Tag: Nixon

Learning by failing

NYT Opinion Page wants to debate about being informed vs being educated.

With the dcline of Newsweek, readers have moved on to Google News (ironically, today celebrates National Print Day) and other mobile content.

Short bursts: Obama won the debate. The Giants got chemistry.

We will someday think that a tweet, 140 characters, is too long.

Just like the 2-minute  microwave oven wait (used to shorten boiling time down to 2 minutes from 5).

That’s how quick our brain evolves

Yet there is no substitute for trying and failing.

Those lessons stuck around longer, since they are more personal.

Time we could have spent with our kids.

Money we could have invested in an art course that could help turn passion into profit etc… Yet, we only have regrets to show for.

In business, we missed a few steps: being too late to market, or too early.

Committing too few resources to a gigantic task (thinking we were exceptions to the rule such as Valley of Death, burnt rates etc…).

Failing begets failing.

We all hide our weakness and failure.

The culture of celeb and cinema extolls IMAGE (of heroism and hedonism).

We are supposed to be cool, hip and always on point.

In life, it’s only one take. Action and cut. And that’s a wrap.

Those who rehearsed more will get  it righ the first time.

Either way, no pain no gain.

We rehearse i.e. fumbling through, learning a new angle , a new way to interpret the script.

Life has its own script for us: put in the hours, get something back. Spend wisely and save for rainy days.

That script is universal.

Yet we keep having to relearn it. Mostly, by failing to adhere to it.

But then, whose life is it that doesn’t stray from the track? McGovern of S Dakota?

Bush of Austin, TX? or Arnold in Hollywood.  Everyone seems to have a book out. All learned by doing, by failing. The WSJ titled McGovern “Bested by Nixon“.

Will your life and mine be remembered by one defining failure? Then why do we need a whole book? Save a tree.  Just tweet, something like: I THOUGHT I WAS AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE. I WAS NOT. HARD EARNED LESSONS.

Now go celebrate National Print Day. Read about others’ struggles and striving. How they handled their own failures.

Maybe we can learn by their failing besides our own.

Left, Right, Gone!

Jody Powell, Press Secretary under the Carter Administration, died a few years ago.

William Safire, speech writer for President Nixon, also passed away soon afterwards.

These two men left a legacy of words.

Mr Safire was remembered more than his B/W iconic PR photo of the Cold War:

He left us with a Dictionary of Political Terms.

If we included Mr Cronkite into this communication pantheon, then we got a Press Secretary, a Speech writer, and a Newscaster. Left, right and center (supposedly).

I was struck by what the author of “the Middle of Everywhere” wrote:  ” On 9/11, the book I had just finished seemed meaningless”. She went on to quote Buddha ( when asked about the effect of the Enlightenment), as saying “before Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water. After Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.)

ABC News went on after Peter Jennings, and soon will after  Charles Gibson. At 6:30PM M-F, on the dot.

We go on living our lives, chopping wood and carrying water, but we remember and owe them a debt of gratitude for their contribution in the field of communication.

Call it selective memory: imagery, idea and information about them.

There is a new book about being “Connected”. And one of the central ideas is that our choices somehow get influenced by friends of friends, and that it’s those people who are a few degrees of separation from us who impact us more than our immediate connection.

Every generation of technology brings out doubters and contrarians e.g. cell phones will fry your brain, the microwave oven is causing cancer, the computer screen isolates the person (as if fast-food alone couldn’t bring about a bowling-alone nation).

But the social animals went on to find each other on Plenty-of-fish or Match.com, LinkedIn, Gather, Facebook.

There are studies which show that people are more honest when writing about themselves (than in a face-to-face meeting which tends to be more appearance-focus).

The L, R, and C communicators were of the TV generation, whose audience (viewers) decline with each passing day.

At least, they knew how to handle the ” cool” medium (visual-oriented but demands some  imagination and participation by  viewers). They knew how to “show”  viewers when the news are unfolded ” that’s the way it was”.

Speech was loaded into a teleprompter. Remember the iconic Kennedy-Nixon televised debate  (many critics thought Kennedy victory was attributed largely to his charisma, a more trustworthy image than Nixon’s sweaty and eye-slanting).

Then came the peanut grower from Georgia, with warm sweater which reminded us of Mr Roger (Mr Carter actually taught Sunday School ).

And the viewers ate it up, just as quickly as they would jump ship 4 years later for a more telegenic actor from California:

“A shinning city on the hill”.

“Give me your poor and tired “. The Lady (of Liberty) says one thing, Mr Wilson in Congress says another( “you lie”.)

Had the Mayflower been turned away then. There wouldn’t be any Thanksgiving in South Carolina as we know it today.

Someone did pay forward. And it’s time we think of paying back, and in Mr Safire’s case, a Dictionary of Political Terms.