The Fat Tax

This past week, the State of Alabama announced a plan to increase monthly health insurance premiums for state employees who are obese.  Media coverage questioned this, focusing on the complex nature of obesity, including the genetic predispositions of body type as well as some of the other conditions that will trigger the supplemental expense, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high glucose levels.

Of course it's problematic to punish someone because of a genetic predisposition.  There was less discussion, though, about the growing predisposition of the government to legislate against and punish lifestyle choices, and that's the trend that feels most creepy.   (That and the unasked question of how much the pharma industry was involved in this development).

We've moved our Victorian morality show from street drugs to smoking to eating, and with the trans-fat legislation on both coasts along with this Alabama initiative we're hitting the offenders at both the dealer and user levels. 

The links between obesity and a number of serious health problems have been demonstrated repeatedly.  I find the sedentary nature of our technocracy troubling and certainly want a nation full of fit, healthy citizens.   But I also believe that people shouldn't walk three-aside on crowded city streets and I'm not petitioning my local government for relief.

I am not a libertarian.  I think there are many places where the collective can render superior results for society.   But I don't want my government to get in the business of telling someone to eat less or pay.   We're supposed to be about choice in this country.   Let people do what they want more or less and we'll pay a certain price for it, some more than others, but the alternative is far worse.   

Where does it end?   A calorie-added tax?  An ice cream assessment?  How about a gas tax on beans?  And why not other behavior choices?    Stress is more detrimental to the collective health than obesity.  We can use the toll-lane approach and strap transponders to our bodies.  When our systolic pressure reading goes a certain percentage above baseline we have to pay a blood-pressure toll to our local police force or first responders.

We can measure the indicators for anger and legislate a tax when we get red-faced.  A lack of confidence could be assessable, or passive-aggressive behavior, or addictive tendencies.   How about a negative attitude, or excessive contemplation?

Go ahead, laugh.  But imagine reading in your newspaper, in the 1950s, an article about the first American suburbs, such as Levittown. Imagine some op-ed lunatic ranting about how in 50 years time this would lead to locked communities that would tell you how high your grass could grow and the exact width of the slats in your picket fence.

Or that your grandchildren living in San Francisco would someday be considered criminals for failing to separate recyclables from trash.  You'd just shake your head and turn on Milton Berle.

So check back in ten years and see what they're telling us we can't do then.

Google's Cattle Call

Tuesday's Chronicle reports that an analysis by two German zoologists of more than 8,500 Google Earth satellite images from around the world suggests that cows at rest tend to orient themselves towards magnetic north.   

It has long been known that some animals have magnetite particles in their brains, which act as a kind of compass.  But this is the first suggestion that the phenomenon may also be true for large land mammals.

What has not long been known, but is being suggested as a result of these findings, is that this is an effort by Google to gain dominion over not just the human race, but also "over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

The zoologists found that 2 out of 3 cows were oriented towards magnetic north.  What the story did not say is that it is believed that 1 in 3 cows have shifted their orientation towards Mountain View, California, the location of Google's human corporate headquarters.

It is alleged that cows are being fed edible parcels of text sent from Google servers to bovine clients on ranches and feed lots throughout the known universe.  These cookies are returned to the servers via the cow's grazer browser. 

Whether this is intentional, or what Google plans to do with the information is unclear.  Google officials did not return unplaced phone calls.

The zoologists did not comment on speculation that takeout coffee is being supplemented with magnetite particles in order to align customers towards Magnetic Starbucks.   Of course, there are so many of them in all directions that an interior compass would only become disoriented.

What Really Makes PR Valuable?

I've been thinking quite a bit about the recent Alley Insider interview with Jason Calacanis.

His advice: don't use a PR firm or an in-house veteran. He says that you don't need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. Public relations by nature has always had a lousy reputation. Some call us flacks, some tell us that we tout fluff.

Sure, there are situations where companies have spent a lot of money on PR and gained very little if nothing at all. It happens, just as hiring a sales guy could yield you very little ROI in some cases, particularly early on. The timing is wrong, the person isn't the right cultural fit, their background doesn't match your needs.

His philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real. The "be amazing" part is really referring to Godin's Purple Cow. How can you really stand out amidst the noise unless you're extraordinary? You. And your product.

How many times have you seen a fabulous product but you think the CEO is arrogant or the product sucks but you want them to win because the team is so great? So, by nature, being amazing is harder said than done. It's not just that the product and team need to be great, but the timing needs to be right as well. We've all seen launches flop because the product was too early for the masses to adopt it or too late and the market was too crowded.

What if you have a great CEO and a fairly decent product but its not amazing? What if you're in the middle? You don't have another Google, Amazon, Yahoo, YouTube, or Apple but you have great revenue potential and are tapping into a great need. What if you don't have Jobs charisma and drive or Jason's contacts, confidence and decade of industry experience? What if, simply, you're not designed that way?

Secondly, he says be everywhere. I agree and it works, but it means your life becomes your work and your work becomes your life. (which is okay for some, particularly young unattached entrepreneurs in their early twenties).

What if "being everywhere" takes away from your ability to stay close to your engineering team to ensure the best possible features are delivered on time? What if "being everywhere" isn't in your nature and you'd rather be building products than chatting with press and bloggers?

What if you're trying to grow a company and you have three kids at home who want as much of your time as your team does? What if you believe in excellence and being amazing but also want balance in your life? More folks I know than not who are "everywhere" are not married or if they are, they don't have small children at home.

Frankly, that argument can be extended to a number of other "fluff" categories like marketing, advertising and in some rooms, new business development. Of course a good new biz guy directly impacts the bottom line once that deal flow starts flowing in. In many cases, when its a 'trade' rather than money exchanging hands, that value isn't as obvious.

The same applies to PR. It's about building relationships -- over time. It doesn't mean as a CEO you can't build those relationships and be in as many places as you can. Most reporters and bloggers I know would rather hang out with a founder than a flack.

That said, managing that process and building relationships with those influencers takes a substantial amount of time -- and trust. Just like a great new biz guy who has worked with their counterparts in giants like Nokia, Microsoft, HP, Oracle and Google, great PR folks have worked with journalists from the NY Times, Newsweek, Family Circle and blog networks for years.

We forget that while the blogosphere has exploded and opened up more and more content outlets for us to talk to (and read), the basics haven't changed. For all the reporters and bloggers who don't like PR folks, there are a ton who value those relationships.

Through ongoing interactive dialogue, both sides can discuss ideas, and learn about new products and innovations while the founder can focus on doing his job -- driving revenue, raising capital if necessary, motivating his management team, signing deals.

And then there's 'being real.' I assume that means being authentic, honest and following through with what you say you're going to do. May as well say "be human, be courteous, be genuine." All founders should follow that rule. It's a great one. This is also a lot of work, not because its hard to be genuine, but because it takes time to reach out to people, pay attention to what they're saying, and actually "listen."

He says, "things that look like an "overnight success" typically are not." So true, I tell clients this all the time and prospects who think a quick hit in the WSJ will turn them into the next YouTube.

He also tells companies to "be their brands" and to be a human being....which is followed by this statement: "journalists hate PR people and they hate being pitched. They do. It's just a fact. Journalists and bloggers despise PR people, and if they say otherwise they are lying, placating you or just being diplomatic."

This may be true in some cases (I know plenty who complain), but in this context, I'm reading that to mean that PR folks are not human beings, or at the very least, journalists and bloggers don't think so. Odd, since I have a number of friends who are both bloggers and journalists. (and have been for more than a decade).

While it appears that he hates PR folks as much as his journalist friends do, he has some great pointers that the really good publicists and CEOs I know follow. There is value to great PR (and yes I mean those who actually do it for a living as well as CEOs who "get it") just as there's value to great sales and marketing skills.

Those who are in my biz have all experienced this scenario. Your CEO wants an article in the WSJ or New York Times and this is the main way they measure their PR success.

Reminds Jason, "getting someone at The New York Times, WIRED or The Wall Street Journal to pay attention to you can take years. Small publications, however, don't get their calls responded to by the big companies. This creates two big wins for you:

a) Small publications have more time for you
b) Big publications troll the small publications for stories"

Yes yes and yes. And remember that some of those small publications may be much more targeted to your audience anyway. I'm amazed at how much effort start-ups put into getting covered by GigaOm, Mashable and TechCrunch. I love and read these blogs, don't get me wrong, but if your customer is anything like my cousins in the small towns of this vast country, they're not going to learn anything about your product through those outlets.

And, increasingly my clients are trying to reach audiences that are still slow to blogs. Blogs will ultimately reach all of us one day and perhaps the esoteric long tail ones centered around a specific passion is the way to go, even if their numbers are a quarter of the size of the majors. It starts with a conversation and then you build from there.

In other words, PR is about more than getting ink. It's more than pitching. It's more than writing press releases. It always has been.......it's always been about building relationships, creating a brand, establishing trust and watching one successful milestone after another -- over time. Alongside persistence, vision, passion, and authenticity, I'd also add faith, patience and grace.

On Being Fearless

I just finished Steve Chandler's book entitled Fearless. It's one of a handful of Chandler's books I've read in the last year.

Fearless seems to be on people's minds. Arianna Huffington wrote a book on Fearless, which I blogged about earlier this year. Diana Palmer and Jack Campbell also wrote books called Fearless, although their books don't fall into the self help and motivational categories.

Books that have Fearless in a broader title weave self-help messages throughout, such as Guy Finley's Essential Laws of Fearless Living: Find the Power to Never Feel Powerless Again.

One of Chandler's key mantras is that "Success is just a mindshift away." There's no question that fear is a key element that holds us back. I'd go so far to say is that it is nearly the only factor. There are some factors that are beyond our control, but those are not the ones that people spend their time feeling paralyzed over.

I've read numerous books that use fear as a way to demonstrate a point. The Secret does this too. I increasingly find people who have issues with the book. Shift your mind, shift your life. Frankly, I think people take this stuff too literally.

Having experienced the mindshift that Chandler talks about, I know this stuff works. When your mind shuts down and your heart takes over, you'll discover blissful magic if you allow yourself to stay there long enough.

Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and numerous others write about fear and the power of shifting your mind in a second from fear to love, fear to courage, fear to faith, fear to commitment.......in other words, values that oppose fears (or thoughts, because that's all they are), that sabotage your life.

Chandler's approach is extremely simple. Each chapter ranges from one to three pages and they offer valuable "lessons," the kind of lessons you'd hear at a Sunday school, yet none of his references or examples involve religion or even reference spirituality. They do however ask your mind to take a break.

Enter Eckhart Tolle, who continues to fascinate me. I've read all of his books except for New Earth which just arrived from Amazon this month.

Here he implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity. What I'm most looking forward to is his detailed descripton of how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates. When our minds are overactive and begin to spin, this my friends is where fear has a field day.

Tolle is complex. While I love his writing, it takes me time to get through his books. Chandler's style is much more informal. Think storyteller around a fire, where you'll leave with a lot of interesting reflections.

Through his short breezy chapters with great names (Death is like the rose, Books have always changed lives, Dance me through the panic, Before birth and after death, No fear like money fear, etc etc), you rediscover witty and important lessons that are so basic, you find yourself thinking - "but of course, this is hardly profound or new."

Yet we still let fear get in the way. He almost makes you feel silly for allowing fear to impact our lives. Once we can reduce a fearful thought to silly, we're on our way to leaving that fear permanently behind us. Quotes from greats like Lao Tzu, Henry James, Rumi, and Leonard Cohen also make their way into his lessons.

Time is never disappearing. He writes, "a lot of fear arises when we think about disappearing time. The sand running out of the hourglass. But while feeling that way, you miss something. You miss the secret truth (and therefore beauty) beneath this gathering storm of unfinished tasks: you have all the time in the world. You have nothing but time."

He continues, "time is what being alive is made of. If you'll slow down, you'll feel it." I love this by Ambrose Redmoon: "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

My favorite chapter name has to be this one: Why am I living like a caged animal? Hmmmm, did he ever meet Howard Hughes? You don't have to think like Hughes to be living like a caged animal. He observes parents at a basketball game, who were furious with the referees or the coaches. It's the watchers that have the problems he says. The passive who go crazy with rage.

He asserts that "fearless means you're not just watching. Not just imagining. Not just picturing and attracting. You're actually doing things. You're in the game. Fearless means that you yourself are building the birdhouse."

A Missed Gnomedex Agenda

I missed Gnomedex this year. I was an early attendee when it was largely geeks talking about RSS and social media. It has grown and broadened and this year, I know and am a fan of 80% of the speakers.

I'm conferenced out for the majority of the year and August is that one month, that one "we hope" slow month when you can catch up, regroup and play in nature, as often and as much as possible. Not so much the case this year. I have to keep reminding myself that there is no summer in San Francisco and if you want to play in nature and be warm while you're doing it, you need to venture north or south by a couple of hours.

Stuck with a cold Bay Area August this year, I'm reading through some of what I missed at Gnomedex. Women on the agenda. Good stuff.

Eve Maler spoke about online relationships and how they're transforming not just our businesses but our lives. When dealing with websites and online vendors of all sorts, the price we’re forced to pay in order to get differentiated service is to “hand over the data” – data about us that’s sensitive, valuable, and personal. It fragments not only the pieces of information that represent us online, and not only our sense of control, but our actual influence over these relationships.

Sarah Lacy on the growing blogosphere angst: what Happens when you get what you want. On the geekier side, Larry Halff and Tara Hunt teamed up to talk about how Ma.gnolia has implemented many of the tools of the open web such as OpenID, OAuth and Microformats.

And then a discussion about Generation Y and more on privacy. What privacy? Instantaneous access to information about people’s lives changes the expectation of privacy, posing the question: how will people in Generation Y keep anything to themselves?

Other speakers and sponsors below. Looked like a great program Chris and Ponzi. Keep it up! (but please cast my vote to move the date to earlier in the summer :-)

PlanetEye Meets the Needs of Food Loving Travelers

Today, client PlanetEye adds features to their one-stop travel destination site that food fans will love. For food-loving travelers, PlanetEye serves up a variety of ways to do everything from making restaurant reservations (OpenTable) to reading extensive content from a growing number of professional sources, and reviews from other users.

Among the selections on PlanetEye’s content menu are the New York Times, Wine Spectator, Roadfood and Where the Locals Eat. PlanetEye is now partnering with Roadfood, which features more than 1,300 places to eat on the highways and back roads throughout North America.

Says Roadfood co-author Stephen Rushmore, “It's a perfect marriage given Roadfood is focused on telling road warriors about the best places to dine when driving, while PlanetEye is all about giving travelers valuable insight and highlighting places that you don't find in most travel guides.”

PlanetEye is also working with OpenTable. Douglas Boake, senior vice-president, business development with OpenTable says, "Being able to integrate our reservation engine within PlanetEye is a win-win proposition. OpenTable's restaurants will get more business from travelers looking for great places to dine, while PlanetEye can offer its users an easy and efficient way to make online reservations."

Another way PlanetEye provides valuable and useful information about food is through the flagship travel-planning tool called the Travel Pack. A Travel Pack lets PlanetEye members collect the interesting restaurants, attractions and hotels they discover while exploring PlanetEye.

If, for example, you are interested in restaurants owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, then you may be interested in looking at the Travel Pack featuring his restaurants. Like all of PlanetEye’s Travel Packs, you can look at Ramsay’s restaurants on a list or on a map.

And by saving Ramsay’s restaurants to a Travel Pack, you can also have them at fingertips when planning a trip.

If Ramsay’s restaurants are not your taste, check out the Hamburger America Travel Pack, featuring George Motz’s best hamburger joints across the U.S., or the Travel Pack featuring Pamela Lee Anderson’s favorite vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles.

PlanetEye users can also personalize and customize their own individual food interests within Travel Packs so they are shown exactly the kind of restaurants where they would like to eat. They can share these Travel Packs with others, or view the Travel Packs of other PlanetEye users who share the same interests.

If you’re into restaurants with great wine, you can choose Wine Spectator as a Trusted Source within your profile. When you then create a new Travel Pack for any destination around the world, you will be presented with restaurant recommendations from Wine Spectator’s widely respected Award of Excellence list.

KGO Talks About Car Repair With David Sturtz

Listen to client RepairPal's CEO David Sturtz on KGO-AM Radio.

And if you love cars, or have ever been frustrated or intrigued by auto repair, be sure to vote for and show your support for the Shootout at the Online Auto Repair Garage panel, which we hope will be part of the 2009 SXSW agenda next Spring.

Here's the jist of it. The web changed the world for savvy car buyers. Now it’s starting to do the same to the murky world of car repair. Several of the best sites in the car world will join RepairPal for a shootout to determine who’s got the best tech for protecting consumers from auto repair rip-offs.

Cars for Girls

Client RepairPal receives some love from Cars for Girls in a post this week. Cars for Girls is a woman's guide to everything automotive, a perfect place to read about a valuable resource like RepairPal.

They "get it" right away and no doubt, there's a number of you who have experienced this over the years.

"How many times has this happened to you? You discover your vehicle has a mechanical problem and after a few calls around town for estimates and advice, you find yourself confused, unsure and frustrated even more? Not only does your car have mechanical difficulties, but now you’re suddenly faced with trying to figure out which estimate seems to be the most affordable and fair, as well as which shop is the most reliable. Where do you go? Who do you trust?

Motorists can now get much of the help they need by visiting RepairPal.com, which is one of the most helpful websites on the internet for taking the guesswork out of automobile repair and estimate costs, mechanical breakdowns and local service centers. In fact, RepairPal.com lets users compare estimate costs in their area, locate service and repair shops which best fit their needs (featuring a handy area map to pinpoint locations) and even lists common problems of most vehicle makes and models – a great resource to use before you buy – and all for free!"

Let's just say, "they're fans."

Technology & Leisure Time

One of technology's many promises was that it would increase available leisure time.  It has, but it does not feel like it is so, because we choose to spend most of our extra time with technology itself.

Like all peoples, we've chosen our deities, and technology perches higher than time in our pantheon.  A jealous and totalitarian God, technology seduces us into its meeting houses, where we congregate to work and play in a strange, shared isolation, for hours and days and longer still.

We invent Gods in part because they console us in our fear of death.  When death is suddenly imminent, we make foxhole deals with a God we may have largely ignored most of our lives.  In the course of normal days, thoughts of death appear less dramatically, but still unsettle.

In olden days it was enough to be told by preachers and judges and fathers that justice and vengeance were the Lord's (and often theirs, by self-designated proxy).   They said there was a reason for everything, that the final accounting will be in Heaven, and if you do as we say, you will be rewarded in the next life.

But we are an inquisitive and acquisitive people, so this paternalism is not sufficient. 

We know that time is not our friend.  What does an extra two hours of leisure time a day or four more weeks of annual vacation mean when we are dust in 80 or 90 years?  But now we are told that immortality may be within reach in our lifetimes.

Fountains of Youth existed long before biotechnology, but our Elixir of Life comes from a source that has proven its power in wonderful and frightening ways.  God sent the Flood but we split the atom and we know that our technology can destroy us more completely than the Bible's God ever could.  Even a "natural" disaster like an airborne flu becomes a global epidemic only because of transportation technology.

But if technology taketh away, it also giveth.  Technology, with disease control, aging reversal and synthetic corporeal reality, can beat time.  We are in awe of this and we covet this and so we worship.

The idea that the surfing and work we do online in some way feeds the single maw of a hungry technology deity which returns the favor by granting us prostheses and gene therapy is perhaps a stretch.  If you believe in collective energy and unconscious purpose the stretch isn't quite so far.  And if you compare our activities with the spiritual give-and-take between pre-industrial mortals and their Gods, the deal-strike seems familiar.

So if you're wondering where all your time goes, why you spend so much time in front of the computer, you can think of it as being in church, with your leisure time as a sacrificial lamb.

Iterasi Saves Your Web Pages

Check out Iterasi, which saves your web pages, not just your links, which can be cut and lost forever. You can install an Iterasi widget on any browser (IE, Firefox, Safari) and when you see a page you want to save, you click on Iterasi. The program searches the page for text, tags it, and stores it for whenever you want to view it again. You can also share pages.

An interesting feature is the Scheduler. If you want to update a web page every day, or week, or month, you can click on the Scheduler and place your order with Iterasi. You can save as much as you like, and it will always be there.

It's a bit like creating your own Personal Wayback Machine. For PR folks, it's a great way to capture your client's clips and then search for them by subject later on.

Free to users, you can use Iterasi to save things like receipts, travel itineraries, articles, recipes, blog posts, maps, technical documents, comparison shopping, online offers, etc.