Roberts was revolted by it and set about studying the wild Mustang herds in the US.  He realised these highly sociable animals have a system of body language-based communication which humans can imitate and, using his new system, he was able to create a method of horsemanship which was 100% non-violent and practically 100% successful in breaking horses in.  He took his concepts further and made a truly holistic system by which he can pretty much literally talk to horses. He can help them overcome irrational fears (trauma association), rational fears (abuse) and much more. It is amazing to watch.

Roberts took his system around the world and Kelly Marks, along with some others, founded Intelligent Horsemanship to promote his revolutionary practices. I believe he has even worked with the Queen’s own horses.

Off the back of the massively successful and ironically brutally violent Nicholas Evans novel ‘The Horse Whisperer‘, and the subsequent Robert Redford film of the same name, Monty Roberts was often referred to as the ‘real-life horsewhisperer.’  The title of Whisperer was referred to in publications by people associated with Intelligent Horsemanship, though none of them claimed the title of Whisperer for themselves. Neither did Monty Roberts, who only alluded to it in the title of his own book The Man who listens to Horses.

So far, so good. All are sufficienty equine, so are at least related to the ancient and mystical practice of horse-whispering.  Then came the immitators and people seemingly unaware of the word ‘crass’.

I present to you a host of animal-related ‘Whisperers’. Think of an animal and there is probably someone claiming to be able to talk to them. I have ranked them in order of potential credability, with the least unbelievable or least laughable first:

The Dog Whisperer.

The Puppy Whisperer.

The Cat Whisperer.

The Elephant Whisperer.

The Whale Whisperer.

The Rabbit Whisperer.

The Chicken Whisperer.

The Bee Whisperer.

I find it very interesting that the person who pioneered a revolutionary system of human-animal communication is reluctant to take the title of Whisperer.  Yet, thanks to the Robert Redford film, the word has sufficient cultural cache to sell a host of questionable books with amusing titles.

Such is the power of a word, abused and over-used as this one is.

Other notable over-uses and abuses of the word are these:

The Angel Whisperer.

The Dream Whisperer.

The Ghost Whisperer.

The Australian Ghost Whisperer.

The People Whisperer.

The Plot Whisperer.

and finally, The Cornish Cake Whisperer

——————–

Edited to add:

There are a few examples of acceptable uses:

The Baby Whisperer – acceptable because this system is demonstrably successful.

The Lion Whisperer - because Milton Jones is a comedian and might agree with me about some of the above.

The Dog Listener – not ‘Whisperer’, because the author studied under Monty Roberts and shares his respectful attitude.  Her system is also demonstrably successful.

Richard is very passionate about books.

He is very careful in choosing which one to chew, suck or ‘bang’ with his hands.

I’d like to think he is a literary progedy, because he spent a lot of time choosing between Orwell, Poe, Steinbeck, Swift and Rushdie. (He chose Rushdie.)

On further reflection, I think he favoured Rushdie – not for the daring and highly provocative subject matter and imaginative brilliance – but rather for the shiny cover.

#bashtag – a twitter handle which companies create to promote themselves, only to have people use it to publicly criticise them.
Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, noticed this one from Forbes’ blogger Kashmir Hill. Madrigal writes, “A bashtag is what happens when a company (McDonald’s) tries to start a promotional hashtag (#McDStories) and users use it to hate on said company…. It is a very simple way to describe what advertisers don’t want to happen.”

Photobomb - to appear unexpectedly in a photo and have the intended or unintended effect of ruining it for the subject.
Though usually the reserve of irritating internet memes about cats or seals, this word has become slightly political in that (mostly US) politicians can be criticised heavily for being photographed with ‘undesirables’. Obama was criticised for being in a crowd with members of the New Black Panther Party (extremists). Apparently this was enough to get his opponents worked up into a frenzy.

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism) – a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism.
This one isn’t terribly new, though it is worth mentioning in light of Apptivist. Slactivist has caught on, though exclusively as pejorative term for any campaigner not wearing a suit. A less popular version of Slactivist is Clicktivist, which refers to signing online petitions and feeling like you’ve contributed to society.

Twisticuffs – an argument conducted on Twitter.

Please add your own in the comments below. I’ll update more as I see them.

I was recently in a charity shop. Richard (my 17-week-old son) was on my back in his backpack seat and doing his usual trick of flirting with everyone who comes within gurgle-range. I was browsing books. I found one for him and one for me:

Option One: ‘What do you say?’,  by Mandy Stanley; an animal noise book designed to delight little people.
Option Two: ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, described by Rushdie as one of the most beautiful books written in any language, ever.

I had only fifty pence in my pocket and my wallet was at home.
Oh but which to choose?

The urge to be a selfish parent was strong.

Yesterday a video went viral.  Within hours the phrase KONY 2012 was appearing on facebook pages, twitter feeds, blogs, emails and various discussion fora.  The video was a 30 minute documentary by Jason Russell, a film-maker and founder of Invisible Children Inc., about the brutal Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and his campaign of abduction, rape and enslavement of 30,000 children in Africa.  View it here on YouTube or here on Vimeo.

The KONY 2012 campaign seeks to force western powers (specifically the US) to arrest Kony and bring him to justice.  Their means – by making him famous and by grassroots political activism.

This is a marketing campaign, and it is astonishing.

The campaign reached a critical mass yesterday but it did not begin yesterday.  It has been growing for a decade.  They have already had some success: President Obama ordered 100 US Army ‘advisors’ to be deployed in Uganda to work with the Ugandan military.  There is momentum, but Russell and the staff of Invisible Children need to keep it going, keep it increasing.

There are plenty of blogs which analyse the rights, wrongs and compromises of this group and their campaign.  This isn’t one of them.  I’d prefer to focus on their marketing campaign and highlight two particular elements which show how sophisticated it is.

1. It is an in-club with a unique membership totem.  Invisible Children has prepared a pack of t-shirts, posters, leaflets and stickers that supporters can buy and use to get the message out.  Within this pack is a bracelet.  Each bracelet is stamped with its own unique membership ID number and this number can be used to register as part of the in-club and also to upload photos and videos of the individual supporter’s activism.  This connects the supporter to the organisation and connects the supporters to each other because they can all view the media of activism that each uploads.  This is exactly what I was talking about in my blog post about the language of membership.

Please forgive me for the ‘I told you so’ moment.  I can’t help but enjoy it.

2. There is a call-to-arms which appeals to the young.  They can letter-write and send messages through facebook, twitter and other social media, but every campaign wants to do that.  KONY 2012 asks its followers to prepare for 20th April 2012 when they will ‘cover the night‘.  This means going out after dark and covering their their towns, cities and neighbourhoods with KONY 2012 materials: posters, stickers, lawn signs and more.  It isn’t just ‘put up posters’; it is go out at night and cover the entire town – all at the same time, all over the world.  That is exciting, and I’m tempted to join in.

There is one other element regarding the marketing campaign surrounding KONY 2012: the backlash.  Within hours of the video going viral, people around the world were attacking the campaign and its followers by producing material designed to discourage and mock their efforts.  Consider these:

These, and the many others like them, vary in sophistication and humour.  In today’s cooler-than-cool world, where inane memes saturate the internet, any campaign is going to be parodied.  Some are more cynical and ignorant than others but, love them or hate them, they actually continue raising awareness.

And I’m amazed that people were able to produce them so quickly.  This is a remarkably stimulating and interactive campaign.

Anyway, here’s my profile.  Comments welcome.

————————————————————————-
UPDATE: May 2012.
I’ve since deleted my guru account, having found it to be utterly pointless.

A quick search on Google will find you lots of examples.  The following are from organisations not among my clients:

“We stand with the Pakistani people and walk with our partners on the path of a liberal democracy with human and civic rights as well as the freedom of equal citizens.” Friedrich Naumann Foundation

“We have had the pleasure to walk with our partners in Uganda—to see schools built with Invisible Children, knowing our resources helped make it happen.” Reject Apathy (Clothing)

“Our goal is to walk with our partners, walk behind our partners, and ultimately walk away from our partners empowering them to drive their own projects forward.” Plant a Seed Foundation

It is all very nice and heartwarming.  And trendy.

As a copywriter, I make it my business to read everything about a client in terms of their aims, their self-image and their positioning in the marketplace.  This means reading things like Mission Statements and Tone of Voice documents, and it is these documents which reveal the kinds of words the organisation wants to use about itself.  There is a lot about ‘The Language of Accompaniment’.

Words are powerful, especially when fundraising for urgent humanitarian disasters and preventative development programmes.  Novelty in language is important and there is a danger that, as trends in language rise and fall, words lose their meaning and organisations get left behind.  Who would use any of the phrases in this terrific Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon?

One of my favourite things about Calvin and Hobbes is Calvin’s unrepentant butchery of the language, satirising the trends current to the strip. I wonder if Calvin would take a similar tone with the language of accompaniment in 2 years’ time when it has reached absolute saturation?

Accompaniment is just one trend in language.  Interestingly, I recently saw two instances of a different trend which also is spreading away from its point of origin.

Gyms, sports clubs and health spas command monthy subscriptions of £60.00+ from their members and they use the language of membership to bring people in.  How many charities would jump at the chance to up their baseline donation to £60.00?  Might they start to use the language of membership?

It would seem that unlikely businesses are catching on.  Here’s what I saw on the side of a dentist’s surgery:

I also saw something very similar on the side of a warehouse owned by a furniture importer(!), though I don’t have a photograph because I was driving at the time.

What does it mean to belong to a dentist?  What does it mean to belong to a furniture importer?

The presumption is that there is a benefit; perhaps some kind of discount programme or specialist service.  Membership is a curious balance of inclusion and exclusion.  You’re in; others are out.  You belong; others don’t.

It may be ugly, but it speaks to a deep human need to be part of the in-crowd.  Can it be harnessed to the good? I think so.  Would it excite you if you belonged to a charity that broke up illegal slave markets in Sudan and set people free?  Though you might never actually go and do the work on the ground, your regular donation secured your membership of a dynamic and daring charity.  You’re in.

Food for thought.

Philosphers are debating what comes after Postmodernism.  Where will society go after ultimate fragmentation?  The answer – NeoTribalism.  The ancient urge to belong will resurface and individuals will band together into tribes to live and work and belong.  The tribes will be very specific – not necessarily based around national identity.  It might be a way of living, such as semi-self-sufficiency through an allotment, or it might be working within the bonus-saturated culture of the Corporation – anything that offers a sense of in and out.

Charities might do well to position themselves as tribes; tribes with a mission.

Courtsey of Instagram

Easy, ain’t it?

It was the moment the dam burst. Demonstration after demonstration followed.  The security forces responded with violence and drew the attention of the world’s media.

On his release he said, “I’m not a hero. I was writing on a keyboard on the Internet and I wasn’t exposing my life to danger. The heroes are the one who are in the street.” Though modest, this savvy marketing manager knows that his words released the people onto the streets. “I’ve always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet,” Ghonim said. He’s right.

What followed was a year in which both the West and the Middle East saw massive social upheaval.  In the Middle East, the Arab Spring shook Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen.  In the West, the Occupy Movement knocked loudly on Wall Street’s door, calling for financial reform.  The Occupy Movement spread around the US before spilling over into London and other European cities.  The News Media in the US insisted on misrepresenting the people of the Occupy Movement as confused, dirty, lazy scroungers, anti-capitalists and anarchists.   Very few news outlets reported their demands accurately, which were complex, nuanced and – well – an appropriate response to Wall Street’s tangled mess of corporate greed, political corruption and self-serving interest. They didn’t make easy soundbytes for knee-jerk news editors.

Reduction of such issues to fit column inches inevitably damages nuance. The crux of the demands were 1) break up the banks so they’re not too big to fail 2) regulate the banks so the commercial banks could not gamble with savers’ money 3) close the tax loop holes that allow millionaires and billionaires to avoid paying anything like the tax level they should 4) prosecute the out-and-out financial fraudsters guilty of insider trading on toxic assets.

How do you make a catchy rallying cry from that?

The establishment media (Rupert Murdock’s Fox News etc.) refused to represent the movement fairly and – with the power of words – characterised the peaceful protests as liberal, antisemitic, violent thuggery. Nevertheless, when the movement spread across the US and the world, the heavy handed police moved in to break up the protests and were quick to resort to violence, even pepper-spraying 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, because, they said, she posed a physical threat to the lines of armed police in riot gear. The response from conservative News Media was equivalent to ‘well they started it’. It was only when police tear-gassed first aiders going to help critically injured Iraq Veteran Scott Olsen that the tone changed. How was Olsen, who had survived multiple tours in Iraq, injured? By being shot in the face with a Police Tear Gas canister at point-blank range.

Olsen suffered a fractured skull.  During his recovery, he wrote, “After my freedom of speech was quite literally taken from me, my speech is coming back but I’ve got a lot of work to do with rehab.”

If you can write that on a large piece of cardboard and hold it above your head, you have yourself a message.

It seems that in a world where every phone can record audio and video, and social media can send it around the world in a heartbeat, violence defeats itself by handing the peacemakers the power they need.

It was also a year of peril for Wikileaks: under pressure from the Obama Administration, financial institutions including Bank of America, Paypal, Mastercard and Swiss bank PostFinance moved to prevent their customers from donating money to the Wikileaks cause, effectively creating a strangle-hold on the whistle-blowing organisation.  Julian Assange also fought extradition to Sweden on somewhat suspiciously-timed charges and alleged informer US Infantryman Bradley Manning was brought in front of a closed Military Tribunal after months without trial in solitary confinement.  (It is alleged that Private Manning released the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ video of the gung-ho crew of a US Apache attack helicopter gunning down a group of journalists.)

Why did Manning and Assange experience all of this? Because – allegedly – these men blew the lid off state-sponsored slaughter of civilians, ruthless corporate greed and unconscionable corruption.  How?  By violence and acts of terror? No – by sharing information.

Contrast this with the “Shoot First; ask questions later” message of US Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich.  His leadership, summarised in his words, resulted in the deaths of 14 men, three women and seven children in Iraq.  These unarmed civilians died from grenade blasts and gunshots from American soldiers in retaliatory house raids near the site of an IED which killed a US soldier.  Wuterich escaped a maximum sentence of 3 months’ jail and instead was demoted to Private.

As Mazahir Hussain tweeted, “Bradley Manning should’ve really considered committing some war crimes instead of exposing them, worked well for Frank Wuterich.”

2011 was an astonishing year.  Core human rights and freedoms were contested around the world; violence was pitched against non-violence; corporate propaganda battled with free speech.  For me the message of 2011 was clear: freedom of expression is both the weapon and the prize.  It is to be treasured.

But 2011 was also the year Prince William married Kate Middleton so who cares about freedom of speech and freedom to protest? Right? Pippa Middleton’s bottom is – apparently – far more newsworthy…

I just helped HART – the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust – to produce a clever fundraising piece in the guise of a recipe book.

The concept was conceived on an mountain trekking expedition through the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabahk: why not create a powerful sense of intercultural connection (through the taste buds) as a way of informing the supporters about the charity’s work in diverse locations?

This is a genius idea.
(I wish I’d come up with it.)

From the beginning the book was part-travel guide, part-recipe book, including intriguing recipes like traditional Armenian flatbread, Sudanese falafels and Burmese Kao Soom (spicy rice). Each recipe came from one of HART’s project partners and was tested by a brave HART supporter in the UK.

As the book’s editor, I had a number of challenges to overcome. It was important to capture the character of the projects and the faithfully reproduce the individual voices of the contributors. At the same time, I had to protect the confidentiality of some of the workers in delicate and dangerous situations and bring the book together in one strong voice that fitted within HART’s existing messaging. Easy? Not exactly. Fun? Absolutely. And my friends at HART were excellent to work with.

As an author, I’d previously seen the Editor as a tetchy and defensive creature who would work happily enough for many pages before abitrarily seizing on a passage that was fine as it was (in my opinion) and carving it to pieces for no obvious reason. Now I understand that the editor has to manage both the preciousness of the author and an unseen tier of interested stakeholders, hovering above and dropping demands, new information and comments and inopportune times.

God bless editors everywhere!

I am very proud of this book (buy it HERE)  and I am pleased to be listed as its editor. I am even more pleased to be associated with a beautiful idea that brings people together in a way that celebrates the delicious cultural differences instead of dissolving them.