Yes, it’s certainly very hard to sympathize with Tiger in light of what he’s done.  His current predicament is a self-inflicted wound.  But why is this anybody’s business?  We often forget that celebrities and their families are real people that face many of the same hardships as everyone else.  I don’t think what Woods and his family are going through is any less painful just because of who they are.  The difference between someone like Tiger and someone like me is only relative.  I highly doubt that, in the midst of all of this, Tiger is thinking to himself, “Well, at least I’m still Tiger Woods.”

The lack of privacy here is stunning.  It can’t be justifiable just because Tiger is who he is and did what he did – I’m not sure that Tiger’s wife is any less humiliated by all of the coverage than Tiger himself.  Not to mention that he does have children who will be old enough one day to understand all of this.  And let me be clear: it makes little sense to blame the media entirely, although it’s inevitable that Tiger and others will.  The media only provides what’s in demand.  If people turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to these types of stories, then coverage of them would dwindle.  But considering the sheer magnitude of the coverage of this story, I suppose this appetite is human nature.

I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.

Sometimes I can’t help but think that the people who should be president are just too smart to want to be.

The books starts out by explaining how turkeys use the “chirp” sound of their young to know where they are and when to feed them.  In the first experiment, a researcher inserted a natural predator of the turkey, some sort of stuffed polecat (I think), and the turkey attacked it and recognized it as a predator.  In a follow up experiment, a recording of the “chirp” noise was placed inside the same stuffed predator.  With the added “chirp” noise, the turkey’s reaction was completely different.  It did not attack the stuffed predator like before, but instead gathered the predator underneath her and seemed to think it was its offspring.  What does all this have to do with anything?  Well, as humans we also have automatic reactions much like the turkey does above to the chirp.  We use all sorts of shortcuts like the chirp to help us in life because there is just too much information to take in when making a decision, and these automatic reactions help us save a lot of time.  We use these shortcuts many times without even thinking about them because they are so ingrained in ourselves.

Enter the “flog” (fake blog) and Acai berries/colon cleanse marketing technique.  These a fake blogs that marketers create to push products onto unsuspecting consumers.  These flogs are both brilliant in terms of marketing, but also evil because they take advantage of the shortcuts that Influence talks about.  In case you haven’t seen these ads, here is an example of one:   (image taken from shoemoney blog)

In six chapters of the book, Influence describes our natural shortcuts that we use to make decisions.  These shortcuts and how the marketer is using them above in the blog above to get us to purchase the product are:

Reciprication – Not really used on this page, however the “free trial” when you click through to order the product makes you feel bad about cancelling the subscription.  They have sent you a free trial, and how can you tell after 10 days if it’s working or not?  Reciprocation is when you feel a debt to somebody when that party does something for you.  Think of those free mailing labels you receive from various charities….  You feel like you need to reciprocate their free offer of nice mailing labels by giving them a donation.  This works very well.

Commitment and consistancy – This advertisements became popular during Jan and Feb months, where many folks make a commitment to losing weight.  Presented to them here is the perfect solution, by and independent person, with actual evidence that it works. Never mind that the image is a stock photo, and that the image is then  photo shopped to make the person look slimmer.

Social Proof – You can’t see it on this screenshot, however below in the “comments” section of the blog are many comments left by others who have used the product and “think it’s great” and have lost “all sorts of weight” and are “feeling great”.  I am pretty sure 99% of the comments are fake, but the average person thinks everybody else is using these products, losing weight, and now sharing their weight loss stories on this blog.  The product must be working if regular people are commenting…

Liking – We like this person because she is just like the target market.  She is a busy mother who is “struggling to lose weight”.  Thanks to a special piece of software code, she even happens to live in our city – so we like her even more.  She eats the same foods just like us, gained weight after her pregnancy just like us,  and is now sharing this amazing secret of how she lost weight with these two products.  We like and trust people who are just like us.  Of course the person behind this flog is probably a mid 20’s male buying a new sports car with the money he is making .

Authority – If you look on the right, you will see Dr. Oz and Oprah.  Again, these two celebrities give proof that the product actually works and that they recommend it.  Usually Rachael Ray and some other TV logos are shown as well to give even more proof.  If it’s on Oprah and Dr. Oz recommends it, we really don’t need to investigate the product that much further – they have done all of the work for us and are telling  (Dr. OZ) us to use it.  Of course none of these people have actually recommended this exact product.  I don’t know for sure, but I imagine at some point Acai berries were mentioned on these shows saying they were good for you…. However  I would not be surprised if they were not mentioned in context of eating these berries will actually make you lose weight.

Scarcity – Once you click through the link to actually purchase the product, you are taken to a page with a countdown timer and are told there are only 50 or so free samples left.  This makes the product more valuable because it must be good if other people are ordering them and there is only a limited supply.  Scarcity also creates value because we may lose out on this “one time” offer to get this amazing product that will help us lose weight.  We are scared of losing the opportunity of not ordering this product right now, before either the timer runs out or there are no more shipments available.

What is also interesting is that this is a very basic site – no fancy graphics or coding.  This makes it more believable that it really is “Becky” telling us about her “weight loss” story.  The first person who created this type of advertisement was both brilliant and evil. Of course like anything else, this winning “flog” format has been copied to lots of other products including skin care, “government grants”, and teeth whitening.

The problem the author of Influence has (and I tend to agree) with this type of advertising is that once people realize that the product does not work, (it’s hard for me to imagine eating berries and giving yourself colon cleanses will make you lose weight) they will stop trusting their internal shortcuts and be skeptical of everything.  The author recommends boycotting any products that use these types of tricks to get us to buy something by using fake influences and shortcuts to affect our decisions.  The key is to recognize what is going on before taking the automatic action.

Another note :  Besides the false marketing and unclear benefits to losing weight, the issue with these products I am hearing is that you can’t cancel your free trial.  Usually on the 15th day of the free trial, your credit card is automatically billed for the month and I have heard its pretty much impossible to get through on the 800# to cancel.  The FTC should be cracking down on the company that is not allowing folks to cancel because this is outright fraud.  Also, it should be very clear what the terms and conditions of the free trial is and not have it hidden somewhere in small writing.

Also, I hear the FTC is going to start cracking down on these types of “Flog” advertisements.  On the issue of these fake blogs, I am really not sure how the FTC should handle it.  I would imagine telling people that this is not a real person and results are not typical would kill the power of this selling machine.  Also, the “Flogs” are owned by different people than the companies that actually take the credit card info, so the companies can always say they are not doing anything wrong  - because the flog is an independent contractor.   This presents all sorts of issues which I am not sure how they will be handled.

What do you think?

“Look man, you can listen to Jimi but you can’t hear him. There’s a difference man. Just because you’re listening to him doesn’t mean you’re hearing him.”

This quote is clearly intended to be a comical dose of BS, but there’s some truth to the underlying theory.  There’s a difference between passively listening to a song and actively hearing what a song is about  (I actually think that the words should be switched since listening connotes a deeper appreciation to me than hearing, but I’ll stick to the Sydney Deane theory for purposes of this post).  This holds true for any song by any artist.  But after re-watching Ed Bradley’s 2004 interview with Bob Dylan, I’ve once again been reminded of how fascinating this man was and continues to be.  In my mind,  listeners of Bob Dylan have much more to lose.

John Lennon once said, “The first time you hear Dylan, you feel like you’re the first person to discover him.”  I really can’t agree with that more.  You feel almost compelled to tell everyone about it, a la this post.  But much like Sydney Deane, I would attach special meaning to the word hear.  I was probably aware of two Dylan songs as a kid: “Hurricane” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”   Notwithstanding the fact that I loved those songs, they didn’t completely reach me.  Maybe I was too young, but I think they also weren’t the right songs.  People would often tell me how much of a genius Bob Dylan is, the way I often do now, but I would simply shrug it off, as my friends often do now.  I just hadn’t truly heard Dylan.  As it turns out, the key to hearing Dylan is not through “Like A Rolling Stone” or “Hurricane” (even though Rolling Stone magazine dubbed the former the greatest song of all time).  You have to turn to the early folk and protest songs.

I finally decided to pull the trigger in 2004.  I was living in Paris at the time and I needed something to listen to on the metro ride to Charles DeGaule International Airport where I was to meet four of my friends who were flying in to visit.  I asked my buddy Justin if I could pick out a CD from his collection and he was kind enough to agree.  After sifting through his CD book, I came across Dylan’s third studio album, The Times They Are A-Changin’.  I thought about it for a second, but figured it was a good a time as any to see what all the hype was about.

I burned the album onto my old-school IPod, made my way to the metro stop, hopped on the next train, sat down, and pressed play.  What I heard next literally changed my life.  After about half a measure of a somewhat unrhythmic strumming of a simple G chord, a voice emerged unlike any I had heard before:

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

I was instantly and utterly blown away.  Those words hit a nerve that until that point had laid dormant within me.  None of the music I had listened to growing up were as emotionally penetrating as what I heard that day.  Songs like Only A Pawn In Their Game, With God On Our Side, When The Ship Comes In, and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol sounded like they were from a different world.  The simple thought of a 22 year-old singer-songwriter, alone with his guitar, writing such songs in 1963, when the country was in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in its history – a period of national awakening to mass injustice – was so incredibly moving to me.  It was music that entered through the mind but settled permanently in the heart.  In discovering Dylan I felt like I had discovered myself.

Taste is certainly subjective and I don’t expect all or even most people to react the way I did the first time I heard Dylan.  But I think a bonafide attempt is the only way to really gain any appreciation for what the Dylan hype is all about.  This takes a little bit of initiative.  You’re not likely to hear The Times They Are A-Changin’ at a party or your local bar.  But if you set aside an hour of your time and actually hear this stuff, you’ll at the very least come away with a greater understanding of why this man is so revered.