Andy Boyer

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Thinking About Charlie Davies

October 14, 2009 /

The name “Charlie Davies” was a trending topic today on Twitter.  That either means that Twitter is made up of the same nerds who watch soccer, or the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team was finally creeping into the national mindshare.  Or, perhaps it means that no matter who the athlete is, even if we don’t know who it is, we feel a need to forward the news.  

There are two ways to think about Charlie Davies.  First, consider him as a member of the U.S. Soccer team, a man who represents his country on a world stage, who trains with International players in the top league in France, and is/was widely considered to be one of the top players for his country for the next 2 World Cups.  That kind of role assumes a level of responsibility.  Now think of him from another lens.  Consider him as a 23 year old guy making a ton of money, jet setting across the globe to play in the biggest cities in North and Central America, and then travel back for 40 games in France.  A kid just a few years out of college, seemingly indestructible, cockily looking ahead 9 months when he’d have a chance to go head to head with the top players from Italy, Brazil, England, etc…

Is it a surprise that the second description of this 23 year old would get in a car 2 hours past his curfew, and be involved in an accident that caused career threatening injuries? So why is it shocking that the first description was involved?  Why do we assume that a guy who is on the verge of greatness, may not regress into being the stupid 23 year old we all were?  We all have a story in our closet where we realize we tempted fate and she spared us.  We all could have been the guy in that car, but the story wouldn’t have been on ESPN.com.

I feel sad for Davies, whose World Cup 2010 run is over, and whose career will never be the same.  And also have to be sad for the families of the un-famous other folks in the car with him.  One person is dead an done person will have to live with the double guilt of killing one friend and crippling the career of another.   But we have to wonder, how can we make these people who we watch and cheer for – how can we make them not do stupid things?  Can we?

Our Own Personal Soundtracks

October 12, 2009 /

One of my favorite parts of the new Internet Era is the “possibility” that music becomes decentralized.  That it’s not the same 5 guys in the same 5 ivory towers deciding what we should like.  

We have such huge opportunity to personally evaluate and recommend music to our friends.  And as part of this evolution, I suspect we would each have a select list of artists who we dial up for our own personal pleasure that no one else knows.  With that as context, my personal soundtrack includes a steady dose of Bob Schneider, Alex Woodard, Reckless Kelly & Micky and the Motorcars. 

We suddenly have these great opportunities to find music we like, without the interference of radio.  I encourage everyone to explore and share their favorite finds.

Blackmail, Brazil, Betrayal and More – The Week That Was

October 7, 2009 /

I find it more difficult to sit and post my thoughts these days.   I don’t know if it’s a lack of time, or just an inability to process the absurdity around me into coherent paragraphs.

Take for a moment, the David Letterman Fiasco. For years we’ve been asking celebrities to own up to their mistakes.  To admit when they are wrong.  And to force themselves to the public humiliation they deserve.  And when some scum of the universe tried to “ruin” Letterman through extortion and blackmail, Letterman shocked his late night audience with an admission of guilt, preempting the tabloids.  He did exactly what we ask a celebrity to do when faced with the revelations of his impropriety.  And yet still, people want to find fault with him.  Good for David for coming clean.  The man didn’t commit adultery, didn’t harass anyone, and didn’t commit a crime.  He simply had poor judgement.  I hope this teaches extortionists a lesson.

Speaking of extortion – the IOC allowed Chicago business people to pour $54 million into wooing them into awarding them the Olympics, and then responded with 18 measly votes.  If there is any organization dirtier than the IOC (other than the NCAA of course) I’m hard pressed to find it.  How do I get on the IOC anyway?  I sure wouldn’t mind taking bribes from the richest people from 4 countries every 4 years, to award them the chance to ask their tax payers to build a billion dollars of new stadiums to host an event celebrating the achievements of athletes we couldn’t care less about the other 1445 days of the 4 year cycle.  But, is it really that shocking that one of the most overweight cities in America – where beer and brats reign supreme – wasn’t awarded an event that celebrates athleticism?

In the category of, “Can we finally kill reality TV once and for all,” I saw that the fat guy from the TV show with all the kids whose wife had a makeover and suddenly thought she was a superstar, allegedly took $200k from their bank account.  I’m sad that I know this.  But, I know this because it scrolled across the bottom of Anderson Cooper 360.  Mr. Cooper, I try to keep myself away from this nonsense, and I try to watch you to keep up with real news.  Please do not create a world where I cannot do both.    

All things being equal, I need to write more.  There’s just too much funny stuff going on these days…

A Few Thoughts From Ad Week

September 25, 2009 /

To the faithful 49 of you, my apologies for my week away.  I headed out to New York for “Ad Week” and a bunch of interesting meetings and assorted merriment.  Anyway, I read an article a few weeks or months ago about some poor guy who told everyone on his blog that he was leaving town for a 2 week vacation, only to to return to a house devoid of all his valuables.  So until I get a Doberman, I think talking about leaving town, or alerting people to when I’m out fo town, is a bad idea.

Now, I’m no prolific blogger who is going to give you a play by play from all the evnts at Ad Week in New York.  Clay and I hung near the more social media related events and seminars, and here are a couple of things I took from the week.

1) I’m not sure where all the unemployed people are in New York, because every good restaurant in that town is still hard to get seated in, even at 10:00pm on a Monday night.

2) At the risk of annoying all my friends and partners in the Ad World, I posit this theory.  It’s possible that the explosion of Social Media is a direct result of consumer backlash against advertising.  People (aka Consumers) got tired of a one way communication channel.  Then things like blogs, facebook and Twitter appeared, and suddenly everyone had a way to talk to each other and ignore the advertising.  Only after the social media attack on advertising did the agencies decide to embrace Social Media.  In fact, the agencies did everything they could to dismiss it as a passing fad.  And so now, to hear all the agencies on stage talking about the power of Social Media and how they are integrating it into client strategy, is kind of funny to me.  It’s kind of like a coal or oil company suddenly recommending what solar panels you should buy.  It’s just my theory.

3) A quick note to all panelists and keynoters: Please dial down the hyperbole about “Social Media Revolutions” or “The Incredible Power of Social Media.”  The reality is that consumers have always wanted to tell companies what they think of them.  They’ve always wanted to tell the Slurpee Product Manager that Banana sucks and to quick wasting a spigot on such a dumb flavor.  Or that the battery life of their laptop needs to be as long as a movie, otherwise it’s worthless.  People have had these opinions forever.  And now they have a megaphone, and their friends have megaphones.  It shouldn’t be a gigantic revelation to think that people who spend money on a product they like would want to have interaction with that product and provide ways the company could make the consuming experience more enjoyable and effective.  I’m not saying your keynotes are wrong, you can just dial down the rhetoric a little.

4) Before I get accused of being negative, I want to add that I think it’s great that the agencies are now going full steam into figuring out how to build creative campaigns for customer engagement.  I’ve always believed the creative teams at the big agencies are more representative of Joe Consumer than Malcolm Corporation III.  And now instead of using their creative powers of good in a way that cost them part of their soul, they’ll be able to unleash themselves in ways that develop connection and goodness.  So I think we’re going to see some really cool experiments in the next 12 months.  

5) I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Ad week was going on the same day of the UN sessions where Khadaffi (sp?) and the Iranian President (whose name I won’t even attempt Spellcheck to fight with) went off on crazy soliloquies.

Overall, we had a great time chatting with partners, clients, friends and colleagues.  Lots of neat announcements and fun times.  Thanks to everyone who made it a good, fun and productive week.

Wikipedia vs Joe Wilson

September 11, 2009 /

CNN has a good recap of the battle between rival Wikipedians in their quest to paint Joe Wilson as either an Obama hating traitor, or Brave Truth Teller.  An interesting side effect of the Social Media world, in that now not only is the news cycle 24 hours long, but the “Comment cycle” begins 24 seconds after impact. 

Easiest, Quickest Way to Help Health Care

September 10, 2009 /

I can’t take credit for this, since I head it on the radio.  But I think it’s the easiest and quickest way to make a dent in health care, so I’m forwarding along.

Every doctor, clinic and provider simply should have to provide a price list for the most common types of treatments.  That price list should show what they charge for the procedure / visit, what amount is covered by each of the major insurance companies, and what the end cost would be to the customers of those insurance companies.

It won’t cover everything of course, but the point is that if we see the price lists and what insurance is covering, consumers would have a way to look at the market of health care and make informed decisions based on quality, location AND price.   And I know this doesn’t solve everything, but if we start by developing a more competitive market where information is more widely available, we have a better chance to figure out the hard problems, such as how to cover people with low or no income.  

Making Trillion dollar upheavals to an entire system full of long established companies employing hundreds of thousands of people, is going to be hard if Joe American doesn’t even know how a slight change would affect how much he has to pay to fix his broken hand.  “Trust me, we’re the government, We’ll get it right” is not a very compelling argument… 

Sportsmanship Takes a Backseat

September 5, 2009 /

What a weird week in sports, eh? I had a bad feeling the stars and moon were misaligned when I watched the Little League World Series last Sunday.

Now, NO ONE is willing to write or talk about it. In fact, during the game, the announcers left it alone. But if you watched the LLWS Championship, you saw it. California was leading int he 5th or 6th inning, close to putting it away, and the Cali pitcher plunked the Taiwan player. It was about the 2nd or 3rd HBP of the game for the Cali kid. I don’t think he’s malicious, he just has a crappy curveball that has a tendency to act more like a heat seeking missile than a breaking pitch.

Anyway, the Taiwanese kid gets it in the back, and instead of trotting down to first base, kind of does a slow walk, Albert Belle style, glaring at the pitcher with that look of, “I didn’t fly 32 hours to get nailed by some George Bush loving surfer boy. You best not look at me punk.” Now, the pitcher may not have seen the look, but the one guy who DID, was California’s 6’2″ 220 pound first baseman. (Yes, those dimensions are accurate and quite stunning for a 13 tear old.) Now he’s pointing at the Taiwan kid to head to first, which he smartly does, and play continues. The whole thing took 5 seconds at most, but we almost saw the first brawl in LLWS history, and no one wanted to comment on it.

Which brings us to today’s 2 clips: First, we see the brilliant (sarcasm) GK from DC United, Josh Wicks, take his team out of real contention for the US Open Cup by stomping on Fredy Montero. Then we see the equally brilliant LeGarrette Blount sucker punch a player and then try to take on the Boise State fans, his teammates, the police and anyone else trying to calm him down.  Good times.

(Fast forward to about 3:20)

 

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