I’m thinking of registering my voice as a trademark. Why? Because I am sure it is being played over and over in various training sessions for the numerous telemarketers and call centres who have recently had the (dis)pleasure of contacting me. Before I go on, a slight detour.

All this talk lately about Ebola and Syria, Iraq and the radicalised rangger (17 year old misguided youth from Sydney) has, as always, got me in reflective mode. Islam has five pillars. It’s strange really that while so few of us know much about Islam we can name probably at least three pillars without thinking (Visit Meccah, Pray Five times a Day and Observe Ramadan). What is probably less well known is the obligation for zakat (to give to charity). Muslim friends of mine give about 10% of their annual income to charities. For most Muslims it is 2.5% of annual income. This compares to an optimistic calculation that 67% of all households in Australia give to charity annually. Kind of puts some other things into perspective when the figures are laid out like this.

Anyway back on point.

I also give to charity. I think it’s the right thing to do. Aside from the opportunistic charity collector at the door (with the exception of the Salvation Army on the grounds that they confuse me) I also like to choose one or two specific charities where I can spend some time looking into their cause and get to understand their ethos and objectives. Giving to charity can be fun too; it’s OK to feel good about doing it. I’m not saying I use the same degree of diligence in selecting my charities as I do selecting my shares but I do lift the cover and look underneath. Just lately my charity selections have performed just about as poorly as my shares!

A little while back, before the Ebola outbreak and as the humanitarian crisis in Syria was unfolding, I selected Medicines Sans Frontiere (MSF) as my charity of choice. In  making the donation online, my preferred payment choice, I of course had to supply certain private contact information. Before I had much time to bask in my own glory about the lives I had affected (as advised to me by email and in the follow-up magazine I receive d a few days later) I received a telephone call one evening about 7 o’clock. It was a bloke from MSF touching me up for more money. This is where my support for a charity starts to wear thin and wear thin fast. The guy was saying they (MSF) needed more money and did I understand why. Well at this stage I was losing my renowned cool and began to probe the telemarketer. As suspected, he didn’t work for MSF but a company employed by MSF to wrangle more money out of me. I established quite quickly that his company wasn’t doing this for free but were paid by MSF. I then suggested that the money MSF were paying for the service, that so rudely interrupted my viewing of ‘A Current Affair’, might be a useful contribution towards the actual crisis they were trying to raise money for.

There was no doubting the tenacity of the telemarketer. He then began enlightening me as to the trouble spots in the world and why more money was needed. Sure I was watching Channel 9 at the time, but I do watch SBS as well. I don’t need some wet behind the ears young person telling me about the current geo-political tumult in the world. I blog about this stuff. A bit of hurt pride might have crept in there and this reflected in my tone. My point is, and I shared this with Mr Telesales, that I am aware of what is happening and when the time is right I would make a further donation. Fact is I was thinking of making a further contribution in the week before the call. Had I not got the call I probably would have. As a result of the call I withdrew my support for MSF for the foreseeable future. The idea that you can get your claws into me and bring some sort of moral pressure to bear to extract more money doesn’t work with me. I’m a bit too strong-minded for that.

The next day, still fuming, I signed up with UNHCR. That would make a nice closing sentence to this blog, but I think you are already sensing what’s coming next. About a month later, replete with magazine and appreciative emails I received a call on my mobile at work. No prize for guessing. Same pitch – different guy. This time I didn’t share my views so expansively, but just said I would be moving on from UNHCR repeating that I would decide when and where to give thankyou very much.

While discussing future charitable options the other night with my wife, I saw a very professional and quite arresting advertisement for a children’s helpline charity. I can clearly remember the strapline ‘For every 10 kids that call 6 calls get through 4 don’t.’ My wife just looked at me and asked ‘how many more calls could they answer if they didn’t have to pay for the ad and expensive advertising timeslots?’  Good point. While I am not against charities trying to get themselves recognised within the 600,000 charities that are registered in Australia, I cannot help thinking that the slickness of campaigns and strategies that even Myer or BHP would be proud of, is getting us away from what makes charities appealing in the first place.

Last year I had the real privilege of attending the Harvard Business School Social Leadership Program led by the inimitable Harvard Professor, F Warren McFarlan (thanks to JBWere for sponsoring me). What was immediately noticeable was the quality of the CEOs and senior executives present who were running charities. There is top drawer talent out there putting their skills to the task of optimising charitable income. I admire each and every one of them. Only problem I see is that the strict application of MBA principles, especially those of marketing, fit somewhat uncomfortably with the pace, tone and culture of charities in my view. To me charities have a warm and fuzzy feel, designed especially to counteract that well known phrase. I want more humanity in who I donate to and less slickness. Now if I could only get royalties for my training tapes,  that could increase the charity coffers quite substantially.

Damn…almost forgot Phil’s birthday!

I recently turned 54. Big deal I know – because the 50s are the old 30s…yada yada. However a few things happened that have bemused me. First up I got a lovely message from my good friend Florence. Yes that’s right Florence from Florence and the Machine wishing me the very best on my special day. The lack of warmth in the digital ‘happy birthday’ I have to say left me a little cold. A few years back the self-acknowledged marketing gurus (I’m not talking Kotler or Jain here), you know the ones – the buff young headset wearing sales evangelists trying to get you to sell them their pen back, spoke as if they had seen a vision. That vision, when you pared it back, was the concept of mass customisation. We would, they opined, see a range of products and messages targeted directly at us. Things we needed, things we wanted and things we didn’t even know we needed. And then I got Florence’s message and I thought to myself. Shit! Is that it? Is that what we paid all that money for to go to those seminars. For the first time that I can recall, the social media phenomenon has enabled the young to surpass the old. Post 50 you are clearly not ‘hip’ enough to click with the whole social media thing. Strange really seeing Gen Z are leaving Facebook in their droves because it is being hijacked by their parents. Yes we ‘oldies’ get it! When you boil down social media it is a form of marketing/advertising which, simply put, is just selling some or all of your products to some or all of the people. With the sophistication that Facebook and Google have to look at your habits on line through surfing or social media, the web experience is now one constantly peppered with adverts that are far more annoying than enticing. It is the content of the adverts though that is really irritating given we now know that they are ‘customised’. So I’m over 50 – does that really have to mean I need the miracle stomach flattening system. That ad is so bad you can see that the before and after photos are of different people. Do all pharmaceutical marketers think that because I am male and over 50 I have ED? How about some meaningful health messages encouraging regular prostate examinations? None to be seen. The business models of Google and Facebook are such that mass micro-billing is essential in the delivery of profit and to meet shareholder expectations. Strangely, when it comes to our own endeavours to mass customise at work, our results have been mediocre. Perhaps the small amount involved means that the attitude is ‘oh well it didn’t work that well this time let’s try something different next time’. The danger here of course is ending up with the Ferrari built one wheel at a time. Marketing companies must concentrate on money paid and income generated – by and for the client. It is simply not good enough for the ‘analybabble’ (my word for the analytics that sit behind social media which apparently justify their costs). I don’t really care what my bounce rate is, or how long someone lingered on my company website. I want to see a correlation between the money I am paying for social media and a concomitant increase in sales. Not that helpful to be ‘liked’ by a demographic who have no interest in what you are selling, or influencing others to buy what you are selling. Same as it ever was as far as marketing/advertising is concerned. I’m a realist. I know we can’t turn back time, but we must get more savvy with our customisation. I really want to be delighted, but targeting me with funeral plans isn’t going to do it. Get Florence to ring me and invite me out for coffee. Now that would impress me!

I’ve blogged about humour before – but not in the context of IS (aka IS, ISIL). It’s no coincidence that on the death of Robin Williams a short while ago, some extreme radicalised Muslims ranted against him and everything he stood for and wished him a speedy and long spell in hell. Not that Williams would ever be put off by such vitriol. Indeed he would see the humour in it and use that as his greatest defence. So it goes with humour. It is a great defender and also a great attacker. While the US, and the coalition they are building, are going in with jets, those with greater doses of jocularity are calling for ‘blondes – not bombs, brunettes – not fighter jets.’ Perhaps that is what is needed, more women in the fray? Certainly more humour is required.

In Australia, despite the 60 or so fighters we have fighting for the so-called terrorists (from roughly 500,000 peaceful and law-abiding Muslims), we are fortunately shielded from the direct impacts of the hate-filled havoc that the Jihadi fighters are bringing down. Yet we seem guilty of severe hyperbole when it comes to our reactions to a few incidents in our own backyard. We don’t see the same in the UK, for example, which has a far greater ‘heritage’ of terrorism on its own shores and a far greater involvement in Middle-Eastern and other conflicts than our own. It’s hard at times to square our self-congratulatory declarations about the unrivalled bravery and professionalism of our own troops, the savagery of the hit-ups in State of Origin (where there is an obvious exhibition of strength and bravery), AND the moral and emotional panic we get into at the sniff of any sort of homeland fracas. David Marr in his 2011 book Panic summarises the contradiction this scenario presents us. Such exaggerated responses cause the religious vilification and desecration of Mosques that we have seen recently; actions that shame us all.

We all need a dose of calming and there is no better way to deal with tension than the pressure release of humour. I was in England for many of the tragic losses of life including the 1987 Kings Cross Underground fire. Within hours of the tragedy, where 31 commuters died and 100 were injured, the Brits had a joke circulating. ‘Did you hear about the man who got on the tube at Leicester Square wearing a three piece suit and got off at Kings Cross wearing flares and a blazer?’ Sick maybe, but designed to take the sting out of the tragedy and to keep much-needed perspective in a time when emotions can run high.

The funny movie Four Lions about a hapless group of wannabe Mujahid probably did more to dampen the growing swell of anti-Muslim feeling in the UK in 2010, than any exhortation to live in harmony that the UK Prime Minister may have made at the time.  We should all pause for breath at the moment and reflect that Islam is a gentle religion when in the hand of the reasonable and forcing young and impressionable people towards unreasonable behaviour is ultimately counter-productive to us all. We should also remember that in the seat of Islam, Arabia, the people are imbued with an infectious humour and deep seated hospitality. Just Google Abu Abed jokes if you don’t believe.

What works in the geo-political sphere also often works in management. When it’s getting tense at work, or relationships are beginning to sour, the introduction of humour can be a welcome circuit breaker. Barely a day goes by now without some new reference to digital disruption. What about some much needed humour disruption to shakes things up in a good way? An excellent starting point is to not take ourselves too seriously and this should start at the top on the principle of  ‘a fish laughs from the head’. While some may cynically say that senior executives ARE a joke (Tesco ones in particular at the moment), it is hard to bring to mind a CEO who seems to be fun to be around (perhaps Branson and Stanley Bing aside). Getting the balance right between self deprecation and maintaining credibility can be a tricky task, but that’s no reason to avoid what could ultimately be a rewarding experience for all.