Damn Kenya Airways!

Last night Ann and I had to miss dinner with another local couple and old friends from Laguna Woods.  It was all Kenya Airways’ fault.

At 4:30, I showered and shaved to go downtown to meet, dine and then attend the Summer Chamber Festival recital and concert.  I noted my nose hairs needed a trim – yes, those obnoxious nose hairs old guys grow.  I clipped away and then . . . I nipped soft flesh on the inside of my nostril.  In 70 years of clipping hairs, I had never before clipped myself.

Since I am on Warfarin, the blood thinner, for A-fib you understand, I bleed.  Boy, do I bleed!  Rich, red, wholesome drops steadily dripped into the sink.  I couldn’t staunch the flow.  Kleenex and TP soaked up blood; drops got away onto an old t-shirt I donned with Ann’s help while I held tissues to the Red River of Mercer Island.   I lay down on the floor but the blood simply drained down my throat.  It’s very salty, by the way; a good protein source; I drink the blood of my enemy.

I pinched my nose where the septum and cartilage meet, as advised by my anti-coagulation nurse.  I pinched it low, as nurse Ann counseled.  A later call to Dr. Hello, How Are You (after 26 years, our doctor still won’t greet us by name) prescribed 20 minutes of pinching (high) followed by 10 minutes off, then repeat.  If that didn’t stop the flow, go to the emergency room; there they will cauterize it.  I sat in a chair, head back, TP up nose, pinching two-handed high and low.  20 on, 10 off; 20 on, 10 off.

It didn’t stop.  We had been at it for over an hour by this point, missing our dinner both out and at home.  Off to the ER we went, Ann driving, I with my roll of TP in lap, holding a wad of paper up my nose. Into Overlake's ER I lurch and am immediately whisked out of the lobby and into an exam room (if you want to avoid waits in ERs, arrive blood-spotted, clutching your own roll of TP as if you doubted their supply, holding a bloody wad and shouting "where can I get rid of this?")

This was all caused, you see, by those idiots at Kenya Airways.

 

In February of 1968, I attended my first of eleven annual Toy Fairs in New York.  I stayed at the old Hampshire House, on Central Park South, between the Essex House (which I would later market when at Marriott) and the St. Moritz.  In my bathroom medicine cabinet, I found a pair of trim scissors left by an earlier guest and either missed by a careless housekeeper or left by a gracious one – blunt nosed, curved of blade, stainless steel, made in Switzerland.  Wonderful scissors, that I subsequently carried on every overnight trip all over the globe, in first class and in coach, in lax times and TSA times. I’d had them inspected on occasion, but their diminutive size and rounded tips always reassured the most intrepid gate minder.  Until Kenya Airways . . .

Sunday, August 23^rd, 2015, Kilimanyaro Airport (that’s right: . . . yaro), Arusha, Tanzania.  Short hop to Nairobi.  No visible security to speak of.  Casual, casual . . . until search of carry-on and out comes the Hampshire House scissors.  Nope.  What?!  Nope.  Wait – the’re blunt nosed.  Nope.  Let me talk to your supervisor, please, with a smile.  She comes.  He hands her the scissors.  I explain these have traveled over five continents, cleared innumerable security screenings, been with me for nearly 50 years – half a century of examinations and never found threatening to pilot, cabin attendant or fellow passenger.  Why?  Are these scissors?  Yes.  Scissors are forbidden.  No, sharp scissors are forbidden.  Are these scissors?  Yes, but . . . .  Scissors are forbidden . . . and into the trash she dropped them – my Hampshire House surprise, my boon travel companion of near half a century. Gone. . .  Confiscated. . .  Trashed in front of my eyes.

A Year of Trimming Dangerously (apologies to Christopher Koch) with sharp-pointed, straight-bladed Swiss Army Knife dreadnought scissors.  Careful. Should get another blunt-nose pair, but always forgetting in haste to leave the drug store; Walgreens are so depressing. Until . . .

Monday, October 3^rd, 2016, Perugia, Italy.  Ann and I are prowling through the Rocca Paolina; into a nick-knack shop we wander, full of pottery, tourist coffee mugs, cheap sun glasses and . . . blunt nosed trim scissors.  But not curved; it's hard to nip oneself with curved scissors. But very small and very keen.  Made in Perugia we are assured.  Of Swedish steel, as Michelangelo used to make his stone chisels.  My Souvenir de Perugia.  Safety in nose hair trimming.   What a deal.  

Not so, after all.

Overlake's ER team was successful. Vaso-constrictor; pinch low, as close to the open artery as possible; cauterize chemically.  To add insult to injury, the buggers drew off three samples of blood for themselves.  Finally, home we went for a 9:30pm supper and washing out spots as best I could.

So it’s all Kenya Airways fault that we missed dinner with friends, a recital, a concert.  It’s all Kenya Airways fault that I spent yet another evening in the company of doctors and nurses, all fine and friendly to be sure, but still . . .

Damn Kenya Airways!

 

"A Better Deal" -- that's it? C'mon!

I am a brander.  For twenty years at General Mills, the last seven of which as it's chief advertising officer and (with my mentor, Bob Blake) protector of GMI's brand equities; then as another twenty-four years as Sr. VP Marketing and Sales at Marriott, Exec VP at Westin; and finally as principal consultant of FCW Consulting, an international branding and marketing management consultancy -- I have some time-tested beliefs about brands which I've successfully applied to employers, clients and not-for-profit enterprises.  I've learned something, from the likes of Blake, Dwight Jewson, Keith Reinhard -- and from my mistakes -- about how brands work and don't work.  A Better Deal ain't going to work.

Brands matter.  Is politics exempt from the core idea that a brand is a distinctive identity that carries meaning not only to its intended, prospective buyer, but also to the community of on-lookers who ask why should I care?  A brand is a story in a nutshell -- who are we; what do we do for our 'customer'; what it means, i.e., what the emotional pay-out is for them; and why should society give a damn?  This is especially important for not-for-profits and political parties which need societal respect and support if they hope to do their work, accomplish things and sustain themselves.

When I was a kid, during WWII, my Mom shopped for us at Montgomery Wards.  They marketed under a Good, Better, Best three-option pricing and branding scheme.  It usually drew my frugal mother up to the Better level.  (After the War, coincidentally, Dad briefly joined Montgomery Ward as Dir. of Personnel, suffering under Sewell Avery before joining David Lilienthal to form the Atomic Energy Commission.)  The G-B-B scheme can hardly be blamed for Ward's demise, but it certainly didn't help as the branding became an outdated cliche'.  Operations as disparate as SeaWorld and Southwest Air are still using a G-B-B pricing scheme, though under different names, to stimulate up-grading and to generate incremental revenues.  But they no longer use the cliche's "Good, Better, Best."

Brands always resonate, sometimes with positive and desirable resonances, sometimes inadvertent, harmful ones.  With what does "a better deal" resonate?  First, it can't help but bring to mind The Art of The Deal, the Manchild-In-The-White-House's brand; why drive an audience to think of the supposedly most skillful -- read "best" -- dealmaker?  At least that is the claim.  Is your deal, Schumer, merely better than his?  Is that all you promise?

The second resonance is the used car dealer and local ads for "Larry, at Stuff-'me Chevrolet" shouting about deals, deals, deals.  Buyers know any damn fool can offer a better deal, and will.  Resonance?: Cheap.

The third, for me, is Let's Make a Deal, with screaming, overweight fans comin' on down to be  exploited by TV Producers as they grovel and scramble for unneeded stuff.  Consumerist excess on parade: a better deal, indeed.

No.  Schumer and Pelosi have blown it.  Do they really think their mission is merely to make a better deal than can McConnell and Ryan?  Is that all there is? 

Or better than the New Deal?  Doubtful.  Better than the Fair Deal or the Square Deal?  C'mon!

The Democrats deserve a brand that promises new energy, new imagination, a new determination to change course for middle America.  One such was touched on by Hilary back in April of 2016, but then she inexplicably dropped it.  She had said her party's task was "to remove barriers."  Now there's a brand.  It can umbrella a wide variety of programs -- access to health care or quality education, job discrimination and voting rights, working wages, immigration, affordable child care, on and on.  It promises to address the major complaint of middle Americans as I understand it: no one listens to me and cares about the system's impediments to equity, justice and opportunity for me and my kids.

It actually was Bill Clinton who coined "removing barriers" back in 1994.  Of course, back then he was up against a consummate brand: "Contract With America."  (No one said scoundrels also don't know how to brand; witness Trump and Gingrich.)  Contract With America was distinctive and memorable. 

Distinctive and memorable: I recall wrestling with Bill Marriott over naming hotels.  He was perfectly happy with the Newark Marriott, the Tulsa Marriott, the Palm Desert Marriott -- despite the fact that the Palm Desert hotel was to be a flossy resort, not just another cat-box by the highway. It was only when the owner of another Palm Desert hotel sued that I was able to prevail and name it, and subsequently all of our resorts, each with a distinctive name of its own sub-tagged "by Marriott."  Thus: Desert Springs, by Marriott. 

Distinctiveness: what sets you apart from your competitors, whether competing for sales or donations or personnel or votes.  So -- rank in order of distinctiveness: "Contract with America", "Removing Barriers", "A Better Deal." 

Personally, I love "removing barriers."  But that's not the point.  The point is that Pelosi and Schumer have got to DO better.  They have to win back the respect of their opponents with whom they must collaborate, the confidence of their supporters, and the votes of the public.  Just to be seen as offering a better deal ain't going to cut it.

Get Over It? NO! This Too Shall Pass? NOT WITHOUT HELP!

Two weeks with family in Idaho and Montana: no newspapers read, no TV watched, little radio heard.  Another week fishing in the British Columbia outback: no newspapers, no cell phone, no wi-fi, no radio.  Clearing the head.  But now, back in this gruesome reality of Russians, Repeal, Replace, Resist -- my head is ready to explode again.

One of my acquaintances, a Libertarian Trump voter, counsels “Get over it!”  Another expresses a Pollyanna confidence in America: “this, too, will pass.”  A third says “I’ll wait; folks will get fed up and then we’ll be ready for a change.”  Basically, all three are counselling me to sit back and let things play out; it is what it is. 

Sorry; that’s not good enough for me.  Don’t misunderstand: these are friends I admire and respect.  We simply agree to disagree.

Of course pendulums swing over time, but unless given a shove, unless the spring is wound, pendulums eventually just run down and stop.  Entropy can be guaranteed to stifle change and cement the status quo.  And ours is not an acceptable status quo.

My friend who styles me the Pessimist, the Cassandra, the Alarmist, who counsels “relax, this too shall pass”, is implicitly saying he expects the Supreme Court over the next twenty-five years to come to its senses; to realize on its own that cash is not speech, that legislative gerrymandering endangers representative government, that corporations and labor unions are not constituents.  Fat chance of that. There’ll be no correction without intervention.

As for my “Libertarian” friend, he will be content with all sorts of government intrusions into personal and public life so long as he gets his tax cut and the estate tax is eliminated.  After that, who cares if this administration abdicates renewable energy leadership to China, intrudes into reciprocal trade agreements (he’s a significant importer of French products, by the way[1]), increases the Federal deficit and debt, and puts more young Americans into danger overseas.

No. To make this pass, to not “get over it”, I need to exert what little energy and leverage I have.  I start with my representatives and Senators – at both state and Federal levels.  Washington State is an opportunity.  A consortium with other blue states on emission standards, carbon taxation, health insurance pools, promotion of multi-state membership medicine, perhaps even drug price negotiations, can turn “Federalism” and “States’ Rights” – red state ideals, after all – to our advantage and overwhelm central government mandates.  California is showing the way; hats off to Jerry Brown.  Our Governor Inslee just vetoed a gratuitous business tax cut; hats off to Jay, also.  And it’s high time the US Senate took back war powers and exercised foreign policy oversight.  Lots to be done . . ..

2018 can be the turning point – if we get out and make it so.  It will take money, effort, and positions on policy that unify and speak to a broad swath of middle America.  It will take being seen as working to solve problems, not mindlessly resisting.  It will take being seen as working – even working with Republicans --  to remove barriers to the American dream of equity, justice and opportunity.

 

Now, step by step, I’ve got to turn those lofty words into action.  Stay tuned.     

---

[1] We run a large and growing trade deficit with France, which Trump will likely spot after his loss of face with Macron.