economics

Hating Black Friday 2012: The Hatening

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Last year I went on about how I hated Black Friday.  To sum up last year, I felt it:

  1. Distorted economic planning.
  2. Was stressful on businesses.
  3. Was a giant cultural distorter.
  4. Wasted mindshare on things like . . . me writing about it.
  5. Distorted perspective.

None of my areas of concern really changed, and repeating them is kind of useless.

So I’d like to turn this around and ask – do I see Black Friday going away?

. . . and the answer really is no, not without specific effort or changes.

Black Friday is integrated into not just our economy, but our culture.  It’s there, it’s expected, it’s assumed.  As much as people (like me ) complain about it, it’s just something we do.  There’s a lot of inertia behind the idea.  I see no reason for it to stop.

It’s fascinating to imagine something economic like this being a cultural fixture, but there you go.  The mutant offspring of Christmas greed (which we’ve been decrying for decades), bargain-hunting, and watching-the-car crash is just something we do.  Much as we also rant about it (which is strangely its own traditions).

Now could I see it going away?  Maybe, but it’d have to be conscious.  We’d have to as a country and a culture, or at least part of us, move against the insanity of the day.  We’d have to get businesses to go along with it.  In short, there’d have to be a kind of movement.

Do I want one?  Actually, yeah.  The entire holiday distortion of the economy can’t be healthy, and I’m not sure it can last in its currently exponetially-insane-ifying state.  Also it’s really annoying and distracting.

OK, you go start the movement. *I* am tired ranting.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Tribalism Trumps Cash In Politics?

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The campaign is done, over, Nate Silver can go get drunk, and the formerly confident members of the Republican Party are asking “what happened?”  Also they’re asking “What the hell did all that money go for?”

Now I could go deep into some of my own theories about political groups, which are roughly that a lot of lobbying and political organizations are just lucrative fronts to part donors from cash.  But still there was a LOT of money sloshing around this election, and many is the time I hears someone predict it would break in the Republican’s favor.  Doesn’t look that way.

I think there is an issue that money can only buy so much, and it’s worse in a time of highly “tribal” political divisions, as explored by Salon.

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Further Thoughts On The Big Score: Leadership

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I had fun writing about The Big Score mentality in America, how the idea of seeking One Big Score distorts culture and economics.  I got some response on it, and have been thinking about it a bit more.

The idea of a Big Score also distorts leadership, a subject I find myself mulling over constantly as I look at the state of the economy and government (though mostly I’m thinking business/economic leadership here).  There’s talk of leadership this and leadership that.  Thought leaders.  Technical leaders.  You can’t follow the leader since we have so bloody many of them.

The Big Score seriously distorts leadership.  Looking for the Big Jackpot Win in fact isn’t leadership.

Think about leadership focused on the Big Score.  It’s not about sustainability.  It’s not about maintaining a company or organization.  It’s focused on getting everything to the Big Score.

Thus in a weird way it’s anti-leadership.

There’s no comprehensive vision beyond The Big Score.

There’s no sense of a big, sustainable picture because there’s no thinking beyond The Big Score.

There’s no sense of the price paid for The Big Score.

There’s so much reliance on the Big Score there’s little thought on what happens next.

There’s no courage.  The Big Score predominates all, and few want to argue with it or challenge it.

I’m lucky to have worked under and with a lot of people who do lead and don’t live The Big Score.  In fact, they probably contribute more to any Big Scores that do happen than anyone else.

As I look at the lottery-ticket mentality of many businesses and organizations, in finance and in technology, I think we’ve got too much Big Score leadership.  It’s not guiding us to the future, it’s guiding us to a hopeful economic Rapture, and too often many people just fall back to earth.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.