accomplish this, of course, is imagining a package that is desireable yet shameful.

in other words -

we are going to sell people the Human Shadow.

even better, what this implies is we are going to sell them a part of themselves - in other words, we are going to sell them something they already own.

how fucking perfect is that???!

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

who doesn't like a little chocolate-dipped banana now and then?

i was having one of those aimless fantasies today, this one inspired by a furtive hershey bar enjoyed in the heat of my airconditionless office with lots of windows.

i wondered what it would be like to be a hapless lower tier ad executive working the hershey's account. you have no knowledge of popular culture or slang. you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a tv spot that jingles, "take a sweet trip down the hershey highway!" of course the BOD, CEO etc. have absolutely no clue. they're a bunch of gray haired suits. the only person who knows what's going on is the homophobic IT guy, who is snickering behind his hand, waiting to see who gets fired in disgrace first.

but for those few fleeting moments of sweet ignorance, you even sing it to yourself on the subway..."mmm mmm, take a sweet trip...yeah...what a great marketing plan! i'm going to make junior partner by the end of the month!"

falling is easy. it's the landing that's hard.

people don't want to take risks. they would prefer to be able to push a button on their remote control and get their lives on demand. or better yet, they'd like to have it beamed straight into their skulls via satellite-uplinked brain chip without having to lift a finger.

inspired by the theory of worst practices, we said, fuck that. innovation comes from taking dumb chances and stupid risks; creativity isn't sober, it's reckless as a drunk driver. you might die, sure...or you might step on the peel, and instead of cracking open your skull on the pavement like an over-ripe melon, you instead just might surrender to weightlessness.

superflatmonkey is throwing the banana peel. you're here, so your foot is already on its way down. the question is - are you afraid to float, human?

[ed. note: superflatmonkey™ was created many years ago in ignorance of the trendyness of the smart assed monkey concept that now seems trendy among certain blogeurs and fashion designers. who the fuck cares? our monkey isn't cute. it's the cannibalistic, chronic-masturbator monkey of your worst nightmares. deal with it. we are all monkeys, but only the few and the proud are both super and flat.]

step on the peel