It’s bad enough

That most people think that just about every business, every marketer, every lawyer and every politician is a liar.

Now, the scammers and crackers out there are impersonating us.

If you got this perfectly executed scam in the mail (it’s called phishing, it involves collecting your credit card info) you know what I mean.

Yes, you should delete it. But more important, what are you going to do about it?

I don’t think people are completely aware of how much this distrust is changing our culture. As recent events are indicating, it has led us to decide (as a nation) that the best choice for a politician is someone with as little experience as possible.

We’re doing the same thing with products, their spokespeople and the people we work with and hire.

If you make your living based on trust (and most of us do) you need to think really hard about how to maintain that in a world where everyone else is losing what little they had.

(thanks to Shawn for the phishing ping).

November 14, 2003

They just write them down…

They don’t make them up.

The people who put out the dictionary have really annoyed the folks at McDonald’s. McDonald’s anger over McJob entry Like many powerful marketers, they are confusing two things:
1. what people think
and
2. the truth as they see it.

If everyone thinks your ball bearings cause brake linings to seize up, then they do, regardless of what the truth of the matter is. The challenge of marketing is to get ideas to spread. 12 years ago, Douglas Coupland used the phrase “McJob” in his book Generation X because he knew everyone would understand what he meant. 12 years later, McDonald’s is angry because it’s “inaccurate.” Of course it is! So what?

November 10, 2003

Thank you.

Amazon just posted their “Best Books of 2003”.

One of the lists is the