What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a baby blue polo shirt and shorts. Earlier today, he was wearing the Buccaneers cap that Linus chewed a hole in.
How does Dave feel today? Dave is sleepy.
What are the factors affecting Dave’s mood today? Dave accidentally used the lavender and chamomile body wash this morning, so all day long he has felt like it’s bedtime.
What does Dave’s usual body wash smell like? Dave’s regular body wash smells like Mountain Dew and battery acid. Invigorating!
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a Buccaneers cap, an Emory T-shirt, shorts, and ankle socks.
How does Dave feel today? Dave is relaxed.
What are the factors affecting Dave’s mood today? Dave has nothing on his schedule today, so he plans to pass the time watching teevee and doing some recreational reading.
What is Dave’s prediction for today’s Battle of the Bays? Dave believes that Green Bay has the edge over Tampa Bay, but it’s really up in the air: The score will be close no matter who wins. Dave thinks the quarterback matchup will make today’s game interesting. Brady and Rodgers have the experience and skills to react to unpredictable situations and create opportunities where few options exist.
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a gray polo shirt, shorts, and ankle socks.
How does Dave feel today? Dave is energized.
What are the factors affecting Dave’s mood today? Dave’s nonprofit board meets in a few minutes, and Dave is ready to make a passionate argument for something he wants to change.
How will Dave commemorate the life of Larry King today? Dave will watch the episode of 30 Rock in which Larry King interviews Tracy Jordan.
If I can summarize my approach to marketing in just three words, it would be this: Benefits beat features.
It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to sell water or change the world. Focus on the benefits of your product, service, or idea to make an impact with your audience.
A feature simply describes what something does. A benefit describes what it does for the person using it. Here’s a simple example:
I gave this some thought yesterday when talking to a friend who serves on the same nonprofit board as me. We’re both advocating for an important change to the way a committee is composed. My friend hasn’t gotten far by explaining how many people will be on the board, who appoints them, and so on.
You’ve gotta focus on the benefits, I told him.
Our proposal has a huge advantage over the status quo. It will promote more diversity on the committee and discourage any one person from exerting too much control over its direction.
Those are the benefits the board needs to know, I said. Not how our proposal works, but what it will achieve. And what it achieves is a stronger, more resilient organization that can navigate a vast range of challenges by harnessing the collective experience, skillsets, and thinking styles of a spectrum of passionate industry professionals.
The board itself benefits greatly from the contributions of many different individuals. Why shouldn’t one of its most important committees have the same advantage?
Features are facts. Benefits are facts with resonance. Use them to engage your audience, spark their imaginations, and spur them to action. You, like me, will benefit when you emphasize benefits.
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a purple Tampa Bay Devil Rays1 T-shirt, a Havana Industriales baseball cap, shorts, and Stan Smiths.
How does Dave feel today? Dave is sad.
What are the factors affecting Dave’s mood today? Dave just learned that Hank Aaron has died. As a baseball player, he broke records. As a person, he broke barriers.
How will Dave commemorate the life of Hank Aaron this afternoon? Dave plans to watch the episode of Futurama in which Leela becomes a pitcher for the New New York Mets and solicits help from Hank Aaron XXIV, Aaron’s descendent and the worst blurnsball2 player of all time. Here’s my favorite exchange from the episode:
1 Yes, it’s a real Devil Rays T-shirt. It predates the name change.
2 Baseball in the future. As Leela says: “Face it, Fry. Baseball was as boring as mom and apple pie. That’s why they jazzed it up.”
Yesterday was a momentous day for the United States, and I’ve been reading all the news and analysis I can about it. Here are a few articles that stand out.
Richardson is an amazing and perceptive writer. Her daily emails aren’t really articles — they’re more like timely, thoughtfully written recaps. Her piece about yesterday’s inauguration was one of her best so far, using Amanda Gorman’s poem to frame Biden’s inaugural speech and first actions in office.
In these terrible years, our politicians often failed us… but the American people did not. Our national guardrails often failed us… but the American people did not. Many of our neighbors often failed us, but the American people did not.
Who would blame editorial boards for being a little cautious at a time like this? Democracy reached its straining point under Trump, and no one can predict how long or hard it will take to repair the damage. But the Post’s writers find reasons for optimism — and, reading the piece, I found myself agreeing with them. It is a time for hopefulness.
There are many reasons to hope Mr. Biden’s message, delivered with evident passion and no little eloquence, could have real effect. One reason is that, unlike Mr. Trump, he did not contaminate it with rancor about “carnage” and “stolen” jobs, or pit a “righteous” public against an exploitative “establishment.” He instead urged “humility” and asked “those who did not support us” to “hear me out.”
I have a passion for language and appreciate anyone that can master the difficult balance between meaning, tone, precision, and artistry. This article looks at how Biden and Gorman accomplished that balancing act yesterday — and celebrates the return of honest language to our national discourse
There has been so much lying over these past four years. So much violence done to language, which is then cast as jokes or irony or merely what “other people” are saying. So much of our work of the past four years has been to find the bits of truth in the ash heap. That’s why it matters that Biden’s words today came from a tongue that used to fail him. He knows their power. They aren’t easy trinkets for him.
This one is so bizarre that I don’t need to write my own commentary. Here’s just a taste.
So confident was Team Tiger of Exotic’s imminent release that it also hired a hairdresser, who was waiting in Debose’s limo to coif Exotic’s signature platinum-blonde mullet.
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a gray Mickey Mouse T-shirt, jeans, and Stan Smiths.
How does Dave feel today? Dave is ecstatic.
What are the factors affecting Dave’s mood today? Dave is elated that his country is back on the right track.
What is Dave listening to right now? Dave is jamming out to the playlist he made when Biden won the election. Sign in to Apple Music and enjoy for yourself!
Two New York Times stories about suicide recently caught my attention. The first has to do with the Vessel, the 16-story staircase sculpture at Hudson Yards. Britt and I went there in June 2019, the day before WorldPride. It was closed because of rainy weather, but we were able to take some photos.
The first time I saw the Vessel, I had a fleeting but painful thought: Someone is going to jump off this thing. Sadly, I turned out to be right. The New York Times reports that three people have died by suicide1 there, prompting its closure.
I’m both disappointed and angry at the people who designed, approved, and built the Vessel. There is no way that no one realized that the sculpture would be a magnet for those seeking to end their lives. All someone has to do is walk up to the top and jump — the only barrier is a waist-high railing. (And, even if no one had recognized the potential for suicide at the Vessel, no one considered that a strong gust of wind might blow someone off? Not even the lawyers?)
There are ways to minimize suicide incidents from high places. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge have counseling hotlines and suicide prevention barriers. Anyone who has visited an outdoor observation deck — the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Shard in London, the Burj Kalifa in Dubai, to name a few — has seen the barriers that prevent anyone from jumping.
What happened at the Vessel could have been prevented if aesthetics weren’t considered more important than preserving life.
The second article concerns Michael Evans, the project manager who helped transform an abandoned post office into Moynihan Train Hall, the spectacularly beautiful expansion of the architectural abomination that is Penn Station.
Evans died by suicide before the train hall opened. The article says that Evans didn’t reach out for help; even then, the burden seemed enormous. The New York Times writes:
Still, friends described Mr. Evans as having a hard time asking for help, and he rarely spoke about how the project demands were affecting him, leaving him to deal with the stress by himself. A perfectionist, Mr. Evans also tended to be unduly harsh on himself and agonized over every setback and perceived misstep, his partner, Mr. Lutz, said.
I wish I knew why people with suicidal thoughts don’t seek out help. I assume that they’re experiencing a toxic mixture of shame, failure, and hopelessness. They might think that a mental health professional can’t help them. These things are not true, and there are many resources that can help people in distress.
These two articles are difficult to read, but I’m glad I clicked on the links. They remind me that we — as individuals and as a society — can rise to the challenge of suicide by destigmatizing mental health issues, investing in support networks, and listening to our friends and family members.
1 Don’t use the phrase “committed suicide.” It’s misleading and stigmatizing.
I studied poetry as an undergrad, but I haven’t given it much thought since graduation.1 I think the last book of poetry I bought was by Walt Whitman at a museum in 2005. It’s probably yellowing now in storage next to books by Shakespeare and Sharon Olds.
But, today, my appreciation for poetry was rekindled. Amanda Gorman’s poem at the inauguration, “The Hill We Climb,” was powerful and moving. She found just the right combination of words to articulate our frustrations today and dreams for tomorrow. She was clearly inspired by pain and rage — but also hope and empathy. It was a masterpiece.
See for yourself:
I’m awestruck (and pretty damn jealous) of her literary power.
Perhaps it’s time to dig up those old poetry books — and maybe even take a stab at a stanza or two myself. If this is what poetry is today, I want to be a part of it.
1 When I earned my MBA, we had to read Milton Friedman, not John Milton.
All the news out of Washington, D.C., reminds me of the last trip the Complimentary Spouse and I took to the nation’s capital. We participated in the National Pride March and caught up with some friends and family members. Here’s a quick review:
While the 2017 trip to Washington was fun, it was also an act of resistance. The next trip won’t be. And that’s a reason to celebrate today.