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"You should be. Only pitchers and catchers have reported."
- White Sox bench coach Joey Cora, in response to Andruw Jones’ proclamation, “I’m the best center fielder in camp.”
(via alcentral)
(via onemoretimewithfeeling)Be real
We’ve all made mistakes. Some bigger than others and some more public than others. I don’t think it’s our place to judge Tiger Woods, or any other human being for that matter.
What I am going to judge is how ridiculous a prepared, word-for-word statement sounds when the intent was to provide a sincere apology. Quite frankly, Woods didn’t owe us anything. We’re not close to him. Whether we like it or not, we’re not affected at all by his decisions and actions and if we are we need to reassess a few things in our lives. The closest thing to an explanation or apology we should ever demand from a guy like Woods would be if he suddenly and consistently shot 8 over par, missed every tournament cut and lost his tour card. Now that would call for an explanation.
Whether Woods was sincere or not, we’ll never know. He certainly didn’t convey that in the speech he read. The only takeaway I got out of it was that he’s a terrible speaker and reader. Sincere delivery? Hell no. Genuinely sincere? Perhaps.
I’m not sure what type of flack consults with some of these celebrities and high profile people, but they need to stop and look at what they are doing. The only thing Woods should have taken with him to that podium was a napkin with some bullet points in order to make sure he didn’t forget any key points. The rest should have come from his heart, not from a PR consultants pen. This wasn’t about delivering some kind of emotional and inspiring Gettysburg Address.
The job of a PR person is to consult on the media strategy and direction. They should have consulted with Woods on the structure and key points of his speech rather than writing prose that came out sounding like some sort of C3PO with a nervous, rather than British, accent.
I’ve always been amazed by written statements and prepared speeches. It’s like a wig, does anyone believe it’s real? If you believe today’s press conference was anything more than Woods reading someone else’s copy, well then, I have a full head of hair.
Are you ready?
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Happy New Year...
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Happy New Year!
At the end of every year “experts” like to come up with trends that they believe will spring into our lives in the coming year. I typically enjoy reading those blog posts, but I’m going to take a stab at a list of trends that I hope will die, or at least be on the way out in 2010.
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Personal Branding — Something about this has always rubbed me the wrong way. So, no better time than now to bury this old 2009 phrase. Personal Branding to me says “job interview.” I don’t want to interact with anyone who’s treating their relationship with me like they’re trying to get a job. You can’t create a personal brand. To say you can suggests you can change your personality. As an adult you pretty much are who you are, right? Sure, we can all change and improve in various aspects of our lives, but ultimately I don’t think we can, or should, alter our personalities. Consider this. Tiger Woods is the same guy he was in October. We just know a bit more about him now. His brand changed in our eyes, not his. See how that works?
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Talking about Social Media — The reason we talk so much about social media is probably because of social media. It’s a wonderful tool and I look forward to seeing what new tools are around the corner in web 3.0. However, I don’t want to hear about how to use it. We didn’t have fax machine experts or postage meter consultants when those messaging tools came into existence. Why do we need to talk so much about the benefits of social media? Just play with it. There are no rules and no right or wrongs.
- Complaining about Change — One of the biggest reasons clients contact us to help them with their brand strategy is because of some substantial change that has occurred within their industry. They’re not complaining about it, but rather doing something about it. In 2009 all we heard about were the changes in the auto industry and in print media. Yes. It’s changed and it’s continuing to change. Now let’s do some things differently rather than trying to hold on to the old days.
So that’s all I have. It’s a short list of dead trends, but hopefully they die sooner than later. Have a great 2010!
