AFK – Pacific Front Sessions: November 2008

Pacific Front Sessions for November is my favorite kind of mix to pull off – from chill to breaks to atmospheric house to progressive. Starting off with some really cool and creepy ambient piece from Dynamic Illusion at the beginning, the mood is spacey and dark. From this it turns into breaks with a track called “The Phoenix.” Retroid’s remix of my own Bergamot track debuts next and what a job he did with it. After that there’s a transition to one of my favorite epic progressive breaks tracks – a LoStep remix of Scrambler. I’ve blended that track together with a four on the floor piece, my new remix of Fractal – Oceanography. Hybrid ramps up the intensity with some vocal progressive, and from there it’s not far to the finish line, yet it’s far from over. The two last tracks really crank up the energy levels and the final track ties everything together nicely.
I did this mix in early November while we were in Tofino. On the way back, I stopped at Cathedral Grove where this photo was taken in front of a tree that is over 800 years old. If you ever go to Tofino or Ucluelet, make sure you stop by the grove on the way and have a walk around – it’s an incredible park with great atmosphere and the trees are just ridiculously massive, like this mix!

Tracklisting:

  1. Dynamic Illusion – Alone In The Space (Michael and Levan Ambient remix) [Silk Sofa]
  2. Arthur Deep – Phoenix (Original mix) [Toes in the Sand]
  3. AFK – Bergamot (Retroid remix) [Pacific Front Recordings]
  4. Scrambler featuring Amarevois – Free (LoStep’s Class of 95 Reunion remix) [EQ Grey]
  5. Fractal – Oceanography (AFK’s Ucluelet Detour remix) [Pacific Front Recordings]
  6. Hybrid – Formula of Fear (Hybrid remix) [Distinctive Recordings]
  7. Lanui – Jennifer (Original mix) [Baroque Limited]
  8. David West & Orkidea – Gods Garden (Original mix) [Ava]
Download: AFK – Pacific Front Sessions: November 2008 (mp3)

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nine inch nails live in victoria

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Last Friday I saw Nine Inch Nails at the Memorial Arena. I have been a fan since a highschool friend named Cyril Woon decided to put on Pretty Hate Machine in 1994, 5 years after it had come out. It must have been 1994, because we were playing a card game that had just come out in 1993. I tried to come to terms with what I was listening to. Was it techno, was it industrial, was it metal, was it ambient ballads gone horribly wrong? At first I found his voice annoying, not because it sounded annoying, but because it sounded like an ordinary person who was just really pissed off. What was remarkable about that? Why were we listening to it?
The answer was in the futuristic production and artistic focus. Trent Reznor had a drive to make something different, something raw – heavily produced, but not over-produced to the point where there was no musical agility anymore. The notes, the sounds – they were swings of an axe to a fragile wall of pop music. No apologies were made about the negativity in lyrics or tone for the next album I listened to, because it was about to get darker, more abrasive, and twisted.
But before I get to that 3rd album, I just want to mention Broken and Fixed. Looking at this now, this is the kind of artistic production that I’d really be into if I came across it now. Broken was a new album, the new one after Pretty Hate Machine, and Fixed was a remix album of that music. It never stuck for me, perhaps because I didn’t know much about it or it just didn’t get any play – I knew people that had it but for some reason it didn’t make it into the CD player nearly as much as Pretty Hate Machine or the next album. Perhaps it was the absence of Flood – who had engineered PHM and TDS – that made it stick a little less for me.
The Downward Spiral was a sinister, abrasive and scathing album from Nine Inch Nails. There was something even less innocent about The Downward Spiral – sonically it had been distorted, shredded, sandpapered down, and annihilated. The textures were intense, and even influential for me as a producer over a decade later. The rawness of Nine Inch Nails had hit a deeper level, and there was no going back. There was something about it that made you crave the self-destructiveness of this character. It was deliberately set up this way. Although I still really liked Pretty Hate Machine, I could not listen to it back to back after The Downward Spiral. The order would have to be reversed or else it was just The Downward Spiral. Pretty Hate Machine seemed too shiny in comparison. If you read the wikipedia article about where it was recorded, it makes sense. I have to credit my friend Joel for introducing me to this album. If he had a place on the Internets, I’d totally link to him.
After that I bought Further Down The Spiral – a remix album of the previous, and it was just a bit too indulgent for me in that area so I didn’t listen to it much. I wanted something new and found it in the rave scene at the time, and then lost track of all Nine Inch Nails and all pop music for that matter. Trance had brought me out of the musical haze of the early and mid nineties. That was it – I had caught The Perfect Drug on Much Music, but I wasn’t interested enough any more to buy the albums.
Earlier this year, I had not bought anything further by Nine Inch Nails until I came across the double CD for Ghosts I – IV at Lyles Place downtown. Ghosts has been its own marketing success story, having been available for a free download, or a purchasable double CD, or a deluxe version, or a vinyl version, or a limited edition deluxe edition for $300. Basically you get to choose how much you like Nine Inch Nails, and the options are there for you. The box sets reportedly sold out very fast. There might be some lessons for Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal here.
Ghosts itself is a double album of instrumental industrial music and some ambient tracks as well. I am not going to lie – I was pleased to be listening to Nine Inch Nails again. There was this whole dimension of music that I appreciated and it had been absent from my playlist for a very long time, something like a decade. In that time, I had developed my taste for instrumental music, most of electronica fitting into this category, and I had spent a lot of time myself doing sound design and sculpting audio textures for my own music. I instantly recognized some of the synths used on the album, even some in common with LSG’s “The Singles Reworked,” one of the best electronic albums I own. Like BT’s “This Binary Universe,” it marks a significant artistic progression with little or no regard whatsoever to what is popular or mainstream. It is a creative milestone for Nine Inch Nails, pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable once again.
That is my background with Nine Inch Nails.

lights in the sky

We went to Memorial Arena in half disbelief that someone in Victoria had actually booked an artist that wasn’t far, far, far past their prime. No hack on Victoria, but we’re a small market at best and we just don’t have the numbers to attract the bigger tours. This might not have been a turning point for the city, but for once it didn’t feel like an isolated town on an island, living 10-20 years artistically behind the rest of North America’s performing arts. It’s just a fact of being a small market on the way to no major cities or regions. We are literally on the edge of the earth. What I am saying is that, in that context, it made this show a little more special for me.
The rock brand was very prominent as you can see in the photo at the top of this post. There aren’t too many logos for bands or groups that have quite the strength of the Nine Inch Nails logo. It’s stayed the same as long as I can remember. It is simple, memorable and distinctive. I have seen quite a few rock band logos that are not even logos, but rather illustrations that have been used in place of a real logo. That’s fine – that is part of the culture. However, half of the music business is marketing and advertising, and so it is auto-inhibitive to prematurely discount brand equity. There are not too many groups with an identity as strong as we see with this band. Before the show started, the merchandise machine was in full swing – it’s business time.
At the start of the show, as seems to be the way bands like to do things, Nine Inch Nails came out and started rocking out really, really hard. Beck did this when I saw him at the Royal Theatre recently – and this wasn’t Beck’s forte, but it was definitely Nine Inch Nails’. Since I didn’t know some of the newer songs, I had to resort to appreciating the musicianship and the visuals.
The lead guitarist was head-banging so hard during his solos, I am not even sure how he was able to stand up while playing. I could say this or that about the rest of the band, but Trent Reznor really stole his own show, playing keyboards, glitchy touch-screen computer instruments, drum machines, piano-keyboards, xylophones, almost all of which he threw off the stage when done with. It became really clear early on that the band was not phoning this one in – they were there to put on a performance AND a show.
The visuals, let me say this first: it’s really hard to explain it and make it sound awesome, because as soon as you explain something like this, it takes some of the excitement and mystery away – not unlike explaining a magic trick before doing it. Suffice to say, their choice of visuals to sound were very deliberate and it showed throughout the night. This was not pyrotechnics or an intelligent lighting bonanza. This was a full media experience that was entirely based on the music. Sometimes they were in front of a desert scene, sometimes a swamp, sometimes they were behind or in it, sometimes they were interacting with the visuals in ways that complemented what they were doing musically. Sometimes the visuals were just there in the background, a city smoldering from its own need in the distance. Other times the visuals were based on the music videos for the song, but with real-time effects on a much larger screen. Or they would disappear behind a wall of static, bursting holes in it with notes from their instruments or words into microphones. It was intense.
Here’s the set-list Nine Inch Nails played in Victoria:

  1. 999,999
  2. 1,000,000
  3. Letting You
  4. Discipline
  5. March of the Pigs
  6. Head Down
  7. The Frail
  8. The Wretched
  9. Closer
  10. Gave Up
  11. The Warning
  12. Vessel
  13. 21 Ghosts III
  14. 28 Ghosts IV
  15. 19 Ghosts III
  16. Piggy
  17. The Greater Good
  18. Pinion
  19. Wish
  20. Terrible Lie
  21. Survivalism
  22. The Big Come Down
  23. 31 Ghosts IV
  24. Only
  25. The Hand That Feeds
  26. Head Like A Hole

    Encore:

  27. Echoplex
  28. The Good Soldier
  29. God Given
  30. Hurt
  31. In This Twilight

All the “Ghosts” numbers you see above are instrumental tracks from the new album. They’re fairly left-field for the kind of mainstream audience Nine Inch Nails has these days, which means that some people were confused by the new material, and some others had the door opened for them to broaden their taste. As a DJ I can relate to how hard it can be to break relatively new or experimental music into the masses, and the Ghosts material fits both those categories. Not everyone is ready for it, but sometimes that kind of material can be the most important for the performer to play. Not only is it important for the artist and the sophistication of the listener, but some of it can be really, really good. For a concert and an audience with no shortage of attitude, for me, the Ghosts pieces were an oasis of composition, performance, and completely immersive artistry. It was a treat from the studio – songs that were never meant to be played out. I am so glad I got a chance to see those tracks performed despite all the forces against them.
The most interesting part of the Ghosts pieces were the placement in the set – if I was making a set listing for a band, I would arc the intensity in a similar way I think. Starting hard, moving into catchier tracks, then slowing it down to Ghosts levels before ramping the energy back up towards the finale, with one valley towards the end. At no point did I feel like the energy was dragging or that things were out of place. It was carefully done, and I understand that they take this aspect of their performances very seriously. As Reznor told Rolling Stone during rehearsal for the Lights in the Sky tour, “I think too much about this [bleep].” Well, we appreciate it.
At some point I’ll have to clarify the difference I see between a show and a performance. Someone who is technically very good can put on a good performance, despite other factors. Someone who is not so technically focussed can still put on a good show – and their fans are still happy to pay $200 to see them in concert, even when they do not display that they even want to be performing. This, to me, is sad, because while a show can be quite good, the performance can still be lackluster. Nine Inch Nails did not have this issue. I hope that makes sense.
Every now and then you come across something that forces you to re-evaluate how you judge a certain category of things – be it a book of fiction, a DJ set, a movie, or simply a dinner at a restaurant. After one of these experiences, you can’t be satisfied so easily with what came before it. This show AND performance was one of those experiences which raises the bar for all future concerts.
It was well worth the $55, and a new benchmark to determine value of all other concerts with.

conductor

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I have 5 minutes to write about this photo. It is of Rick Underwood conducting the Greater Victoria Concert Band at Alex Goolden Hall in downtown Victoria a couple weeks ago. AGH is literally a block from where I live, and it’s a beautiful venue. It seats a fair number of people too, and it always sounds really good. The acoustics are fantastic.
Often times I think about what it is like to be a conductor. Whenever I compose music, I am mindful that the instruments that get played are following my every instruction, at all times. No practice needed from my players, just attention to detail required from me. That can be daunting, but what it really means is that to make a piece come alive, I need to sit down and pick up the instrument that I am asking to be played. Not only does this make droning or looping sections more active, it often time adds to the overall dynamic of the song. Yes, it is very easy to loop something and make a track rest of on the progression of layers, but to me I can hear the flatness of this and it feels unfinished until there is meaningful movement from non-percussion parts, either in tone, frequency cut-off (filtering), volume, or otherwise. I find that I have done a lot of work on replacing volume dynamics with filter dynamics which can make a song sound fuller or more muddy, it depends on what else is going on.
To me, static instrumentation makes a song sound dull and uninteresting. Oddly enough, I am finding that rock bands are more guilty of playing an organ and not adding any dynamic aspects to it than electronica composers, even when the rockers are actually playing it with their fingers. Even though the “anti-techno” movement from hardcore rockers is long dead for the most part, I still think from time to time about what may have inspired or help tip the anti-techno movement to become a mainstream attitude in the early 90s. Perhaps they heard bad techno, or didn’t hear it on the right medium; you need a sound system capable of reproducing all frequencies, not just midrange or treble the way some folks had their stereos set up back in the day. Listening to electronica on a cheap or misconfigured stereo is not unlike watching a movie on a projector in broad daylight. You’re probably not getting everything that you were intended to get from the movie makers — you’re missing part of the dynamic range. With electronica, a lot of the substance is in the lower frequencies.
The other thing that I wondered about was the auto-pilot approach that a bunch of rock bands had to dynamics with electronic lead sounds. It sounds like some of them just put it on, looped it, run to their other instruments and played the song. No doubt this monotony drove people away from liking it – not just that “it’s cheating” (I don’t think it is or was), but it was boring and lacked life. I know when I hear some new bands doing this, the electronic sound becomes my least favorite sound of an otherwise acceptable song. In fact I find it can get to the point where it’s obnoxiously unchanging. I can’t remember the name of the song, but the Dandy Warhols do this. Perhaps it’s the fault of their producer, or maybe it really is artistic intent, but to me it sounds like compositional neglect. Maybe they need an equivalent of a conductor to bring it all together more cohesively.
Dynamics bring energy and feeling to repetitive parts that need to be repetitive to support other elements that have tonal changes or melodic changes of their own. This is done as a matter of course in most concert bands and symphonies, stated by the composer and interpreted, reinforced and accentuated by the conductor. It is something I am appreciating more and more each time I go to a show or listen to music that has had that care and attention given to it. This is something I do in my own music as a way to make otherwise unrelated parts work together to build something bigger. I also have done this in my design work – things like textures being added on a gradient, or a more complex photo vignetting where the vignette is not light fall-off, but rather color and shadow intensity deepening into the corners. It makes the context more intriguing and adds a complimentary complexity that contributes to the overall end result. I believe it leaves the viewer or listener with a slightly different feeling.
I really enjoy making these cross-media observations and extending theory or practice from one media form to another where it makes sense. Does anyone else have any examples of transferring either theory or practice from one source into another art form? Where did you take from and what did you do with it?

close to control

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some really hard to use controls on my sony ericsson phone – click for a big version.

Tonight, Nine Inch Nails is in town and I’m going to go check them out. From Trent Reznor’s latest blog entry:

This [is] an amazing tour and production – certainly the best thing I’ve ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale. Thank you to those who came out to see it and forgive me for having a Kanye West moment, but this was FOR SURE the best show of the year and any bull[bleep] end-of-the-year poll you may read in the next few weeks that says otherwise simply has it wrong. Those of you who saw it know I’m right.

Ok Trent, you’re allowed to have that Kanye moment, but my expectations have been set. I will be disappointed if you’re not rappelling from the roof of Memorial Arena with expensive supermodels flanking you while wearing ultra tacky sunglasses. Thanks for providing the metric.
He goes on:

The venue for Friday night’s performance in Victoria will have a very relaxed camera / camcorder policy… hmmn…

Alright, well I suppose I don’t need much more of an invitation than that to bring my camera to a concert, do I?
www.nin.com/newspost/2008/12/curtain-call.html – it’ll redirect you to the front page but maybe they’ll fix that in the future. I notice they’re doing a lot of cool updates to their site, like allowing users to populate the NIN website gallery through users flickr tagging. Not mind-bending but certainly unusual for an entity as high profile as NIN. That’s putting the power in the hands of the fan. Clever.
I’d mention something about Canadian politics – but I’d like to sleep well, so I’m going to leave that for another update.

connected to your surroundings

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How connected are you to your surroundings?
Richard sent me a link to an interview with some “mad men” (advertising folk) pontificating on the relevance of marketing, products, and advertising channels to the internet. Much of what I gleaned from reading this is that they are not as “in touch” as they think they are. Have a look and decide for yourself before reading what I have to say below.

highlights and low-lights

  1. The EA Sports / Tiger Woods story is a communications department shining at its brightest. That was awesome.
  2. Internet Overalls – I liked the creativity here but I think they’re missing the point. The point would not to be to solely cover internet relevance, it would be to make the product relevant to all marketing channels that it could be profitable in. If you concentrate on something that would only make sense to those on the internet, you’re ignoring a good chunk of the market. You are missing out (again.) The goal of marketing on the internet should be additional coverage, not mutually exclusive coverage.
  3. Katie Couric – They criticize her for not being interactive enough. But first, 2 out of the three interviewees admit to not watching the news, and the third suggests something that’s already being done. They suggest bringing her onto the web, or coordinating some sort of Katie-on-demand – but in reverse, where she demands your attention when she talks about a certain keyword. Sounds annoying. I see these guys are not aware that Katie Couric was doing a web-show on the night of the election, which had plenty of interaction on it too. Katie had some small-time guests participating like Hilary Clinton, but who am I to judge? Katie also maintains Couric & Co, a blog on the CBS site where she leads the charge on interactivity. I think these marketing gurus have pigeonholed her to a fault.
  4. It appears that some marketing ideals suggest that you have to rush to one channel or another to hit the markets you want. The brands that I see with the most credibility in the music industry have their product and their marketing in all relevant advertising channels and media forms. This does not mean going ape[bleep] and putting your CD in every Wal-Mart and Best Buy, it means that you find the channels that mean ubiquity for your genre and you hit those so that any time that a person is in their shop of choice, your product comes up in their searches. With searching online and in-store inventory systems advancing further all the time, availability is the new advertising. If you aren’t in inventory, you don’t exist. If you disagree with this, may I present to you: amazon.com.
  5. I think TV stations are beginning to make some really great web-content, some of the best web-content lately. They may be adapting faster than a lot of people give them credit for.

The point I’d like to make here is this: If you don’t see it with your own eyes, that doesn’t mean somebody is not out there doing it.
I’m curious what everyone elses’ take on this is. I am into marketing, I run and work in business on the web and off the web so I may be a bit biased in terms of how the nascent internet/real-world marketing practice will turn out. Did you get the impression that perhaps the interviewees, though very accomplished, may have been a bit under-prepared for this, or do you think they were spot-on?

It’s a bear market

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A bear fishing in a river near Ucluelet last week

Last week I saw a television ad for the Chevy Volt, an electric car design that has been sat on for years and years. Release date is 2010. Too little, too late.
The optical challenge for major American car companies is that they appear to have been doing nothing for too long. Basically their situation is that they’ve been making vehicles that no one wants for the last 15 years, and now they’re looking to stall that failure by asking the government for more money, or go bankrupt. So we see advertisements for an electric car that isn’t due out for two years. Not really surprising, but is this the most they can do?
Personally, I hope these major companies go down. I know it will be bad for the economy short term, but have a look at what it would mean long term to give them a loan.

  • GM, Ford and Chevrolet will continue to make vehicles no one wants (read: Escalade, Hummer etc)
  • Sales will continue to plummet
  • The bear market will be preserved because these companies will not be worth investing in as long as their product line remains the same (out of touch with the environment and with the needs and interests of the world)
  • The economy will re-crash when these companies finally reach the bottom of the government well

For the Big Three, it may be nice to have a fantasy supply of vehicles that make their ideal target market feel big by being 20 feet long and 8 feet tall – and by using more gasoline than the Queen of Saanich – but these are not vehicles that address the environmental needs or the financial picture of the economy we live in. There is a real world with concrete demands out there. GM, Chevrolet and Ford need to step in with both feet to make their supply match it.
What do you think?

AFK – Morphosis mix

Every now and then I’ll do an all-breaks mix. In this case, it’s an all trancey-breaks mix. Why bother saying Progressive Breaks when people know about as much about Progressive Breaks as they do about fractured semiotic fields. What? Exactly. So it’s trancey breaks, I don’t care if trance is a bad word – you know it means melodic and that’s all I care about. The mix aired on Retroid’s “Morphosis” show on Proton Radio – yes, there is a relation to the music label there too, which is also run by Retroid. Morphosis is of my favorite labels, so of course I was honored to be a guest. I’m going to Tofino this weekend to get away, and I’ll be spending part of the time working on my new Pacific Front Sessions mix as well as finishing off my remix of Fractal – Oceanography, which incidentally starts the mix. Thanks to Retroid for having me on the show. Hope you enjoy!

Tracklisting:

  1. Fractal – Oceanography (Original mix) [Pacific Front]
  2. Habersham and Numinous – Leaving Tifton (Digital Witchcraft remix) [Blueprint Recordings]
  3. Umut Anacoglu and Redloft featuring Nesli – Just Fantasize (Aeron Aether remix) [LuPS Records]
  4. Fitalic – Airflow (Original mix) [Tribal Vision Records]
  5. Nicholas Bennison and Micah – I’ve Been There (Micah’s Breaks mix) [Screen 2]
  6. AFK – Eclipse (Original mix) [Pacific Front]
  7. U.N.K.L.E. – Glow (Hybrid remix) [Global Underground]
  8. Airwave – Sunday Break (Original mix) [Bonzai]
Download: AFK – Morphosis mix on Proton Radio (mp3)

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making the case for intelligence in leadership

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sunrise from yesterday morning

I’ve given some thought to what has happened in Canada in the last month, and what is happening in the United States right now, both economically and politically.
Boy, if you could have told me that I would be writing about economics and politics on my blog about 6 years ago, I would have been very, very skeptical. Traditionally I have found the topics to be dull and boring, but not so in the last couple of months. That isn’t to say Canadian politics haven’t been boring – I give Canada’s quintet of leadership through boredom full credit for keeping up their usual bickering and knack for moving nothing forward and ensuring status quo for Canada – maybe it’s better that way. Perhaps we don’t need new laws (*cough* C-61 *cough*) so perhaps the leaders of our country can’t decide what to do because they don’t really know what they should be doing. The Copyright bill (C-61) would be the strongest indication of this – a minister by the name of Jim Prentice put forward a bill to do with photography ownership, mp3s, essentially anything to do with ideas. I have listened to quite a few radio shows on this subject and read a substantial amount through Michael Geist’s website since, and the conclusion that I have come to is that Jim Prentice put forward a bill after consulting with corporate and government groups – record labels, US DMCA, etc – none of them being the public (who he works for), and then put together a bill based on what they wanted. I do not get the impression that he particularly knows what he is talking about, especially after reading Michael Geist‘s hammering of his bill, where Michael made 61 recommendations to improve the bill – one exhaustive one each day for 61 days straight. If Jim Prentice had a read of this, I would think he would feel very humbled. There is nothing embarrassing about consulting the experts. There is so much intelligence in Canada, are we not big enough to employ it?
The less-than startling conclusion here is that Jim Prentice, after all of this, appears to be much less intelligent than Michael Geist. Does that boil it down too much to an uncomfortable level? Is that fair to say? I would say it is, and I would also say that it is how people are making decisions about how they decide who they want to lead their country. In this case, Jim Prentice was appointed to be Minister of Industry, and Michael Geist is not a politician but rather a Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa. So in this circumstance the matter of intelligence does not have a lot of impact on what is about to happen. But south of the border, the case for intelligent leadership is making itself.
From my observations north of the border, John McCain just does not articulate himself in a way that comes across as particularly intelligent. “I know how to do that” is he uses quite often without any suggestion of how exactly it is that he’s going to pull off the things he promises. And I believe it’s the source and the reason why polls are showing that McCain failed to win any of the Presidential debates. Perhaps people want transparency.
All of this at a time when the nation of the United States finds itself it financial turmoil, in a twisted puzzle of money and policy that will require a lot of thought to unravel and correct. People are not wanting an ordinary person to run their country when the problems are beyond the scope of ordinary inspirational leadership. There is a need for critical thinking that questions and rationalizes, instead of just “knowing how” to do stuff as John McCain suggests he does. This is too vague, too random, and frankly it underestimates the intelligence of the voters. I wont even get into his choice for running-mate – I think that is best summed up by John Cleese’s observations. (Thanks to Adam for the link.)

What makes good leadership?

When this question comes up to existing leaders in various fields – not just politics – there is usually some references that look like this:

  • Communicating complex ideas in understandable ways
  • An unthreatening ability to work with people to get things done
  • Being at the right place at the right time
  • The ability to empathize
  • Confidence to take action
  • Knowing when to let someone else lead
  • Seeing the big picture – it’s not just about you
  • Being recognizable as a leader, even when you don’t officially have the title on you – yet

Part luck, part skill, part instinct. One of the things that I have admired about the Clinton camp in this election is their ability to get behind Obama and lead from a position you’d not normally expect people to be able to lead from. That is part of their strength from my point of view, and I get a feeling a lot of others see it that way as well. While the Palin/McCain camp wants more aggression and literally chants “fight, fight, fight” at their rallies, we have something completely different with Obama/Biden – discussions of plans and solutions with tangible handles on them. It’s very different.
I have to admit that this post has been almost two weeks in the making – one of the items I’ve been wrestling with is “what does leadership mean to me?” I don’t have all the answers myself, but I did spend quite a bit of time on that very short list above. Everyone has an idea of what makes a great leader, and I have no doubt you come across one regularly. What is it to you that makes good leadership? What traits do you admire about that person you know that not only directs but also inspires those around them?

Cruise Ship Responsibility

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Looking at cruise ships the other day, and talking about them more recently over the dinner table, it got me thinking – where does Corporate Social Responsibility fit in with cruise ship companies? What could they possibly do? It is a business based on luxury, burning fuel, and buffet-style indulgence. People don’t go on cruises to be efficient, or to save the planet. Or can they?

What the cruise ship companies are doing

I don’t actually know, so I am going to take 3 cruiselines and tell you what I find:

It sounds like Norwegian has the best program of the bunch, or at least they are able to explain it better than anyone else, which counts for a lot since then people can call them on whether or not they are doing what they are promising to do. Most people probably couldn’t call you on doing something that wasn’t ISO14001 compliant, but they would be able to tell when you put some cardboard in the garbage instead of the recycling bin.

Social responsibility for the sake of marketing?

In all circumstances, social responsibility appears to mean environmental standards to cruise ship companies. Fair enough, that’s also how they operate their business – cruises through the environment, so it makes business sense, and it’s more marketable than being “good to employees,” so it ties into their bottom line. Nothing that I could see addressed anything to do with customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, or communities though. I have heard all sorts of stories about how cruise ships treat their employees – from very good to really, really poorly. This didn’t come up with any prominence on the corporate social responsibility radar in my searches.
I am not in the market segment that cruise ships would consider going after – I am far too young, and my interest in cruises is not very high due to the time required for one. Still, if I was in the market for going on a cruise, I would want to know which companies treat their people and the world around them the best before giving them money.