Sinterklaas or the power of propaganda

I knew it would come one day. A seven-year-old friend of my son’s planted a seed of suspicion. Sinterklaas (the bishop coming to Holland from Spain by boat loaded with presents – the true Santa Claus, as opposed to the one coming from Lapland) would not exist, according to rumour spread by the friend’s elder brother.

-          But you have seen him, haven’t you? – I probed whether it was time to tell him the whole truth.
-          Yes,  I have. But D. says that it’s a man like any other. Only in disguise.
-          Come on, would they make so much fuss in the whole country, if the whole story was rubbish?
-          Exactly – answered my son, relieved. – Of course it’s a man. Sinterklaas is a man. – he continued – And they wouldn’t have Sinterklaas-news on TV every evening, would they? If Sinterklaas didn’t exist, they would be called Sinterklaas-Rubbish, not news.
-          Exactly, that's absolutely correct. – I said, touched by his faith in the quality of information on TV.
-          But he wouldn’t take a naughty kid with him to Spain? – my son inquired further, as this is what Dutch parents threaten their kids with: if a child really misbehaves, he or she will be transported to Spain in Sinterklaas’s bag (going to Spain never sounded like punishment to me, but it certainly does to Dutch kids. The power of propaganda at its best.) – It just doesn’t make sense. The kid would maybe behave better for a couple of days, but then it would get back to normal. I think children simply should stay as they are. Good or bad. It doesn’t make sense to try and change them, does it?
-          That’s a very clever remark. – I said and thought that this was incredible insight for a seven-year-old. Even if this was just an attempt to avoid being sent to Spain.

It was a day otherwise full of surprising remarks. When by coincidence he learned about the death of a famous Dutch writer, J. Bernlef, his comment was:

-          Soon there will be no writers left, if they keep dying.

Exactly. They should just stop that. Death should be forbidden for writers.

Especially for such talents that utter somewhere in the middle of their book, a fragment that I cannot exactly remember, but it went more or less like this:

“It is as it is. If it wasn’t as it is, that would mean that things have taken an extraordinary course of action.” (Harry Mulisch “The Discovery of Heaven”)

Sinterklaas might take some of the evil ones to Spain with him in an attempt to turn them into someone that they are not. But that would be quite extraordinary. In fact, so extraordinary that it just cannot possibly happen. My mischievous little boy may sleep calmly. I know he is at his best the way he is. I won’t denounce him to the bearded bishop.

 

 

 

Right Brain Nirvana

There’s a kind of people that I call “digital”. They think in 1-0 sets. True or false. Right or wrong. And if they cannot decide directly whether it’s a 1 or 0, they will analyse it using appropriate tools and come up with a conclusion.

Sometimes I envy them, as it’s much easier for them to make decisions. While me, not trusting analyses,  I don’t have a fool-proof tool to make them. The decisions. Which doesn’t mean I’m always hesitant. No, sometimes I’m as sure as one can be, only I can’t put a digital finger on the exact reasons why. Just a gut feeling. A very strong one (there’s nothing weak about my guts).

I recently read about a very tempting book by Daniel Pink on that topic. His proposition appealed to me as truly irresistible. It’s irresistible as it says that right is right and it’s right to be so! The right brain is just as, or even more,  important than the left one. I’m right! I’m right!  

I’m my right brain, that’s what I wanted to say by this seemingly arrogant exclamation. It is the one that makes me. The rest is just details.

Contrarily to what people who are in love with technology will say, the analogue will rule the future. The analogue as the opposite of the digital. For me, the analogue stands for: the right brain, the intuitive, the big picture, the creative (it doesn’t really directly stand for that for the general public, but there are analogies:  I’ve just learned from my private engineer that analogue means mechanical, or using changing physical quantities such as voltage to store data. Oh, yes, the changing physical quantities. They travel through my brain when it delivers the feeling to my guts, resulting in a gut feeling. Analogue is therefore my private little protest against the digital. And by the way, a metaphor is analogous, too: it’s translating one domain using the terms of another one).

Old fashioned analogue is the future. Not in technology, but in people.

The book I’m talking about is “A Whole Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future”. The book is “about the two forces that are making our left-brain capabilities increasingly obsolete in business. The first is outsourcing. The fact that someone abroad can do a job equally well but for less money than you can means  that these days companies are not looking so much for left-brain workers. (…) But what they can’t outsource is your creativity, your empathy with customers, your playfulness, your big-picture thinking and all the other habits this book is about.  (…) The second force is computers ”  (quoted after S. Hashemi “Switched On”). Aha! The digital machine will make the digital man obsolete. I need to learn more about it, to warn some fellow-digitals that they need to go analogue. Daniel Pink is about to be added to my shopping basket.

Just as, one day, another incredible book ended up there “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. A brain scientist herself, Ms. Bolte experienced a left-brain stroke in her thirties. The hemisphere where language and logic centres are located, went off. What she was left with was the right brain, and, while she was struggling to recall the proper course of action in such a case (calling an ambulance wasn’t something that directly came to her ailing mind) she experienced feelings of “tranquillity, safety, blessedness, euphoria, and omniscience.” She describes this experience further like this: “deep within the absence of earthly temporality, the boundaries of my earthly body dissolved and I melted into the universe.” She put the phone in front of her trying in vain to recall a number to dial – the neurons coding numbers were now swimming in a pool of blood. The digits were gone. What she was offered instead was nirvana.

Fortunately, she both survived the stroke and fully recovered from it, after a surgery and eight years of revalidation. I was delighted to read about her journey and realise that somewhere in the right side of our brains there resides a possibility of experiencing a oneness with the universe. In Jill Bolte Taylor’s words: “Wow, what a strange and amazing thing I am. What a bizarre living being I am. Life! I am life! “

I dream of a true digit-free relationship, with no touch screens between us. There’s no 1 or 0, and nothing is for sure but one thing: that we are life.

A Brainy Brand

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding recently, for important professional reasons. Well, it can happen to everyone: to think about your job in your spare time. What worries me a little is that it happens more and more often to me lately. It may imply that I’m starting to like what I do between 8 and 5. This is a very dangerous phenomenon: being satisfied with one’s job brings a looming danger of self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction, in turn, is disastrous to creativity. Irritation is, not only phonetically, close to inspiration (take pearl creation or ovulation as an example – both processes are very creative and both involve friction).

According to one definition, a brand is something unique, intangible, single minded, experiential, meaningful, consistently delivered, authentic (in line with what the audience thinks and feels about the brand), sustainable and scalable (i.e. applicable for brand extensions, too).

I’m not sure about my private brand, as I act by intuition and not a cleverly engineered plan. But I just thought I know one perfectly marketed brand: MEN.

Unique. Intangible. Single-minded. Experiential. Meaningful. Consistently delivered. Authentic. Sustainable. Scalable – applicable in case a MAN extends his activities.

 What constitutes the essence of this particular brand? It’s all described in a lengthy volume entitled „What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex” by professor Sheridan Simove. http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Every-Thinks-About-Apart/dp/1849531986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350588555&sr=8-1

Despite the fact that the book contains as many as 196 pages, every man will be able to read and grasp it in its entirety. It’s all about them, MEN, after all. There’s nothing as interesting for a human being (you see, I don’t discard the brand at all) as the being himself. Except for sex maybe…

The description sounds really encouraging: “In this groundbreaking book, Professor Sheridan Simove reveals the true depth of a man's mind. After years of painstaking research, he has precisely identified what men actually think about apart from sex. Professor Simove beautifully reveals a man's mind as an open book and the results unlock an age old secret...”

The book, except for the title page and the description, is completely blank. 196 white pages.

I became instantly speechless (though not finger-less, fortunately, so I keep typing):

Unique. Nobody else but MEN think constantly about sex.

Intangible. Indeed, there’s no way of capturing thoughts. Even an MRI scan isn’t capable of revealing the exact contents of someone’s mind.

Single-minded. Sex and nothing else.

Experiential. I pity those who have not yet experienced this truly unique brand.

Consistently delivered. Sure – the whole book is blank.

Authentic. Would the audience believe in the message? Of course. What I would have trouble with is believing a man, who claims to be thinking about something else all the time. Something like the colour of nail polish. Or the sum of all the angles in a triangle.

No, I would believe the one with triangles, after a second thought.

Sustainable. It lasts till the last breath.

Scalable. Applicable to brand-extentions. Obviously – if a man develops a sudden taste for teenage girls, his brand essence remains unchanged. The teenager may weaken him physically, but the brand remains strong as ever.
The same applies to male offspring of a MAN, once they get older. Conclusion – it works perfectly for any extension or diversification you may think of.

Oh, what a beautifully consistent brand message! MEN truly are a brand to remain loyal too. Till the last breath.

And me, what am I to do with my bearings? Build the brand on …. balls?

PS. I bet if this post has good statistics it means Rabbit Hole is being visited by plenty of men. That’s encouraging, because it proves they have the large brain, too. You need that one for reading. It’s located in the higher regions of their body and serves to regulate body temperature and give directions to their members. Among others.

Rolling up the tarmac

Holland is a very well organized country. Really well organized. There are rules and norms for everything.  Everything has been touched by a human hand in this 30^th most densely populated country in the world.

The Dutch even have a saying “God created the World, and the Dutch created the Netherlands."  It’s quite a legitimate statement: almost twenty percent of the country (there we go! The first percentage in my blog! For someone with an aversion for numbers, that’s quite an achievement. Let’s celebrate!) is located under the sea level, majority of which is land regained from the sea. Ok, it would be more precise perhaps to say “God created the World, and the Dutch created almost 20 percent of the Netherlands”  but I’m sure everyone agrees this is not a very catchy phrase. Let’s not argue about the details: if it was God who created the World, that probably was a certain percentage, too. He didn’t create tarmac, for instance, did he? There we go.

The Dutch, in turn, who perhaps did not create tarmac themselves, did build great roads in their little sweet home-made country. Streets. Highways. Bike paths. Jogging paths. Horse paths. Pavements. Whether by car, by bike or on foot, I enjoy them incessantly, and probably will continue to do so till cows come home (I don’t actually have cows, nor invite them home or particularly enjoy them, as they are huge and we have no communication media in common, which means I’m afraid of them whenever I meet them on my jogging path, but nevertheless the expression “till cows come home”, meaning “forever” is particularly suited for the Netherlands. Who’s been here in the countryside will understand why.)

Anyway. That brings me away from the topic, just as cows bring me away from my jogging path on the heather fields (being afraid of the creatures, I need to make last-minute route adjustments). Let’s go back to the Dutch roads. One road in particular. I was cycling there one evening, my yoga mat in the cycle bag, and suddenly I can see an incarnation of “That’s it” in front of me. The road stops suddenly. The road is over. What stretches in front of me instead is sand, mud and stones. I did continue cycling though. It was a very special feeling, I imagined it was a street in the Middle Ages, and I was a visitor from the future on my bike.

 

It is at that moment that this thought appeared: the Dutch are surely proud of the level of infrastructure in their country, which however doesn’t stop them from being curious to see whether civilisation reached any deeper levels than what’s on the surface. They remove the tarmac to see whether the sand and the soil underneath already transformed themselves into something more civilised. More organized. More structured.

They didn’t. What a relief! There’s still a beach underneath.

Icon

“If you try to be an icon then the icon becomes you

If you try to be a model it will catwalk over you
If you try to walk in straight shoes the these shoes will bend you too
If you try to be a kid again then the kid will kidnap you”
(Daan “Icon” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZp9z_vX5E)

I’ve always wanted to write something inspired by that song, but I couldn’t think of anything that would be of any added value to those delicious lyrics. They simply speak for themselves, and do it so playfully: “if you try to be a model it will catwalk over you”. Mmm…

I believe Susan Sontag when she says that any interpretation is a by-product of a disappointment with the text itself. The critic would actually prefer the book to be somewhat (or completely) different and he or she writes a long essay interpreting what the author might have meant. As if he simply didn’t mean what he said. The lyrics of the song above didn’t disappoint me, and therefore I’m not going to bore you with interpretations. Let them be.

Had it not been for the last Friday morning in the office, I would have probably resisted the temptation to quote the “Icon” at all. That morning however I tried to print an excel document on my usual printer, but after pressing the “print” button I heard no reassuring murmur (“I’m doing it! I’m doing it!”) of the machine. I walked up to the printer, assuming it needed more paper. But that wasn’t the reason of this sudden lack of cooperation. The display said “CHOSEN PERSONALITY NOT AVAILABLE”. I blinked my eyes. The text was still there. I asked a witness. He confirmed. Chosen personality wasn’t available indeed.

The machine just kept repeating the message, no matter how often you pressed the “print” button or reset it. It just wasn’t available. I only had no clue which personality I had chosen by mistake. I don’t even know  where that option is on my PC.

Well, you know, my dear printer, that’s very kind of you to give me this kind of advice. The problem is, I really don’t know who I am, let alone my personality. But as I have to appear to know that, like most normal people do, I just chose something at random. Apparently, that’s a very popular  personality type, something many others choose, too. Sooo many others, that the type is out of stock.

That might be a gap in the market, and you, working in a marketing department, should know that. If this particular personality type is so much in demand, why don’t you re-print it in thousands? You’re the printer, that’s your cup of tea. And don’t tell me tea’s finished, too. I’m sure there’s some more on my desk, so help yourself and re-print my personality type for Monday morning at the latest.

It’s a very bad start of the week, to learn you’re out.

Big Bang or the Gang

I like to make up stories, but this one truly is true. It is about charity and altruism, and it’s also a little  bit about business, in my rabbit-sort of way. A little different.

 A baby boy, born in Russia, needed a life-saving surgery, which the Russian doctors weren’t able to carry out.  His parents were, as most parents would be, desperate. But there was a chance for him, the chance came with an 80 thousand euro price label. It was a specialised surgical procedure offered by a German hospital.

How do you collect eighty thousand euros within two months? There are two basic options: you don’t do anything, hoping for a miracle,  or you actually start doing something because miracles is nothing you can count on. And that’s what the parents of the little boy did: they involved their friends and acquaintances, they used social media and TV to get attention for their cause. One of their facebook-allies was a friend of mine.

She created a support group, and kept informing the members of the progress of the donations. She made sure all the proofs of the boy’s existence were published on the net. She involved virtually everyone she knew. When I last spoke to her, she shared some reactions people had initially:

-          You know what, I’m not taking part in such actions. I’m just not doing it. How on earth do you want to collect 80K in 2 months? Sorry, for me it just doesn’t make sense.
-          What if they don’t raise all the money before the deadline? I don’t want my money to be wasted.
-          I don’t need to donate, because you did already, didn’t you?
-          Come on, do you really believe in that story? 80K euro needed on a bank account in Russia??? How can you be so naïve?
-          This is only one boy saved. But there are many more, so when will you stop?
-          I might donate some money, because I trust you. But how do you want strangers to wire money over to Russia of all places on earth?

Obviously, that wasn’t too encouraging. Utopia, you’d say.

What’s surprising though, is that money kept streaming in. One anonymous person even made a transfer of ten thousand euros. Two days before the deadline, there were only twenty-five thousand euro missing. That’s a lot, I know. But that also means that there were enough kind-hearted and naïve people to raise 65K euros to save the life of an unknown kid.

And that fills me with hope for the mankind. And makes me prefer naive people to realists. Sorry.

I’m reading a management book right now (I know someone who’d be very happy to hear that). It contains a quote by W.N. Murray from the Scottish Himalayan Expedition:

“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come this way.”

(quote after Sahar Hashemi “Switched On”)

Just one day before the deadline the boy's parents were contacted by a charity organisation, who offered to cover the remaining amount needed for the surgery. Providence!

All acts of inititiative (and creation). I like that. That brings me to the most spectacular creation I’ve ever heard of:

In the beginning there was nothing, and out of this nothing, probably through some Big Bang or a revolt of a Big Gang, Something got created. If there existed some creatures able to understand speech before the Bang (or the Gang), and you told them the following (if you existed, of course, but we all know you didn’t, which nevertheless shouldn’t stop you from imagining such conversation now, as now you do exist):

-          You know what I see happening in the future? There’ll be this Something appearing out of Nothing, and this will kick-off a grand series of events which will at some point lead to intelligent beings collecting an enormous amount of money to save a little intelligent being’s life. Can you believe it?

Their answer would probably be:
-          Come on, what kind of management guru told you that? This is complete utopia. It can’t possibly happen.

Well, it did. So please don’t tell me I shouldn’t believe in Utopias. Had it not been for an Utopia, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, in your office, at your desk.

Tommy becomes Pippi's boss and what happens next

All little boys who ever heard of Pippi adore and admire her. She can lift a horse, lives on her own, her imagination knows no limits and she’s so deliciously disobedient. Controversial, provocative, genuine. Different. Accepting no roles the society tries to ascribe to her. Not afraid of anything and anyone. Generous. Kind-hearted and loving. Hilarious.

Those boys grow up and they meet someone who reminds them of Pippi. Someone who refuses to stay at home and make home-making her only job. They meet this independent spirit, and, instead of adoring and admiring her, they are afraid. And when people are afraid, what they do is try to control the object of their fear.

For her own good they will try to make Pippi understand that it’s in her interest to fit in. Be polite. Follow the rules, not challenge them. Bear children, iron shirts, cook meals. Accept to earn less than Tommy. Talk about fashion with Annika. “ I mean, Pippi, be reasonable:  time goes by, and we have a family to support. You just need to settle down.”

All little girls who ever heard of Pippi want to become like her. Independent and courageous. Questioning the status quo. They are all smiles when they hear this conversation between Pippi and the old rich Miss Rosenbloom:

“’Pay attention girl,’ she said at last. ‘I want you to tell me how you spell “seasick”.’
‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ said Pippi. ‘S-e-e-s-i-k.’
Miss Rosenbloom smiled sarcastically.
‘Oh’, she said, ‘the spelling book has different ideas’.
‘It’s jolly lucky, then, that you asked me how I spell it’, said Pippi. ‘S-e-e-s-i-k’, that’s the ways I’ve always spelt it and it never did me any harm’. (…)
‘Make a note of it,’ said Miss Rosenbloom to the secretaries. Her mouth was set in a thin line.
‘Yes, do,’ said Pippi. ‘Take down this extra good spelling, and make sure it’s put into the spelling book as soon as possible.’
‘Well now, my girl,’ said Miss Rosenbloom. ‘Tell me this. When did Charles I die?’
‘Oh, dear me!’ exclaimed Pippi. ‘Is he dead now? It makes you so sad to think of how many people pop off nowadays. And I’m quite sure it need never have happened if only he’d changed his shoes when they got wet.’’ (quote after Google Books, http://books.google.nl/books?id=hf8O0X5GieIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=rosembloom&f=false)

Both Tommy and Annika were so proud of her on that day! How she’d outwitted the old spinster, rewarding the children who were dismissed by Miss Rosenbloom for their cluelessness.

Grown-up Pippi and Tommy, who has in the meantime become her boss (and not the other way round: I suspect it's due to Tommy's wearing his hair neatly combed to one side from his early years. What you have on your head, will sooner or later get into it), and has obviously forgotten all admiration he had for Pippi when they were young, will have quite a different  conversation instead:

‘Pay attention, Miss Langstrumpf,’ he said at last. ‘I want you to tell me how you’ve come up with 2 million instead of 2 thousand, and how we’re going to make sure it’s not going to happen again.’
‘With the greatest of pleasure’, said Pippi. ‘I thought: it’s Christmas, people deserve some good news. 2 million would make them much happier than 2 thousand, so I added a few more zeros. Zero is nothing, so you might also say I added nothing. Nothing happened, really. But the sales force was very content with their results, so I think we may conclude that it was great success with little effort’.
‘Only these were not their results’ Mr. Settergren exclaimed. ‘If the controller hadn’t noticed that, we would have had to pay them all extremely high bonuses. Do you at all realise what you’ve done?’
‘Nothing. As I said previously, nothing. I added a few nothings to the amount. To make them happy for Christmas’
‘And make the company bankrupt!’ – he was in total rage by now. – ‘Have you had maths at all?’
‘Yes, I remember having some. Many even. One day, I open my closet, and what I see is a whole swarm of moths flying out. They were eating up my wardrobe, can you imagine? Nasty bastards.’
‘Mind your language, Miss Langstrumpf. ‘Next time I hear a word like this from your mouth, and you’re fired! I mean it! Now I really mean it, it’s been enough!’

They say the books children love in childhood will form them as adults. Sadly, in most cases this is only wishful thinking.  Don't get me wrong - what I'm supporting here is not creative accounting, but sheer sense of humour! But tall Tommies have short memories.