Put yourself in one of those bad metal folding chairs at the Pottstown school board meeting last week.  At about two hours into the thing, you spot the next discussion item: school uniforms.  You roll your eyes  — another heated debate on self expression versus safety. As the lights dim, you fully expect to suffer through your umpteenth PowerPoint presentation with endless bullet points picking through the merits of each side.

Instead, a video clip flickers up on the screen.  It features an ordinary-looking young man, about 17 years old.  He is standing in a school classroom facing the camera in front of a row of desks.  He is dressed in typical high-school garb — baggy jeans and an oversized shirt hanging over his belt. Without fanfare he begins to demonstrate the danger of his seemingly harmless non-uniformed school attire.  Like a polished magician, he reaches under his shirt and pulls out weapons hidden in his waste band.  First, a small silver handgun is pulled from the front of his shirt and placed on the desk with a loud clunk.  Then, two heavy black semi-automatic weapons are produced from behind his back.  By the time the 41 second video clip is over, the student pulls out the equivalent fire power of a small army: twelve weapons of increasing size including a full-sized shot gun.  The debate on uniforms ends right there.

Talk about your compelling bullet points.

The clip was part of a larger safety training video posted on the site of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety center based in Georgia.  Its executive director Michael Dorn, a police veteran, created the video using his son as the weapon-hiding student.  It went global when it was used by Michael Moore in his 2002 movie, Bowling for Columbine, apparently without permission.   I ask you:  what kind of sicko would use a clip without permission?

The lesson here is not about uniforms.  It’s about the power of simple and compelling demonstrations.  We call that concept obvious surprise.  It’s unexpected, but makes immediate sense.  Great leaders know that actions always speak louder than words, but they rarely apply that knowledge to their corporate communications.  The next time you have an important presentation, think about what you can pull out of your waste band to make a big impact.  Hint: it’s not a list of bullet points.

Blogging is 10 years old. Here in the office, cake is a very important part of our culture. For birthdays mainly, but we never shun a random cake baked by one of our agency members. So we will be having a cake for blogs this week. Not for our blog, per se, as this humble bit of observation, analysis and advice is slightly younger (going on 7 months now, clap clap) than most of its brothers and sisters. But for blogging in general – it is time to celebrate.

Blogging has had a robust lifetime so far, empowering many people to share their voices and changing the media landscape altogether. (Check out this great article on it from the Wall Street Journal). But what really interests me is the generation growing up with blogs as part of their lives. So, in the grand tradition of the Beloit College Mindset List (the list that provides an understanding of an incoming college Freshman class), I offer you the Braithwaite Communications Blogset List for better understanding the world in which blogs and their contemporaries have lived:

• They have never know a world without the “New Beetle”
• John Gotti has always been in jail
• They have always had Major League Soccer in the U.S.
• Rent has always been a Broadway show
• Jon Stewart has always hosted The Daily Show
• The Ramones have never played together as a band
• Osama Bin Laden has always been calling for war
• Fox News has always been on TV
• Tupak has always been dead

Did you see Monday’s New York Times article “C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success”? I’m always looking for a solid inspirational article or story to start off my week, and on Monday, this was it.

If you’re like most folks and find yourself religiously reading my blog and leaving no room for the New York Times business section, the gist of it is that the majority of the world’s great leaders are also great readers.  More importantly, it highlights the fact that many great leaders achieve their positions of prominence in life by creating personal libraries devoted to how to think, not how to compete.

The common thread between all of these great leaders with stacks of books at their fingertips is that each and every one is looking for inspiration on how to become the next Renaissance thinker.

History points to thousands of examples of this.  James Macconica, author of Renaissance Thinkers wrote biographical studies of four of the most important philosophical writers of the European Renaissance.  His book explains how each of them read the literary classics of Ancient Greece and Rome and understood that the insights of pagan antiquity kept their legitimacy in the Christian era.

Whether it’s Steve Jobs gaining inspiration from poet and artist William Blake, Phil Knight’s fascination with Asian history, or credit card king Dee Hock dreaming up the word for what “Visa” is from the works of Steinbeck and Stegner, leaders read to find other perspectives on how to think or solve a problem.

What I don’t understand is why some of these leaders are keeping these libraries private.  Only a select few, for example, at Nike, ever saw the personal library of the founder, Phil Knight, which was a small, low-ceiling a room behind his formal office.

We encourage agency members to share any good book they have read with other folks.  We build our office library that way and are able to share relevant books with clients, friends, family and each other. To me, one of the greatest parts about being a leader is that you have the opportunity to inspire and teach those around you.   That’s why my library is an open book… (or blog).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=l8emaPl2zG4

And with that, presidential politics changed forever. The skinny, tattooed, goateed man from Oregon was the first non-moderator ever to ask a question in a presidential debate. And he used air quotes. It was awesome.

The CNN/YouTube Democratic debate last night proved to be one of the most interesting, humorous and engaging in history. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. But without it, do you think we’d ever hear John Edwards explain what it means to be “black enough” or “female enough?” I doubt it. And when would we have gotten to see Joe Biden respond to this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3LH6SuSTvX4

The fact of the matter is that people – regular people who are not politically connected or have the opportunity to be invited to a live debate– are more involved in the political process than they ever have been before. You can give credit to Bill Clinton for appearing on the Arsenio Hall with his saxophone or holding a town hall meeting with MTV. But his wife and a variety of his other colleagues have – kicking and screaming or not – taken this issue to a whole new level.

Yes –honesty, authenticity and transparency matter to today’s electorate. Politicians are (well at least seemingly) no longer afraid to answer the real questions from real people on real issues.

Many times when we suggest viral videos to clients, we’re immediately shot down. Their business is much too “serious” for such a thing, and their clients will not take them seriously. But what’s more serious than a presidential campaign and who takes themselves more seriously than candidates? More businesses can learn a lesson from this: you’re going to have to tell the melting snowman if global warming matters to you.

Not many executives would agree to a full sit-down interview with New York Magazine at the lowest point in their public and professional career.  But that’s just what Katie Couric did, and everyone is talking about it.

Having the quote, “Oh my God, What did I do?” positioned right below a full frontal shot of your pretty mug might not be the best idea for someone trying to get out of the ratings gutter.  I’m sure it wasn’t her choice, but why give the reporter that headline?

In reality, the most interesting parts of the feature are the infighting at CBS, its refusal to spend money on the news department and this admission from Les Moonves:

“Moonves, a TV executive with a barrel-chested confidence in his gut for good TV, says he bears no responsibility for how the show has failed: ’Nope. I really don’t.’”
But that’s not what Access Hollywood, FoxNews and the Dallas Morning News have repeated over and over.  It’s all about Katie’s big mistake, the fact that she pinched a producer and her ban on the word “sputum” [What’s the relevance of pinching and sputum?]

There’s a tiny bit of joy to be had in the fact that an article about a journalist has spiraled out of control.  But the fact of the matter is that it could happen to any of our clients.

This brings us to the question of bad publicity.  The cliche: there’s no such thing as bad publicity. What about in a case like this?  Katie may win some viewers back with her honesty and transparency and the subsequent non-stop coverage.  Or maybe she’ll win the pity vote.  Then again, it may just take some time before the American people are ready for Anchor Katie.  It is still taking people some time to get used to Senator Hillary Clinton.  And don’t forget – Katie has Hil’s old PR pro on her side.