Terry Levine | Noggin Advertising | Copywriter | Digital + Direct Writer | Blogging | Toronto | Canada

WHAT DOES SNAKE OIL LOOK LIKE?

Most of us like evidence. Save religion, where we seem to throw our desire for evidence out the window, we like to see a diploma on our doctor's office wall or fingerprints on a murder weapon or water in the pool before we dive in.

Evidence is good.

Health supplements and other new-agey holistic cures are another one of those religiony areas where, for some reason, we tend to believe a whole lot of nonsense instead of looking at the evidence.

This fantastic little app called Snake Oil maps out a whole range of popular health supplements and rates their effectiveness, based on scientific evidence -- not on what Uncle Sal swears by. Roll over a circle and you'll see the claim that's made for that particular supplement and click on the "Show Me" tab on the right to drill down to specific maladies.

Now let's see if someone has the guts to create one of these to weed out the crap in religion and politics.

CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS.

My Sunday mornings seem to always revolve around watching Meet the Press or workout infomercials like Insanity and PX90. Last Sunday was no different. And somewhere between trying to understand David Gregory's hair and marvelling at Shaun T's body, I started thinking about consistency. Seriously.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the 10,000-hour rule -- a theory researchers have proposed to explain how people become true experts at what they do. It turns out that whether you're Bill Gates learning about computing, Mozart or the Beatles perfecting their music abilities or athletes reaching the top of their game, what all world-class experts in their fields share is that they've all reached their level of mastery with 10,000 hours of practice.

Neurologist Daniel Levitin says: "In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concern pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again."

Now, Levitin explains, this doesn't mean that anyone who writes for 10,000 hours will become the next Hemingway. Talent is needed too, but not as much as we think. In most cases, what experts and so-called prodigies share is a commitment and consistency to honing their craft.

What does this have to do with Sunday morning workout infomercials? It's always seemed plainly obvious to me that the secret to all these "miracle" workout routines has little to do with the exercises themselves. It's about getting people to be consistently active for an extended period of time. In fact, I always joke when people compliment me on my level of fitness or ask me about my routine that my secret is simply that I've been doing it non-stop for 25 years.

Consistency.

I'm also reminded of a friend of who shifted from career to career every few years. Sadly he couldn't find something that he was passionate about but in moving around as much as he did it also meant he was never able to build up the required skills and reputation in any one field.

Whether it's working out or moving up professionally or finishing that damn book, talent and ability are important, of course. But sticking with it all the way is the key.

 

FAMILY TIES: 140 WORDS ON THE FIGHTER

The Fighter, when it comes right down to it, isn't really a movie about boxing. It's about family -- the sacrifices parents make and ultimately their inability to let go and let their kids live the lives they were meant to.

The movie follows the true story and unlikely rise of working class Irish-American light welterweight boxer Micky Ward as he comes to terms with the realization that winning the title might mean losing those he cares about most.

While Mark Wahlberg -- back in fine beefcake Marky Mark form -- puts it another characteristically monotone albeit solid performance as Micky, Christian Bale as Ward's crack-addicted brother Dicky and Melissa Leo as their uber-fertile stage mother Alice suck up most of the on-screen oxygen.

The Fighter isn't a dazzling film but it's real and well-acted and written and, as they say, has lots of heart.

 

 

KIRPANS AND COMMON SENSE.

I've never been a fan of religious edicts on what devout people ought to wear. What clothing has to do with whether someone is good or bad in the eyes of god is frankly beyond me. But we live in a democracy and we all have the right to wear whatever stupid clothes we want, whether it's a burqa, a niqab, a turban, a kipa, a shtreimel, skinny jeans or crocs.

So I've been struggling a bit the last couple of days over the uproar at Quebec's National Assembly. Four members of the World Sikh Organization of Canada -- there ironically to voice their complaint at Liberal Party legislation to ban the Muslim niqab in public -- were turned away by security because they were carrying kirpans, or ceremonial daggers.

The Supreme Court has already settled the issue of kirpans -- Sikhs have a right to wear them in public as long as they're worn under the clothes and sewn into a sheath -- and I respect the decision. But I think the Sikh delegates showed poor judgment.

Two weeks ago a crazed lunatic in Tucson shot a semi-automatic weapon at a US congresswoman, seriously injuring her and 13 others and killing six. I don't know what National Assembly security was thinking when four men walked toward them wearing daggers but I wouldn't fault them if Tucson crossed their minds, even for a second.

I'm not suggesting that these upstanding Sikh-Canadians had any intention of doing harm to anyone. But I do think that they showed tone deafness considering the venue and the recent attack in Arizona. To scream "religious intolerance!" as some are in the wake of the incident is overly simplistic. You can't harm someone with a turban. You can with a dagger, ceremonial or otherwise.

I think the always opportunistic Bloc Québécois ought to withdraw its idiotic legislation -- its tactics only seek to divide us. But I think in the future, the Sikh community might try to find an acceptable compromise in situations such as these. I assume Sikhs can't board a plane with a kirpan. Attending political events might be another exception to consider.

For another perspective on this flashpoint, here's my friend Paulo Senra.

THE ATHEISATION OF INFORMATION: WIKIPEDIA TURNS 10.

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." -- Winston Churchill

Wikipedia -- the world's most popular online reference site -- is 10 years old this week. And there are few better examples of tools that deliver all of humanity with such a vast repository of unbiased knowledge and balanced information. You can lament all the misinformation on the internet and off about climate change or evolution or absurdities like death panels or 9/11 conspiracy theories, but if you want to know the truth -- or something close to it -- Wikipedia is the place to go.

Wikipedia's strength -- and, some believed at the start, its potential downfall -- has been its system of collaborative editing by anonymous contributors and editors. It seemed like a risky proposition and recipe for disaster: let people, anyone really, write and edit entries, let anyone else challenge contentious content and let consensus develop naturally.

This went against, really, thousands of years of accepted practice on how to gather and disseminate knowledge and information: "limit content creation to a relatively small group of approved editors in order to exercise strong hierarchical control." In other words, leave it up to the experts and scholars and journalists and politicians to tell everyone what the truth was.

Wikipedia offered an alternative -- a knowledge expert could be a world-class scholar with lots of letters after his name but he could also simply be someone passionate and knowledgeable about a particular subject.

With Wikipedia, gone are the days of waiting for pronouncements and signs from the gods of information -- Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford, CNN, the New York Times. Knowledge no longer only comes from on high. Instead we all have that power to decide what the truth is and the freedom to share with one another.

At its core, Wikipedia delivers on the greatest promise of the internet, which is essentially about the power of democracy. It's not perfect, it's sometimes hijacked by those with questionable intentions and, from time to time, some of us have to go back and clean up messes and excesses others have created.

But, all things considered, it sure as hell beats the alternative.

For an illuminating look at the 10-year evolution of a Wikipedia entry, click here.

TESTING AND COMMON SENSE.

Serious direct marketers are big on testing -- altering different elements of a campaign and measuring how these affect the customer's likelihood of responding to your communication compared to a control -- for instance a $50 off offer versus 2 weeks free, or using a #10 envelope versus a self-mailer, or trying more promotional copy and design versus something more corporate, or targeting one demographic group over another.

After the campaign is over, response rates are compared and weighed against ROI -- return on investment -- because, while one test element might blow the response out of the water, it might also be ten times costlier to produce and therefore unlikely to be worth the effort.

There are an endless number of tests direct marketers can try. But while testing can be a very useful way to maximize marketing dollars it's sometimes fetishized and over-relied on at the expense of simple common sense.

For instance, testing may show that mailing in a white #10 envelope outperforms a colorful promotional self-mailer. But what happens when everything a marketer sends out is #10? Then it may make sense to toss out what you know about prior testing and go with something unexpected.

Seth Godin tackles the issue of testing here, cautioning to: "Go ahead and test what's testable. But the real victories come when you have the guts to launch the untestable."

In other words, testing is important. But gut and common sense ought to be able to override it. And who decides whether sense is common?

Well, that's what experience is for.

THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION: 140 WORDS ON THE KING'S SPEECH.

There's a scene early on in The King's Speech in which crusty old King George V laments to his second son Bertie, stammerer and future George VI, about how the communications revolution -- at this point radio -- has debased the majesty of the crown to where the royal family are now nothing more than lowly actors.

He shouldn't have been so down on actors, particularly the great ones in this film. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are wonderfully witty and believable in their roles. Guy Pearce, doppelganger for party-boy and crypto-Nazi King Edward VIII, was born for his. As was Colin Firth as the gentle but tormented soul who never wanted to be king. In particular, the on-screen chemistry between Rush and Firth is amazing. A pity the Oscars don't hand out awards for pairs. These two would win hands down.

CREATIVES VS SUITS.

There's an age-old conflict at ad agencies and movie or music studios -- or any place where creatives and suits find themselves having to work together.

Creative people tend to be progressive. New and different and chaotic and risky excite them. Suits on the other hand -- the strategists, the bean counters, etc. -- tend to be conservative. They're often frightened by new and different. This isn't meant to be a criticism or a put-down. Their job is different from creative people. Their role and aim is to mitigate risk, to ensure a predictable outcome, to make a profit.

While both groups tend to get frustrated with each other, they each serve valuable roles because, at least in business, success is often found someplace in between.

Malcolm Gladwell explains the conflict between creative and non-creative universes below, beautifully as always.

IN HERE: 140 WORDS ON SOMEWHERE.

It doesn't take long past the symbolism of the opening scene of Somewhere -- Stephen Dorff's character Johnny Marco driving round and round and round and round and round in his Ferrari -- to get the premise of Sofia Coppola's latest film: an apathetic moviestar thinks his life is boring, monotonous, going nowhere.

Woe is him.

Fast cars. Private dancers. Women throwing themselves at his feet. Italian hotel rooms with private pools. A daughter who idolizes him. Almost makes you want to bring Cher to his Chateau Marmont apartment to smack him and tell him to snap out of it.

Coppola ought to have flown her character to somewhere like Haiti or New Orleans for a dose of reality. He'd discover -- as should we all -- that happiness and meaning aren't somewhere out there but in here, in us.