Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

See blog.

The Bawmann Group, a PositiveWare client, reports new client wins.

Working with clients yesterday I learned a little more about how to help people get the most out of what PositiveWare offers. We claim to help end users know what they are working on, how they are doing, and why it is important. But that can only be true if the information for the why is captured up front. The client was planning their marketing activities for the rest of the year, and pouring out an aggressive calendar of activities including pr, web, tradeshow, telesales, and so on. But the why of these activities was missing. Why go to these tradeshows, what do we hope to accomplish, and so on. By asking one or two additional questions and probing a little deeper the plans in PositiveWare become richer, more interesting, and more meaningful, and everyone knows how to organize their activity around the goal.

On the set of Wingmen For Life Thursday I had the opportunity to watch a talented filmmaker, Kenneth Wajda, lead a group of local actors through a script developed by the Air National Guard to promote suicide prevention. The script deals with the struggle of a husband to cope with his wife’s disability and was very moving.

A couple of images from the set:

ANG Chiefs of Safety,

Do you think the enemy cares if our Airmen die in battle, on the highway, at
the bottom of a lake, or by their own hand? The end result is the same. We
lose a brother or sister Warfighter, and the enemy gains a keen advantage in
the Global War on Terror.

As we enter this statistically higher risk period between Memorial Day and
Labor Day, take this opportunity to consider hazards outside the formal
lanes of safety… Hazards like bad decision-making, preventable human
error, substance/alcohol abuse, depression, poor nutrition and fitness,
fatigue, and lack of self-discipline. All of these hazards and others like
them are underlying human factors killing our Airmen. Consider these
additional challenges:

1. Evaluate the specific risks to YOUR people, performing YOUR missions,
operating YOUR equipment, living and working in YOUR communities… and then
tailor YOUR programs accordingly. Most of our Airmen fatalities occur
outside the gates. Don’t be satisfied with a status quo rehash of last
year’s efforts. Take ownership and act.

2. Attack the tough issues and take a Wingman with you. Human issues kill
our Guardsmen on and off duty. People generally don’t like to talk about
these things. But we must. Our NGB staff put together some assessment and
mitigation tools to help you do just that, collected on www.RealBase.org
, which we’ll update throughout the summer.

3. Don’t tolerate turf-fighting. We can only win if we all participate and
help each other, sometimes ignoring “lanes” and “rice bowls”. Be the chief
marketer and chief negotiator for safety and risk mitigation. Make it their
idea. It is reported that President Reagan had a sign on his Oval Office
desk that said, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go
if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

4. Lead by example in promoting a Wingman Culture throughout the ANG. Talk
to your folks about how to be a good Wingman and how to practice good
personal risk assessment. Show them through your work and your example.
Reward those who call “Knock It Off”, whether in the air, on the flightline,
at the Security Forces shack, or out in the civilian community.

Finally, don’t go it alone. Engage the chaplains, the flight docs, the
maintainers, the engineers, the cops, the families, the Army Guard (for
goodness sake!) and the local community. Turn your Wingman Culture into a
1000-person Red Flag gorilla package and prosecute this fight. Your life,
and your Wingman’s life, literally depend on it.

From the wires, Japanese researchers have found that receiving praise lights up the same part of the brain as receiving cash. Managers have known this for a long time, that praise carefully and sincerely delivered is as good as cash. Indeed cash can totally mess up a system that is working well otherwise.

See the article

A friend compliments me on my eupeptic attitude.
From Merriam Webster:

1) Of, relating to, or having good digestion

2) Cheerful, Optimistic

I hope he’s referring to the second definition.

Check out our YouTube channel. Kelly did a great job customizing it with colors and graphics.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to make sure that for every flame I left on the internet I would write five nice things. It is easy to express one’s disgust and vindictiveness - it takes a little more effort to go back and say something nice about a business after a great or even just good experience.

Watch for a Vonage update.

Last Tuesday saw a great Rockies Venture Club dinner meeting at the Marriott. Three great pieces to the meeting:

• 5 minute overview by Hydra car builder
• Presentation by Dan Murray of Ravenwood Marketing
• Presentation by Dave Taylor of askdavetaylor.com

Since Hydra doesn’t have a web site I can’t really comment further, other than the guy wants to build 100 cars selling for $250,000 each based on GM parts.

Both presentations (by Dan and Dave) made me sick with just how successful you can be if you are clever and focused and have one good insight.
Dan Murray figured out in mid 2002 that if you can buy an AdWord for x and get an affiliate to pay you 1.5X or better to get someone to click on the AdWord, than if you can repeat that enough you stand to make some serious bling. In 6 years of doing this he claims they have grown to over 8 figures of revenue, and some serious cash flow headaches as they fund the growth with banks that can’t fathom the business model. The big takeaway: Good AdWords are valuable, and affiliate marketing is good for the affiliates.

As for Dave Taylor, his presentation was more thought provoking. It helped that he is also a great speaker - the audience was rapt. Dave talked about how he began to develop content for his site based on questions he received from fans of his books. His content gave rise to substantial discussion between readers, and many thriving communities sprung from these discussions. He mentioned posts with over 600 comments. This in turn gave rise to serious AdSense revenue as his content generated more and more visits.
But Taylor’s most important point was that in the Web 2.0 era, a company no longer controls its brand. Its brand is the sum of all the discussions and items about the company that exist on the web. As an example he gave the downward slide of Dell, who did not pay attention to a rising web-based chorus of discontent from consumer customers. Eventually Dell’s popularity fell, as did their stock, as did their CEO.
For the RVC crowd, his advice was straightforward - if no one is talking about you online then you don’t warrant an investment.
What shapes the online brand is not just ‘conventional’ web tactics like SEO, SEM, but also the social networking applications that serve to segment users and provide numerous opportunities for users to talk back to the companies in whatever form they desire. Some examples mentioned were facebook, linkedin, myspace, twitter, youtube, plaxo, and many others.

I was captivated by the presentation, not least because of the impact on conventional marketing firms. Someone out there today pitching a conventional integrated marketing approach with collateral, direct mail, print, and so on is doing their clients a disservice. The prospects are on the web, and you need to get them talking about you.
It made me think all my marketing efforts were stupid, and that I really didn’t get it.

Here’s hoping that I start to get it in 2008. Baby needs new shoes. I can feel a twitter already.