Was Osama Bin Laden a semi-normal guy?

It's incontestable that Osama bin Laden did awful things. But reports after his death have shown that he was surprisingly normal than one would have assumed. He holed himself up in a compound, sending couriers out periodically to fetch Coca-Cola. He listened to BBC constantly, said his son Omar. In October 2010, he issued two audio statements urging people to help victims of the flood in Pakistan. A senior intelligence official reported that he cared about his appearance enough to dye his white beard black before recording videos. As a NYTimes blog post reports, interviews with Pakistani military, intelligence officials and his neighbors in Abbottabad relate that he was a lonely man holed up in a small house writing up plans in his small notebook to kill more Americans, "perhaps a little bored, and desperate to be heard."

How interesting!

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

This quote came up on my newsfeed at least 5 times over the past week, following Osama Bin Laden's death.

Is celebrating Bin Laden's death the "right" thing to do? And if it's not the right thing to do, is it at the least an ok thing to do? After reading a few articles on the subject, including a NY Times post, I am still conflicted, understandably so - it's a pretty heavy question.

The Times post justifies celebrating his death from a social psychology perspective, saying that

"it makes us look like human beings. In an array of research, both inside laboratories and out in the world, psychologists have shown that the appetite for revenge is a sensitive measure of how a society perceives both the seriousness of a crime and any larger threat that its perpetrator may pose."

What do you think?

Branding with Brendan

After seeing a guest post by Brendan Mullin, Director at Peppercom Strategic Communications on Steve Cody, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Peppercom's RepMan blog, I felt compelled to revisit the Nixon-Kennedy debate. Brendan wrote about Ben Bernanke, who is the current Fed Chairman, and how he recently declared that he will be holding quarterly press conferences. He compared the upcoming conferences to FDR's fireside chats during the Great Depression.

In a Time piece titled How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World that we read earlier in the semester, Kayla Webley detailed the significance of the Nixon-Kennedy debate. She described how Nixon's sickly appearance during a television debate ultimately led to Kennedy's victory. Kennedy himself said that "It was the TV more than anything else that turned the tide."

Fireside chats, televised debates, and even blog-posts – all of these things are part of a larger brand that you create for yourself. The way you appear to the public can be an asset, or it can bring you down. It's all about how you brand yourself. This includes just about everything – at a basic level, how you look, but also the activities you participate in and the people you associate yourself with.

Brendan came to speak to our Public Relations class yesterday about creating a brand for yourself, and using your personal brand to break through the clutter as a gateway to success in the workplace and beyond. His presentation compelled me to search my name on Google, which I do periodically, but I decided to check it again. I found myself scrolling through at least ten pages of results published in the past few months alone, including blog posts for Isn't Media Political?, posts written for my marketing internship, pages and pages of Cross Country race results, and even a mildly embarrassing candid shot of me taken by a newspaper reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

A brand can be a very powerful thing when utilized properly. Take the time to go through your Google results, check your Facebook privacy settings, and by all means do not participate in a television debate before you've checked yourself out in the mirror.

Money Well Spent?

The NY Times, in a recent article about the money spent on private jets for presidential campaigns details both the necessity for private travel and the tremendous amount of money spent on it. Marc Ramthun, operations manager at CSI Campaign Travel Services, estimates private campaign travel costs at somewhere between $3 to $5 million dollars, and that’s just in the initial stages of an election. Later, leading candidates may spend up to $20 million on private travel.

The demanding schedule of a political candidate necessitates multi-leg flights, multiple times a week. The author of the article, Joe Sharkey, estimates that it could take half a week to try and schedule a typical campaign day's itinerary via commercial airlines.

Are these costs unnecessary in principle, or does the efficiency in time and privacy of a chartered flight justify spending millions of dollars on private air travel?

I'd say it depends on who the candidate is, how much their travel costs weigh out in commercial VS private travel costs, and how much is at stake.

Any thoughts?

Mixing Business with Pleasure - Don't Do It!

Google has announced that they will be introducing a "+1" feature to their search results. A +1 is similar to a "like" on Facebook or a "digg" on Digg. The contacts that participate in +1 are from Google Contacts, who originate from Gmail, Buzz and Reader. Essentially, +1 is a recommendation system built on the premise that you trust your friends and colleagues enough to let them influence the news that you are exposed to.

It is one thing to "like" a picture, a status update or an event, but it's another completely different matter to put media influence in the hands of your friends. There's a reason why you have your neighbor or great aunt's emails forwarded to your second email. We have enough media bias nowadays as is.

All I'm saying is – take a good, careful look at your Gchat list before you let them influence what you care about.

As if we could use some more bad PR...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-23-2011/the-thin-jew-line

Seriously, sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

As satirical as the clip featuring Mr. Gottesman is, it still reflects the orthodox community poorly, and fails to explain exactly what an eruv is and what its significance is.

In a world where orthodox Jewry is seriously misunderstood to begin with, one (Jewish) man's ignorance will perpetuate more misconceptions and misled ideas.

Because we don't have enough problems...

Homemade rockets? Suuuure....

Its no big news that paying attention to the wording of description of recent events will be crucial in understanding the agenda of different sides. However, the media's claims are getting more and more outlandish recently:

Calling the rockets that Hamas that been sending into southern Israeli communities "homemade rockets." This rocket doesn't look like someone made it in their basement.

CNN described the bombing in Jerusalem as " a 'terrorist attack' - Israel's term for a Palestinian strike."

Even Obama said "I condemn in the strongest possible terms the bombing in Jerusalem today, as well as the rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in recent days, there is never any possible justification for terrorism."

This is just another reminder of how careful we need to be when choosing our media outlets.

Freedom of speech = big bucks

In 2008, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google complied with China's restrictive laws in the interest of salvaging their business relationships with China, a massive source of income.

The NY Times describes how Yahoo gave over information that led to the imprisonment of several Chinese activists, Google introduced a censored search engine, and Microsoft shut down a blog written by a Chinese journalist working for the NY Times.

These companies were challenged and eventually joined the Global Network Initiative, intended to protect online free speech and privacy in restrictive countries.

But lets take it back a step to before they joined.

Reflecting on my post about PepsiCo and their PR efforts, it is important to remember that no matter how genuine a corporation may seem, every business decision is an economical one.

That policy is reflective of Twitter and Facebook's efforts in Egypt - as genuinely as they seemed to be promoting freedom of speech for everyone, it is interesting to study process of events and it would be even more interesting to conduct an audit of their revenue during the revolution.

Intelligent illegal behavior

Certain crimes are just stupid and hateful, but others are more intelligent.

Case in point: The Town.

I think most people who watch that movie are rooting for the bad guys - at least, when the bad guys create amazing bank-robbery schemes.

A recent crime that I am impressed with is a case of impersonation.

Look online for University of Redwood, and you will find a legitimate looking website with an application form and (of course) and application fee.

This school is a copycat of Reed College. Their faculty listing and information have all been copied directly.

Reed officials are seeking to find the perpetrators and shut down the website, but I think they should find the perpetrators and perhaps invite them to Reed's school of business for some reformation and real business lessons. I have no doubt they'd be successful businessmen.

Whoever the creators of U of Redwood are, as wrong as what they did was, it's still pretty genius.

Steve Jobs does the job

In this day and age of digital communication, it should be understandable to consumers when a CEO who is away on medical leave cannot make it in for a product promotion.

This is not the case with Steve Jobs and his cult of followers.

Jobs returned from medical leave for the promotion of the iPad 2, and his appearance comforted his followers so much that Apple stock jumped $3, or 1% after he walked up on the stage.

I think Jobs should be allowed to do his job from home. Even though he is the CEO of such a large corporation, he doesn't need to have that kind of pressure when his health is at risk.

"Now I keep the cow and my family has milk" - Jose Guzman Santana

PepsiCo has made a deal with Mexican farmers, buying crops directly from 300 small farmers with a guarantee for upfront payment.

Unsurprisingly, this move is more of a strategic business move than a social one.

Nowadays, most corporations take on social responsibility not voluntarily, but for tax reasons or peer-pressure because of the industry standard to commit to the public good.

It's good to see that PepsiCo has a good PR agency - lets just see how much change they really make down south.

Check out the NY Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/business/global/22pepsi.html?src=me&ref=business

Drowning in a sea of advertisements

Chapter 12 of The Press spoke about the imbalance of news content and advertisements, that in an attempt to engage readers, the media has been swamping their outlets with too much advertisements.

This is a reality in every industry - from fashion to cars to news reporting.

In my opinion, content should be engaging enough that it doesn't need to be overrun with advertisements to gain traffic.

Moral policing

This is something I've struggled with for quite some time. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

The internal debate that I have goes as follows:

How much, if at all, does anyone have a right to enforce morality?

Putting guards on the GW to make sure people don't make the jump is a larger question - one that concerns authority and our right to free choice.

However, preventative moral watchguards with the rise of technology are a different story.

Should craigslist have a personals section? Should pornography be outlawed? These are tough questions to answer.

I am confident, though, that Gizmodo's recent article on how to cheat online and get away with it crosses the line.

Erika Stalder outlines and details different methods of cheating on your significant other, providing links to websites like Ashley Madison, a discreet affairs website, or AlibiNetwork, a website that will send fake doctor appointment confirmations to throw off suspicion.

My moral compass tells me that as crafty as the article is, I can do better than that. But what about people like Chris Lee? What if he had come across this article before he decided to venture onto craigslist?

It's a tough call, but I just think its wrong.

Check it out at: http://gizmodo.com/#!5758082/how-to-cheat-onlineand-get-away-with-it

Oh, Chris Lee.

Not only is it embarrassing that he threw away his political career in the hopes of what probably would have been a disappointing rendezvous in a cheap motel, its just lame.

Lee did the same, unoriginal act that politicans, atheletes and entertainers have been doing for centuries - except he couldn't quite manage to get it right.

Just three weeks after Lee was tempted into infidelity by a Craigslist post by a lonely 34-year old, all of his emails and pictures were released in a Gawker exclusive feature.

Successful or unsuccessful, whether the affair lasts for days or years, infidelity, which seems to be part of a politician's job description these days, has been done too many times to be deemed scandalous. Nowadays, its just boring.

Check it out on gawker: http://gawker.com/#!5755071/married-gop-congressman-sent-sexy-pictures-to-craigslist-babe