Saturday, 7:14pm
Reno, NV
“Out of 9 lives, I’ve lived 7…” (The Band, “The Shape I’m In”)

Howdy…

I almost called this post “Web 2.oh no!”

And I know I’m just gonna scratch the surface here…

… but a few rules need to be laid down by somebody concerning this “Brave New World of No Freakin’ Privacy Left At All”.

Now, I’ve never noticed much “common sense” actually being very common among my fellow humans…

… but Jeez Louise, the arrival of social media and smart phone cameras has turned us all into ethically-challenged TMZ-level paparazzi.  No sense of right or wrong, no sense of crossing a line or going too far.

And people are gonna get hurt.

Do we need a collective and not-very-subtle whack upside the head here?  Metaphorically speaking, that is.

You decide…

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #1: Just because you have a camera and recording capabilities on your smart phone, doesn’t mean you have a license to USE it.

Yes, the rest of the world is hurtling toward a Zuckerberg-envisioned future where “privacy” will be a quaint notion that strangely only irritates geezers… sort of like how we now view petticoats, doo wop and basic manners.

However, I would caution privacy-anarchists that this “nothing you do is a secret to us” mindset is how Stalinist Russia maintained control over citizens (see also “1984″, by George Orwell).

Now, what you do in your own sordid life is up to you, of course.  Including allowing basic privacy rights to be dismantled and shed.

However, as a professional, you’ve got to recognize boundaries.  Because there’s a lot at stake here.

We may need to amend The Professional’s Code.  The original (and I’m pretty sure this is my phrasing):  ”You show up where you said you’d be, when you said you’d be there, having done what you said you’d do.”

Now, we gotta add:  ”And you won’t take a freakin’ photo without getting permission.”

The reason I think we need this new rule is directly related to a couple of incidents at After-Hours parties during seminars.  I love hanging out with other writers and the strange breed of entrepreneur now dominating the biz world.  These cats are fun, smart, and brimming with fascinating tales of Life In The Marketing Fast Lane.

They also tend to play as hard as they work.

Which means the “insider’s only” after-hours parties can look, to an outsider, like one part college dorm bacchanalia, one part Special Forces hazing, and one part Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Now, I assure you that — as far as I know — the parties only look like this to an outsider.

Except for a few truly-insane individuals (who I suspect are headed for the hoosegow anyway), these after-hours celebrations are just collaborative ways to let off steam.  And share war stories with pals.  And laugh heartily and with gusto at M*A*S*H-level puerile humor.  Maybe pull a prank or two.

Okay, and maybe a little singing too loudly, off-key.  Until hotel security shows up.

The thing is, you’re hanging out having fun with people you like…

… and trust.

And I’m pretty sure that snapping photos or recording conversations with the idea of embarrassing someone is a pretty basic violation of that trust…

… and rises to the level of assault when it can harm someone professionally.

Okay, fine… if you’re a licensed detective out to catch a cheating spouse, you’re excused, I suppose.  (And you — why the hell are you cheating, anyway, you no-good louse?)

But if you’re not packing a gumshoe ID, then why are you snapping shots of anything that could be seen as compromising the integrity, or the reputation of a colleague?

And before you mimic the Google buzz-brain CEO who said (on CNBC) “… if you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place…”

… just check out the latest round of career-ending gaffes among celebs, politicians, biz owners, and innocent students.

In most cases, they tweeted or texted or said something stupid… and everyone would have long since forgotten about the faux pas IF IT HADN’T GONE FUCKING VIRAL.

You can argue that stupidity is a perfectly acceptable reason to lose your job, or your social standing, or even your self-respect.

However, one glance at the astonishment on the faces of the virally-crushed victims shows you that — minus the Web — they were absolutely not anticipating global blowback from their casual asides or what they mistakenly thought were cute posts.

We’re talking about tasteless jokes from professionally-tasteless comics (Gilbert Gottfried)… clueless coeds who just need a reality check (the UCLA student who posted a rant about Asians talking on cellphones in the library)… and kids getting nailed with sex offender records for sexting each other.

And that’s just in the last couple of days.

I dunno know about you… but even after multiple decades making my way through society, I still say more stupid things than smart things.

And I can think of a hundred times, right off the top of my head, where I said or did something offensive or insulting or tasteless… and immediately wished I could take it back.

That’s what humans do.  Make mistakes.

Hopefully, you’re doing your best to clean up your messes, make real amends (not just mumble “sorry, dude”), and strive to become a Zen self-actualized person.  So you limit the damage you do caroming off the culture as you blunder along the best you can.

Just keep the Golden Rule in mind at all times, if you get confused about the appropriateness of what you’re about to share on the Universe-Wide-Web:  Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

And if you really, really, really don’t care if that shot of you picking your nose goes viral…

… because you have no boundaries or sense of privacy…

… then at least get in the habit of asking people if it’s okay to take a photo or record a moment.

And take “no” for a final answer, dude.

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #2: Self-inflicted idiocy is not permission to pile on.

The 3 examples I used above are all of tweets, posts and texts that were voluntarily launched into the ether.

In our freshly-soiled world of TMZ-paparazzi-rules, you’re ripe for public flogging and humiliation if you do nothing more than step into view somewhere.  Or “allow” yourself to be caught by a camera (with or without audio).

So self-inflicted embarrassment offers no immunity at all from global shunning.

Nevertheless… at the end of the day, you — as the person helping something go viral — gotta live with yourself.

One of my favorite ways of dealing with assholes is to remember that I can walk away and get on with my life…

… while the asshole has to go home, go to bed, and wake up as the same pathetic loser jerkwad he was the day before.

So while he may have won a skirmish with me, overall he’s trapped in a living hell.  I wouldn’t want to spend 5 seconds inside his skin, dealing with whatever demons have made him such an insufferable wanker.

What’s this got to do with forwarding a photo?

Think about it.

A real pro doesn’t just consider the stuff he might get caught doing.  He also cares when it’s simply a matter of anonymously doing the right thing or not.

There IS karma in this world.

And even the smallest act of piling on makes you guilty as hell when someone gets hurt.

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #3: “PWC”.

That means “Posting While Compromised”.

Don’t do it.

Like angry emails, the best advice is to get cold before hitting “send” whenever your inhibitions have been doused with liquor, strong emotions, or anything else.

Just don’t do it.

What may seem like just the coolest friggin’ thing to post on your Wall at the moment…

… is — if you’re pickling your brain — probably not cool at all.

And you shouldn’t be sharing it.

Tomorrow, looking at it with a clear head (but blood-shot eyes), you still have oodles of time to post, hit “send”, or upload.

We shouldn’t need basic rules like this.

But the evidence shows we do.  Especially as professionals trying to have a little mildly-inappropriate fun after working hard to create solid, ethical and high-quality deliverables under deadline.

A very old, and very excellent piece of advice for living well is:  ”Dance like nobody’s watching.”

It’s a metaphor for living life on your terms, not somebody else’s.

It’s just damn hard to pull off when you realize there are fifty cameras aimed your way, ready to immediately upload hilarious evidence to the cloud if you screw up.

And here’s a note to Zuckerberg: You’re gonna miss your privacy when it’s gone, dude.

Hey — you got a different take on all this?

Let’s hear it in the comments.

Stay frosty,

John

Howdy,

I’m gonna be flat-out honest with you: I’m freaking exhausted.

The “17 Points” workshop is in the can, but it took a piece out of us to pull off. Three entire days, morning to evening, locked in mortal combat with Truth, Insight, and The Path To Riches & Spiritual Fulfillment.

Man, it was fun.

But grueling. In that “everything got revealed (and then some)” way.

I’ll be sharing more of what exactly was shared at this one-of-a-kind event later… but for now, I just want to gloat a bit.

I mean… NO ONE else puts on events like this. I honestly believe hosting one of these marathon teaching workshops would kill your average guru. Even the ones half my age. Just curl ‘em up and leave a singed hulk trailing wisps of bacon smoke.

You really shoulda been there, you know.

Oh, wait… you were invited. But you missed out on your spot by not gaming the auction, didn’t you.

Ah, well. I’d say “next time”, but without an act of God (like the video spontaneously combusting), there won’t BE a next time. My entire career was metaphorically aimed at this one single in-depth workshop… and I pushed myself as hard as I’ve ever pushed.

And I ain’t never giving it again.

It was just too exhausting.

Have you ever stood on your feet for three solid days, keeping your mind completely engaged, in fever-pitch mode… working without a net, in front of appropriately-greedy people who have paid big bucks for the opportunity to suck every scrap of wisdom from your skull?

I can’t say I recommend it.

Other folks put on big damn seminars with a mob in the audience, and as impressive a line-up of speakers as they can bribe or cajole into showing up. The actual host is onstage for only a short amount of time. He’s more of a ring-leader and MC.

I like that model fine. It’s a good way to present a lot of stuff to a lot of people.

But my DNA just won’t allow me to host that kind of event.

I cut my teeth, long ago, with Halbert, doing intimate and shockingly-interactive seminars with relatively small groups of people… most of whom were highly skeptical of the whole scene. We had no script, no “battle plan” for how to proceed, no clear idea of what was gonna happen from hour to hour… and it was just us on the stage, with little or no backup.

And we liked it that way.

It was theater-meets-the-barroom-brawl time. We took each attendee through their paces, and kept the entire event utterly and completely focused on real-world solutions to the actual marketing problems they brought to us.

No theory. No bullshit academics. No clever speeches. And no pitching.

Just raw, nasty, front-trenches marketing hard work.

Once you get a taste for that kind of impromptu action, “regular” seminars full of talking heads seem boring and nowhere near dangerous enough.

My seminars are always small, always unpredictable, always pumping adrenaline and endorphines… because the live, unrehearsed, uncensored interaction of host-and-attendee IS dangerous and exciting.

Hey — the action kept me going for three packed days.

Kept the attendees on their toes, too.

It was a raging success, by all metrics.

But I’m never, ever, doing it again.

Still, I’m sitting here laughing out loud, remembering some of the stories we pulled from the extended weekend. It was great having my long-time buds David Deutsch and Garf (David Garfinkel) as wingmen, watching my back from the audience. The hotel was perfectly placed between Chinatown and North Beach (where Kerouac and The Dead hung out) — fabulous food, ambience up the yin-yang (literally, if you went into Chinatown), all the energy that comes from hanging out in the nerve-center of a bitchin’ city like San Francisco.

Plus, witnessing Deutsch attempt to murder Garf with an IED of olive oil and glass was just priceless. Later, we all made up and toured Carol Doda’s old haunt for laughs, along with the new “Beat Museum” (Ginsberg’s typewriter!).

Ever had a Chinese foot massage in a room filled with top Web marketers, all half-drunk and giggling?

I’m truly sorry you missed this event, I really am.

We may have a few video snippets to share with you, soon. But we will not be releasing the DVDs of the event (like we have for the other seminars/sweatshops I’ve held).

Naw. This one was too special. For now, the hot stuff is staying in the vault.

And I’m gonna bask in the warmth of having pulled it off for a little while here.

A little creative gloating. There hasn’t been anything in any of the other marketing events you’ve heard of… that is even remotely close to what was shared in this workshop.

I wish you coulda been there.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
http://www.carltoncoaching.com

PS: Just a note to the curious here — the schedule for the much-desired “Launching Pad” coaching option (what we call around the office “Be John’s New Best Friend For A Month”) is starting to look like the 405 during the morning commute. In other words: Packed.

Over the past months, while we’ve been on the road (to Kern’s “Mass Control” event, Eben’s “Altitude” spectacular, Schefren’s Orlando seminar, and everywhere else we’ve been traipsing around) people have aggressively cornered Stan or me and grilled us on the availability of this super-intense consulting opportunity.

If even a fraction of those folks follow up, we’ll be booked solid soon. It’s first-come, first-served, though… so, while there are spots on the schedule, you have a shot.

Check it out at http://www.carltoncoaching.com.

Mahalo.

Howdy,

You either hate… or love video.

Doesn’t seem to much of the old “in between” on this.

And I think I can clear up some misconceptions about it here in this post.

First, however…

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Last night, as my partner Stan and I were discussing the subject matter for our next Radio Rant Coaching Club call, I realized that today is (sob, choke) our one-year anniversary. On March 13, 2007, we launched the club with little fanfare, but a lot of intense interest from insiders.

Frankly, I’m stunned. Not that we lasted out the first year with bells and whistles… but that another year has snuck by.

I mean… who do I write to about this time-zipping-by thing? Is Einstein still taking calls?

Seriously. For most of my life, I followed a barely-functional form of (I guess we can call it this) hippie-tinged Zen awareness… which focused on the “here and now”. Americans have a bad habit of living in the past or the future (obsessing on past injustice, for example, or believing their life won’t actually start until they do X).

This is a horrible way to live, avoiding the present. Memories are great, and plans are good.

But you can only live in the present. The past is gone, and the future is a crapshoot. (I have friends who were killed by buses and unexpected crap falling on them. It’s no joke to realize that — literally at any moment — your ticket can get punched. Ride over. Plans cancelled.)

(Brrrr.)

There’s even an old semi-wise saying: “You wanna make God laugh? Make plans.”

Nevertheless, I didn’t get my professional life moving until I learned how to entertain the concept that thinking ahead a little bit is how you get shit done. I bought my first-ever year-long appointment calendar, and starting scheduling stuff out, like, weeks in advance.

Weeks!

Even today (long after the moment I really should know better), I feel creeped-out writing in some commitment for speaking at a seminar, or meeting some deadline, more than a few months hence.

I mean… how the hell do I know the Earth will even BE here in August? Let alone that I’ll still be a guy who speaks at seminars, or meets deadlines, or hasn’t been locked away in a mental ward?

Silly, I know.

But I swear to you that, up until a few years ago, I would agree to something a few months out… and relax, because there was plenty of time to prepare… and there really WAS plenty of time.

Now? I write the commitment down in the planner… seven months and two complete seasons away… and then, like, TWO DAYS LATER it’s time to get on the plane.

Somebody’s been screwing with my sense of time.

My father is now 88 years old. Healthy as can be. Takes his lovely wife Marge out dancing three times a week (real hard-core ballroom dancing, too), keeps up a social calendar that would exhaust me, and travels frequently to joints like China, South America, Alaska, that kind of thing.

I sure hope I have his genes.

But here’s why I bring it up: In our last phone conversation, Pop sighs and laments the way time is flying by so quickly.

Wait a minute, I say. I’m feeling like it’s rushing by like a speeding bullet. Just HOW fast is time flying for you at 88?

Faster than it did when I was your age, he says.

So now I’m completely freaked out.

I’ve even studied the phenomenon. There are tricks to “slow time down”, like learning new stuff every day, challenging your brain by avoiding habitual behavior, meditating, that kind of thing.

Works a little bit.

But I’ve kinda had a revelation here: While time is a human invention, it’s NOT gonna slow down much for me.

In my twenties, a week seemed to last forever. More stuff would happen to me in a day than happens to me in a month now. So many possibilities crowded my awareness then. Adventures cascaded upon my head like rain.

But something changes when you age. It may well be that once all those adventurous possibilities fall off the radar (no way am I joining the Peace Corps now, nor am I gonna move to Greenwich Village and form a punk band), life becomes more about finishing up goals I’ve already decided are my main focus… and that makes time more real. Deadlines, when I’m able to self-impose them, arrive like bricks thrown at the door in startling succession. (I’ve got three unfinished novels in my file cabinet — the youngest is ten years old, the geezer is over twenty.) (No lectures, please — I consciously put them aside all those years ago when I realized being a novelist would bankrupt me… and I decided, instead, to concentrate on what I’m doing now. Writing for the real world, and teaching.) (Still, I want to finish the little bastards at some point.)

This may be the ultimate generation gap.

You know, I tell everyone who’ll listen (and I’m really lucky to have so many colleagues who still find my stories entertaining) that for MOST of my career… I was the young hotshot rebel in the room. My job was to make life uncomfortable for the old farts, and inject some youthful energy and enthusiasm into projects.

Then, one day (and not too long ago in “John Time”), I realized I was the oldest guy at a big brainstorm of Internet colleagues. By twenty years, too.

It’s a testament to how hip these younger Web honchos are that they not only put up with me (cuz I WILL tell you stories)… but actually go out of their way to hang with us. My friends and mentors were always all over the map, age-wise. Frequently, Halbert (thirteen years older) and my now-partner Stan (fifteen years younger) would sit around bullshitting and having a good time. Age tends to be irrelevant when you’re hip, smart, and open to evil fun.

Still… it seems to me that dogs have it right.

A dog truly lives in the moment. When you’re gone, or dinner’s late, she’s understandably ferklempshed and upset. When I’m gone for a week on biz, my little rat terrier mopes and checks my office for signs I’m there, constantly. Yet, the MOMENT I arrive home, she is happy to see me… and promptly forgets that I was ever gone.

Dogs — as any vet will tell you — have zero sense of time.

And the good ones — the lucky dogs among us — live each day with passion and gusto and lots of groovy naps.

Bark heartily, is their motto. Then go eat the cat.

I know this time thing is just a worthless obsession. There’s no way to tell how other people experience time, because it’s such an objective perception. (Though, I once made Yanik Silver shiver in horror in a San Diego bar when I told him to blink… and then said “The next time you notice you’ve blinked, twenty years will have zipped by.” Startled him. Almost spilled his vodka.)

It’s all freaking relative, I know. I’m as happy, and more healthy, than I was twenty years ago. If my genes play out, I have another mini-lifetime left to enjoy. (Consider that, in 1900, at the dawn of the last century, the average lifespan of an American was around 30 years. My generation didn’t begin to feel like adults until we hit our 30s, for cryin’ out loud. The current generation is still living at home at 30.) (So, if 30 is a lifespan, I’m heading toward the end of my second shot at it. It’s not exactly “borrowed time”, but I’m very aware that my health and happiness is a product of living in the times I live in, and not because I’m special. My friend Dave Kekich is obsessed with increasing our lifespan, and I’m listening closely. But, mostly, I really want to concentrate on squeezing the most from the time I know I’ve got — today.)

Is this relevant for a business blog?

Hell, yes, it’s relevant. I get “woe is me” email from young men who are convinced their life is over because they’re not wealthy yet. And I get “can’t wait to test more shit on my new Website” email from ancient geezers who only recently got over their fear of turning a computer on.

And, when you consider all factors, that young guy’s life might really BE over soon. I’ve lost a big damn bunch of the people I grew up with at this point… and way too many dropped dead before their first wrinkle. Life ain’t fair, never pretended to be, and the inherent risks of being a carbon-based oxygen-breathing mammal in a semi-hostile environment isn’t gonna change anytime soon.

And, just as possible, the old guy may live another mini-lifetime yet. May write the Great American Novel (it’s a stupid, mostly-American myth, that the best writers are young — they aren’t). May invent that flying car I was promised back in the fifties in my brother’s beat-up copies of “Mechanics Illustrated”. Might even father (go for it, dude) the child who will grow up to save the planet.

Movies don’t help much. I have to force myself not to break out of the suspended disbelief required to get absorbed in film and realize “Hey — he’s dead” when I’m watching a great actor do his thing. (And because a “classic” movie buff like me gravitates toward REALLY old movies, I often remember that ALL the actors are dead. Been dead, too, for a while.)

Time is fleeting.

Anybody up for the Time Warp, again?

And… I guess that’s a good enough segue into video, as promised.

So.

In honor of the one-year anniversary of the Radio Rant Coaching Club… I have pulled another post of mine off the Forum. It’s pretty good, and a good example of the cool stuff you can enjoy as a member.

So, with no more fanfare (I’m running out of time, you know), here’s my reply to someone’s post asking “Does anybody read copy online any more?”…

(Note: The “Jason” I refer to is my young colleague, Jason Moffatt. He answered the post just before I logged on, saying — as a self-admitted “video guy” — that getting a sales message across online was really a “mixed bag” that includes copy and video and everything else.)

Ahem.

” Dear [name omitted for privacy]. I’m really glad that Jason popped back into the Forum — he truly “gets” the entire marketing mindset online, despite being mainly a video guy.

The “mixed bag” theory of communicating a sales message goes back to the very beginning of direct response marketing. Companies used print ads, door-to-door salesmen, direct mail, television (you didn’t think the infomercial suddenly sprang into exisitence full-blown in the 80s, did you? The very first commercials in the fifties were looooooong damn ads… in fact, single companies sponsored entire shows), radio, spectacular PR events, supermarket tastings, etc.

You want to engage as many senses as possible, and video expands the visual. (Reading is visual, as are photos, but it’s static. Video moves.)

The only thing we’re missing, today, is smell. We experiment with it, occasionally, with mail samples, perfume samples in magazines, and Smell-O-Vision at the movies. But the virtual experience kind of makes it impossible, for now, online. (Can you imagine a Wii console squirting out odors for, say, an adventure game in the jungle?) (Even bowling alleys have a peculiar smell, you know — I grew up in one, Lebowski-like, and remember it well.)

The split between people who prefer to read, or watch, or experience things in multiple ways, is NOT age related — it’s part of your DNA, how you perceive the world. We’re complex creatures, but you can still draw a flow chart of finite ways we engage with the world (kinestetic athletes and risk takers, introverted readers, gourmets, sculpters vs painters, and so on).

Smart marketers use it all. I love video, and plan to do more and more… but as Jason points out, it still needs to be scripted (even if only with notes). And of course, I’m primarily a writer — you cannot edit or rewrite with video, and the best writing is the result of many go-throughs.

The top marketers avoid using one medium over any other on ideological grounds — we do what works. Right now, you can enjoy the “mixed bag” of possibilities in getting your message across.

These are special times, full of possibility and generously tolerant of new ways of doing things.

Enjoy them.

Before you blink, and it’s 2028 (and your flying car is in the shop).

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com

P.S. Love to hear your thoughts about time, and about video.

I’m all over YouTube these days, you know. Though I look so much younger in the film taken last year…

Do you like gruesome, everybody-dies horror stories set in the near future?

Good.

Cuz we all may be living through a real one in about… oh, less than two years.

Maybe sooner.

This happy news comes out of a wire service story launched by PC World publications yesterday afternoon.

Consider: A fresh study just released by an organization called the Nemertes Research Group — a self-described “independent analysis firm” — says the sky could very well be falling on our heads very soon now.

The virtual sky, that is. Specifically: The World Wide Web is about to blow its circuits as the new wave of video content overloads capacity.

They’re calling it an “exaflood”, because video really is the main culprit. (An exabyte is 1.1 billion gigabytes, higher than I can count. And apparently we’re flirting with disaster because of the dramatic increase in the size of data being shared, viewed, created, and stolen.)

I can see the final straw now, announced in banner headlines on the last of the real paper newspapers (because Web brown-outs have left everybody with blank screens across the land): “Ten-Millionth Viewing of Dancing Blonde Yeti Being Run Over By Speeding School Bus Video Shuts Down Web!” (Okay, I made that up.) (But you just know that — if a cyber-armeggedon does happen — it will be from some silly, non-essential piece of streaming video that goes apeshit viral.) (Though, I’d watch a dancing Yeti get run over any day…)

The key to avoiding such an ignoble fate: About $137-billion in infrastructure upgrades.

Or approximately what Bill Gates normally carries in his wallet.

And, man, I sincerely hope Bill and his buds (including Jobs, The Other People Who Own Silicon Valley, and the evil Google trolls) do pop for the upgrades, so I can continue my dreamy cyber existence without burps or other inconvenience.

But here’s why I’m just a tad suspicious of this news: First, I’ve been hearing about the imminent collapse of the Web for years now.

And for excellent reasons, too. (Excellent reasons.) The billions-deep parade of new-to-the-Web Chinese logging on every hour (with their cheap communist computers)… the crumbling 30-year-old analog gateways of the original Internet, still supporting the entire slap-dash network like an exhausted Atlas, sagging dangerously under the weight… pissed-off anarchist hackers from Eastern Europe eager to bring the entire world to its knees… and on and on.

Yet, we keep passing up the deadlines for disaster without, um, any disaster.

Second: There’s a very interesting tidbit of info in this new study… which admits that the current fiber and routing resources actually support “virtually any conceivable user demand…”

However, the authors warn, all this new-fangled video, music file-sharing, and other “content” crap we’re flooding the joint with is gonna blow the circuits. Very soon now!

You’ll see!

Not the Chinese hordes logging on. Not the absinthe-swilling nihilist hackers. Not the inherent weaknesses of the system.

Nope.

It’s all this damned content.

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I’m all for the end of civilization and all that, as long as it’s like a good George Romero movie.

But I kinda resent being jacked around by Servants of The Man whose real agenda for scaring people like this… is their desire to control what we watch, what we read, and what we share.

The one guy quoted in this article is a dude named Bruce Mehlman from something called the Internet Innovation Alliance… who claims to have been warning of this imminent melt-down for ages.

Name sounded familiar… so I did a little digging.

Yup.

Bruce is not a geek, as we understand technology lovers.

Rather, he’s a wonk-type-geekoid… a political animal who gave in to the Dark Side long, long ago.

In 2001, after trying to tell Cisco how to run its biz, Bruce oozed over to the Bush Administration… where he became assistant secretary for technology policy.

Now, I don’t care what your politics are. I believe that, in order for this nation to survive, we need both set of wingnuts doing their thang, so neither side takes over completely. (It’s a balanced view, in the way that allowing your nutso mother-in-law to move in with you balances out the unbridled fun you used to have as a couple. You can still have fun, but now you gotta be clever about it, like civilized adults.)

Anyway, I have far right friends, far left friends, and every other stripe of political beast represented in my address book of colleagues, buddies and resources. They are all sane in some ways, insane in other ways, and I learned long ago that nothing I say or do will sway them in the least, politically. So we peacefully co-exist.

But here is something I believe with all my heart: You simply cannot let agenda-driven political hacks be in charge of technology.

I’m sorry. You want a non-political group of dudes, ideally. Or at least someone who wasn’t in an administration that actively distrusts the Web. (I’m serious. Tom Delay, the former majority whip for the GOP House, has never let up on his insistence that people who do research on the “Internets” — as W. has famously called the Web many times — have committed some obvious weird blunder.) (Hey — google it, if you don’t believe me.)

Look. Vote how you like. I’m not writing a political blog here.

But seriously. Melman’s ultimate comment — after jumping on this uncertain study as proof of impending disaster — is that we first need to stop taxing Big Telecom. You know, so they can invest in infrastructure instead. (Major GOP talking point.)

I’ll let that point slide. Maybe there’s something to it, maybe not.

It’s the unspoken next point that is the kicker: We also need to immediately stop all this uncivilized file-sharing… or we’ll all die!

Especially video. And music sharing. And other should-be-illegal stuff those darn kids are doing.

I don’t yet know if this news release has gained traction in the “if it bleeds, it leads” mainstream press. I found it on the Washington Post’s website… so at the very least, it’s leaking into Beltway brains this very evening.

The doomsday scenario presented by the study seems to be fragrant with fairly easy, painless solutions… like pumping some money back into the infrastructure. And I kinda doubt that Big Web (I just made that up, to represent all the large corporations finally dragging their asses online in a big way) will sit by while this wonderful new way to reach customers shrivels and flickers because of Youtube enthusiasm. (I mean, Big Web just bought Youtube for a gazillion bucks.)

I’m just warning you.

If the story does gain traction, don’t swallow it whole.

There are people out there who are deeply frightened by the uncensored freedom of the Internets. Many of them are in powerful positions… and the entrepreneurial Wild West environment of the Web gives them ulcers.

They need to be watched carefully… cuz they would dearly love to clip the Web’s wings, so the big corporations could settle into their rightful place online, controlling and dominating everything. Without having to worry about all these “little guys” making waves.

Their dire tales of wolves gathering nearby need to be filtered through your Bullshit Detector. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, I’m gonna go enjoy some viral video…

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. Did you see this story anywhere else? Was it buried, or is it spreading? Heard references to it on any of the prez debates?

Lemme know what you’ve heard… and what you think.

And if you have inside info on this “collapse of the Web” thing — because you work in a secret dungeon in Silicon Valley or something — let me know THAT, too.

Thanks.