Politics | I'm Just Sharing

Sunday Question – Are Today’s Children Our Detriment Or Our Future?

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 11, 2010

Today I was walking to my car when I heard a lot of filth and nonsense coming from a song being played inside someone’s car. As I got closer I could see it was coming from a white convertible that had a couple of young people in it. It was embarrassing and kind of hard to take. It was a rap song, performed by young black men with all sorts of misogyny and internal racist lyrics (as in black kids using the n-word) but the listeners were young white kids and they were singing these lyrics and saying these same words, and I was drastically troubled.

In my mind, today’s kids overall have lost their minds. Yeah, I’m sure our parents said the same type of thing back in the day, and maybe it’s just the lament of someone getting older. I mean, I played my music loud in my car when I was younger. However, there were no foul words in any of my music. When rap was new, it was real, raw, told the truth, and communicated a message of protest that anyone could understand. At times it was also danceable.

Today, rap artists are lying for the most part. They carry guns because they start verbal wars with each other and hurt innocent people. They go to jail, come out, and are suddenly more popular than they were before. Jail overall seems to lend credibility to almost anyone, musician, actor, anyone famous. Didn’t jail used to be a bad place to go? Then again, Lindsay Lohan’s going to jail, although the jail she’s going to is like a country club, nicer than rehab where she belongs, and she’s crying because she broke rules that would have put anyone else in jail for years claiming that she had to make money.

I have this dichotomy in my mind that’s hard to resolve, and I’m not a parent so my thoughts might be skewed. On the one hand I think many of these kids are technologically smarter than we were 20 years ago. They can master games like World of Warcraft by the age of 5; it took me 6 months to become proficient enough to be Asteroids champion of my college. Sure, I know a lot of technical stuff now, but there are 12 year olds that can write code circles around me and know about things like PHP and ASP and any other letter combinations you can think of.

On the other hand, they can’t spell, and many of them can’t read very well. They have no real concept of punctuation, and some of them can’t put a sentence together without shortening many of their words into “texting” speech. They graduate from college and want to start out in top management; it took me almost a year to get a part time job at Kmart for $2.95 after graduating from college.

It’s a generation that says a lot of racist and sexist stuff, yet has no clue that’s what they’re doing. It’s a generation that has no sense of privacy, whether it’s theirs or ours. It’s a generation used to instant gratification instead of learning how to save for something. It’s a generation of foul mouths and disrespect for elders and this strange belief that they should be able to say anything they want to anybody and is oddly shocked when that belief is challenged with a slap in the face, a gun put into their face, or losing their job because they can’t figure out why suddenly they’re not as special as their parents said they were.

And yet, it’s not all of them. Some of the top things have been figured out by young people. As much as many people complain about Facebook, the guy who created it was only 23 at the time. There are some brilliant young teen bloggers making tens of thousands of dollars; one guy, whose name I can’t remember, earned an American Express black card when he was only 16 because he was making $300,000 a year online. Locally the head of our main chamber of commerce is only 28 years old; that’s just phenomenal. There are 18 year olds who have been elected mayors of their towns. And 2008 proved that young people were suddenly once again more politically aware of what was going on around them, which reminded me of 1980.

Is our future safe with what’s coming behind us? Or are we going to be at the whim of spoiled, uncaring adults who won’t know where to go for the wisdom it might take to protect our rights, keep us alive, and keep progress moving forward? I’m really not sure; where do you stand?

Sunday Question | 12 Comments

Goals For A Social Media Strategy

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 16, 2010

Two posts ago I asked the question Do You Have A Social Media Strategy? I acknowledged that I didn’t have one, and a few steps I was going to take towards having one. I wanted to talk this time about goals, because without goals, a strategy is just a hope. I also wanted to clarify that these goals have nothing to do with this blog, but my traditional businesses.

So, what would my goals be? How would I define these goals? And what about Naomi (that’s for the Electric Company fans in the crowd)? And finally, what are the ramifications of those goals versus my wish to do some other things just because I want to do them? For instance, if I set a business goal, will things such as this blog or some of my political and racial positions impede any benefit a social media marketing strategy might entail?

That last one is the most important one, believe it or not, at least as it pertains to Twitter. I have a definitive political position. I also obviously call out racism wherever I see it. Politics is dangerous because you never know who you might irritate on the other side; you also never know who might irritate you. During the 2008 election, I eliminated a lot of people from my Twitter stream because of some of the outright nasty stuff, including lies, that were being said about people I was supporting. I didn’t mind anyone taking a contrary view; we don’t all agree on everything after all. I wasn’t putting up with certain types of decorum, however. Because I don’t put up with certain decorum as it pertains to people I support, I also won’t act that way against anyone else; well, most of the time anyway. And that becomes a major issue; will my political beliefs, and my penchant for calling someone out on a racial issue, hurt my social media marketing? And if so, how much do I care?

Question answered; I don’t really care. I go out of my way almost always to be as kind as I can. However, there is idiocy in the world, and every once in awhile we have to call it out. The people who usually follow me believe as I do, and those that don’t usually don’t stick around. So, as far as Twitter is concerned, I’m okay with it all. Luckily, I don’t get into politics on either LinkedIn or Facebook, so it’s all good.

The next step is in defining my goals; what do I want to get out of whatever I do. That makes a lot of sense, because how can I set my goals if I don’t know what I hope to achieve. Me being me, I have a lot of things I want to achieve, and each of the three ways I hope to achieve it offers something different. But the overall defined goals are:

* More brand awareness of my businesses

* More brand awareness of who I am

* More consistency in clients and income

On the surface that might not look like a lot, but it is. I have two businesses, but I have many different services I can provide through those two businesses. One is set up for more success, the other isn’t. I also want to market myself, as I keep pushing on my goal of being a professional speaker and presenter, and I speak on a multitude of topics as well.

Social Madness

The last part is every consultant’s dream, that being to make at least a consistent amount of cash, more money than we made working our regular jobs before we became consultants, so we can spend more time becoming more proficient as what it is we hope to do. The way I make my money is in short spurts; I make a lot of money very quickly, then I make a little bit of money for awhile until I get another opportunity to make a lot of money again. Sometimes those gaps between large money go much longer than is comfortable, so I need to shore that part up, and if I shore it up enough I won’t have to worry about the large gaps anymore.

This means that, at this juncture, the final piece is planning my goals, or steps, to achieve what I want to get to. I’m not putting that part down just yet. To me, this is the longest part, the part that needs more thought so that I’m not haphazardly throwing things out without the full plan. I also figure this is enough for anyone else who’s been thinking about setting up a strategy, who might be reading this and thinking that you want to try it along with me, to now sit down and plan your strategy as well. If you do decide to try something, I hope you share either here or on your own blog; I’d love to see where you’re taking it.

By the way, there’s a great possibility that I might be presenting a live seminar in July and August on this topic, which is why I’m now thinking about this entire thing. After all, it makes you much more convincing if you’re actually gone through the entire process as well. Right?

Social Media | 15 Comments

Video Highlights And A New Page

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 9, 2010

I have a lot of videos on this blog. Sometimes they’re easy to find because they match up with the content. Other times they’re kind of hidden gems, something I used to add something different to the post.

Overall the videos are all over the place, so I decided it was time to consolidate them, as well as highlight a few of them here. I did this before with my post showing my early videos up to June 2008. Below are 9 others I’d like to highlight, mainly because today is the 9th of March. For all other videos on this blog, though, go to the link above that says Videos, or of course you can click on the link I just created.

This video of Tunak Tunak Tun by Daler Mehndi just thrilled my wife and I when I discovered it last year. It’s infectious and fun.

This was the video of the year in 2009, a funny wedding entrance video.

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about commenting; this was Chris Pirillo’s take on it.

I had someone recently tell me about Google 411 service; told him I’d written about it in 2008, including the video.

I had finally written about the movie The Secret, and this was the 20 minute video clip from The Secret, which is enough to get you going.

This video caused a lot of consternation for a lot of people, mainly me, on my business blog for about 2 years before I decided to move it over here instead; it’s a motivational video of a boy with Down’s Syndrome.

A very recent video showing that stupidity and racism is still alive in America, courtesy of this Rachel Maddow clip with Pat Buchanan being stupid.

Talk about people with a passion that I’m not sure I could ever find again, this one highlights something known as Free Running.

Finally, we’re coming up on St. Patrick’s Day, and even though I’m not Irish and I’m not Catholic and I don’t drink beer (let alone green beer), I figured I’d get into the spirit of things this one time by presenting the Muppets singing Danny Boy.

And there you go, 9 videos I wanted to bring some life back to. I hope you check these out, and if you’re ever looking for some entertainment, remember to check out my Video page above.

Entertainment | 4 Comments

A Political Health Care Rant

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 11, 2009

The last time I did a rant of some kind, I touched upon a lot of issues that really weren’t related to each other. This time, though it might not seem like it, it’s all mainly about one thing, health care, though I might go off the range a couple of times. It’s time for this, though; I’ve written about it often enough in posts on my other two blogs, but not this one. I just need to clear the air, so here goes; and no, the image has nothing to do with this post, as we all know by now.

On Saturday night, the House Democrats finally pushed through the first stage of what will be a very massive and comprehensive health care bill. Well, at least they pushed through a bill, on a vote of 220 – 215. How comprehensive it will be is still in dispute by everyone outside of the House of Representatives.

Why? Because we have no idea what’s really in the bill. What is it going to cover? We already know it’s not covering abortions, but we have no idea what it’s going to cover. We’ve heard that it’s going to be funded by fees and cuts to Medicare. What kind of cuts to Medicare, and why? What kind of fees? I know that if it still has that stupid provision I heard about back in late September about charging individuals $900 and families $3,800 if they decide not to get onto a health care plan, I don’t support that at all. After all, the President said that any health care bill he signed wouldn’t hurt the middle class; just who do we all think those fines, or fees, will be laid upon? The rich have enough money to not have to worry about it, and the poor have Medicaid.

What I have heard is that they won’t allow insurance companies to not cover someone for preexisting conditions, which is a biggie because I got caught under something like that back in 1984 (and still have my tonsils because of it). They also won’t allow insurance companies to drop you if you’re already sick under the plan, unless insurance premiums stop being paid. That’s actually another good thing. I tell you, in general I don’t trust insurance companies and it’s because of stuff like this. However, in my mind, they should have passed these laws years ago, instead of tying it to a health care plan.

Okay, let me go on the record by saying this; I do believe this country needs to have a health care plan to protect everyone who doesn’t have insurance. Having said that, without knowing what this plan is, I don’t know if this is the plan we signed on for. The President said in his 8 principles that any plan Congress came up with has to NOT increase the deficit. Suddenly, this plan is coming with a $1.2 trillion price tag over 10 years; how the heck is that not going to raise the deficit?

Now, raising the deficit is something the Republicans seem to be hanging their hat on, but those phonies and hypocrites were responsible for getting this country into the mess it’s in now, with unemployment finally reaching 10.2% and more than 15 million Americans out of work. They say that they’re worried about the financial burden on our kids; yeah, they’re worried about the money but they could care less about the environment, which they say doesn’t matter to them and that they don’t believe there’s anything wrong with, as Greenland is about to lose its ice mass and glaciers, Alaska has already lost much of its glaciers, ice is melting at both the North Pole and Antarctica at alarming rates, and the snows of Kilamanjaro are disappearing rapidly. Sure, there’s no threat of global warming; please!

And, why is it that these same Republicans, the party of NO, the party that just today supposedly came up with its own version of a health care plan that not only isn’t a health care plan, but is something that half the states in the union have already had in place for nearly 30 years, couldn’t decide to work with the Democrats and actually voice their concerns about portions of the bill while the debate was going on? Why didn’t they offer anything? Oh yeah, because their lobbyists would have had a field day and their political funds would have dried up (I just dropped receiving email from the lobbying from my local Chamber of Commerce because these people obviously have no compassion for anyone except businesses). Someone tell me how rich people are supposed to care about anyone else being able to have health care? Heck, months ago a Republican representative said health care was a privilege, not a right; who elected this moron?

Also, just who were these idiots (yes, I’m name calling) who were showing up at these town meetings over the summer and screaming about the potential for a health care plan instead of engaging in some kind of civil discussion. Here’s the thing; no one took you seriously except for the Republican politicians who were hoping that some kind of public outcry would scare people off this plan. Most of you who were being convinced that a health care option would be a bad thing are the very people who probably need this health care. Rich people don’t march, so they didn’t care. You made jerks out of yourselves and no one heard a single thing you said. I tell you this, it’s certainly a good thing I’m not a politician because I’d have walked right up to you, got in your face, and dared you to keep screaming at me. Threatening? You bet! People tend not to act stupidly when they’re called on it.

One final point; this idea of a public option. Folks, let’s just call it what it is; a government sponsored health care plan to compete against other insurance companies. I’m not sure whether I’m for it or against it, but I don’t think it’s needed. Instead. what would spur competition of prices would be to lift the lid on insurance companies across the country to be able to market their insurance in any market they saw fit. Too many communities have only 2 or 3 insurance company options at the most from which to choose from, and all of them have somewhat inflated rates. For all these people griping about how much the government health care plan is going to cost, who hasn’t at least a couple of times this decade had double digit insurance premium increases at work, where the average seems to be at least 8% every year, and the cost of pharmaceuticals going even higher? With more competition, prices would naturally have to come down, and that might solve some of the problems instead of the government funding their own insurance plan, which they already do through Medicare and Medicaid.

Now, if people were complaining that, instead of a health care plan, we should have been concentrating on improving the economy, I’d have gotten behind that. Sure, we had this stimulus package, but most of that was undercover, to the point that some people are just getting their stimulus money, and others have used it in ways that weren’t its purpose. This wasn’t supposed to save jobs; it was supposed to help create new jobs. But, in my opinion, most of these politicians had no idea how to create jobs. I had my ideas on how to create jobs, but no one ever asked me. What happened to our money czar? Oh yeah, she couldn’t take the job because she had illegal help that she didn’t pay any taxes on; sheesh (okay, we actually do have a new money czar, but I was on a roll here)!

By the way, I had my own version of a health care plan that a colleague consultant didn’t like, saying it wouldn’t be effective, and he came up with his own health care plan, which would have been effective. However, in retrospect, my plan over 10 years would have come to $500 billion at the most, while his would have come to $2 trillion; I still win fiscally.

Morally, this country needs a health care plan. Only the United States and Italy don’t have one for its citizens. Financially, I’m not sure we can afford this one, especially if the figures I mentioned earlier are still a part of the plan. And also, if it’s taking money away from Medicare, which is going to end up closing hospitals at the same rate, eventually, that banks are closing now, a health care plan won’t matter because we won’t have anywhere to go. That plus there’s already a shortage of doctors and nurses in this country because reimbursement is too low and malpractice insurance is too high.

I keep wondering if I were in Congress how I would have voted on this bill. This is something that most people don’t think about; these bills that get put before our elected officials almost never have everything we want in them, and sometimes have stuff sneaked in that has nothing to do with the bill. That’s how the anti-gambling statute got pushed in, through another bill that protects our borders, and why every American who’s paying to play poker online is actually breaking the law. With the little bit I know, this bill wouldn’t be close to my first choice. I might have had to hold my nose, but I think I’d have probably voted for it in the end.

Nope, glad I’m not a politician. Certainly glad I’m not a Republican (I’m not a Democrat either, by the way), since it seems that, so far, in this year they haven’t come up with a single proposal to try to advance something. Think that’s the wrong way to look at it? Prove me wrong. At least they did come together last week with the Democrats to vote for an extension of unemployment; can you imagine how bad that would have looked?

Okay, off the soapbox now. I’m not expecting this one to be read that much, so back to the lighthearted fare most of us are used to tomorrow; whew!

Social Issues | 12 Comments

Small Town Ohio; I’m So Ashamed

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 30, 2008

First a disclaimer. I have tried to basically stay above the political fray this year, especially once Barack Obama became the Democratic presidential candidate. I did it for a couple of reasons.

One, I don’t really believe there is such a thing as “non-committed” voters. This means that I believe every person has a specific point of view on a lot of topics, and I believe they’ve actually already settled on which way they’re going to go, for the most part. The only reason a person might consider themselves non-committed is because they’re not so sure the person who’s supposed to be representing their values is the person they want to vote for. So, at that point, it becomes more of a popularity contest, not anything that’s going to change anyone’s minds, and I’d rather not deal with it all in public. I have my opinion and my position, and that suffices for me.

Two, because, well, I’ll just say it; Barack Obama is black, and so am I. This automatically means that if I say anything to support him, I’m going to be discounted because he’s black, and if I say anything that doesn’t support him, I’m a sellout. It’s pretty much that simple. No matter what anyone says about this year’s election, it is really all about race. Race is the only reason Obama isn’t ahead by 15 points or more heading into the home stretch. He has won every debate by a large margin. His education is superior, his intellect is superior, and the only thing McCain has over him is over 30 years in the Senate; longevity has its place. If the backgrounds were reversed, McCain would have clinched this race back in September, or Obama would have never gotten the nomination to begin with. Those are my feelings; don’t argue on it, because, as I said, I’m not out to change anyone’s minds on politics, and no one is going to change my mind as far as American history goes.

It is in this vein, though, that I have to post this particular video. This is what it all comes down to in this election; this is why the election is so close. And it’s for reasons like this that I, as a black man, know that America, whether it elects Barack Obama or not next week, has a really, really long way to go. This is sad; and yes, that man said “nigra”: