Even before November 4th, however, we here in the States were beginning to feel some relief as we saw a much-welcomed decrease in the national average gas price, eventually dropping to today’s $2.22.  Want some perspective?  Just a month ago, the national average was $3.25 for regular unleaded.  And four months ago?  Not only was the national average at its highest for the year, at $4.11, but it was the highest  average national price for regular unleaded gasoline ever!  So, how’s this near-$2 price-drop being received?  Apparently, it’s making us stupid.  Like, totally frackin’ stoopid, man.  Fo’ realz.

“Whoa, there.  You callin’ me stupid?!” you may be hot-headedly exclaiming.  Well, no.  I am not callin’ you stupid because I don’t know you, and that would be extremely presumptuous and downright rude.  Who I am callin’ stupid, though, are those individuals who have taken the recent decline in gas prices to mean that it’s okay to start buying SUVs again.  Yeah, you.  Stupid.

GM has seen a recent rebound in the sale of its, until recently, least-sold full-sized SUV models. GM’s Arlington, Texas factory, now the only manufacturer of these models, has placed all of its 2,500 employees on overtime to be extended until the end of the year as they pump out these gas-guzzlers.  The sport utility behemoths are, apparently, continuing to provide a good source of revenue for the company — even spawning a new $300 million factory near St. Petersburg, Russia.  GM is gambling heavily on the full-sized SUV line’s popularity overseas.  Great.

So, let’s get back to why this is totally frackin’ stoopid.  The Cadillac Escalade, one of GM’s most popular full-sized SUVs saw a sharp decline in sales in direct correllation to the increase in gas prices.  Why?  Well, take a brand new 2009 Cadillac Escalade for example.  It garners right-around 12 miles to the gallon, using premium unleaded gasoline, of course, and will run its owner an annual fuel bill of about $3 thousand dollars.  Oh, and its carbon footprint is approximately 12.2 tons.  In comparison, the base model Honda Civic’s carbon footprint is half that of the Escalade at approximately 6 tons.  A Prius, the best selling hybrid in the land?  Only 4 tons annually.  It appears that instead of increased environmental awareness leading to the decline of the SUV on our roadways, it was just a hiatus until owning one went from completely ridiculous to mildly ridiculous.

It’s a shame that memories are so damn short for such an encompassing issue.  And even if you forget the environmental impacts these disgusting machines have (please don’t), gas prices fluctuate just about as much as the seasons.  It’s as if these new purchasers can’t quite grasp that permanent change, no matter how many times one may say it out loud, does not happen overnight.  Sigh. I suppose these are the same people who are still fooled when I cover my face with my hands and tell them I disappeared.  Or maybe they just don’t care?  That, for me, is even more sad.  Addicts off the wagon.

I can’t get Christian Slater’s face out of head. I close my eyes and try to envision something pleasant, clouds or a mountainous landscape. But no, it’s Christian Slater. It’s not my fault either. Other than that movie about stealth bombers that crashed in the desert, Broken Arrow, I can’t name a single flick he was in. It’s the Los Angeles Metro Transit Authority’s fault. They’re the ones that let his mug be plastered, in twenty times larger than life proportions, on the side of every other bus in town. It’s worse than having something shoved down your throat. It’s Christian Slater laser embedded into your brain.

Sure, it’s effective marketing but, for me, it’s only effective in the sense it’s making me dislike whatever Slater’s working on, in this case a TV series called “My Own Worst Enemy.” Which begs the question: Is it worth the risk of introducing a brand with such force that it alienates, infuriates or annoys a certain market demographic in the process? Does it matter if that same market demographic wouldn’t like you brand anyway, no matter what you did? I’m talking about the people who wouldn’t watch “My Own Worse Enemy” unless there was a gun to their head. Is it OK to disregard them and aspire towards the larger prize?

Apparently so. Here’s how CBS Media, the company responsible for bus and subway ads in L.A. and dozens of other markets, rationalize their “moving billboards”:

Impact 90% of a city’s most densely populated areas with exterior bus advertising, the ultimate mass-reach media.

Buses go where people go – where they live, shop, work and play. The strength of the bus as an advertising medium is its constant ability to find a crowd. Buses “mingle with consumers,” and follow the flow of shoppers and their spending power – speaking, showing and selling along the way.

To a degree most brands are force-fed. They follow the logic that there is no such thing as bad press, or negative exposure. The more your brand is seen the larger it’s potential impact.

But what about consumer rights? Frankly I’m over-saturated by advertisements and feel the problem will only get worse before it gets better. The burden lies with our elected officials to keep marketers in check and it’s time for them to start making some tasteful decisions. At the moment Slater is His Own Worst Enemy, if his five-foot face continues to visually assault me he’ll become my worst enemy as well.

The tribal life style is “hard-wired” into our evolutionary mindset.  That’s how we survived, procreated, and defended ourselves against bigger, badder, and more lethal predators.  It’s all about numbers and safety.  As the comedy crack team over at, well, Cracked put it, “The more stress we feel, the more we feel love and attachment to those who look and sound the same as us, and the more we feel hatred to those who don’t.“  We become more and more insular when threatened by greater and greater amounts of unfamiliarity.  Then, that meant physical defense and survival, now, well, it’s more about the preservation of ourselves and the mental — you know, with our bigger brains and all.

So, with this pre-wired, predetermined drive to compile ourselves into the familiar and the safe, what better industry is there to take advantage of us than those in advertising.  It’s us versus them, where them is anything that disagrees with us.  Whether it’s politics or platform shoes, the arrangement of ourselves by safety is an important and all together easy strategy.  This, fellow tribe-mates, is the essential, founding ingredient in brand loyalty.  Whether it’s the Mac versus PC hullabaloo, and no matter what tribe you happen to be a part of, you’ve been nurtured by your allegiance and taught to hate the enemy.  Sure, the “I’m a Mac” ads are innocent enough, but they’re meant to make those who watch them associate the PC with everything you’re supposed to find unappealing.  Even if we are, we never want to think of ourselves as stuffy, unyeidling, and static.  We’re all hip, cool, on the bleeding edge.  I’m a Mac!  From the flip side, the new “I’m a PC” stereotype ad is meant to fortify that you there, you using the PC, aren’t a stereotype!  We’re all different, see!  We do cool things, too!  Mac, you fool, you’re just being a bratty snark.  See?  It doesn’t matter which side you’re on, the goal of each brand is to do exactly what they’re accusing the other guy of doing — remain static.  It’s just that they want you, tribesman, to remain static with us and continue to garner hatred for them.

The tribe mentality is pervasive.  And it’s lasting because, honestly, it works.  It works for sports teams and their fans.  Video game consoles.  Sneakers.  Fish sticks.  Movie theatres.  Politics.  Oh, politics.  Attack ads this election season are rolled each commercial break because they present us with information that, inevitably, will push us into further alliance with our party of choice.  They make us feel uncomfortable, uneasy, and no matter our personal morals or how wrong we may feel individually about the negative process our tribe mentality couldn’t care any less.  We humans didn’t raise to the level of being able to single-handedly destroy an entire planet by not surviving and adapting.  And we sure didn’t survive based on our scrawny bodies alone.  Strength in familiarity.  Strength in numbers.  And the fear of being ostracized from that very group of strength.

Every company is pandering to their consumers through their brand.  That’s just common sense.  But what power we consumers lack as an individual in a tribe, we must make up for as that individual synthesizing one’s own information.  When does that happen?  Hardly ever.  So, it looks like it’ll be us versus them for a while longer.  Evolution is a hefty animal to shake loose!

“Life could be defined as having and following a purpose.”  Harrison Quiqley defined life in this way while discussing how we can all succeed at gaining the highest return from our human capital.  Now, let’s delve deeper.

You there, the employee who’s lost their way within the company — just working, without direction.  Sure, you’re doing your job day in and day out, but when was the last time you really asked yourself why you’re doing your job?  Even further, when was the last time you asked your colleagues why you’re doing your job?  Or why they’re doing their jobs?  Not for money and security (which is in a tailspin, as of late), but the purpose.  Are you providing a service unparalleled by any of your competitors, to be and make others more productive, to make yourself an agent of change?  If you don’t know or are hazy on the answer — ask!  And if you ask, and that person is a bit circular in their response, ask again.  And after you’ve asked, take heed of the answers.  Provide your own answers until you can formulate your purpose, your organization’s purpose, and where the two interweave.

This is, by no means, a futile team building exercise.  This is building your personal agency within your organization.  The real purpose of your organization will not only make you more productive, streamlining your work day into that which fits the goal, but knowing will provide you the individual agency over your organization’s purpose.  And agency is a powerful tool.

How? Why? Glad you’ve asked! Indulge me, would you?  Should you ever be unfortunate enough to be amidst any type of medical emergency in public, there are certain actions you should henceforth remember:

–if no one has taken the lead yet, no one is going to
–even if you’re thinking otherwise, everyone else is thinking the exact same thing — and still doing nothing
–when taking the lead, be assertive and confident
–when delegating, always ask a specific who to do a specific what
–explain to everyone working with you not only how this crisis will be solved, but why and through what actions

The reasoning behind all of this?  Well, as humans, and more locally, as humans in the United States’ individualisitc culture, we are first and foremost responsible for ourselves.  However, when placed in the spotlight, given a task outright, performing that task to the best of our ability becomes a reflection on ourselves.  In a group, should that task never be given outright, the responsibility of performing it is diffused amongst all others in the group instead of shouldered by a sole individual.  And because everyone has neither been explicity assigned nor held accountable, inaction is usually the result.  The most studied case of this diffusion of responsibility or bystander effect, is the murder of Kitty Genovese.  A mere 100 feet from her apartment, Genovese was stabbed to death while her neighbors did nothing, each citing that they believed the other neighbors would have already called the authorities.  No one had.  No one did.  This lack of agency proved fatal that night.

Agency is a powerful tool.  Although Genovese’s murder exists as an extreme example of the bystander effect, the principle holds true in many different environments — including the workplace.  Including you, the diligent employee.  Using the new found knowledge of the real purpose of your organization, you have provided yourself the accountability, agency, and drive to accomplish this purpose with each keystroke.  Everything you do is no longer just because, but instead because I am driving this organization forward.

With an entire organization built upon individual agency, productivity becomes less about the group producing in mass and more about each individual contributing to the group in order to accomplish the purpose of the whole.  So, no longer sit idly waiting because you’re sure someone else will write that, post that, draw that, report that — you are the agent for your own human capital.  And your human capital is best utilized by everyone when you know you are the agent.