Why I Write by George Orwell - On egoism, a love of beauty, the quest for truth and the desire to change the world — Orwell’s ‘four great motive for writing’.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.
The United Nations took over the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, previously led by the African Union.
Amnesty International has uncovered the extensive and horrifying torture practices of Nigerian security forces.
5 UN peacekeepers were killed by a roadside bomb in Mali.
ISIS released its third beheading video - this time of British aid worker David Haines, an RAF veteran working for the aid group Nonviolent Peaceforce. Here’s a brief profile of his life and work. The video then threatened the life of another captive Briton, a taxi driver named Alan Henning who was taken captive on his second aid convoy trip to Syria.
The three beheadings have drawn into debate the zero-concession policies of the US and UK. James Foley’s family have been deeply critical of the US government’s handling of their son’s case and treatment of the families of ISIS kidnapping victims.
A second ISIS propaganda video featured another captive, British photojournalist John Cantlie in a mock newscast setting, wearing a prison-style jumpsuit and saying there will be more “programs” to follow.
Matthieu Aikins embeds with Syria’s first responders.
43 veteran members of the clandestine Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 are refusing to participate in reserve duty on moral grounds, based on the country’s treatment of Palestinians.
A deal has been reached between Israel and Palestine over reconstruction work in Gaza.
Serious fighting is ongoing in Yemen after weeks of continued unrest between Houthi rebels and Sunni militias. The Houthi have pushed into the capital city Sana’a and besieged a university known for Sunni radicalism.
Sharif Mobley, an American imprisoned in Yemen who has been missing inside the system for seven months, managed a phone call to his wife in which he alleged torture and said he feared for his life.
Politico goes deep inside the US’ first armed drone mission, in October of 2001, and the failed attempt to take out Mullah Omar.
Talks have stalled yet again between the sparring Afghan presidential candidates.
Popular Ukrainian football team Shakhtar Donetsk has been forced to relocate, along with other eastern teams, to Kiev for its matches because of fighting.
Ukrainian rebels says that new self-rule laws are not enough.
An intense border dispute at the India-China border in the Himalayas occurred while the two nation’s leaders met for a summit.
The CIA released a set of newly-declassified articles from its in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence.
The White House has said it sees legal justification for strikes against ISIS in both the 2001 authorization to fight Al Qaeda and the 2002 authorization of the Iraq War.
Photo: Zummar, Iraq. A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells toward ISIS-controlled territory. Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters.
The most harmful phrase you can use in search of a new idea is: ‘without alienating….’
Whoever introduced this (greedy) instruction into briefing is responsible for lots of business folk wasting loads of shareholder money. They have single-handedly - I’m certain unwittingly – given our world some of the blandest, ‘beigest’ ideas we have seen. Ideas that are incapable of moving anyone. Except perhaps to flee the scene, flee the channel, or whatever other activity the idea barely interrupted.
And then had to compensate by banging away with bigger budgets - trying to breathe life into something that had little chance of success in the first place.
Here’s my plea to you – and I hope you can infect other people with this thinking:
Please make sure your ideas alienate some people.
The truly great brands (and ideas) in our world stand for something distinctive. They have a point of view. A clear guiding philosophy. A very strong sense of what they believe in. That, in turn, informs how they do (and don’t do) things; what they choose to do and choose not to do.
Typically, great ideas and brands polarise. They have some people for them. And some people against them. Which is a darn side better than the alternative - having no one care much about them at all.
The great research companies are replete with cases proving this. Why, you only have to think of Apple, Nike and Google to realise that as much as their detractors dislike them so their fans love them to a corresponding degree.
My all-time favourite example is a wonderful campaign from the UK for the processed meat stick Peperami. The brief was reputed to be: ‘Piss off vegetarians’. And the resulting advertising was pure, joyful anarchy. See one of the ads here.
In my time on Meat & Livestock, the then CMO was the gutsy David Thomason. Brave enough to tell people that the difference between man and ape was the decision to eat Red Meat (or not). Brave enough to approve a brief that was essentially: ‘Take the piss out of Hare Krishnas’ (here). Did it work? You bet it did. It was part of a trilogy that won the Grand Prix of the Effectiveness awards. At the same time he encouraged a competing Agency to do the popular Sam Kekovich rants (here). Also an award winner.
Imagine what these brands and their fans would have been denied had someone - filled only with goodwill toward their fellow woman (better include ‘or man’ in order not to alienate anyone) had asked just that of their Agency - please don’t alienate anyone…
Here are 2 blunt truths about marketing research (in all its forms):
People in research don’t say what they mean and don’t mean what they say.
Much of what passes for marketing research is simply pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo
Which, in turn, means you need to hire the absolute best researcher your money will buy. Unless the outcome’s not that important. In which case, bank the money and go with your gut – better than a charlatan doing something half-baked in the name of research.
It’s not that respondents are deliberately dishonest in research. Well, some actually are. But a good deal of the time, we – that’s you and me, and people just like you and me – have no real idea why we did what we did. Why we thought the way we thought. Why we felt the way we felt. Often it’s ‘just so’.
When pushed hard enough – in front of a group of strangers – who could be blamed for blurting out a complete untruth? Better that than look a fool. And have you noticed how rational our thinking becomes when among strangers (actually, even when we’re completely alone)? We hate admitting to being driven by forces we don’t quite understand. That most of our decisions are ‘feels right’ or ‘feels wrong’.
The very fact of talking about System 1 - where the bulk of our decision-making takes place - as our ‘primitive/reptilian brain’ makes it harder for us superior animals to admit that we avoid thinking wherever possible. That we rely on short cuts. That we’re anything but rational.
So it needs a darn good researcher. The best your money can buy. The good ones are highly talented folk. They’re open and able to discuss their way of working; their belief in what makes humans tick and respond the way they do. Truth is they’re in short supply. They aren’t everywhere. They’re pretty special.
They’re not companies. And not all companies have them. And they’re not ‘black box processes’ – no matter the amount of validation.
So please, pick the most talented person you can afford. And much as you might enjoy participating, observing, taking copious notes, drawing conclusions and making inferences please remember this (and I say this with utmost humility):
You’re likely paying a very different brain to yours to do something you probably can’t do well - work out what people really mean when they don’t mean what they say. When they, themselves, are not entirely sure what they mean.
The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the sometimes joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. Your are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed, and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working, even when he dreams. Besides, the life of a writer, is a lonely one. You think you are alone, and as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward.
but they remember everything. They forget appointments and anniversaries, but remember what you wore, how you smelled, on your first date… They remember every story you’ve ever told them - like ever, but forget what you’ve just said. They don’t remember to water the plants or take out the trash, but they don’t forget how to make you laugh.
Writers are forgetful because they’re busy remembering the important things.
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