Worth Noting Pages 36-40

Does the American Economy Serve Democratic Values? Cont’d

·         Should also remember that Labor [the Left] brought us the weekend and has been sole voice looking after our air and water.    

·         One problem with today’s economy is the illusion of health from low unemployment rates:

      “The country’s very good at generating jobs -- just not jobs people can live on.”

·         One view is to democratize corporate systems and structure as a way to reform the “baronies” we now call corporations -- rather than scrap the current system -- have actual workers and representatives of the community affected by the corporation sit on the board of directors.

·         One panelist sees this problem with the Left today:

·         If you have a problem with the economy you better have a better alternative -- and it better be substantive -- otherwise change can’t happen.  The Democratic Party had a plan 30 years ago and it failed miserably [welfare].  Today, they have no plan.

·         Must be a comparative issue.  Those on the Left have no idea how to organize an economy around democratic ideals

·         That changing government and institutions will change and reform human vices (like greed, selfishness etc.) is an old illusion that has led to miserable results in the past

·         There never has been a model economy for Democratic Leftists -- not socialists nor fascists -- the bit of good news is there’s only been 200 years of “modern” history to look to

·         If there is no ideal Democrats can hold high in example -- those on the Right can’t be dragged into argument of a utopia versus a real economy -- the present economy and programs may have problems but the Democrats have no real alternatives

·         Issue is Practical Steps vs. Utopian Vision

·         West:  American Democracy is real and it stands for populism, pluralism, antiracism and antidiscrimination.  The Left is what made America great 100 years ago

·         Rainbow Room Cocktail Recipes

      Bronx Cocktail:  Dry Vermouth, Sweet Vermouth, bitters, OJ, Gin, strain over ice

     Rainbow Room Fizz:   1 oz of B & B, dash of bitters, orange juice, champagne, strain over ice, flaming orange twist

·         Puglianese Appetizer --Beets with fresh mint:  2 lbs fresh beets, olive oil, 2 tbls red wine vinegar, course salt, black pepper, fresh mint.  Wine recos:  Riesling (Halbstrachen , a little dry); Taurina Salice Salentino.  Separate reco:  Argentinian vineyard Bodegas Weinert Merlot or Cabernet

·         Campaign Idea from Rolling Rock -- Latrobe Locations:  TV spot shot at Latrobe bridge.  Spokesman sits on bridge as he explains unique, local character that makes Rolling Rock a great beer.  Brings a nationally distributed product back to a place while providing a relevant, brand-centered backdrop to copy and claims.  This campaign could help Ore-Ida and Saratoga to understand their brands’ geographic source of strength.

·         An Irishman, upon seeing the immensity of the Rocky Mountains for the first time, writes

       home to his brother:

            Patty, you better get here quick; they have so much land, they’re stacking it!

·         Argument Strategy -- A Case For Balance (1/19/98 USN, John Leo No Takeovers Please)

·         Feminists claim Vision 2000 is a plea for equal opportunity and fairness on campus -- balanced representation vis-a-vis males. 

·         Vision calls for female knowledge -- which seems to depend heavily on personal experience, feelings, and cooperation rather than competition or striving for excellence -- new knowledge created by women and minorities will depose and replace “white male” knowledge.

·         What’s the response to what Daphne Patai, U. Mass Professor of Literature, calls “an attempted coup, a stunningly imperialistic move to put in place a questionable feminist agenda, thinly disguised as a plea for equal opportunity and fairness”?

·         I would call for greater balance in agenda and motives represented by Vision 2000 -- obviously does not reflect the sentiments of the general female population -- minorities -- and white males who would agree in principal, but not agree to tactics 

Observation: Almost any position can be defended or assailed by “Making a Case for Balance”

·         On the Plebacy of Large Organizations

            If you’re not the lead dog, the view doesn’t change.

·         Grammy Trivia:  First Record of the Year Award:   “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) by Domenico Modugno, 1958

·         Art Shipping Service -- BoxArt NY

·         Book Reco: David Dorsey, The Cost of Living, Viking 1997

·         Lucian Freud commenting on his choice of twenty-nine paintings for “The Artist’s Eye’ show at the National Gallery, wrote:

            ‘One quality these paintings share is that they all make me want to go back to work.’

·         From Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

       Clarkson Potter 1989

·         On the floor lay a painting that Jackson had been working on recently, a network of delicate circles painted with a light, tentative brush -- unlike anything he had done before. Seeing it, poet Tony Smith thought of something George Grosz had told him once:     ‘When a painter works in circles ... he is near madness.  Look at Van Gogh’, he said. 

·         Pollock:  Abstract painting is abstract.  It confronts you.

·         On Pollock’s originality: 

Compared to Pollock, marveled one critic, Picasso becomes a quiet conformist, a painter of the past.

·         Jackson’s art reached always for new outrages, new tests, all of them built on the original outrage of which Jackson was always preciously aware: that he was an artist who could not draw -- at least not in the way artists were supposed to draw.  He would eventually force the world to give him the attention he craved: to suffer forgiveness for his outrages; not just to tolerate him, but to love him, or at least his art; to accept him, and finally to concede that he was a great artist.

·         Interesting fact, Chapt. One -- Strong-minded Women: Men whose wives died on the trek west were notoriously disconsolate and “lost” for years; some never recovered. Women whose husbands died, on the other hand, would routinely repair to the nearest town or relative, remarry, and press on.           

·         No one’s eye was more sensitive than Jackson’s.  “He looked at things psychedelically,” says Nick Carone, a close friend at the end of Pollock’s life.  “He didn’t see them with the retina, he saw them with his mind.  He would look at an ashtray like he was trying to get at its molecular structure.  And then he would touch it, move a butt or a matchstick with his fingertips.  He was organizing that phenomena, putting it right.  He was going to make it his.” 

·         On sensitivity and motivation:  Even as a child, according to his brother Sande, Jackson was, like his father, sensitive “to an unnatural degree.”  Barefoot , dressed in bib overalls, his blond hair shining in the Arizona sun, Jackson explored his little universe: both the outer landscape of adobe houses and dusty yards, and the inner landscape of sibling rivalries and unreturned love.  Then, detail by detail, he took that universe and “put it right.”  Through fantasy, he created his own landscape, a private world of images that, for the rest of his life, would haunt his dreams and preoccupy his art.

·         Editorial brochure deriding obsession with athletics at Manual Arts H.S.  --  that led to Pollack’s expulsion from high school (probably written by Goldstein and Tolegian)

            STUDENTS OF MANUAL ARTS:

We present for your consideration the serious problem of good judgment in relative values in this high school.  We deplore most heartily the unreasonable elevation of athletic ability and the consequent degradation of scholarship.  Instead of yelling “hit that line,” we should cry “make that grade.”  Give those letters to our scholars, our artists, and our musicians instead of animated examples of physical prowess.  Give our offices to executives instead of varsity men.  Our last president was a living example of the system we advocate.  There have been such men elected but they have been few and far between.  It will mean a great change in our present policies.  If the change is not made, Manual, the school we know and love is doomed.  It is all very good to win victories but what good are they if we have nothing behind them?  School success depends first upon administrative reputation.  Interscholastic victories are matters of secondary importance. We must have victory at home before we are worthy of victory abroad.  Too much emphasis has been placed on the physical end of school life; too little on the mental.  We have before us a difficult task.  Let us face it bravely.  STUDENTS, MANUAL NEEDS REFORM.  ARE YOU MEN ENOUGH TO GIVE IT?        

·         His father Roy’s response:  “I do not think a young fellow should be too serious.  It is no use to worry about what you can’t help, or what you can help, moral ‘Don’t worry.’ (It was the credo of a man who, unlike Jackson, had come to terms with himself, however unfavorable those terms might have been.)  Perhaps Jackson’s indecisiveness seemed to Roy too much like indifference.  “The secret of success is concentrated interest.”

·         Faye Dunaway on Youthful Good Looks

            When you’re 20 and pretty, then you’re rather like Switzerland -- beautiful but dull.

·         New Magazine Title:  Essay -- publication dedicated to advancing the ideas and attracting a larger audience to the leading essayists and their works -- inspired by John Leo columns, also a potential editorial repositioning for The Atlantic Monthly.

·         On having more than you need: 

You have a full belly, you must serve others.     unknown

·                     Gender Police: ‘Pull Over!’  From On Society by John Leo -- 3/23/98 USN

·         Bill Gates on the Justice Dept.’s wanting Microsoft to include rival Netscape’s Web browser in Windows 98

            It’s a little like asking us to include three cans of Pepsi with every six-pack of Coke.

·         King Vidor on movie direction:

 In America you light the star in Europe you light the set.

·         Van Gogh quotes:

Exaggerate the essentials and leave the obvious vague.

What Dickens says in words, I say in paint.

·         Joseph Campanella (WPA artist): 

WPA artists were free to share the experiences, labors and poverty of the working class.  Free to be a human being and free to have his fellow human beings as subjects.  That’s freedom.

·         On Excellence (USN 11/23/98 article about Linux free software creators & hackers):

            They do it for love, and people who work for love make better things.

                                                                        - Kevin Kelly, author of a New World Economy

·        Quote on Nature by Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Chief

       We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams ... as wild.  Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness.

·         On creative control by Stanley Kubrick: 

One man writes a novel.  One man writes a symphony.  It is essential for one man to make a film.

·         On Sketching by Eugene Delacroix: 

Perhaps the sketch of the work is so pleasing because everyone can finish it as he chooses.  The artist does not spoil the picture by finishing it; for in abandoning the vagueness of the sketch, he shows more of his personality by revealing the range but also the limitations of his talent.

Worth Noting Pages 31-35

·         The 15 Hippest Places to Live in N.A. (The Utne Reader’s list)

1.     New Orleans: Lower Garden District

2.     San Francisco:  Inner Mission

3.     New York:  Williamsburg

4.     Montreal:  The Plateau

5.     Toronto:  College & Clinton

6.     Chicago:  Wicker Park

7.     Seattle:  Belltown

8.     Philadelphia:  Olde City

9.     Vancouver:  Commercial Drive

10.  Minneapolis:  Whittier

11.  Los Angeles:  Los Feliz

12.  Detroit:  Hamtramck

13.  Washington, D.C.:  U District

14.  Boston/Cambridge:  Davis Square

15.  Miami:  Lincoln Road

·         Funny Quote from movie Addicted To Love:  Meg Ryan deadpans to Matthew Broderick as they eavesdrop on his ex-girlfriend who’s screaming during lovemaking with her new beau:

“That girl’s a carnival ride.”

·         On Design, from Vasari On Technique

“Seeing that Design, the parent of our three arts, Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, having its origin in the intellect, draws out from many single things a general judgement, it is like a form or idea of all the objects in nature, most marvelous in what it compasses, for not only in the bodies of men and of animals but also in plants, in buildings, in sculpture and in painting, design is cognizant of the proportion of the whole to the parts and of the parts to each other and to the whole.  Seeing too that from this knowledge there arises a certain conception and judgement, so that there is formed in the mind that something which afterwards, when expressed by the hands, is called design, we may conclude that design is not other than a visible expression and declaration of our inner conception and of that which others have imagined and given form to in their idea.  And from this, perhaps, arose the proverb among ancients ‘ex ungue leonem’

when a certain clever person, seeing carved in a stone block the claw only of a lion, apprehended in his mind from its size and form all the parts of the animal and then the whole together, just as if he had it present before his eyes.  Some believe that accident was the father of design and of the arts, and that use and experience as foster-mother and schoolmaster, nourished it with the help of knowledge and of reasoning, but I think that, with more truth, accident may be said rather to have given the occasion for design, than to be its father.

            But let this be as it may, what design needs, when it has derived from judgement the mental image of anything, is that the hand, through the study and practice of many years, may be free and apt to

 draw and to express correctly, with the pen, the silver-point, the charcoal, the chalk, or other instrument, whatever nature has created.  For when the intellect puts forth refined and judicious conceptions, the hand which has practised design for many years, exhibits perfection and excellence of the arts as well as the knowledge of the artist.  And seeing that there are certain sculptors who have not much practice in strokes and outlines, and consequently cannot draw on paper, these work instead in clay or wax, fashioning men, animals, and other things in relief, with beautiful proportion and balance.  Thus they effect the same thing as does he who draws well on paper or other flat surface. 

            The masters who practise these arts have named or distinguished the various kinds of design according to the description of the drawing which they make.  Those which are touched lightly and just indicated with the pen or other instrument are called sketches, as shall be explained in another place.  Those, again, that have the first lines encircling an object are called profiles or outlines.”  

·         Use of Design (or Drawing) in the Various Arts (Vasari cont’d)

            “All these, whether we call them profiles or otherwise, are as useful to architecture and sculpture as to painting.  Their chief use indeed is in Architecture, because its designs are composed only of lines, which so far as the architect is concerned, are nothing else than the beginning and the end of his art, for all the rest, which is carried out with the aid of models of wood formed from said lines, is merely the work of carvers and masons.

            In Sculpture, drawing is of service in the case of all the profiles, because in going round from view to view the sculptor uses it when he wishes to delineate the forms which please him best, or which he intends to bring out in every dimension, whether in wax, or clay, or marble, or wood, or other material.

            In Painting, the lines are of service in many ways, but especially in outlining every figure, because when they are well drawn, and made correct and in proportion, the shadows and lights that are then added give the strongest relief to the lines of the figure and the result is all excellence and perfection.  Hence it happens, that whoever understands and manages these lines well, will, with the help of practice and judgement, excel in each one of these arts.  Therefore, he who would learn thoroughly to express in drawing the conceptions of the mind and anything else that pleases him, must after he has in some degree trained his hand to make it more skillful in the arts, exercise it in copying figures in relief either in marble or stone, or else plaster casts taken from the life, or from some beautiful antique statue, or even from models in relief of clay, which may either be nude or clad in rags covered with clay to serve for clothing and drapery.  All these objects being motionless and without feeling, greatly facilitate the work of the artist, because they stand still, which does not happen in the case of live things that have movement.  When he has trained his hand by steady practice in drawing such objects, let him begin to copy from nature and make a good and certain practice herein, with all possible labour and diligence, for the things studied from nature are really those which do honour to him who strives to master them, since they have in themselves, besides a certain grace and liveliness, that simple and easy sweetness which is nature’s own, and which can only be learned perfectly from her, and never to a sufficient degree from the things of art.  Hold it moreover for certain, that the practice that is acquired by many years of study in drawing, as has been said above, is the true light of design and that which makes men really proficient.  Now, having discoursed long enough on this subject let us go on to see what painting is.”

·         Of the Nature of Painting (Vasari cont’d)

A painting, then, is a plane covered with patches of colour on the surface of wood, wall, or canvas filling up the outlines spoken of above, which, by virtue of a good design of encompassing lines, surround the figure.  If the painter treat his flat surface with the right judgement, keeping the centre light and the edges and the background dark and medium colour between the light and dark in the intermediate spaces, the result of the combination of these three fields of colour will be that everything between the one outline and the other stands out and appears round and in relief.  It is indeed true that these three shades cannot suffice for every object treated in detail, therefore it is necessary to divide every shade at least into two half shades, making of the light two half tints, and of the dark two lighter, and of the medium two other half tints which incline one to the lighter and the other to the darker side.  When these tints, being of one colour only whatever it may be, are gradated, we see a transition beginning with the light, and then the less light, and a little darker, so that little by little we find the pure black.  Having then made the mixtures, that is, these colours mixed together, and wishing to work with oil or tempera or in fresco, we proceed to fill in the outlines putting in their proper place the lights and darks, the half tints and the lowered tones of the half tints and the lights.  I mean those tints mixed from the three first, light, medium and dark, which lights and medium tints and darks and lower tones are copied from the cartoon or other design which is made for any work before we begin to put it into execution.  It is necessary that the design be carried out with good arrangement, firm drawing, and judgement and invention, seeing that the composition in a picture is not other than the parceling out of places where the figures come, so that the spaces be not unshapely but in accordance with the judgement of the eye, while the field is in one place well covered and in another void.  All this is the result of drawing and of having copied figures from the life, or from models of figures made to represent anything one wishes to make.  Design cannot have a good origin if it have not come from continual practice in copying natural objects, and from the study of pictures by excellent masters and of ancient statues in relief, as has been said many times.  But above all, the best thing is to draw men and women from the nude and thus fix in the memory by constant exercise the muscles of the torso, back, legs, arms, and knees, with the bones underneath.  Then one may be sure that through much study attitudes in any position can be drawn by help of imagination without one’s having the living forms in view.  Again having seen human bodies dissected one knows how the bones lie, and the muscles and sinews, and all the order and conditions of the anatomy, so that it is possible with greater security and more correctness to place the limbs and arrange the muscles of the body in the figures we draw.  And those who have this knowledge will certainly draw the outlines of the figures perfectly, and these, when drawn as they ought to be, show a pleasing grace and beautiful style.

            He who studies good painting and sculpture, and at the same time sees and understands the life, must necessarily have acquired a good method in art.  Hence springs the invention which groups figures in fours, sixes, tens and twenties, in such a manner as to represent battles and other great subjects of art.  This invention demands an innate propriety springing out of harmony and obedience; thus if a figure move to greet another, the figure saluted having to respond should not turn away.  As with this example, so it is with all the rest.  The subject may offer many varied motives different from one another, but the motives chosen must always bear relation to the work in hand, and to what the artist is in the process of representing.  He ought to distinguish between different movements and characteristics, making the women with a sweet and beautiful air and also the youths, but the old always grave of aspect, and especially the priests and persons in authority.  He must always take care however, that everything is in

relation to the work as a whole; so that when the picture is looked at, one can recognize in it a harmonious unity, wherein the passions strike terror, and the pleasing effects shed sweetness, representing directly the intention of the painter, and not the things he had no thought of.  It is requisite therefore, for this purpose, that he form the figures which have to be spirited with movement and vigour, and that he make those which are distant to retire from the principle figures by means of shade and colour that gradually and softly become lower in tone.  Thus the art will always be associated with the grace of naturalness and of delicate charm of colour, and the work be brought to perfection not with the stress of cruel suffering, so that men who look at it have to endure pain on account of the suffering which they see has been borne by the artist in his work, but rather with rejoicing at his good fortune in that his hand has received from heaven the lightness of movement which shows his painting to be worked out with study and toil certainly, but not with drudgery; so will it be that the figures,every one in its place, will not appear dead to him who observes them, but alive and true.  Let painters avoid cruelties, let it be their endeavour that the things they are always producing shall not seem painted, but show themselves alive and starting out of the canvas.  This is the secret of sound design and the true method recognized by him who has painted as belonging to the pictures that are known and judged to be good.

·         Quote from Renoir on the beauty and romance of his art

            “There’s enough ugliness in the world that I feel no need to add to it.”

·          General Douglas MacArthur on Inchon and the decision to pull back from the 38th parallel; recalling what his father told him:

            “Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.”

·         Quote from Landor Design Founder:

            “Great products are invented in the factory.  Great brands are invented in the mind.”

·         In Support of Management Consultants:

            “Sometimes you can see more from the sidelines than from the center of the field.”

·         Mark Antony on a man’s legacy:

            “The evil that men do lives after them -- and the good is oft interred with their bones.”

·         Tabloid Magazine Idea

Create a tabloid devoted to exposing the more private and previously unknown sides of past personalities.  The idea is to “dig up the past” for the purpose of revealing that history before TV and expose journalism failed to bring to light some of the more important and possibly unflattering aspects of public personalities.  Related to the oft-spoken truth that no politician after the Kennedy era could withstand the daily scrutiny of video cameras, recorders and public surveillance.  Not exactly the magazine that we need on the newsstands -- it’s only good is to help level the playing field and reveal the conflicted nature of all men.  (p.s. – pre-dates advent of entertainment news and biography channels)

Titles: Post Mortem or Sunlight (as in Justice Brandeis’ quote, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”)  

·         On Accepting Personal Tragedy (from 60 Minutes. 7:45p 1/4/98; quote of interviewee who had been diagnosed with terminal illness).  Asked if he ever asked the inevitable question: “Why me?”

“I’ve been blessed to have a wonderful family, friends, been endowed with some talents, wrote a book I’m very proud of -- how could I expect the universe to offer some rationale for my bad fortune when I never asked it to explain all the good that’s happened to me?”

·         Cat Fact: Lions are the kings of relaxed living -- they rarely stay on their feet more than 4 hours in 24.

·         Does the American Economy Serve Democratic Values?  (C-Span coverage of Capital University panel discussion; 1/5/98 3am)  Summary thoughts/various panelists:

·         Cornel West of Harvard distinguishes between the Right and the Left this way: 

·         Those on the Right place a premium on order, privilege and hierarchy

·         Those on the Left put a premium on the people who are beneath the privileged; as well as social change in favor of these people

·         Democratic ideals that have no market value, aren’t supported in advertising or other marketing programs by the present economy nor by the corporate managers who are in control -- they’re against dignity, integrity and solidarity

·         Corporate profits rule in this winner-take-all economy -- fostering and rewarding corporate greed and management greed tends to shape the whole market culture in it’s view

that individualism, greed and self-interest are more valued and important than anything else

·         One panelist defined the issue as Independent Initiative vs. The State

·         Independent Initiative without citizenship indeed does not support democracy

·         A civilized market economy that takes into account citizenship is what the Right sees as the good in the present system -- in contrast to the laissez-faire market economy depicted by the Leftists

·         How is it we as a nation attract willing people/workers worldwide to our market economy?  Because it is open and democratic.

·         A current problem is that our government no longer represents its people but bends to the interests of markets and corporations

·        Cornel West:  Markets have become idols and fetishes in our government and citizenry

Worth Noting Pages 26-30

·         From What Great Brands Do (Fast Company Aug./Sept. ‘97, p.98) -- Scott Bedbury SVP, Marketing for Starbucks Coffee

1.         A great brand is in it for the long haul.  For decades we had great brands based on solid value propositions -- they’d established their worth in the consumer’s mind.  Then in the 1980’s 1990’s, a lot of companies sold out their brands.  They stopped building them and started harvesting them.  They focused on short-term economic returns, dressed up the bottom line, and diminished their investment in longer-term brand-building programs.  As a result, there were a lot of products with very little differentiation.  All the consumers saw was who had the lowest price -- which is not a profitable place to be.  Then came Marlboro Friday and the Marlboro Man fell off his horse.  Today brands are back stronger than ever.  In an age of accelerating product proliferation, enormous customer choice, and growing clutter and clamor in the marketplace, a great brand is a necessity, not a luxury.  If you take a long-term approach, a great brand can travel worldwide, transcend cultural barriers, speak to multiple consumer segments simultaneously, create economies of scale, and let you operate at the higher end of the positioning spectrum -- where you can earn solid margins over the long term.

2.         A great brand can be anything.  Some categories may lend themselves to branding better than others, but anything is brandable.  Nike, for example, is leveraging the deep emotional connection that people have with sports and fitness.       With Starbucks we see how coffee has woven itself into the fabric of people’s lives, and that’s our opportunity for emotional leverage.  Almost any product offers the opportunity to create a frame of mind that’s unique.  Almost any product can transcend the boundaries of its narrow category.  Intel is a case study in branding.  I doubt that most people who own a computer know what Intel processors do, how they work, or why they are superior to their competition in any substantive way.  All they know is that they want to own a computer with “Intel Inside”.  As a result, Andy Grove and his team sit today with a great product and a powerful brand.

3.         A great brand knows itself.  Anyone who wants to build a great brand first has to understand who they are.  You don’t do this by getting a bunch of executive schmucks in a room so they can reach some consensus on what they think the brand means.  Because whatever they come up with is probably going to be inconsistent with the way most consumers perceive the brand.  The real starting point is to go out to consumers and find out what they like or dislike about the brand and what they associate as the very core of the brand concept.  Now that’s a fairly conventional formula -- and it does have a risk: if you follow that approach all the way you’ll wind up with a narrowly focused brand.  To keep a brand alive over the long haul, to keep it vital, you’ve got to do something new, something unexpected.  It has to be related to the brand’s core position.   But every once in while you have to strike out in a new direction, surprise the consumer, add a new dimension to the brand, and re-energize it.  Of course, the other side of the coin is true as well: a great brand that knows itself also uses that knowledge to decide what not to do.  At Starbucks, for instance, we were approached by a very large company that wanted to partner with us to create a coffee liquor.  I’m sure Starbucks could go in and wreak havoc in that category.  But we didn’t feel it was right for the brand now.  We didn’t do a lot of research.  We just reached inside and asked ourselves, “Does this feel right?”  It didn’t.  It wasn’t true to who we are right now.

 4.        A great brand invents or reinvents an entire category.  The common ground that you find among brands like Disney, Apple, Nike, and Starbucks is that these companies made it the explicit goal to be the protagonists for each of their entire categories.  Disney is the protagonist for fun family entertainment and family values.  Not Touchstone Pictures, but Disney.  Apple wasn’t just a protagonist for the computer revolution.  Apple was a protagonist for the individual: anyone could be more productive, informed, and contemporary.  From my experience at Nike, I can tell you that CEO Phil Knight is the consummate protagonist for sports and the athlete.  That’s why Nike transcends simply building shoes or making apparel.  As the protagonist for sports, Nike has an informed opinion on where sports is going, how athletes think, how we think about athletes, and how we each think about ourselves as we aim for a new personal best.  At Starbucks, our greatest opportunity is to become the protagonist for all that is good about coffee.  Go to Ethiopia and you’ll immediately understand that we’ve got a category that is 900 years old.  But here in the United States, we’re sitting on a category that’s been devoid of any real innovation for five decades.  A great brand raises the bar.  It adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it’s the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you’re drinking really matters.

5.         A great brand taps into emotions.  It’s everyone’s goal to have their product be best-in-class.  But product innovation has become the ante you put up just to play the game: it’s table stakes.  The common ground among companies that have built great brands is not just performance.  They recognize that consumers live in an emotional world.  Emotions drive most, if not all our decisions.  Not many people sit around and discuss the benefits of encapsulated gas in the mid-sole of a basketball shoe or the advantages of the dynamic-fit system.  They will talk about Michael Jordan’s winning shot against Utah the other night -- and they’ll experience the dreams and aspirations and the awe that go with that last-second, game-winning shot.  A brand reaches out with that kind of powerful connecting experience.  It’s an emotional connection point that transcends the product.  And transcending the product is the brand.

6.         A great brand is a story that’s never completely told.  A brand is a metaphorical story that’s evolving all the time.  This connects with something very deep -- a fundamental human appreciation of mythology.  People have always needed to make sense of things at a higher level.  We all want to think that we’re a piece of something bigger than ourselves.  Companies that manifest that sensibility in their employees and consumers invoke something very powerful.  Look at Hewlitt-Packard and the HP Way.  That’s a form of company mythology.  It gives employees a way to understand that they’re part of a larger mission.  Every employee who comes to HP feels that he or she is part of something that’s alive.  It’s a company with a rich history, a dynamic present, and a bright future.  Levi’s has a story that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush.  They have photos of miners wearing their dungarees.  And every time you notice the rivets on a pair of their jeans, at some level it reminds you of the Levi’s story and the rich history of the product and the company.  Ralph Lauren is trying to create history.  His products all create a frame of mind and a persona.  You go into his stores and there are props and stage settings -- a saddle and rope.  He’s not selling saddles.  He’s using the saddle to tell a story.  Stories create connections to people.  Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.

7.         A great brand has design consistency.  Look at what some of the fashion brands have built -- Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, for example.  They have a consistent look and feel and a high level of design integrity.  And it’s not only what they do in the design arena; it’s what they don’t do.  They refuse to follow any fashion trend that doesn’t fit their vision.  And they’re able to pull it off from one season to the next.  That’s just as true for strong brands like Levi’s or Gap or Disney.  Most of these companies have a very focused internal design process.  In the case of Nike, between its ad agency Weiden & Kennedy and Nike Design shop, probably 98% of everything that could be done is handled internally, from hang tags to packaging to annual reports.  Today, Nike has about 350 designers working for it -- more than any other company in the country -- to make sure it keeps close watch over the visual expression of the brand.  They’re what I like to call “impassioned environmentalists” with their brands.  They don’t let very many people touch them in the way of design or positioning or communication -- verbal or nonverbal.  It’s all done internally.

8.         A great brand is relevant.  A lot of brands are trying to position themselves as “cool”.  More often than not, brands that try to be cool fail.  They’re trying to find a way to throw off the right cues -- they know the vernacular, they know the current music.  But very quickly they find themselves in trouble.  It’s dangerous if your only goal is to be cool.  There’s not enough to sustain a brand.  The larger idea is for a brand to be relevant.  It meets what people want, it performs the way people want it to.  In the last couple of decades there’s been a lot of hype about brands.  A lot of propositions and promises were made and broken about how brands were positioned, how they performed, what the company’ real values were.  Consumers are looking for something that has lasting value.  There’s a quest for quality, not quantity. 

·         From The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel J. Boorstin

·         Each of us individually provides the market and demand for the illusions which flood our experience.

·         We want and we believe these illusions because we suffer from extravagant expectations. 

·         When we pick up our newspaper at breakfast, we expect -- we even demand -- that it bring us momentous events since the night before.  We turn on the car radio [or TV] and we expect “news” to have occurred since the morning newspaper went to press.

·         We expect anything and everything.  We expect the contradictory and impossible.  We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars that are economical.

·         Never have people been more the masters of their environment.  Yet never have a people felt more deceived and disappointed.  We are ruled by extravagant expectations:  

·         Expectations of what the world holds.  Of how much news there is, how many heroes there are, how often masterpieces are made and so on.

·         Expectations of our power to shape the world.  Of our ability to create events when there are none, to make heroes when they don’t exist to be somewhere else when we haven’t left home and so on. 

·         The making of illusions which flood our experience has become the business of America. The story of the making of our illusions -- “the news behind the news” -- has become the most appealing news of the world.

·         On Republicans connecting tax burdens to family values (5/12/97 USN&WR Culture & Ideas)

            “The single biggest problem we have in this country today is that you’ve got to have two people working and this has had the most profound impact on our culture.  Thanks to            reckless Democratic spending, one person is going to work to support the family and the other has to work to support the government.”

·         A Different Point of View on dual wage-earning HH’s (5/12/97 USN Culture & Ideas)

“If couples expand the definitions of “necessity” and build big mortgages and car payments into their 10-year plans, they deprive themselves of the ability to make more       flexible decisions.  I frown on people who say ‘I work because I don’t have a choice.’  It is a choice.

·         Quote about being long-winded (referring to writer Henry James who wrote long-winded, labyrinthine sentences) 

            It was said of James:  “He had a tendency to chew more than he bit off.”

·         Wit & Wisdom of “passe” Chicago columnist, Mike Royco (5/12/97 USN)

           

      Royco once suggested that his fellow men would prefer: “dropping a 40-foot putt or any number of other guy things to seeing their wives ‘waddle’ across the room in a negligee.”

·         Thought-provoking “experiment” on creation theory -- “Big Bang” vs. “Creator” God.  Students were asked this question by their professor:

            Q.         If you had the power to form the universe, would you cast all matter out like grains of sand or would you organize it?

            All answered:  “I would organize it.”

·         Amusing anectdote about power of campaign contributions (from 9/29/97 USN Washington Whispers)

            Roger Tamraz, businessman, responded this way when asked by Senate committee investigating campaign financing why he has never registered to vote but contributed        $300,000 to the Democratic Party:  “Well, I think this is a bit more than a vote.”

·         On Tennis Fans & Elitism at the U.S. Open (8/26/97 NY Post columnist Wallace Matthews)

And what’s up with those fans who dress as if they’re players even down to carrying rackets?  Say what you will about boxing fans -- and 9 times out of 10 you’ll be right -- but I have yet to see anyone in the stands wearing a robe, trunks and 8-oz. gloves.

·         On Living, by comedian Red Skelton:

The trick is not to take your life too seriously; because you’re not going to get out of it alive.

·         On Mainstreaming the News ( from John Leo, 9/22/97 USN)

            Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post is probably our best media critic, but William Powers of New Republic said Kurtz’ coverage of the Frank Gifford scandal ‘launders the          news itself for mainstream resale’.

·         John Wayne on the “politics” of being anti-marriage (from North to Alaska)

            Any woman who devotes herself to making one man miserable, rather than a lot of men happy, doesn’t get my vote.

           

·         On Openness and Illumination, from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:

            Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

·         Mother Teresa on the world situation:

            The greatest disease is the lack of love.