OK, I admit it – I am among the few that notice and acknowledge Groundhog Day.  Actually, my friend Ben is a big fan, and we’ve spent many a Groundhog Day in furry Phil hats and watching the classic Bill Murray movie (we know most of the lines by heart).  Heck, one year I even wore a groundhog costume to honor the event – although I was accused of looking more like a chipmunk.  But that’s another story…

Enter the fine folks from PETA, who are obviously not true believers of Phil or Groundhog Day:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it’s unfair to keep the animal (Phil) in captivity and subject him to the huge crowds and bright lights that accompany tens of thousands of revelers each Feb. 2 in Punxsutawney, Pa. PETA is suggesting the use of an animatronic model.

Replace Phil with a robot??  Seriously, don’t they have more important things to do?  Like protecting the Easter Bunny, perhaps?  And why aren’t they screaming their heads off and coming to the aid of poor Dasher or Prancer or Comet or Vixen?  Talk about some harsh working conditions for those guys!!

So let’s leave Phil alone to do his job.  He seems to like it, and I don’t imagine his living and working conditions to be all that bad.  Heck, I might dig out that old costume and apply for the job myself – although I can only imagine what PETA would do if I put poor Phil on the unemployment line!!

So don’t worry, Phil – Ben and I will look out for you, and, as always, we’ll see you on the 2nd!

“Take me out to the ball game…Take me out to the crowd…Buy me some ‘roids and HGH…I don’t care if I ever come clean…cause it’s root, root, root for the cheaters…I don’t care ’bout the truth…’Cause it’s one, two, three drugs and you’re in…the ‘ole record book!”

An athlete’s body is his or her ticket to fame and fortune.  Without it, they are on the sidelines, on the bench, or out of the game.  You can’t convince me that any athlete who is paid millions of dollars to perform could or would ingest or inject anything into their body without knowing what they were doing.  The ignorance card – “I had no idea what the (fill in the blank – trainer, doctor, etc.) was having me take” – is just plain BS.  It should insult the intelligence of anybody who calls themselves a fan of sport.

Likewise, Mark McGwire’s assertion that he took steroids simply to heal a hurt or “breaking down” body is BS.  There is no way possible that he did not know the other effects that steroids would have on his body and performance.  Does he really think we are that stupid that we’d believe this excuse for cheating?  If he doesn’t think his record is tarnished, then why did he call Roger Maris’ widow?

Some say we should be lenient on guys like McGwire, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa because their home run race ‘saved’ baseball when it was dying.  Would the government be lenient on a business owner that cheated on their taxes because their business was dying?  I don’t think so.  Logic like this is a slippery slope – it condones cheating if the cheating results in something seemingly positive.  Baseball at that time had some serious problems (it still does, in my opinion), and guys on steroids setting inflated hitting records should be seen as they really are – cheaters, not saviors.

Shame on the St. Louis Cardinals for wanting to hire Mark McGwire to be their hitting coach.  It’s like hiring a fox to guard the henhouse.

And shame on Tony LaRussa for praising him for coming clean.  Hey, it only took nearly 9 years since he boldly lied about steroids in front of Congress.  But I guess Tony doesn’t put a premium on the truth.  Don’t tell the truth when it would be inconvenient (Congress), but do tell the truth when it is convenient (getting a job).  Stand up guy, that Mr. LaRussa.

And shame on Bud Selig for not cracking down on the cheaters and wiping their records from the books.  Say what you will about the sport of cycling, but they stripped Floyd Landis of his Tour de France title because they believed he cheated.  No asterisks, no title, no nothing.  I guess Bud’s excuse is that steroids weren’t officially a banned substance at the time – a logic which simply challenges cheaters to figure out how to always be one step ahead of the rules.

Get some stones, baseball, and take a stand against the cheaters.  Until it does, I’ll discount it as a legitimate sport worthy of my hard earned dollars and attention.

To demonstrate the concept of inattentional blindness, respondents are shown a 75-second video of people passing a basketball back and forth.  They are asked to keep track of how many times the ball is passed and caught.  In the middle of the video, someone walks across the screen wearing a gorilla costume.  The gorilla is in view for a full 5 seconds.  Less than half of all participants report seeing the gorilla at the end of the exercise.

The implication of this is that we perceive and remember only those objects and details that receive our focused attention.  In other words, we do not notice anything happening in our surroundings while being absorbed in the inspection of something else.

How many organizations do you know that are inattentionally blind?  Step back and you’ll see plenty of organizations that are so focused on cost cutting, technological advances or some other aspect of their business that they fail to see what their customers really wants.

Ironically, today’s consumers are also inattentionally blind.  We are all so focused on making ends meet and getting through the recession that we do not see the gorillas around us.  That’s the challenge that all marketers face today – getting the target audience to notice their gorilla.

From now on, whenever a prospective client asks what we can do for them, I’m going to tell them that we’ll find the gorillas in their midst.

And from now on, I’m going to ask my daughter about her classes far more often – because she helped me see a gorilla that I’ve been missing all along.

Unless, of course, we’re talking about denture cream.  Most of the 35 million denture wearers in the U.S. seem to understand a general rule of thumb – too much of a good thing can’t be a good thing.  But it does appear that there are some that just don’t get it, and want to abdicate personal responsibility onto someone else.

Here’s the crux of the matter – a tube of denture cream is supposed to last about six weeks, give or take.  According to an article in my local paper this weekend, it appears that some denture wearers have used 2-3 tubes per week – or 15 times the normal (and seemingly logical) amount.   The result?  Excessive levels of zinc, which is a serious health problem and no laughing matter.  But what do they do? They  SUE!  What else?!

Common sense should tell you that 15 vitamins a day is probably not a good idea.  It probably isn’t a good idea to brush your teeth 15 times a day, either.  I’m guessing that pretty much anything good for you done at a factor of 15 times the normal or recommended amount is not a wise thing.  So at what point does someone using 2-3 tubes of denture cream per week realize that something is terribly wrong – and not with the denture cream, but the fit of their dentures??  Go to the dentist, for heaven’s sake!!

The article struck a chord because it seems that we’ve become a society that has completely walked away from any sense of personal responsibility – for the bad stuff, anyway.   We take credit for the good stuff (I got an A in the class!) but put the bad stuff off on someone else (the teacher gave me a C).  We put hot cups of coffee between our legs (while driving, no less), and sue when we get burned.  We leave the house with toaster pastries in the toaster oven and sue when we get back to a burned up kitchen.  We go into a haunted house amusement, and sue because…we got too scared!

Yes, companies that misrepresent or make defective products should be held accountable for the damages they cause.  But should a denture cream manufacturer be held liable for problems incurred by people that use 15 times the directed amount of denture cream?  I just don’t think so…

We’ve got to figure out how we can get back to a place where everyone takes personal responsibility for their own actions.  Ignorance is not and should not be bliss – or the basis of a lawsuit.  Maybe the first step is to have the class action suit dropped…one can dream.

There cannot be too much of a good thing – when that thing is personal responsibility.

The local newspaper established a new policy the other week that really makes me wonder.  It seems that you must include your name, address and phone number if you wish to have your letter to the editor published in the newspaper.  However, if you want to add your two cents worth to any one of their umpteen blogs, you can do so under your screen name – BUT, you need to submit your real name (won’t be published) and the comment will be posted for only 24 hours.

It seems that the ability to hide behind a screen name gives some people the courage to violate the paper’s rules for taste and foul language.  Would these same rule breakers be so bold (and perhaps inconsiderate, boorish or hateful) if they had to post with their real name?  I wonder if they’d have the guts…

Then there is the model who filed a lawsuit against Google because the company would not reveal the name of the anonymous blogger who described her as a “skank,” “old hag” and a “ho” on a Google-hosted blog titled “Skanks in NYC.”  It seems the blogger believes that she can write whatever she wants without impunity simply by using her screen name – would she have written these things had she been required to post them under her real name?  Extremely doubtful.

Here’s the issue that I have – just because the Internet created the concept of screen names should not give people the ability to post whatever the heck they want using it.  And since when did we start equating the ability to create and use a screen name with the right to privacy?  That seems like a huge line to cross.

It’s a big difference to me when I read a comment from a real person using a real name than one from RahRah, Panacea or Loyaltee.  If you have something to say, do so – we still have the right to free speech.  But use your real name and own up to what you post.  Otherwise, I’ll assume you’re too chicken to own up to your opinions, which makes them worthless to me.

Anyone want to join me in calling for a ban of screen names?

I’ll continue to beat the drum: Twitter must declare its strategy, and soon.  It is up to Twitter to define itself, not the masses.  Absent a clearly defined strategy, Twitter will continue to generate numbers like the ones above – which are not good numbers for marketers, who may ultimately sustain the service.

Let’s be honest – Twitter is NOT a social media tool.  It does not belong in the same conversation as Facebook or LinkedIn or Plaxo.  It is not a friend-to-friend or peer-to-peer platform.  It is a communications medium with broad reach.  Teens have not adopted Twitter because they are very satisified (and proficient) with texting, which is a more private form of communication.  Twitter can be a useful communications tool for news outlets and businesses, but it will need to evolve itself and offer better services to marketers if it wants to survive.

Looking at the numbers from the opposite side, just 25% of all Tweets come from you and me – the 95% of us that don’t have (or care about) 1 million followers.  In fact, only 6.3% of all Twitter users have more than 100 followers – which makes sense, considering research that indicates that humans can effectively manage approximately 150 relationships.

How many more studies will it take before Twitter takes charge of its destiny and declares a strategy?  And, if it were up to you, what strategy would you suggest for them?

I may be changing my opinion of Twitter, which is a much nicer way of admitting that perhaps I was wrong to bash it in earlier posts.  But my support of Twitter comes with a caveat – it must decide if it wants to be an information tool or the go-to toy for the bored and banal.  Big decision.

Twitter must declare itself.  Yes, it’s trendy and cool to claim to be an open-source site that let’s the market decide where to take it.  But, left to their own devices, the “market” could take it right down the drain.  Twitter should be very concerned about two recent facts:  60% of users abandon the service within one month, and 69% of the general public say they don’t know enough about Twitter to have an opinion about its future.  If I had more than 25 million users and these statistics, I’d be very worried.  They tell me that, although people have heard about you, they either don’t like what you are or don’t know you well enough to have an opinion about you.

The first rule of strategy is to have one.  What is Twitter’s strategy?  What do they want to be when they grow up?  LinkedIn has a specific purpose.  Facebook claimed a very specific space early – although as they try to become more generalized, they run the risk of alienating their original core franchise.  MySpace has died on the vine because they let users take it in their own direction, which was, ultimately, the wrong direction.

To use it correctly, Twitter takes time.  It takes time to find smart people to follow who are putting out useful information and links.  It takes time to find interesting information on your own and share it with your followers.  I probably spend close to an hour a day reviewing information and posting tweets in an attempt to stay on top of trends and news and share interesting information with others.  Surprisingly, I’m finding it time well spent.  For now.

It’s getting to be the moment of truth for Twitter.  What’s it going to be – a useful information sharing tool, or simply a torrent of mindless drivel that no one really cares about?

I hope they are courageous enough to take control of their strategy and their future.  And I hope they continue to prove me wrong.

I noticed a coincidence this weekend when I finished my Saturday bike ride.  My odometer clicked past 2,750 miles, which took me a little less than 12 months of riding to accomplish.

What makes this interesting to me is that, on this same weekend, approximately 160 of the world’s best cyclists will have finished riding more than 2,100 miles – in 3 weeks! Now, they don’t have to fit in research projects, focus groups and marketing strategies between their rides, but still…that’s an incredible amount of riding in 21 days.  They rode in the rain, in the heat, up and down mountains, and through frighteningly large crowds.

The courage, dedication and unwavering committment that it takes to finish a race like the Tour de France are lessons we can all take to heart as we manage businesses through the challenges presented by the recession.  Most days can feel like the climbing stages – an uphill battle to the finish line.  Sooner or later we’ll get to the descents, although navigating the switchbacks at breakneck speeds won’t be easy, either.  Until we get to the flats, it will take all the courage, dedication and committment that we can muster to carry on to the finish line.

The economy remains in a “spot of bother,” as  Phil Liggett likes to say.  But I’ll draw on the inspiration I get from watching those guys finish the Tour to press on to the next stage, and the one after that, and the one after that…

And I’ll keep pedaling – and maybe I’ll put in another 2,750 miles by the time they reach the Champs Elysees next year!

The daily drum beat of newspaper cuts and financial woes leads one to wonder – what will happen to the future of journalism?  If, as a society, we believe we don’t need to pay for a newspaper to get news – that we can get the news online for free! – then sooner or later there will be no money available to pay journalists for their craft.

But no journalists eventually means no news reporting.  Unless you count “citizen journalists” (which I don’t) or “info-tainers” that are multiplying daily on the 24-hour cable opinion (please don’t call them news) shows.

Why have we become so unwilling to pay for good journalism?  Why are we so willing to accept any online source of information as credible, fact-checked news?  I recently watched as an AP story with incomplete and inaccurate information bicycled around the Internet, being re-reported as fact.  Did any local “reporter” or blogger bother to go out and check the information they were “reporting” on?  It’s pretty obvious the answer is no.  And that should be a great concern to all of us.

As PR practioners, we hold ourselves up to very high standards of journalism and ethics.  We only communicate facts that can be substantiated and supported – our reputations depend on this.  Perhaps this is why I become so sad to see the quality of journalism declining in our newspapers and on our televisions.  But good reporters deserve to be paid for their talents, and since no one wants to pay for the news anymore…well, you see where this is headed.

Someone with a cell phone and a Twitter account is not a journalist.  Someone who likes to blog is not a journalist.  The info-tainers on cable are not journalists.  The shock jocks are not journalists.

Forget the whales…Save the Journalists!!

Who wants to join me…

Don’t know why this has set me off today, but it has.  Consider the following headline in my local paper this morning: “iPhone’s game library is large, with unexpensive options.”

Type that headline into Word and you’ll quickly see the error – it should be inexpensive.  Maybe the AP writer missed it (it was an AP story), or maybe the local headline writer wrote it that way.  But come on – how did it get by enough people to wind up in print?

Now, maybe I’d be more charitable if it weren’t for the fact that the local paper also ran the same AP story twice today – once on page A8 and once on page B1.  That’s just plain sloppiness, if you ask me.

We  now have so many ways to communicate – Twitter, email, Facebook messages, texting, etc. – that it seems like volume (but not accuracy) matters.  Would we care if the grocery store added our bill wrong?  You bet, especially if we were overcharged.  But we expect accuracy from them.  Why shouldn’t we expect – demand? – the same level of accuracy and diligence from our newspapers?

Sloppy journalism.  And we wonder why newspapers are dying…

You tell me – am I expecting too much?  Should I be more willing to settle for almost perfect from my newspaper?  Should I be less diligent, or should I expect my paper to be more diligent?