Newsweek on Ogilvy: the original mad man
Newsweek recently wrote about an author whom I have recommended across the country, David Ogilvy. Unfortunately this interview is quite sub-par and relatively nothing within can't be learnt by reading "
Ogilvy on Advertising"
Labels: art, books, tactics, theory, training
Tabling Part 2
So I went tabling at the request of the adviser to the pro-life group at Assumption College. It went fabulous. I printed out some great sign-up sheets I made, had a nice ten-reasons to be involved with the pro-life group collateral, and worked the table straight out of the Morton Blackwell playbook. It was fun to put those techniques and tactics to work, and also provoke some more thoughts leading to a
revision of my previous basic tabling article. In about an hour, I ended up with over 50 new contacts for the group, including at least a half-dozen pro-choicers who agreed that women deserve real choices, and wanted to help out at the local Pregnancy center. What a great day.
Labels: campuses, college, tactics, theory
Back to Tabling
So I went out and actually did some tabling for the first time in a long time. It was tough, and what's interesting is that the entire "tough-ness" of it is simply psychological. After I worked up the means to ask the first ten people, the next hundred came quite easily. I walked onto a local campus, with nothing more than a notepad and pen, commandeered a table (in this case an abandoned LGBTA table which I pushed the materials off of) and just started recruiting for a new right-of-center group on the campus. What was quite validating is that, as is typical, almost every other group sat behind their table and refused to engage those walking by. I used the experience as motivation to
type up my thoughts on the basics of effective tabling.
Labels: campuses, tactics, theory
CMedia Article: Video Sniper Teams
I recently wrote this up for my countermedia project. I like it, and am happy at finally putting in writing this concept I've been batting around for a while. I'd love to know what you think about it-- email me and let me know or leave a comment.
Labels: countermedia, tactics, theory
Natural Student Issues
For campus organizing, many of the groups doing good work on colleges are really working on esoteric and extraneous issues to what are properly understood as natural student issues. This is somewhat related to the political science terms "preferences/salience" and "popularity" meaning that the intensity of attention to one issue is different than a menu-list of issues. For instance, Newt Gingrich has his "
American Solutions" which, at times, seems a bit silly. He lists a hundred or more potential policy solutions, which I suppose is good for think-tank types. But it represents a coupling of divergent policies that are popular, but very few which are actually salient, which people are intensely interested in. For another example,
Students for Saving Social Security is a great idea, and a great group, but it's working against the natural salience on campus on a variety of what could be conservative issues. No 18-22 year old is naturally talking about social security reform. These represent strategic choices, grander than the specific tactics that some organizations use to pitch their products, their programs. As an example of another organization, perhaps as a mild critique, the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a very fine organization, limits itself and its intellectual conservative offerings, often to a very self-selecting group of intelligent students at elite universities. Even though the masses are craving alternatives to the indoctrination they are receiving in the classroom, ISI is tactically limiting their offerings.
We should thrive on controversy, because it means that we are being read, talked about and discussed. And if we believe that conservativism represents truth, and that given a fair hearing our ideas will prevail, we should take every idea that students are curious about, and offer conservative interpretations that they won't hear elsewhere. The usual reaction from establishment types is that this will cause a recalcitrant attitude, and people's hearts will become closed, which may be true in the general population. But with the many intellectual journeys students are taking in their four years of undergraduate education, it is worth focusing on that which will excite and entice them, rather than focusing on many issues which will always bore them. I would much rather show pieces of inherently beautiful art and talk about culture and be idiotically called a racist than show an actuarial table, charts and statistics and have the entire audience asleep.
Therefore, I think there are about 9 or so natural student issues. Here they are in no particular order:
Natural Student Issues:
1. Race
2. Culture and Identity
3. Bureaucracy
4. Tuition
5. Jobs and future careers
6. Feminism and Gender
7. Homosexuality
8. Community and Greek Life
9. War and Global Conflicts
Labels: campuses, college, conservativism, organizing, philosophy, strategy, tactics
