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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – February 17, 2022: Space Invaders
Over 150,000 Russians troops now sit on the border of Ukraine. Will Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and take control of this sovereign nation? Is this just bluster and maneuvering? Is this a serious global threat or is the entire crisis overblown?
None of us know what Putin’s plan will be. Maybe he intends to do what he did in Crimea not that long ago. Or, perhaps he won’t cross the border into Ukraine, but will decide to de-escalate the situation.
Whatever path is taken, we need to understand that in many ways the invasion has already begun. Even if not a single soldier enters Ukraine, Putin has succeeded in diverting global attention to this situation. Western nations are sending envoys to Russia to determine next steps. Germany, which gets most of its natural gas from Russia, has been struggling with how to respond. NATO appears more strongly aligned now than it has been for decades.
That’s because perception is as important as reality. People (and the stock market!) react to what they think may happen, rather than the happening itself. We’ve seen this throughout the last two years of the pandemic, and in the deep polarization in the US over the last decade.
What external factors are invading your mind space? We can’t control the external things that happen around us, but we can be aware there are space invaders onboard. En garde!
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.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – February 10, 2022: It’s Just Not Fair
There’s a lot of talk about fairness these days: It’s not fair that we still have to wear masks or get vaccinated. It’s not fair that we have to work longer hours or do additional tasks because of labor shortages. It’s not fair that our Amazon packages aren’t showing up overnight the way they should.
Let me fill you in on a secret: Life is not fair.
Stuff happens–much of which is out of our control. Take COVID, for example. It’s not fair that nearly a million Americans have already died. At the current death rate, that number will double in a year or so. A lot of the things people are complaining about are directly or indirectly related to the pandemic.
It’s also not fair that the people we know and love get chronic diseases that require ongoing treatment, or that might necessitate uncomfortable treatments–like chemo or radiation. And it’s certainly not fair when people die before their time–regardless of the reason.
We can choose to either whine and complain or deal with the situation at hand as best as possible.
But there are also things that aren’t fair that we can do something about.
Brian Flores, formerly one of only 3 Black head coaches in the NFL, is suing the league for racial discrimination. He says the Rooney Rule, which says diverse candidates must be interviewed for coaching jobs, is a sham. The positions he applied for were already filled when these check-off interviews happened.
Flores is putting his career in jeopardy. It’s possible no one may ever hire him again because of this lawsuit. But he saw something that was systematically unfair and decided to take action on behalf of others as well as himself. He felt this was the best way to deal with the situation.
We need to pick and choose our battles carefully. Anything else is just simply unfair.
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.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – February 3, 2022: If You Give a Maus a Cookie…
According to the children’s book, if you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk, then a straw, then a napkin, etc. One thing leads to another.
This past week, the book Maus, the only graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, was banned in Tennessee schools because of language and nudity. Mausi tells the story of the author’s father’s experiences through the Holocaust. It has received widespread acclaim since it was published in 1980.
The Tennessee school board said the book, part of a curriculum focused on the Holocaust, contained “unhealthy and unwise” content. Well, yes, the Holocaust was a pretty unhealthy and unwise situation–given that nearly 11 million people (six million of whom were Jews) were killed.
Here’s the problem: Many of the most important lessons we need to learn from history don’t involve nice, neat, healthy, and happy content. That doesn’t mean we should ban them. On the contrary, those are the areas we need to focus on more deeply–so people understand what happened and we ensure those things don’t happen again.
And here’s what happens when you try to avoid unpleasant history…If you give a Maus a ban, then he’ll get much more attention, people will start to wonder what all the fuss in about, and the book will become the #3 selling book on Amazon today (out of more than 48 million books!).
After all, one thing leads to another.
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.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – January 27, 2022: Totally Nuts
This week, a Merrill Lynch advisor was fired after directing an expletive laden tirade at the workers at a smoothie shop who made his son’s drink. He threw a drink at one person and made anti-immigrant comments at another.
Sounds like a straight-forward case of inappropriate racist behavior, right? Not so fast.
It turned out that James Iannozzo’s son has a severe peanut allergy. Iannozzo specifically told the shop NOT to put peanuts in his son’s drink–and this even was noted on his sales slip. However, in spite of this, the smoothie contained peanuts and his son required emergency room treatment.
Somehow this part of the story appears to have been lost. The video of Iannozzo’s tirade has gone viral–being viewed more than half a million times. It doesn’t appear there’s a video of his son being treated for anaphylactic shock, which could have easily killed him.
Too many people poo-poo allergies like this–complaining how limiting peanuts at school lunch tables or on airplanes is inconvenient for them. This is not an inconvenience for someone like Iannozzo’s son. Untreated, an exposure like this could be deadly. Over 3 million people in the US have nut allergies and 150 of them die each year from situations like this.
Was Iannozo wrong to attack the employees in the store like this? Yes. Were the store employees wrong not to treat a nut allergy seriously? Absolutely.
It’s too bad this hasn’t been showcased as an example of why nut allergies should be taken so seriously. Ignoring that lesson is totally nuts.
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.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com