Warning!  Some pretty rough stuff in here.While scanning my google reader this afternoon, I made the mandatory stop & read Seth Godin’s post.“The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down.”Nodded head - duly noted.A few minutes later, saw this in Bob Garfield’s blog.“Ordinarily, graphic displays of trauma and death have an effect opposite of what is intended. It’s too horrible to deal with, and we shut down.”Wow.  What a coincidence - even similar language.And then I watched the video.  Please do the same.It certainly worked for me.  I see no reason to have my phone even turned on, when I’m behind the wheel now.  I’ve never texted while driving, but admit to “hands free” important conversations, to use all that extra attention I was wasting while merely aiming the car down the road.This visual and lesson of the PSA shouldn’t shut us down - just our phones, when our attention need be elsewhere

In this year’s US presidential election campaign, we’ve heard endless speeches about saving the middle class .. middle-class tax-cuts … helping home-owners.  Both sides - Republican and Democrat.

I don’ recall any speeches or advertising about reducing poverty, programs for the poor, etc.  Now I certainly don’t expect concern for the poor from the Republican side, but I remember a strong Democratic concern for the American poor and reducing poverty.  From the sixties until the nineties.

Suddenly, it seemed, Clinton and friends discovered Hollywood and big money and concern for the middle-class.  Overnight, poverty had been eliminated - at least as a matter of concern.

Growing up Catholic in the fifties, the poor were part of the conversation, if not part of the family:  our relatives in post-war Eastern Europe; the children in the mission territories of Africa and the South Pacific, among others.

In the sixties, brave politicians created the Great Society and the War on Poverty to help the poor in this country.  The Peace Corps spread abroad to work in developing nations.  We heard the words poor and poverty as part of the national conversation.

Today, it seems, we have a battle betwwen the middle-class and the super-rich.  Who gets what and who gets to pay for it.  Certainly no headlines on poverty or the poor.

And that’s just about poverty here in the US.  Around the world, more than a billion people subsist on less than a dollar a day.  We hear almost nothing about them - unless there’s an explosion or tsunami.  The US sends about $25 billion each year to developing countries.  That’s a buck a day for 25 days for a billion people.

So what do we do now?

First, check the action at www.blogactionday.org

Then take one action, today, to help.  Write a post.  Send a check.  Tell a friend.

Thanks.

Love to all.

http://blogactionday.org/js/99adc9f576edeb9115137b7b0e0445b6ebb3fa7f

Patrick Ruffini sees a possible Presidential future in the current Mac/iPhone/iPod halo. No, not for Steve Jobs, but for Barack Obama. Obama as product, packaging and positioning.

Dick Zigun says he supports plans to redevelop Coney Island on a grand scale, but not if it means turning it into a mall.

The Mayor of Coney Island has been working since 1980 to preserve the old landmark neighborhood and promote a future fitting the magical  nexus of sand and sea and four subway lines.  His not-for-profit Coney Island USA “interprets the past and experiments with the future of American popular culture and offers a growing panoply of arts events and exhibitions rooted in the traditions of P.T. Barnum, vaudeville and Coney Island itself”.  High aspirations in a time and place about a century removed from the glory days.

But there remains a loyal tribe steeped in the hustle and carney scene around the Bowery and the Sideshow - an underground hipster vibe on the fringe of the city, only minutes away from the LES.  Unique and worth preserving?

Zigun: “People find the seediness charming, and I realized that in terms of the way capitalism works and real estate works, you can’t become enamored of the seediness,” he said.

“That’s not what Coney Island was in its heyday.”  Read more in the NYT
So, the mantra today on the web is “keep it raw”: people are suspicious of polished video and website design.  That’s not what marketing was in its heyday, either.  Simple and aw-shucks is fine.  But with good production values - well-lit with perfect sound, and a well-executed script.

Look at the sideshow - in the seediest of surroundings, absolute pros gathering the thirsty crowds with rehearsed and polished pitches, getting them in the tent with previews of the highly practiced and professional stars of the show, and best of all collecting the toll as they turn the tip.  The production values are spectacular considering the price of admission and the scene.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen … we have for you here … the courageous, the outrageous, the contagious - all the amazing and shocking tips, tricks and techniques for delivering your customer’s perfect satisfaction in today’s market. Inside you’ll see the Barnum, the Hopkins, the Halbert and all the masters and media mavens, as well as the posers and pretenders.

Today’s Go To: Jim Edwards blog www.igottatellyou.com