What’s In This Issue?
Hawaiian Drone Discovers Thought-To-Be Extinct Flower
I may have Hawaii on my mind since I'm here at the moment, but I delighted in reading this story of a team using drones to explore the inaccessible cliffs of Kauai to find a flower everyone thought was extinct. It makes you wonder what else is left in the world to discover (or rediscover).
Beer, Trump and the Power of Shaping The Narrative
One of the oldest PR tactics has to do with shaping perception before anyone else. It's why Ivy Lee first invented the press release back in 1906. In recent weeks there have been two very different examples of this principle at work. The first was Bud Light starting a war with competitors over their use of corn syrup. By coming out first, they successfully shaped the perception that Miller Lite and Coors Light are less pure and more artificial. Despite the continuing legal battle, they are clearly winning.
The other example was how Trump deftly shaped the narrative around the Mueller report days before the public or the media was able to see it. It is why people who never read the report still insist it exonerates Trump. There is a reason this is a time honored PR tactic. It has worked for more than a century and continues to work today. Our only defense against it is awareness combined with making a choice to think for ourselves instead of blindly believing the first story we hear.
Overcoming Crisis: Advice From the World's Smartest Man
You can find a lot of advice on how to make your way through a personal crisis - like the loss of a job or a divorce. What if that crisis relates to an entire country instead? That's the fascinating topic of the upcoming book Upheaval from Pulitzer prize-winning writer and scientist Jared Diamond. I've read many of his books over the past two decades and this latest one is his most timely.
There are many parts of the world today that could aptly be described as being in crisis, whether political, environmental or economic. Like all of his books, the scope of stories Diamond examines are truly global - from "Germany’s postwar rebuilding to Australia’s search for a postcolonial identity." What his books must-reads for me is his ability to look deeply at one part of the world and translate it into a broader implication about the world at large.
I have described Diamond in the past as perhaps the smartest man alive today because of his earned ability to offer big macro lessons that elevate his reader's thinking beyond the day to day concerns of their own lives. And anyone who can get large groups of people to see the bigger picture beyond themselves is certainly worth listening to.
