Tim Horton's, Environmental Vandal

 

One thing I've never understood about my fellow Canadians is their nationalistically charged evangelism for Tim Horton's. Not that I have anything against Timmy's. I just don't consider cheap, gut-rock-inducing coffee and glucose crash-inducing fried dough products to be a source of national pride on par with our natural splendour, social progressiveness and supremacy at team boxing on skates. Forgive me, but I don't understand the mass appeal.

 

Granted, as a longtime expatriate living in Japan, there were certainly days when I had an inexplicable hankering for Timbits and that weird tasting but oh-so-down-home coffee. Yes, I got those cravings every now and then, although not nearly as often as I now find myself craving okonomiyaki, Asahi Super Dry on tap and maniacal game shows starring bizarre men in loud suits and helium-voiced female co-hosts. But I didn't crave it because it was good; I craved it because it reminded me of home.

 

Now that I'm back in Canada, Tim Horton's is a semi-regular component of my diet by virtue of the fact that it's a) ubiquitous, b) cheap, c) predictable and d) it's more closely resembles actual food than anything produced by McDonald's. Having said that, I do have a serious bone to pick with the Tim's, and one that has nothing to do with the actual consumables they purvey. My bone of contention is the age-old but still enduring "Rrrrroll up the rrrrrim to win" campaign, campaign that's defined Tim Horton's since approximately forever and remains one of the most environmentally unsound marketing campaigns out there.

 

For the benefit of readers outside Canada who are unfamiliar with the Tim's chain, the "Rrrrroll up the rrrrrim" campaign (with the obligatory Slavic-sounding 'R' trill) is a longstanding Tim Horton's tradition whereby customers unroll the rim of their cardboard coffee cups to see if they've won a prize. It should be said that I've never known anyone who's actually won anything through this method, but I would assume that the company would have been sued a long time ago if there weren't actual prizes in the offing. I can remember the "Rrrrroll up the rrrrrim" TV commercials from my childhood, and 30 years later it's still the chain's best-known catchphrase.

 

While Tim Horton's marketing people undoubtledly take the view of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Fair enough, except while the campaign might not be "broke" the planet increasingly is, and practices like this are a contributing factor to Gaia's demise. Consider the fact that this campaign not only discourages the use of travel mugs in the place of cardboard cups with plastic lids (because you can't rrrrroll up the rrrrrim of a travel mug), but it also results in damaging an otherwise perfectly reusable cardboard cup. I suppose you could still drink out of a cup with a rrrrrolled up rrrrrim, but it scarcely makes for a pleasant coffee-drinking experience.

 

Our society is decidedly arbitrary when it comes to being ecologically sensitive. We embrace certain sustainable practices (such as bringing eco-bags to the grocery store, which is increasingly mainstream practice) while completely overlooking others, such as the travel mug. Myself I prefer travel mugs, not only for environmental reasons but also because I find them more pleasant to drink out of than a cardboard or styrofoam cup. Why is it, then, that the only people who seem to use them are college students and construction workers? At most university campuses you get cheaper coffee if you use a travel mug. By contrast, when you go to most chain coffee outlets and pull out a travel mug, it's generally greeted with a quizzical expression, if not with irritation.

 

If any Tim Horton's marketing and communications people are reading this, here's my message to you: it's time to scrap the "rrrrroll up the rrrrrim" campaign. Not only is it behind-the-times in terms of sustainability, it's frankly a tired old campaign that could used to be changed. Instead, I would love to see a contest whereby you have to bring a reusable mug in order to win a prize. Not only would it be good for the planet, but it would be a huge publicity boon for you on the corporate social responsibility front - and it would save the company money in terms of cup inventory. You could even keep the same catchphrase format by replacing it with something like "Rrrrreuse your rrrrreceptacle to win" or something like that. Think about it.

 

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to boycott "rrrrroll up the rrrrrim." You personally might not win, but the planet will.

Air Canada Breaks Banjos (A PR Lesson Learned?)

Remember the 'United Breaks Guitars' YouTube fiasco? For those unfamiliar with this now infamous PR disaster, 'United Breaks Guitars' is a protest song written by Halifax-based alt-country/folk musician Dave Carroll in 2009 following a nine-month battle for compensation with United Airlines over a broken guitar. Finally after nearly a year of being ignored by the airline, he wrote and recorded a song parodying his experience accompanied by a satirical video, which he posted on YouTube. The song immediately went viral, amassing 150,000 views in a single day, and roused the slumbering airline into PR damage control.

For those of you who have yet to see the infamous video, here it is.

 

In the nearly four years since the release of the 'United Breaks Guitars' video, the incident has become a staple in most public relations textbooks when discussing the hazards of ignoring customer complaints - especially in the era of social media. It also brought the issue of broken luggage - or at least broken musical instruments - to the forefront of public consciousness. In the aftermath of the UBG scandal, United rival Delta immediately seized the opportunity to tout its baggage-handling records in an ad that specifically mentioned Taylor guitars (a direct reference to the Carroll song).

It was therefore ironic when, in January of this year, Delta's baggage handlers came under scrutiny for breaking a vintage guitar belonging to Detroit-based musician Dave Schneider (although in this case it was a Gibson instrument, not a Taylor). The story - and the airline's initial evasiveness - received widespread news and social media coverage, virtually all of which referenced the scandal that put airlines breaking guitars on the map in the first place. In the end Delta offered to pay for the damaged instrument while issuing the following apology:

Mr. Schneider,
I want to further add apologies on behalf of myself and the entire Delta Executive Leadership team for the inconvenience and stress this situation caused. We are reviewing the series of events in full to ensure appropriate steps are taken to prevent future occurrences. Again, my sincerest apologies–please feel free to contact me directly if you would like to discuss further.
Jon Litzenberger
Delta Air Lines 

Now it would appear to be Air Canada's turn in the instrument-breaking doghouse. Yesterday afternoon the following Twitter exchange took place:

While it remains too early to tell, it would appear for now that this spat will remain in the Twittersphere. Air Canada, it should be said, is among the world's most active airlines on social media and whose respond time to customer complaints and concerns is nothing short of remarkable. In this case, the airline immediately apologized for the accident and directed the passenger to the airline's damaged baggage page. For now a potential PR disaster for Canada's largest airline appears to have been averted thanks to Air Canada's social medial diligence, although you can be sure I'll have my eyes peeled for further references to Air Canada breaking banjos.

As a side note, it should be known that in the aftermath of United Breaks Guitars, US congressional action prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to change its rules to make it easier for passengers to transport musical instruments as carry-on luggage. Section 403 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 provides that “An air carrier providing air transportation shall permit a passenger to carry a violin, guitar or other musical instrument in the aircraft cabin, without charging the passenger a fee in addition to any standard fee that carrier may require for comparable carry-on baggage.”

While this legislation applies only to US carriers, Air Canada has stated that it will accommodate "smaller musical instruments such as violins" (and presumably banjos) as carry-on luggage. As for larger instruments like guitars, the airline still requires that they be stowed in the plane's cargo hold while stating unequivocally that the airline is "not liable for damage caused by failure to properly prepare a musical instrument for travel." Nothing is known about how the banjo is question was stowed.

Clearly stated policies combined with a swift social media response appear to have saved Air Canada from yet another musical instrument-related PR nightmare. It seems as though the industry has truly learned its lesson. Now if only these airlines could manage to stop brutalizing musical instruments in their care. Regardless of what the airline may offer as compensation, a broken banjo two hours before a gig is an unenviable position for a musician to be in. Perhaps Skytrax needs to create a new ratings category for 'likelihood to break instruments' for the benefit of nervous musicians.

Bullshit News Story of the Week: Nobel Peace Prize "Nominee" Takes On Obama

"I've seen the future, brother - it is murder." (Source: teaparty.org)

Ever thought you deserved a Nobel Peace Prize? Turns out being nominated for one is not that hard. All you need apparently is convince a university rector or a professor of social sciences, history, philosophy, law or theology, or a director of a peace research or foreign policy institute, to submit a nomination on your behalf. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Not that this actually means anything, of course. While nobody outside the Nobel Society knows exactly how many submissions for the Peace Prize it receives every year, as this information is officially embargoed for a 50-year period, but one can safely assume that it runs into the thousands. And with many of the world's leading peace advocates from Malala Yousefzai to Bono still waiting for their kick at the can, it's safe to assume that you don't have the remotest shot at the big prize. (Unless of course Bono or Malala is reading this post, in which case I wish you all the best!)

Having said that, once your application is in the bag you are fully entitled to refer to yourself as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. And while this is an essentially meaningless designation, this hasn't stopped some nominees from bandying about this designation. Moreover, in some benighted corners of our media landscape, namely the US Tea Party movement, being a Peace Prize nominee is considered an impressive credential - or at least deemed sufficient to fool the ignorant souls that constitute the movement's rank-and-file followers.

On January 22, the big-government-conspiracy-obsessed "news" portal Prison Planet run by barking-mad media wingnut Alex Jones produced a story with the title "Nobel Peace Prize Nominee: Obama Asks Military Leaders If They Will 'Fire On US Citizens'." Naturally, the Tea Party movement's official web portal latched onto this story like a falcon on a three-legged hamster and made it headline news. The story alleges that an unnamed individual described only as "one of America’s foremost military heroes" leaked this information to a "Nobel Peace Prize nominee." The Peace Prize candidate in question further elaborated on this exchange on his personal Facebook page with the following:

"I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new "litmus test" in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not. Those who will not are being removed."

So who is this great advocate of peace, who the article further emphasizes is "a public figure, not an anonymous voice on the Internet"? The man in question is Guelph, Ontario native Dr. Jim Garrow. According to the Guelph Mercury, he's a former principal, school board trustee and special needs teacher who once created his own "Internet business" and ran a flight school. However, Garrow is best known for being the director of an organization known as Pink Pagoda, which works to rescue unwanted baby girls from China and put them up for adoption in North American homes. Dr. Garrow claims his organization has saved 34,000 baby girls since 2000.

On the other hand, he does look like a convincing Tolkien wizard.

Peace Prize worthy, you say? Not so much. The Guelph Mercury article goes on to explain that many of Garrow's claims have been disputed by individuals familiar with China's adoption networks. It also turns out Pink Pagoda isn't even a registered charity and that Garrow's activities have prompted an investigation by the RCMP for alleged child trafficking. China adoption expert Brian Stuy produced a damning expose on Garrow and his organization on his blog Research-China.org in which he asserts that the number of children he claims to have rescued "represents approximately half of all the children adopted internationally from China since 2000," while speculating that Garrow may have unwittingly become ensnared in illegal 'child-buying' rackets involving corrupt local officials. He further notes that reporters from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Dateline have investigated his activities and found no substantiation to his claims.

As for Garrow's much-vaunted "Peace Prize nominee" status, it turns out he was nominated for the prize in 2009 by an unnamed president of a Chinese university whose granddaughter was allegedly rescued by Pink Pagoda agents. He also goes by the honorific "Dr.," a designation he received as an honourary degree from the non-accredited North Carolina College of Theology, which apparently declined to respond to the newspaper's phone inquiries into Garrow's educational background. As for his teaching background, his record is checkered to say the least. His teaching licence in Athens, Ontario was suspended for a time following allegations of professional misconduct. His short-lived flight school was shut down after it was discovered the plane it was using was not insured or registered.

This, in a nutshell, is the great "public figure" used by the Tea Party to support its assertion that President Obama is priming members of the US army to fire on its own citizenry, presumably in an attempt to forcibly remove privately owned firearms from the "cold dead hands" of the American people. Of course there is no explanation as to how Garrow chanced to hear this remark from the unnamed "American hero" in question, or even why a Canadian leader of an international adoption agency based out of China (even a competant one) would be an authoritative source of information on a US president gone rogue. Of course the only information we're given about Garrow in the Prison Planet article picked up by the Tea Partiers is that he's a "Nobel Peace Prize nominee" and that he has saved children's lives, presumably in the hope that the reader will take this at face value and not explore it any further.

In the meantime, I am officially not soliciting nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Puh-lease! I want no part in an award that's been bestowed on war criminals like Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat. And had the likes of "Dr" Jim Garrow as nominees. Nope, not goin' there!

Writing Tips for Musicians - 11 Bio-Writing Sins To Avoid

Rule 1: Don't follow this guy's example.

I wear many hats as a writer and communications professional. One of those hats is as the unofficial 'manager' of my wife Allison's band, The Last Calls. The Last Calls are an up-and-coming six-piece cover pop-rock band from Edmonton who made a fabulous debut last summer by way of a six-stop tour of southern Alberta - taking in Coleman, Medicine Hat, Nanton, Pincher Creek, Twin Butte and Waterton Park. (Yes, all the great capitals of southern Wild Rose country!) I've also done a great deal of promo material for Allison in her capacity as a solo artist and occasionally sat down at the piano stool myself as accompanist, although far less often than I would like!

As such, I've written a hell of a lot of band and soloist bios. And not just for my better half's work. The trouble with being a professional writer is that, once people find out you're a professional writer (or that your spouse is), you tend to get innundated with requests for bios, social media posts, proofreading etc. Being a writer and editor is rather like being a massage therapist. Show up at a party and tell people what you do for a living and before long you have people asking if you'd "just check this for spelling and punctuation" and "could you just write me a 100-word bio for my program?"

Not that I mind. I'm more often than not very happy to indulge my musician friends with wordsmithing. It's what I do and it comes easy to me. Moreover, many musicians - and I say this with the deepest respect - write terrible bios! Anyone who's ever been to a classical music recital or a jazz festival has had the experience of opening a program and confronting overwrought, cliché-riddled disasters of bios that inadvertently make the performer sound like the biggest prick that ever enrolled in music school. How many of us have read dreadful musician bios that read something like this?

"Violet Wienerbunker was born into a musical family of esteemed, supremely talented and musical musicians and was singing Verdi arias while still in her mother's uterus. Violet literally lives and breaths music, catching the attention of musicians and human beings alike with her dulcet tones and 13-octave collaratura range that some have compared to Maria Callas, Michael Bolton, Freddie Mercury and an ascending 737. Violet studied at the esteemed Kenny Loggins School of Music at the Unversity of Eastern West Virginia, where she was told that she had a "glowing future" but then artist-in-residence Kid Rock - a phrase he claims he only ever used once in his life, whereupon she set off for the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachussetts, the alma mater of such famous musicians as Keith Jarrett, Joe Lovano, John Mayer, Esperanza Spalding and Judas Priest alumnus Tim "Ripper" Owens, among many, many other great musicians. While at Berklee she also studied under the tutelage of legendary almost-Grammy-nominated Tuvan throat-singing virtuoso Sainkho Namtchylak and was shortlisted for a UNESCO tour of the Tuvan Autonomous Republic, although she was unable to participate due to a competing recording project with Boston-based early music-inspired heavy metal group Flagellatorium, which launched her career on the world stage and beyond. Today she is an early-to-advanced childhood musical educator for the Mercedes Woodcock-Nimrod School of Performing Arts in Lansing, Wyoming, where she imparts her lifelong love of music from Tallis to Tool and beyond to young children of all races, genders and nationality all across the fine state of Wyoming while continuing to excel in all facets as a professional performing musician, and today brings you a wide array of works by 19th century Paraguayan composers......"

If you actually read through to the end of that bio, you're a freak. Even I stopped paying attention to what I was typing about half way through. But this is not to be harsh on musicians. Musicians, after all, are trained to sing, play instruments and write music at a high level - not crank out accessible, reader-friendly prose for audience members. That's what people like me are trained to do. However, many musicians are indeed fantastic writers who do amazing things with words as song lyrics - but still manage to write terrible bios.

Writing a good bio is a tricky undertaking, requiring exactly the right balance between self-deprecation and self-confidence. However, by avoiding the following common bio-writing pratfalls and clichés, you can at least assure that your bio won't make your audience hate you before you even start to perform.

1) Don't tell us that you "could sing before you could crawl" or any other such nonsense.

Unless you're Groucho Marx, who famously began his autobiography with the words "I was born at a very young age," intros like this just sound silly. Nobody comes out of the womb wielding a Stradivarius or knowing all the words to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. You may have a natural inclination towards music, but you still got to where you are today by studying and practicing. And that's just fine.

2) Nobody cares if you were "born into a musical family."

We're here to hear you, not your family. Unless your great-uncle is Mick Jagger or your brothers' names are Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Tito, you're better off leaving your family out of it.

3) Don't make vague claims with no substance.

Specifically, don't refer to yourself as a "gifted artist" or a "musician destined for stardom." Tell as who you are and what you do and let your music speak for itself.

4) Don't boast about your youth - and how young you were when you accomplished X, Y and Z.

There's no more surefire way of alienating your reader than rubbing it in their face that you had a record contract at 16 or that you were the youngest person ever accepted to the Eastman School of Music in the woodwinds department. All of us worry, on one level or another, that we haven't achieved as much as we should have achieved by whatever age we're at. And we don't fork out for concert tickets for the purpose of being reminded of that fact. And don't describe yourself as a "young, up-and-coming talent." If being young were a musical achievement in and of itself, we would all have Grammys sitting on our Ikea bookshelves.

5) Self-deprecation is good - but only to a point.

Just as nobody wants to hear you boast about how much better than everyone else you are, nobody wants to read a bio that will leave them questioning what they're doing listening to you. If your bio reads something like "We started a band 'cause we were stoned on Tyler's couch and listening to Radiohead one night and figured 'Well, we could never be as good as these guys but we don't completely suck, so why not?'" Because nobody wants to see a band that fits that description - unless they're giving out free weed at the intermission.

6) Don't make unsourced comparisons between yourself and other artists.

If a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine likened your voice to Amy Winehouse or your piano technique to Oscar Peterson, then you can include it in your bio. (In fact you'd be an idiot if you didn't.) If some drunk guy at a bar once said you reminded him of Rihanna, don't think that gives you licence to claim you've been "likened to artists such as Rihanna, among others." Furthermore, don't use the words "among others." That's just a cheap aggrandizing bio trick that won't fool anyone who's actually reading your words.

7) Keep the list of performance credits, diplomas and awards to a minimum.

It's a bio, not a CV. Provide perhaps three career highlights and leave it at that. Nobody wants to wade through a Tolstoy-esque biography covering every single place you've played. Your audience is there to hear music, not read a novel. Moreover, if they're sitting in the audience, having already paid the ticket price, you've already sold them on the idea of coming to hear your perform; you don't need to further impart them with the merits of coming to see your gig. Any excess information is just going to get on people's nerves and lessen their likelihood of coming to see you again.

8) If you're performing alongside other musicians, don't write a bio that's way longer than those of your fellow performers.

In an ideal situation, a bio that's three times as long as all the others in a program will get nipped and tucked into line with the others. But realistically most music festivals are strapped for money and people and the person putting the program together doesn't have time to edit the bios because they're too busy filling in grants and learning the viola part to the Benjamin Britten ensemble piece that follows your solo number. Ask whoever is putting together the program what an appropriate word limit it. Otherwise you might just look like a pompous jerk - or an insecure person.

9) Don't include complicated URLs in a print bio.

This rule is only applicable to print bios. If you have a band website with a simple, easily typed URL like www.flamingtostitos.net or a Facebook page like www.facebook.com/flamingtostitos, you can include it. However, if your sound clips are buried someplace and accessible only by way of a long URL like http://www.bandfart.com/weenieroast/fullofcrap&35308221597351?4/meeeee!2, you're wasting time and space by including this because nobody is ever going to manually type it out. If you do have a page like this, provide the root URL together with instructions on how to access the specific page.

10) For the love of God, proofread!

This should go without saying, but I've seen enough bios with glaring errors in them that it seems to bear mentioning. Check your work before you submit it. And if possible, reread the program in hardcopy form before it gets printed and distributed. Keep in mind that, as in Rule 5, the person doing the programs probably doesn't have enough time to proofread everything. Nor are they likely to be trained copy editor. Proofing is your job.

11) If you're writing a bio for a website or social media page, don't forget to include contact information.

The old Field of Dreams adage of "If you build it, they will come" notably does not apply to digital media. Particularly if you omit the crucial part where you let visitors to your site know how to reach you. You could be the most amazing band on the face of the earth, with a beautiful web presence and a superbly crafted band bio, but unless you provide people with easy-to-find phone and email contact info, you're not going to get any work. Trust me, I've seen numerous band websites and Facebook pages with no contact information.

In sum, keep it short and pleasant, injecting some humour wherever possible, and remember the purpose of what you're doing. For more on how to write a great musical bio, here is an excellent article on the site MusicianCoaching.com by musician and Bitch magazine contributor Julia Rogers. It covers some of the same tips outlined here along with some more in-depth advice on marketing yourself as a musician.

In the meantime, to my musician friends, I hope you find this post entertaining and helpful. And if you do have any questions on bio-writing matters, feel free to give me a shout.

21 Arcane Words Worth Reviving As Modern Business Lingo

Every time the new year rolls around, just about every PR, communications and business management-related blog or forum comes out with its own list of annoying corporate neologisms and political buzzwords that deserve to bite the proverbial dust as expeditiously as possible.

I too have found myself writing light-heartedly acerbic posts about words and expressions that ought to be banned. Not surprisingly, this year's worst offenders' list includes 'fiscal cliff', 'job creators' and 'yolo' as well as stubborn hangers-on like 'guru', 'double down', 'the new normal' and 'a-ha factor'. As for me, the sooner that irritating expressions like 'lots of moving parts', 'synergy' and anything with the word 'robust' in it disappears from our business speak, the happier our workplaces will be.

But rather than focus on the words and expressions we love to hate, I would instead like to propose an infusion of new words into our daily parlance. Or, more to be more precise, I propose we revive some wonderful old words that have long fallen into disuse and breathe new life into them. Many of our extinct words are in fact delightfully punchy and compact words that strike me as very well-suited to our modern-day places of business.

What would we have to gain from reviving long-dead words and expressions? Firstly, a richer vocabulary means richer communication. What bothers me about much of our modern-day corporate lexicon is that it's frankly lazy English. Why can't we use real words instead of cheap constructs like 'core competency' or cartoon words like 'incentivize'? Secondly, the 140-character confines of the Tweet have made greater virtues than ever out of terseness. And thirdly - and this is the most important reason - it would be fun. And we all want to have fun in our work, don't we?

In selecting my top 20 candidates for vocab revival, I did my best to select words that a) would actually be useful, b) are short and concise enough for today's social media world, and c) sound cool. Some of these are fairly recent (i.e. 19th century) losses from the language, whereas others haven't been in popular parlance for over 500 years. Most of them are either verbs or nouns, although I've included a few choice adjectives as well. And as always, I'm open to other suggestions. Here we go.

1. Acrasial

 Meaning: Ill-mannered or ill-tempered.

Example: Jill may be acrasial but she gets the job done.

2. Bajulate 

Meaning: To carry a burden.

Example: Geez, I didn't realize you wanted me to bajulate this event as well as plan it!

3. Buncombe

Meaning: Unacceptable behaviour, rubbish, bullshit.

Example: I don't care if it's in your holy book! This misogynistic buncombe stops now!

4. Darkle

Meaning: To obscure something, to make dark or indistinct.

Example: As Fukushima Daiichi was in full meltdown, TEPCO darkled the issue by making vague statements and shuffling officials from post to post.

5. Dragoon

Meaning: To compel or coerce, usually by force.

Example: If you think you can dragoon me into this joke of a settlement, you're very much mistaken!

6. Drollic

Meaning: Pertaining to puppet shows (seriously).

Example: Danielle Smith assembled a drollic assortment of big oil advocates and formed the Wildrose Party.

7. Fantods

Meaning: A state of nervous irritability.

Example: John Turner's fantods got the better of him as he lashed out at Brian Mulroney over patronage appointments and lost the debate.

8. Icasm 

Meaning: A figurative expression.

Example: Just tell it to me straight; don't hide behind icasms and innuendo.

9. Jobler

Meaning: Someone who does various odd jobs.

Example: She built a reputation as a jobler within the company and eventually rose to CEO.

10. Krioboly

Meaning: A ritual involving the sacrifice of many rams (or possibly any complicated and messy ordeal).

Example: If I had known this task would turn out to be such a krioboly I would have contracted it out.

11. Mochlic

Meaning: A drastic purgative medicine.

Example: Paul Ryan's proposed economic mochlic will plunge half the country into poverty.

12. Naumachia

Meaning: A type of gladiatorial combat in Ancient Rome involving staged naval battles (or possibly any over-the-top and ghastly spectacle with an invariably messy outcome).

Example: I think we should all be patient with Obama, especially considering the naumachia that preceded him under the Bush administration.

13. Obrumpent

Meaning: The state of breaking or bursting things.

Example: Larry's obrumpent performance as CEO left the company with a tattered reputation.

14. Omniregency

Meaning: Maintaining total control over every facet of something.

Example: Seriously, your omniregency over these proceedings is starting to piss us all off!

15. Persiflage

Meaning: Lighthearted banter, friendly chitchat.

Example: A bit of persiflage with employees can help soothe nerves during performance reviews.

16. Scaevity

Meaning: Unluckiness.

Example: Hard work and good planning are no substitute for a competitor's scaevity.

17. Speustic

Meaning: Half-baked, hastily slapped together.

Example: John's speustic communications plan was full of typos and poorly articulated key messages.

18. Supererogation

Meaning: The performance of more work than duty requires.

Example: Jenny, it's great that you have such a strong work ethic, but you should know that supererogation will just make everyone else resent you. Just nod, smile and do the minimum - that's how we roll.

19. Tantuple 

Meaning: Multiplied by the same number; so many times a given quantity .

Example: China's tantuple economic growth began to peter out in the late 2000s.

20. Venialia

Meaning: An assortment of minor sins or indiscretions.

Example: Look Fred, an early departure here and there and the occasional use of company property for personal use is one thing, but your venialia is starting to attract negative attention. 

21. Wittol

Meaning: A man who is aware and tolerant of his wife's infidelity; an acquiescent cuckold (or possibly someone who is aware and tolerant of corporate misdeeds).

Example: The Watergate scandal exposed Nixon for the political wittol he was.

For those interested in these and other arcane expressions, The Phrontistery's Compendium of Lost Words is a great online resource.

5 Reasons Why Dogs Are Natural PR Professionals

If your messaging is unclear or inconsistent, this is
exactly how your PR publics will hear it.

I'm a dog person. Anyone who knows me personally knows this, as does anyone who read my post from last August about dogs and social media. I love my two dogs and over the years have developed a complex relationship with them that sometimes spills over into my professional life. On occasion when writing key messages or speaking notes, I've actually read sections out loud to them, figuring that any messaging short and concise enough to hold a dog's attention is guaranteed to work on human beings. And no, I don't cheat by putting treats in my pocket.

I first became a dog person round about the same time I became a PR person. And the further I've entrenched myself as both a PR pro and a dog parent, the more similarities between the two I've uncovered. Dogs as a species are remarkably well suited to the domain of public relations. Were it not for the fact that they are unable to read, write and speak in human language, they would probably replace us - if only for the fact that they'd happily work for food, walk breaks and raw affection.

I've never owned a cat (I'm allergic) and never purported to understand them as a species, but I've long suspected them, by contrast, of being natural lawyers. Their inscrutability, agility and uncanny ability to find all of life's loopholes (as well as their penchant for appearing out of nowhere and demanding payment) all strike me as lawyerly characteristics. Dogs, by contrast, would make terrible lawyers (Ever see a dog try to obfuscate obvious truths like missing treats or a capsized garbage can?) but fantastic PR practitioners. Here is my rationale.

1) They're natural networkers.

Ever been to PR schmooze and booze event? How about an off-leash dog park? Apart from the requisite butt-sniffing (at the dog park that is) it's sometimes hard to tell the difference. Let a bunch of PR people in a room together with appetizers and alcohol and you're guaranteed to have a party full of lively discussions, a bit of playful one-upmanship, discussions on new digital 'toys' and brand new connections.

2) They respond well to new challenges.

I've never met a PR person who didn't get fired up by a new communications tool, a new problem to solve, a new approach to communications etc. Likewise, a happy dog is a mentally and physically busy dog who's taken to agility courses, taken on new trails and given interesting puzzles to solve.

3) They grasp the importance of key messages.

Give a dog a complex set of instructions or mixed messages and you'll have yourself a confused and frustrated animal. Give a dog clear, preferably monosyllabic instructions and they learn fast. Likewise, dogs are adept at crafting key messages of their own. Anyone who gets to know a dog comes to understand the different arfs, woofs and yelps and what they mean. Sometimes key messages are non-verbal. A pee stain on the welcome mat is clearly a dog who couldn't hold it in. A strategically placed turd in the middle of the living room rug or in your shoe is something else entirely - a canine middle finger.

4) They keep you in the loop.

A good public relations consultant will keep you regularly updated on a project's progress. This is precisely why you would never want a cat in charge of a major PR initiative, as your consultant would be liable to disappear for weeks on end with no explanation. Suffice it to say this would be a non-issue with a dog at the helm. You can pretty much always count on a dog to remind you of feeding time, walk time, going outside to pee time, play time and the very fact of its existence on a regular basis. And when a dog achieves a new breakthrough in life, it will waste no time enthusiastically demonstrating it to you.

5) Two words: reputation management.

A well-trained PR person is very much like a well-trained dog when it comes to taking responsibility for screw-ups. The well-trained dog will acknowledge the fact that it was indeed them who got into the kitchen garbage can, cue guilty dog expression, slink out of the kitchen in shame...and then nudge at your hand with their wet nose once they sense that your rage has subsided somewhat. That's the canine equivalent of reputation management, namely acknowledge the situation, assume responsibility for it and then continuously work towards making amends with your publics.

Boeing For The Win - 787 Setbacks Reveal Industry Lessons Learned

A Japan Airlines Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' at Tokyo's Narita Airport (Source: Bloomberg)

On January 7, 2013 a battery overheated and started a fire in an empty Japan Airlines Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' jet on the tarmac at Boston Logan International Airport. which took emergency crews 40 minutes to extinguish. The following day a second JAL 787 experienced a fuel leak, also at Boston, leading to the cancellation of its schedule flight to Tokyo-Narita. Then the day after that, United Airlines reported a problem in one of its six 787s with the wiring in the same area as the battery fire on the JAL plane, leading the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to open a safety probe on the newly introduced jet.

Not surprisingly, global news media leaped onto the story like a rottweiler on a rabbit, fuelling rumours that Boeing's highly touted new long-range mid-capacity jet airliner was unsafe to fly. This recent bad news about the jet dubbed the 'Dreamliner' by its manufacturers is the latest in a long procession of negative PR fallout surrounding the plane, whose development production were plagued by delays, leading customers such as United and Air India to demand compensation from Boeing. In light the over two-year delay in the plane's maiden flight, which led some to dub it the 'Seven-Late-Seven', the fact that problems clearly remain with the jet could scarcely be worse for its manufacturers.

New design, new potential problems (Source: Digitaltrends.com)

Except of course that it could easily be worse. Far worse. While it was without doubt a bad week for Boeing, the problems were relatively minor ones that resulted in exactly zero deaths or injuries or hull loses. Moreover, the battery and fuel system problems, while they have yet to be resolved, are not atypical of a brand new airplane with kinks still to be ironed out, especially in one as chock-full of new design features as this one. "There’s a lot of new technology on this plane," asserted Richard Aboulafia, Vice President of Analysis at the aerospace market analysis firm Teal Group and a renowned aviation expert. “It’s a very innovative aircraft and the potential for big and small glitches has been magnified hugely as a result of this innovation.”

More importantly, however, Boeing's transparent communication surrounding the issues - and its rapid deferral to the independent NTSB clearly illustrates that the company, which together with Europe's Airbus SAS dominates the world market for large commercial airlines, has learned from the short-term oversights that have had tragic consequences in the past - and in certain cases led to the downfall of previously high-flying aircraft manufacturers.

Tragic Precedents

The Dreamliner is nothing short of a quantum leap in commercial airliner development. While superficially similar to Boeing's previous wide-body twinjets the 767 and 777,  the 787 is an entirely new creature. Unlike previous jets, whose fuselages are made entirely out of metal, the 787 is made largely out of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic, made with 23 tons of carbon fiber. This makes the jet considerably lighter than its competitors, burning 20 percent less fuel than the similar-sized 767. So groundbreaking is the new jet's materials that existing safety inspections are entirely inadequate, as composite materials don't show cracks and fatigue like metal does. This has meant that in addition to developing an entirely new place, Boeing has also had to develop entirely new testing methods and equipment for ensuring the jet's safety.

The last time commercial aviation took such a dramatic leap forward was a full generation ago, at the dawn of the widebody jet age. And the last such leap before that was in the early 1950s, at the dawn of the jet age. And in both instances, it took massive loss of life and collapse of once-industry-leading aircraft manufacturers for the industry to learn its lessons on proper product testing.

The first jet in the biz (Source: Flightglobal.org)

In 1949 the British aircraft manufacturer de Havilland unveiled the world's first mass-produced passenger jet aircraft, the Comet 1. Based on World War II-era military engineering breakthroughs, the Comet first entered airline service with British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) on its multi-stop revenue flights between London and Johannesburg in May 1952. Subsequent orders were placed by Air India, Japan Airlines, Canadian Pacific and others. The Comet craze lasted less than two years before coming to a tragic end off the coast of Italy in January 1954 when BOAC Flight 781 tore itself apart in midair, killing all 35 people on board. Three months later, another Comet, operated by South African Airways, disintegrated in midair after takeoff from Rome, killing 21 people.

Following the second tragedy, all Comet operators grounded the planes and the British government ordered an inquiry into the plane. After extensive torture-testing of existing Comet airframes, it was discovered that metal fatigue cracks around the square windows of the planes had caused both accidents - and would invariably strike again if the problem wasn't corrected. The remaining early Comet models were either scrapped or modified, and subsequent Comet variants were constructed with thicker metal skin. But while the subsequent models performed well, the de Havilland corporation never recovered from the fallout, and was folded into Hawker Siddeley in 1960. The disasters also saw the UK eclipsed by the United States in commercial aircraft manufacturing.

The next quantum leap in civil aviation took place in the late 1960s at the dawn of the 'Jumbo Jet' age, when America's three largest aircraft manufacturers were racing for the upper hand in the development of high-capacity mid-to-long-range jets. In the end it was Boeing who defined the era with the 747, a plane that would define intercontinental air travel for nearly four decades before its eclipsing by the modern-day Airbus A380 and Boeing 777. The 747 was first flown in 1969 and entered commercial service in 1970. Having being beaten by Boeing, rivals Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas were clambering for the second-place spot with their nearly identical trijet models, the L-1011 Tristar and the DC-10.

The ill-fated Turkish Airlines jet (Source: Airliners.net)

The DC-10 story is a graphic cautionary tale of the dangers of insufficient product testing and lack of transparency regarding such issues upon introducing new technology. The plane entered revenue service in mid-1971, less than a year after its maiden flight, and in less than a year after that its fatal design flaws were already apparent to investigators. In 1972 a near-tragic explosive decompression incident on board an American Airlines DC-10 exposed a dangerous design flaw in the plane's cargo bay doors. The problem was never corrected and less than two years later it surfaced again, this time with tragic consequences, on board Turkish Airlines Flight 981, when an explosive decompression resulted in the deaths of 346 people.

Following the Turkish Airlines disaster, an airworthiness directive was issued by the US' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and all DC-10s underwent mandatory door modifications. The aircraft continued to fly with major carriers for decades thereafter, but the plane's tainted reputation coupled with its direct competition with Lockheed's L-1011 resulted in far fewer sales than the company had originally projected. The company made a last-ditch attempt to inject new life into the model with a stretched and upgraded version, designated the MD-11, but its limited range relative to equivalent models by Boeing and Airbus saw it sell poorly. In 1996 McDonell Douglas was acquired by Boeing, sealing the latter's domination of America's civil aerospace business.

Fast forward to the present, the Boeing 787 was a full six years in the making before its maiden flight in 2009. Following its first flight, six test prototypes ran up some 4,645 flight hours in the jet. About a quarter of these hours were flown by FAA flight test crews, the agency. And while the investigation into recent problems with the jet are still underway, Boeing spokespersons have noted that the hugely popular 777 model experienced similar 'teething pains' in its first few years of operation. And this Friday the FAA formally announced its opinion that the Dreamliner jet is indeed safe to operate. And in its communication surrounding the disaster, Boeing has emphasized the rigourousness of the testing that went into the 787's development. It seems as though the 'lateness' of its introduction is now being used as a selling point by the company.

In its corporate values, Boeing states that "We will strive for continuous quality improvement in all that we do, so that we will rank among the world's premier industrial firms in customer, employee and community satisfaction." Judging by the company's swift actions this week and its communication of the issues surrounding its newest and most prized product, the company certainly looks like it's upholding this pledge.

Addendum (January 15)

Since the writing of this post, the problems with the Boeing 787 appear to have worsened. Today an All Nippon Airways 787 was forced to make an emergency landing after smoke was seen in the cockpit. Both ANA and Japan Airlines announced today that they are grounding their 787 fleets until further notice. A spokesperson for Boeing asserted that the company is fully aware of the situation and that it "will be working with our customer and the appropriate regulatory agencies."