Yesterday, I received the digital tablet that I won in a drawing at the recent IABC World Conference in San Diego. No, not an Apple iPad…a Blackberry Playbook.

My expectation that this would finally replace my long-dead and missed Palm T/X was soon shattered. Turns out that the Playbook doesn’t offer a contact/calendar feature that I thought would be standard on these tablets.

No, to get those, I would need to use the Blackberry Bridge software to add the contacts and calendar items from my Blackberry smartphone.

Trouble was, I didn’t have a Blackberry smartphone. Neither does 99.9% of the world’s population. This seemed like either a real oversight by Blackberry, or a misconceived plan to attract tons of new business on the strength of the Playbook’s appeal.

In my case, it kind of worked. Rather than hand my new Playbook over to my teenaged daughter, I looked into my AT&T contract, and saw that, for an $18 fee and 2-year recommitment, I could get a refurbished Blackberry Pearl smartphone.

So I did that this morning, and expect the “new” Blackberry Pearl to arrive sometime next week.

I hope that Blackberry hasn’t gone out of business by then, based on the bad news that I read later.

This is another reason why Apple continues to dominate. Its competitors keep shooting themselves in the foot, while Apple methodically churns out nice products that people buy in droves. Unless those people get stuck with the leftovers, like me.

As the debt-ceiling decision loomed large, President Obama used the “bully pulpit” to suggest that Americans, who are tired of the partisan gamesmanship, prod Congress with emails, phone calls and social-media messages.

Strangely, he didn’t think to include himself, but I’m doing that anyway.

I went to the White House website and the websites of my two state senators and left versions of the following.

I agree with President Obama’s statement last night that, “The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government.”

Now you, my elected senator(President), need to take a page out of the President’s book—from his work with the automotive industry—and stand strong on a deficit-reduction bill that will make a real difference. Support John Boehner’s bill that only lifts the debt ceiling by $1 trillion, while imposing $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

I recall President Obama’s steadfastness, when dealing with the automotive manufacturer’s bailout. He refused to let those automotive leaders avoid reality or do things the “way they always been done.” His team required real change in attitude, planning and focus.

That real change is needed in this debt-limit crisis.

Stop letting the nation’s long-term economic health deteriorate as you tremble at the thought of making tough decisions that groups of Americans will oppose. Do what is right for the long-term good of this nation, not what is least damaging to your political base.

Support the Boehner bill that takes action NOW, and requires cuts greater than the additional debt burden you are placing on me, my children, and my children’s children.

Sincerely,

Tom Keefe
(phone and email)

Yes, they probably never will actually read this, but one of their staff members might. Will it change the course of history? Not likely.

But the President asked us to speak up, and our elected representatives need to remember that they are being paid to make choices that are best for our nation. Those choices aren’t always clear, but who in their right mind thinks that adding trillions to our debt will be good for our nation?

On June 29, 2011, I joined a group of professional communicators from across North America in downtown Chicago for the “Writing Across All Media” Workshop presented by Steve Crescenzo and Jim Ylisela.

This was a very practical, and very engaging, seminar in which Write (Steve) and Jim (Rewrite) explained how to:

1. Transform your communications department from a funnel pumping out every content request to a filter making good decisions about what to write, how to write it – and what doesn’t make the grade.
2. Create a “news desk” to decide which channel a piece of content belongs in – print, online, social media, audio or video, e-mail or face to face.
3. Change your web (or intranet) writing style to adapt to dramatic changes in the last two years.
4. Compose an effective blog that will draw readers and inspire comments.
5. Master the art of Print 2.0 – and give your publication new life.
6. Make the best use of Twitter’s 140-character limit – it still demands good writing.
7. Write for podcasts and other audio channels, which are fast becoming the most popular corporate communication tools.
8. Write for video, to create stand-alone video stories that go beyond “talking heads.”
9. Draw a crowd around typically boring corporate topics and initiatives by telling those stories across various media.

Listen to this 5-minute post-event interview of Steve, attendees and even Scout, the young daughter of writer David Murray. Scout didn’t attend the workshop, but she did attend the Chicago Cubs game afterward, along with her parents.

It’s July 4, 2011, and the economy has dampened the typical Independence Day Holiday celebration marked by civic displays of fireworks. Chicago and Gurnee, IL, where I live, announced that they would not pay for fireworks displays because of the expense.

So we’ll just have to enjoy this video of a fabulous fireworks display that I and my family recorded on July 3, 2007 while vacationing in South Dakota, U.S.A. One of the better fireworks displays available was scheduled for July 3 of that year at the historic Mt. Rushmore National Park.

Dry weather had threatened to shut down the fireworks display that day, but we were blessed by a sprinkling of rain that sufficiently lowered the risk of brush fires. The event was about one hour in length, including opening singers and a flyby by Air Force fighter jets. The actual fireworks display was 20 minutes long.

One of the BEST fireworks displays that my family has seen in-person. There’s just something about watching and hearing explosions of light and sound, emanating from the stony likenesses of our four most famous U.S. presidents.

The news broke this afternoon:

Weiner resigns in wake of sex photos scandal
By KAREN ZRAICK and ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press
NEW YORK – Seared by scandal, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner announced his resignation from Congress on Thursday, done in by lewd photos he took of himself, sent to women online and then adamantly lied about after being caught.

Weiner finally feels some of the professional consequences of the choices he made. My hope for him and others is that they learn the value of considering consequences before making decisions or taking action.

His scandal also highlights how social media has changed the world, by speeding the dissemination into the public eye of comments, thoughts and mistakes that, a couple of generations ago, could have been downplayed or contained.

I wish Weiner and his wife well. I wish he had learned from the mistakes of others before him. That just doesn’t seem to occur as frequently as one might wish.

    What consequences?

The condition is remorse over one’s behavior and decisions—without a corresponding acceptance that behavior and decisions carry consequences.

This condition is evident in children who, when caught doing something such as lying, stealing, cheating, or hurting another human being, demonstrate remorse—typically with tears and cries of, “I’m s-sorry!” They’re looking for a way out of the situation, but don’t consider that they might have to face consequences of their behavior and decisions. They don’t want a time-out, or spanking, or to ask forgiveness of the person from whom they stole, to whom they lied, or whom they hurt. Their immediate, typical response when told about consequences? “But I SAID I was SORRY!”

Weiner isn’t a child, but he isn’t much of an adult, either. An adult assumes responsibility for his or her actions and decisions, and when it’s clear that an apology, or restitution, or a change is necessary because of those actions and decisions, an adult makes good. A child thinks of how to save face, or “get out of trouble.” An adult thinks of others; a child thinks of himself or herself.

It isn’t just politicians who suffer from this condition. In the wake of the economic meltdown of recent years, while financial services firms were doling out huge bonuses to their executives and employees, the public screamed. How many of those executives and employees, many of whom expressed some form of remorse in public comments, stepped up to accept consequences of their decisions and actions which flamed the meltdown? I believe the answer is: none.

I have two close acquaintances who separately ended up being divorced because of marital indiscretions on their part. My church lost a pastor who, as it turned out, years before in a different congregation, had an affair with a church member and kept it hidden until the church member’s husband uncovered evidence of the affair and confronted them both.

In all of those cases, the original bad decision/action didn’t have to cause the death of a marriage or pastoral ministry. But the offender would have had to see the wrong, admit to it, and then agree to whatever consequences that the offended party would see as a way to restore the relationship. To my knowledge, that never occurred in any of the above situations.

Representative Weiner’s forceful refusal to consider resignation indicates to me that he doesn’t think that his decisions and actions require him to face consequences. Sadly, his innocent wife has been subjected to media hounding as people wonder why she hasn’t either stood by her husband’s side, or left him. She is reaping consequences of Weiner’s acts. Why can’t he see that?

Finally, I don’t know that I’m seeing more of this condition in the work world, but I certainly see daily evidence that people think a simple, “I’m sorry” should excuse their every decision and action—without consideration of how those decisions and actions have impacted the people around them. These people don’t seem to think that they might have consequences that are a natural outcome of those decisions and actions.

Someone might say that these people just don’t think. I disagree. They think a lot…but not about consequences.

Don’t be so hungry for blog comments that you feed the SPAM monster.

I don’t think that most people are surprised to read statistics that credit SPAM with producing the majority of email traffic worldwide. And if you write a blog that allows comments, you probably have to continually contend with sifting legitimate comments from the SPAM chaff–even if you have anti-SPAM measures in-place.

I’ve never had a problem recognizing SPAM comments, and I thought that SPAM would be easy for anyone to spot. But I’ve recently visited blogs from long-time communication professionals who have inadvertently approved SPAM comments. These are blogs that moderate comments, so I can’t blame this on anyone but the site moderators.

Granted, most SPAM messages aren’t overtly malicious or dangerous; but like weeds, they can detract from the beauty of your blog. Best to deal with them before they spread.

Here is a screenshot of recent SPAM messages that came to this blog. One of them made it through the Akismet spam blocker plugin, but I quickly spotted it as SPAM and sent it to my SPAM folder to await final deletion. The sender names and links alone reveal these as SPAM messages.

SPAM comments usually promote a product or service, or suggest that you visit a website.

Even a quick look at the sender name and return email address are suspicious. When the return email address is a site that clearly promotes a product or service, the SPAM alarm bells should ring loudly!

My hunch is that the comment moderators on my colleagues’ blogs approved the comments without reviewing them closely. Perhaps they were viewing the comments on a smartphone, where the smaller screen prevented them from seeing the sender’s entire return address and link. Or perhaps they were just in a hurry. Either way, their blogs are now part of the SPAM weed-fest.

Kooks who are Christian, are still kooks. And cynics who hate the truth of Christianity will continue to try to denigrate Jesus Christ and his followers.

Both of the above points are clear on this “Non-Judgment Saturday”—a day when much of the world laughed at a sincere, but sincerely wrong, religious “leader’s” prediction of the world’s demise. Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer, has developed a flourishing ministry based on his doomsday message that Jesus Christ would return to judge the earth on May 21, 2011. That judgment would include destruction described in the final book of the Christian Bible, Revelation.

While a small handful of misguided fools responded to Camping’s prediction by selling their possessions, quitting their jobs and waiting prayerfully to be swept into Heaven, a much larger—and in my opinion—much more foolish collection of mockers used Camping’s folly to paint a prejudiced, hurtful and more destructive picture of Christianity.

The mockers correctly see that no person can predict the Coming of the Lord. Their error is believing that, because Jesus Christ didn’t return on a day computed by a flawed human being, then Jesus Christ is NEVER returning.

Their hatred for Jesus Christ and the Christian faith almost compels them to ridicule any self-professed “Christian” who is more kook than Christian. They want to denigrate the true Christian message of love, hope, and most of all, grace.

Real faith in Jesus Christ means accepting the fact that we are not capable of living a life worthy of eternity in Heaven following our death on earth. It means being realistic and humble enough to accept the free gift of forgiveness that comes with belief that Jesus Christ lived a totally righteous life 2,000 years ago, and purposely suffered a painful and undeserved death to “pay for” the sins of every human being, past present and future.

Real faith in Jesus Christ means believing the eye-witness accounts that he rose from the dead and today is waiting to return to judge the world.

Be discerning, but don’t be a fool.

Laughing at a misguided person like Harold Camping does not change reality any more than covering the sun with your thumb makes the sun disappear. Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

No one knows when Jesus Christ will return for Judgment Day. But instead of getting some cheap laughs today, accept some important truth: Jesus Christ is returning, and we all need to be ready.

As I’ve often said, communication is part art and part science, and the announcement yesterday that terrorist Osama Bin Laden has been killed offers an important lesson in the science of communication.

The specific science is psychology, and the specific lesson is that a communicator needs to plan beyond the emotion and hoopla which follow a major victory or defeat.

Dead Terrorist Messages
In the hours following the announced death of Osama Bin Laden, news reports and television pundits focused on the immediate reactions to the announcement by officials and the general public—which in the U.S. involved a feeling of relief and outbursts of celebratory chanting by citizens.

It would be easy to get swept up by the excitement, but if you did, you might overlook some important realities. The search for Bin Laden intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but even with a massive outpouring of military and intelligence agency resources, it took a decade to locate and eliminate him. The communication lesson is to keep your eye on the entire situation at-hand, because it continues to evolve.

In the case of the “war on terror,” during the years when we were pursuing Bin Laden, he became less and less involved in the operational side of his al qaeda terrorist organization. So we have removed a figurehead of the organization, but we have not mortally wounded its organization. In fact, in the short-run, we may see increased terrorist activity, as Bin Laden “wannabe’s” attempt to increase their “street cred” among fellow terrorists through new acts of terrorism.

Unless those harsh realities are communicated to, and understood by, the general public, the premature celebrations of Sunday evening and Monday morning may soon turn to anguished cries and disillusionment.

Moby Dick
In 1851, American author Herman Melville published a novel titled, “The Whale,” which we today know as the classic, “Moby Dick.” One of the more commonly discussed of the novel’s many themes is the obsession of Captain Ahab to kill the white whale to revenge the sinking of the captain’s previous ship, and the loss of his leg.

Let’s compare Ahab’s obsession to kill the whale with the desire of two U.S. Presidents to capture or kill Bin Laden. In the case of Captain Ahab, the individual obsession killed the individual. In the case of Presidents Bush and Obama, public opinion has been divided as to whether the investment of millions of dollars and hundreds of lives has been worth the results. Negative public reaction to President Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq helped lead to Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election. You might say that Bush’s obsession with Obama (and Saddam Hussein for that matter) led to his eventual political “death.”

If you work as a communicator for someone who is exhibiting tendencies toward obsession over a particular issue or goal, remember these three points:

• Obsession tends to make someone microfocus attention. Keep the big picture firmly in mind.
• People are impatient, so if something is going to take long to accomplish (or remain open-ended for quite some time), explain that clearly at the start, and then regularly as you go along. That might cause some people to spout off, but you will face far less antagonism from the majority of your audience than you would by announcing unrealistic (and unachievable) deadlines.
• Obsession can be a career-killer (or literal killer in the case of Bin Laden and Captain Ahab). Find ways to make your boss understand the current and potential consequences of continuing on a path that won't pay off, or celebrating a victory too soon.

A Happy Resurrection Sunday to my fellow Christians. This day and Christmas Day are the two holiest in the Christian calendar.

They bookend the earthly life of Jesus Christ, who we know as our Lord and Savior. Christmas celebrates the day Jesus was born. Today celebrates the day he came back to life after suffering an agonizing death two days before.

Sounds like a crazy plot for a movie, doesn’t it? At one point in my life, I walked away from my Christian faith, because so much of the ritualistic parts seemed either boring or just plain weird.

About 16 years ago, my wife and I started attending a church where the pastor told us (and the entire congregation) that our doubts and questions were encouraged. God was big enough to handle them!

Through a process of study and opening my heart, my questions and doubts were answered sufficiently for me to renew my commitment to the Christian faith walk.

Is it easy? No, particularly because I remain a stubborn, self-centered human. Is my family a center of Christian hope, love and caring? Not exactly!

We are a work in progress.

If you want answers to the tough questions of life, Jesus has them. Yes, I didn’t say “had them,” because he is still alive.

That’s what I, and millions of Christians around the globe, celebrate today.