10 Commandments for Our Once and Future Leaders

Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.

This is quite possibly the smartest man in America. He explains what happened to us and how to get out of this big mess we're in. The video is about a half hour long, so pour yourself a glass of cabernet, get a tub of Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin ice cream, and get yourself some free education.

If you don't have time for that, in a nutshell, here are the 10 commandments, which link back to his presentation:

1. We have to save the dollar (AAA rating in jeopardy)

2. We have to fundamentally and brutally restructure debt

3. All entitlements are fair game. To begin with...

a. If you are 60 to 65 you probably just lost a big chunk of your nest egg.

(we don’t want anything from you)

b. If you are 55 to 60, we need two more years’ work from you

c. 55 and under, we need three or four more years from you

4. Cut back military by 2% per year for ten years

5. Cap medical costs at 18% GNP (going to be a cat fight, but we need to have it)

6. We have to triage our support for companies (don’t attempt to save dying whales)

7. The program has to be bipartisan. It has to make both Dems and Repubs unhappy

8. Simplify and broadly apply Sarbanes Oxley – apply it to government, apply it to hedge funds

9. We will invest in growing start up companies (which create the most jobs – this is where the economy is growing)

10. We will treat education as a varsity sport (and continue to recruit foreign PhDs)

You're welcome.

Full and happy

This picture of me with singer Amos Lee was taken solely for the benefit of my former intern, Carlin, who is a huge fan of his. He was very nice and didn't make me feel like a dork for asking.

I missed a couple days of dispatches from Pop!Tech, mostly because they had me so dang busy thinking up ways to save the world. And of course, there was my mad passionate affair with lobster. However, I no longer discuss my love life on this blog, so you'll just have to use your imagination about the things I did to those poor unfortunate crustaceans.

I wish you could have come. I wish you were moved to tears with me when Ben Zander made a room full of 600 people sing "Happy Birthday" to one person, like it mattered. Like it was a ballad to a disappearing lover. Like it was the celebration it should ALWAYS be.

I wish you could have talked all night about energy and politics to Rufus Cappadocia, a revolutionary cello player who has deconstructed classical music into something so deeply moving and profound and funkalicious.

The economy as told by Juan Enriquez, illustrated.

I wish you could have watched Juan Enriquez so eloquently describe how the US got into the clusterf*ck it's in and how we need to get out -- if we can at all. I'll have a manifesto for you to mail into your leaders soon.

I wish you could have breathed the snappy Maine air and slipped through the carpet of leaves on Camden's sweet narrow sidewalks.

There will be video posted of all the presenters, we're told, and I'll point you to the ones you absolutely cannot miss.

In the meantime, I leave you with my new friend, Frank Warren, who spoke about his Post Secret project in which hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have sent in their secrets for him. He does it for the love of humanity. He has saved lives because of this project. Write to him sometime, it's cheaper than the shrink.

Frank Warren wants to know your secrets. I didn't tell him any,
mostly because I have so very few and don't want to run out.

Pop!Tech - Day 2 - Love and Horror

This second day of Pop!Tech inspired by beyond any words I can piece together. I heard Imogen Heap, one of my faves, LIVE, 50 feet from me. She is beautiful and charming. But the overall mash up from the day, without looking at my notes, is this:

Passion and creativity do not come from your head. They come from your heart.

Create for one person. Make it good. Make it the best it can be.

Love is the square root of everything.

You can text 30644 with the word FISH to check to see if your sushi is from a sustainable fishery. More at http://blueocean.org/.

On a more horrifying note, my mother's home caught on fire. She's OK, as is the dog. A faulty heater set the bathroom ablaze and wrecked the back half of her home, and the roof. Her clothes and carpeting are ruined. Here's the amazing thing: For her birthday last Sunday, I sent her a Mexican bingo game and a Virgin Mary bracelet. The fire stopped at the bracelet and all her paintings -- 100 or so -- were spared from fire, smoke and water. She is also lucky enough to have a friend who is putting her up in his empty apartment, but she still needs a bed -- if you live in the Port Townsend/Seattle area and have a bed she can borrow until we figure out what's happening, please let me know.

PS -- Tonight Malcolm Gladwell introduced me to his parents and gave me a piece of dark chocolate. I was all tongue-tied. And at dinner, by happenstance, I sat at the bar of Cappy's, ordered my lobster and began talking to the woman next to me. Turns out she's married to Richard "Empire Falls" Russo, who won a Pulitzer Prize. This is all surreal. The nexus of all my favorite things and people. I will probably meet God tomorrow.

Pop!Tech - Day 1 - Speaking the Unspoken

Holy crap I am hyperventilating about what just happened on my way back from the opening-night cocktail party, but first here's the meaty part of the post:

I am here in Camden for my third Pop!Tech conference, where culture and technology come together, presented by today's greatest writers and thinkers. Today there were special pre-conference sessions. I went to see Joe Navarro, a retired FBI profiler, who spoke about nonverbal communications. Among the gems he imparted to us:

• We are constantly transmitting information by how we present ourselves, our
  actions, expressions and how we choose or not choose to appear.


• Our limbic brain controls our emotions and "gut" reactions; thinking is not involved.


• Pointing with one finger is one of the most offensive things you can do. Use
  your whole hand to wave, instead.


• When we get away with something or when we get caught, we do the "tongue jut," ala McCain after the last debate.


• The most honest part of anyone's body is his or her feet. Watch where they are
  pointing, or not pointing. That will tell you everything. The face is the least
  reliable.


• The weak never assess or adjust their judgment if a situation or person is a threat or not a threat. Think of paranoid schizos.


• Watch what happens when you shake hands with someone. Do they back up? They need more space.


• Watch people who display their thumbs out of their pockets, like doctors or politicians or even Sarah Palin. It means, "We are not equals."


• Always frame people in blue; it is soothing and also a demonstration of power.


• If you want someone to rememeber something, present it in yellow against a blue background.


• Life is a movie, not a photograph. But you can tell a lot from a photograph.


• To establish an empathatic channel with someone, use the same word as they do.


• A head tilt is one of the most powerful comfort signals there is. Abusive
  mothers do not tilt their heads toward their children.


• You can tell which child a parent favors by his or her body language. Watch for the weaker, more relaxed leg toward the favored child.


• There is no single behavior that is indicative of deception; just look for indicators of stress. Which you can find out about in Navarro's book, "What Every Body Is Saying."

Before I tell you about how I made a geek of myself in front of one of my heroes, I will tell you that I made a new friend upon checkout, and we are suddenly BFFs and tomorrow AM we will go to yoga where he promises to teach me to fly! (It involves me balancing my pelvis on the soles of his feet.)

OK, so we're leaving the cocktail party, walking up the blustery, leafy streets of Camden, and a guy with a radical mop of hair asks us where the restauarant is and is the party still going on. I take a look and without thinking, I blurt out, "Are you Malcolm?"
"Yes I am."
I introduce myself and tell him I am a huge fan. And of course he thanks me.

This is Malcolm "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" Gladwell.

And then we told him where the party was and send him on his way. And I start hyperventilating and staggering up the street because I have read his work and it has affected me most profoundly. And then my new friend Michael and I start emailing and texting people that we just met Malcolm Gladwell as we say "holy shit" to each other over and over again.

This is going to be an amazing conference. It feels like the first day of the best semester ever. Holy crap. Malcolm Gladwell.

I am such a geek.