PrettyLittleHead

the time warner cable triple play plan was costing about $150 each month. in return for this cash, accepted electronically on a less than regular basis by a shoddy online payment system, the tv received hundreds of channels, the box recorded digitally a dozen or so shows (more or less reliably), the cable modem fed the airport express which fed the macbook, and the phone rang, usually at the behest of pesky credit card companies.

all was right with the world.

and then i cancelled it. now i only have the cable modem. my cell phone is my phone. my tv is powered by broadcast and appleTV and my dvd player. my internet connection powers my ability to access content and to communicate.

here’s what i have noticed.

“The only hope for rock’n'roll, aside from everybody playing nothing but shrieking atonal noise through arbitor distorters, is women. Balls are what ruined both rock and politics in the first place, and I demand the world be turned over to the female sex immediately.” Lester Bangs

“I’ll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow.” Frank Zappa

“Audiences know what to expect, and that is all they are prepared to believe in.” From Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

have recently been admonished for not blogging recently, and not blogging on my erstwhile passion, politics. i have slipped into the depths of disgust and so i have only this to say. today, anyway.

oh, my thoughts on the primaries… and my blog… probably all intertwined in my apathy and fed-up-ness. you can never underestimate the democratic party’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. the last 8 years were supposed to destroy the republican party, and it sort of has. but the dems, not to be outdone, have cleared a path to their own destruction in only 8 months. this country really needs to have a public debate about what democracy means, anyway. we need a federal positive voting right. we need to stop corporations like the DNC/RNC from determining whether to give the franchise to state delegates to nominating conventions - or do away with the primary system altogether; and don’t start me on caucuses, which are simply a form of public intimidation and vote stacking. none of the candidates have had a fair shake to talk about anything meaningful… and have finally given up on it and campaigned in the only way that breaks through in our system. meanwhile, the economy is tanking because the post-Enron years only encouraged more financial obfuscation and skullduggery in the form of ‘complex financial instruments’ that somehow escaped the attention of the SEC - leaving consumers fucked with ‘adjustable rate mortgages’ that have been ‘adjusted’ right out of their ability to pay and in excess of the value of the home… the fed has become a reverse robin hood, engineering bailouts and interest rate reductions that make money cheap for the rich, but prevent the middle class from making money off their money (they act like we should be grateful to make 3% on our cash, when they can charge 30% on our debt)… and of course, there’s the ‘war’ in iraq - which is now an afterthought in news coverage because, hey! eliot spitzer spent 80 grand on hookers, and someone said barack obama is black.

what is vacation anyway?

is it truly time off, a leave of absence, a sojourn?

or is it the only time you have to read through your mail, run your errands and clean your house?

does vacation still mean reading your work email?

does vacation include googletalking with colleagues about upcoming projects?

if you work where i do, then it’s not so much a respite from anything as it is your chance to scurry around catching up with life, already in progress.

as i go around meeting decision-makers of all types - IT, shipping managers, small biz owners, and so on - i keep hearing about how much more people have been tasked to do. how much more responsibility, how much more pressure, how many more tasks. i talk to senior level decision makers who yearn for more time to think about the broader business, to be strategic, to think.

and i think, yeah, man. i hear you.

while the perceived need to do more and more, and the technological bandwidth to do more and more, have both increased, it is your people who suffer.

experienced, senior, strategic and creative people have been rendered project managers - very expensive project managers. they are expected to ‘go’ and ‘do’ - one of my clients even has termed their next steps “go dos.”

thinking is a luxury. strategy happens on your own time.

what business is all about today is going and doing. don’t take too much time to think about it; don’t let anything slip through the cracks; don’t expect support structures to rise up to bolster this hyper-productivity. and certainly don’t expect to be able to see a project through, yourself, from beginning to end.

we’re in the piecing business now. i hem the sleeves; you attach it to the body; she sews on the buttons; he does the pressing; and so on.

there is no long view.

in the marketing trade, CMOs now only last about 18 months. they have no time or incentive to plan ahead.

in my business, we last a lot longer it seems, but our time is allocated according to what we call ‘field work’. i am busy and productive when i am out in the world interviewing people. time in the office thinking and writing about what i learned is ‘down time’. time setting up another project, catching up on expenses, planning one’s calendar - that’s called ‘admin time’… and the mgmt resents the use of it.

these are not really new issues. these are common problems in start-ups that start to gain momentum. constantly just behind in resources and staffing to support the demand for your services or widgets. how is it, then, that well established companies, and those who have been mid-size for some time, never crest that wave and move into something more planned?

tshirt

Originally uploaded by PrettyLittleHead

made this today… you can check it out at CafePress.

was complaining about work with another planner today, started wondering what it’s all about. where did we go wrong in picking this profession that was supposed to be fun and interesting?

do planners become planners because they’re thwarted creatives who are bummed out by the ‘creative process’?

do planners become planners because they’re account people who are tired of being uninvolved in the ‘creative process’?

what’s it all about? why do we become planners?