Sharknado!

Americans' panic over sharks dates to July 1916, when man-eaters killed four bathers at the Jersey Shore.

"The New Jersey shark attacks sent a message to Americans," says Matt McCall in National Geographic. "They said the ocean is still wild."

The shark attacks took a bite out of hotel occupancy that July—and President Woodrow Wilson's vote-count when he stood for reelection four months later.

The former New Jersey governor lost 10 percent of the votes he expected everywhere an attack occurred.

When fear guides the lever, voters say "No."

It may be a stupid reaction to a horror show, but it isn't an irrational one.

It's instinctual, according to Rick Shenkman, author of Political Animals: How Our Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics.

Shenkman says our Pleistocene-era brains simply can't handle twenty-first-century politics.

“There’s a mismatch between the brains we inherited from the Stone Age, when mankind lived in small communities, and the brain we need to deal with challenges we face in a democratic society consisting of millions of people.”

When you're knee-deep in shark-infested waters, instinct kicks in.

Wily politicians know that, and exploit it.

They know higher-order thinking only takes place from the safety of the cave.

As They Like It

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

As Adrian Segar says in The Power of Participation, given everything we know about active learning—and everything today's attendees crave from a conference—it's "almost unethical" to focus on an event's stage, where speakers control the content.

But how do you shift attention from a handful to many players?

Do your homework. The whole of attendees' perspectives is greater than the sum of speakers' parts. So ask attendees through a pre-event survey what content matters most. And consider using professional telemarketers to conduct the survey. The findings will surprise you!

Demand more. Insist your emcee lets attendees know you expect participation and highlight the opportunities attendees have to participate throughout your event. You can technologize participation by adding a second-screen experience.

Offer carrots. Ignite your audience by building in rewards for participation. Chances to win gift cards and sponsors' swag will bring out attendees’ competitive urges.

Deliver an experience. Provide content in contexts that sensually engage attendees (brands do it all the time). Use A/V, lighting, decor, aromas, and professional talent to boost audience involvement.

Continue the conversation. Extend participation after your event through online forums, hangouts, and social media. Create post-event videos and e-books, send them to attendees, and solicit feedback.

Readers Wanted

In What is Literature?, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observes that, unlike shoemakers and architects, writers can't consume their own products.

When a writer writes, Sartre says, he sees the words; but never the way readers will. 

The writer is a projector, and his future always the blank page, whereas the reader is a consumer whose future is "some number of pages filled with words that separate him from the end," Sartre says.

Writers can produce, but never feel, their words.

"The writer meets everywhere only his knowledge, his will, his plans, in short, himself. He touches only his own subjectivity; the object he creates is out of reach; he does not create it for himself.

"If he rereads himself, it is already too late. The sentence will never quite be a thing in his eyes. He goes to the very limits of the subjective but without crossing it. He appreciates the effect of a touch, of an epigram, of a well-placed adjective, but it is the effect they will have on others. He can judge it, not feel it."

Since writers can't really read their products, Sartre says, they need readers to do so. 

In fact, for a piece of writing even to exist, readers are required.

"To make it come into view a concrete act called reading is necessary, and it lasts only as long as this act can last. Beyond that, there are only black marks on paper."

Delivering Bad News

Leaders can learn a lot from FDR.

A champ in many ways, he was at his most masterful where bad news was concerned—and there was a storm of it while he was president.

In April 1942, he told a radio audience that, due to war, "everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary."

FDR provided no sugarcoating.

“The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected."

But he went on to say, "'Sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no 'sacrifice.'"


Americans responded patriotically.

Leaders are like that. From fails to fiascos, downturns to downsizings, they have the steady job of delivering bad news.

Georgetown University management professor Robert Bies recommends these 10 rules for mastering your delivery of bad news:

• Never surprise anyone. You’re shirking your duty by keeping bad news to yourself.


• Never stall. “Bad news delayed is bad news compounded,” Bies says.


• Never cover up. Withholding information will only lead others to draw false conclusions.


• Always put it in writing. A paper trail will one day be important.


• Always justify. Provide “specific and concrete reasons for the bad news.”


• Always give hope. Emphasizing the positive and temporary aspects of bad news can boost morale, as FDR knew.


• Always offer solutions. Solutions put the focus on future improvement. “Bad news without solutions is truly bad news.”


• Always consider every audience. “Remember when delivering bad news that the news never reaches just one; it reaches many.”


• Always follow through. “Bad news involves cleaning up a mess. After cleaning, let everyone know. Now the news is no longer bad; it is good.”


• Always show respect. You’re not just communicating bad news; you’re communicating it to human beings.

The last rule is the cardinal one, Bies says; and the one most often broken, as I can attest.

I was laid off, fortunately, only once in my career.

While, as an executive at the company, I was privy to the financial setbacks that preceded the event, when the bad news arrived, via telephone on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the very first thing I was told was that “the decision was easy.”

I grasped at the moment the words that were said (“Marketing is a luxury”).

I’ll never grasp why they they were said.

Influencer Marketing: Cooking with Gas

“Influencer marketing presents a glaring opportunity for brands to leverage the power of word-of-mouth at scale through personalities that consumers already follow and admire,” says Misha Talavera in Adweek.

Influencer marketing may in fact be “the next big thing,” as Talavera says; but it isn’t new.

In 1939, build-up boy Deke Houlgate worked for American Gas Association when he cooked up the tagline, "Now you're cooking with gas!"

Electric and natural gas stoves were in hot competition at the time. 

The association hoped to persuade homeowners cooking with gas was the best way to get hot meals on the table.

Without funds for ads, Houlgate called Bob Hope's scriptwriters and convinced them to insert his line into Hope's radio show.

It became one of Hope's signature lines, and soon spread in use by other comics, jazz musicians and cartoon characters.

American Gas Association was hardly Houlgate's last hurrah.

During World War II, from inside the Pentagon, he used his magic to popularize the unpopular B-26, a bomber so crash-prone it was nicknamed by fliers "The Widowmaker." 

Houlgate also helped glamorize WACs, to encourage enlistments.