Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive

Top of Mind Thursday – June 16, 2022: The Burglary of the Century

Tomorrow will be 50 years since the infamous Watergate burglary in Washington, DC.Leverage2Market Logo

 

How this happened, who exactly knew what and when, and who covered it up sound like the premise of a movie plot–except that it was all true.

 

The Committee to Reelect the President (who actually called themselves CREEP!), arranged a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building. It was what happened after this bungled affair that led to a web of corruption and coverup that went straight to the White House and then-president Richard Nixon.

 

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, backed by Post owner Katherine Graham, were undeterred by threats from the Nixon administration as they uncovered what really happened.
More importantly, when confronted with the evidence, Republican members of Congress were the ones who drove the Republican president to resign.

 

Fast-forward half a century to the January 6th hearings going on in Washington now. The evidence of wrong-doing by the previous administration is solid–even members of his own team and family have testified how they told Trump he’d lost the election and warned him not to feed the frenzy of those who attacked the Capitol that fateful day.

 

The question is why half a century later this behavior has been tolerated and even encouraged by members of the Republican party. Maybe it’s time to dust off the books and movies to remind us what happens when our representatives put country over party and do the right thing.

 

Otherwise, all this president’s men may not be able to put democracy back together again.

 

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Top of Mind Thursday – June 9, 2022: Leaning Out

Sheryl Sandberg, longtime COO of Meta/Facebook, recently announced she is leaving the company after 14 years.

Leverage2Market LogoWhen she joined Facebook from Google, Sheryl was widely praised for bringing adult leadership and stability to the then-fledgling company. There’s no doubt that her experience and leadership helped the company get to where it is today, and for that she should be commended.

But in 2013, she did something for which many women leaders in business have still not forgiven her: She wrote a book called Lean In, which told women that we were not succeeding because we weren’t leaning enough into our jobs–we needed to work harder and put more energy into gaining traction in order to move up the ladder in corporate America.

As someone with wealth and power, that was easy for Sheryl to say. But it didn’t trickle down to the rest of us. When I came to Silicon Valley in the late ’80s, I was often the only female manager in the room. Today, more than 30 years later, I look around and there are still very few women leaders, and almost no female CEOs.

That’s not for lack of trying. But to effect change, you need to have a structure that supports the growth and development of women leaders, which includes providing support for working mothers, and for eliminating the kind of bad behavior brought to our attention by the #MeToo movement.

Sheryl Sandberg herself walked back from the concept in her 2017 book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy–written after the untimely, tragic death of her husband. She realized this wasn’t as simple as she’d made it out to be previously.

The problem is you can’t lean in when there’s nothing to lean against. What we need to do instead is to push forward and help set the stage for success for the next generation.

Over and out, lean in.

Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.

Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.


Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.

Marketing Above the Noise.

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What are people saying?

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linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

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Top of Mind Thursday – June 2, 2022: HoJos is NoMo

The last Howard Johnson’s restaurant in America, in Lake George, NY, closed recently.

Leverage2Market LogoWhile Millennials and Gen Zers are saying, “Howard WHO?”, those of us of a certain age remember a time when the orange roofs of Howard Johnson’s were a familiar site along main streets and rest stops across the country.

Long before McDonalds and other fast food chains were found on every corner, travelers could count on HoJo’s to provide good food served quickly and inexpensively…with 28 flavors of ice cream to boot.

But the advent of well-managed, highly efficient fast food chains displaced HoJos and other similar restaurant chains. Over the last 35 years, many of the restaurants were sold off, leaving only a handful of locations still carrying the HoJo banner. As of last month, the last of those sites is gone.

Today, we have hundreds of choices in fast food–from burgers to tacos to pizza to Chinese food and ice cream. We have pre-made meal kits that show up at your door ready to heat and eat, and Amazon delivering groceries the same day you order them.

But we don’t have that piece of Americana that was a welcome site to highway travelers. RIP Howard Johnson’s (or as we used to call them for fun, Joward Hohnson’s).

Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.

Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.


Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.

Marketing Above the Noise.

Download a FREE chapter now.

What are people saying?

Buy now.

 


Let us help your business rise to the top.

linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

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Top of Mind Thursday – May 26, 2022: Insanity

Yet again, we are reeling from another mass shooting at an elementary school. This time it was 22 people dead in a small town in Texas.

Leverage2Market LogoWe are all shocked and heartbroken to see this happen, but it really should not be a surprise. There were 27 other shootings on school campuses already this year, and more children have died in school shootings in 2022 than police officers in the line of fire.

That’s not to say mass shooters don’t endanger police. A security guard was killed in last week’s Buffalo shooting, and three police officers were injured in Texas this week. (So much for arming teachers–those law enforcement professionals were all well-trained professionals and armed).

We hear the typical reactions: Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

There’s nothing wrong with that–but it doesn’t solve the problem either.

What we’re doing now is clearly not working. Until we take action to address gun violence, this will keep happening over and over again.

To expect anything else would be insane.

Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.

Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.


Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.

Marketing Above the Noise.

Download a FREE chapter now.

What are people saying?

Buy now.

 


Let us help your business rise to the top.

linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

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