That’s a stupid title for this discussion, but it’s all I could come up with for the moment.

I watched two recent TED talks last night, one from Amanda Palmer and one from Bono. In a sense both were asking for help. Bono was touting stats to show the difference we’re making towards global poverty and essentially begged us not to flake on the final hurdle. Amanda talked about forgetting the sell, and asking people for help, and how it had worked for her career.

So what troubled me?

Well, why is it that I couldn’t engage with Bono’s talk at all, whereas Amanda’s captured me? Bono’s is indeed a noble cause, and he’s a person who I’ve followed for years and respected, musically. Amanda Palmer, on the other hand, is not someone I’ve followed. My understanding of her is limited to a few data points: singer, married to Neil Gaiman.

I took this unease to friends on FB and Carl Lenehan made a salient remark:

“IMO What he [Bono] is talking about is more uncomfortable for us, as we can only relate to a limited number of people at once (120-150) and Bono asks us to care for the whole world and most of them we naturally feel to be ‘the other’. Amanda Palmer asks us to care for one person at once and communicate with that person. That is natural for us. 

In addition, we also have a degree of cynicism and overload with his subject matter and he is an icon using established communication channels. She is iconoclastic and is asking us to create a new paradigm of contact.”

I absolutely agree with Cary’s viewpoint, but still there is more. And it goes way past this present example. What I’m saying is, that these two talks are really a glimpse into where we are failing as a species – and where we are succeeding. Amanda is talking about a paradigm shift, don’t SELL – try ASKING. But her shift is based on the most basic and most essential of human needs – to engage, to genuinely communicate.

Although my upbringing probably wouldn’t have allowed me to take my host’s beds (see Amanda Palmer TED talk), I can see her point. Barter at the most basic level. You give to my family, you value my family – I give to yours, I value yours.

So simple and yet so overlooked by commerce, politics and religion.

What troubled me was that Bono wasn’t operating at that level. Jokes about his own God complex and flipant remarks about Brazilian models, though witty, were not real. They were rehearsed and delivered that way. 

It makes me want to shout … while we continue to paractise not speaking from the heart, we will continue to struggle as a race. It’s only when we genuiniely engage that there is room for change and growth.

You can see Bono’s TED talk here: http://on.ted.com/BonoNews

You can see Amanda’s TED talk here: http://on.ted.com/Amanda

I would welcome your thoughts …

You know how I love flair when it comes to marketing and PR. It is it’s own legitimate creative endeavour. When you couple that with a concrete, scientifically critical mind and great people skills, you come up with the kind of person who can move mountains. I want you all to meet Joel Leonard from Skill TV. Joel came into my sphere through a work connection with my husband and I’ve been so impressed with his take no prisoners attitude to work and life.

For a few years he’s been known as the Maintenance Evangelist, consulting in all kinds of industry about the maintenance crisis that the world faces as we lose our technically skilled workforce to the lure of the IT industry. What that means, in the bluntest of terms, is that we’re not going to be able to fix our own equipment and transport in the coming years. We’re rapidly becoming technically dumb. Not only that, but we’re shooting our own economies in the foot.

This taken from the Marhsall Insitute website:

Over 12.8 million people are out of work in the United States, but there are an estimated 3.5 million unfilled job openings, with over 40 percent of those openings in the skilled trades. Companies need highly technical, capable resources to manage and operate today’s complex equipment, and agile minds to adapt to the newer complex equipment technologies on the horizon.

Joel is on a mission to see that we don’t end up in some post-apocalyptic scenario where we can’t take care of the civilsation we’ve built ( IOW, we’re living in our own dark science fiction story!).

You can read more about it here and download the app.

Among the PR tools Joel uses are the two songs he has written; MAINTENANCE WOMAN and the maintenance_crisis_bluegrass. You can explore the nuts and bolts (pun intended) of what Joel’s been doing by starting with his YouTube channel.

Also, Joel talks about his latest alliance with Reliabilityweb.com over at UPTIME magazine and it has a contact for him for anyone who would like to learn more.

Somehow I think Joel is going to be an inspiration to me for many years to come!

A slightly different review from me today. Well actually, it’s more of a teaser, for a new series called Rogue starring Thandie Newton, Marton Csokas and Leah Gibson. The IMBD synopsis goes like this:

Grace, a morally and emotionally-conflicted undercover detective, is tormented by the possibility that her own actions contributed to her son’s mysterious death. In her quest for the truth, Grace finds herself striking out on her own and falling deeper into the city’s most powerful and dangerous crime family. As Grace struggles to become the wife and mother her family now needs, her life is further complicated by a forbidden relationship with crime boss Jimmy Laszlo. In order to stay alive, Grace needs to help Jimmy find the traitor in his midst, while knowing he may have played a part in her tragedy.

Anything that reads morally conflicted immediately hooks me in, and to add to that, the cast is a mixture of British, Canadian and New Zealand actors. The first series was filmed in Canada by DirecTV.

The cherry on the top of this one is that my friend Leah Gibson gets a strong role as a sexy crime wife. You can read my interview with Leah from a while back, and with her agent Penni Thow. You can also read an interview with Leah over at Geekadelphia. So delighted to see her star rising! Check out this sexy clip with her co-star Joshua Sasse.

And Thandie Newton as Grace, the cop who finds humanity among the bad guys.

Looking forward to this series a lot. Now I just have to find a way of getting hold of it over here!