Captain Planet, he’s our hero
Gonna take pollution down to zero
 
He’s our powers magnified
And he’s fighting on the planet’s side
 
Gonna help him put asunder
Bad guys who like to loot and plunder
 
Remember him?  He was a super hero, who, along with a posse of kids, aimed to save the environment.  CP is still around — he goes by a different alias and that is Al Gore.  And his posse of kids? They have grown up to become the Green Collar workers – out to save the world and maybe even the economy.
 
(I had a neighbor that got arrested for being a green collar worker in the 90s – different kind of green though…. More on that another time.)
 
Before the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” the concept of global warming was still up for debate.  Science was clear, but yet doubters persisted.  Dubya didn’t believe in the issue.  In his circle it was a cause for the liberals, the hippies, and the liberal hippy media.  Nothing serious.  Remember The Kyoto Protocol?  Don’t feel bad, neither do they.
 
But when that movie rose up, things changed.  Everyone seemed to take notice, and what environmentalists and scientists had been saying for years became almost overnight the new conventional wisdom.  Gore wasn’t that boring suit who awkwardly smooched Tipper, he was – yep - Captain Planet, the voice that moved the world.
 
The film itself made around 25 million domestically.  Great for a documentary, but that many Americans saw it.  The publicity more than the movie itself changed the zeitgeist so dramatically that even Bush didn’t have a choice and soon he had to cop that global warming was pretty real.
 
Just like Styrofoam, that publicity for Gore’s movement isn’t going anywhere – it’s spreading everywhere.  Now everyone wants the green seal of approval, and what’s fascinating to trend watchers is that, like the film, it’s the PR that’s leading the change.  When a company says it’s easy for it to be green, it takes increasingly large steps to be green.  Actions are now catching up with the branding.
 
Time Warner Cable tells customers “Going green is simple when your bills are paperless.” GE even launched Ecomagination campaign years ago to promote, among other things, how it works with wind turbines. Now even that monolith is doing more to maintain the momentum and integrity of those earlier promotional promises.  From NBC Universal’s Green Week – hardy har har – to the new Ecomagination.com site, GE’s own slogans are motivating behavior.
 
Frito-Lay and PepsiCo are flexing green in a funny way too: The product SunChips is about to transition into a “green brand” by transforming one of the seven plants that manufactures the chips into a “sun” or solar powered operation.  Their brand always seemed (a/k/a were branded as) earth friendly, now their policies are following suit.
 
The economy?  Well, stupid, who is making all of these changes?  In the wake of economic recession, the Prez candidates are talking about the promise of a “green collar” workforce. Urban groups are watching this as a way out of poverty, corporations see it as a the path to environmental favor (and a little bit of street cred) and environmentalists see it as the path to a better tomorrow!  Everyone is happy.  Thanks Captain!
 
The negative side to the environmental craze? Let’s quote Lewis Black: “President Bush said that he now believes there’s global warming.  As a result, I’m not sure anymore.”  
 

“2011” in Women’s Wear Daily last week…   ADVICE ON STAYING AHEAD OF THE TRENDS

Valerie Seckler

19 March 2008

Women’s Wear Daily

Live in the now is advice oft given to many an overstimulated, overwrought denizen of the 21st century. Don’t tell that to public relations pro Richard Laermer, though. He’ll probably start making the case for why it’s essential to look ahead, in order to avoid being swamped by new trends, as there are more things cropping up (or being reintroduced with a twist) faster than most can stay on top of.

Laermer, author of more than a dozen books, gives some tips for spotting trends with staying power in his 13th title, “2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade” (McGraw Hill, $25.95), slated to be published in April. The guidebook-style book seeks to prepare marketing and media types, among others, for a near future the writer marks as beginning on Jan. 10, 2011, a date he selected as it’s 10 years after former president Bill Clinton left office.

“Everybody I speak to, even kids, says, ‘I can’t wait until so-and-so,’ instead of ‘I’m excited about now,’” related the 46-year-old chief executive of RLM Public Relations Inc. “This is a mediocre time; a time to take a deep breath, look ahead and have some fun [doing so].” In fact, the writer, whose voice generally runs from colorfully anecdotal to good-natured gotcha, needles fellow futurist and competitor Faith Popcorn, whom he recalls in his book as having left him with “the impression she wasn’t that into her work. A little bored….Besides, she runs a ’strategic trend-based marketing consultancy.’ My personal goal is to rid the world of that kinda jargon,” he claims, even though his new book is subtitled “Trendspotting for the Next Decade.” (There’s only so much one can take too seriously, seems to be the subtext.) Informed of this take, Popcorn protests serenely, “I adore my work. I’m certainly not bored. When I leave my plane seat, it looks like a billy goat ravaged it,” she added, referring to the considerable pile of information she typically ingests in flight.

Among the notions - and wishes - the author of “2011″ has chewed on and projected himself are that people will start slowing down in their daily lives (”Why rush?”); customer service will finally become a “law” of sorts (”That’s enough of being put on hold.”), and the movement to stay at home will gather momentum. One reason we ought to care about such things is because it’s becoming “a little scary” for people who “don’t know at least a little about what’s going on,” Laermer said - and all the more so as commerce increasingly overwhelms culture. Notwithstanding his public relations firm’s role in greasing the wheels of commerce, the author said one result of commercialism’s onslaught is a growing cadre who are feeling like “staying in bed and pulling the covers over their head.”

In one of the book’s many how-to moments, Laermer devotes some of his “Dive Into Trends” chapter to a list of “What you can do starting today.” His advice encompasses several basics, which could fall by the wayside in harried times, such as: Get on mailing lists about things that interest you. Talk to experts - arrange to meet. Don’t ignore indicators. In 1929, the only ones who made it through the Crash were those who read newspapers. Just do it. (Fine, Nike had a point.)

Among the brands doing a good job connecting with the contemporary consumers Laermer considers “hyper-aware kings” are Apple and Verizon, while Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret are failing to make the grade. Apple gets his thumbs-up for its quick offer of a lower-priced iPhone when the first model sold at a less-than-brisk clip and its remake of Apple TV this year, enabling downloads of movies and music directly from iTunes for viewing on enhanced digital and high-definition TVs. “Would IBM have done that?” he asked rhetorically of the redesigns. Verizon wins “starting to come around” kudos for its 30-day, opt-out policy.

Victoria’s Secret is chided for product quality that doesn’t equal the brand’s hype, a problem acknowledged this month by the chain’s ceo, Sharen Jester Turney. And Starbucks is a brand Laermer loves to hate, most recently for its hype of employee training and most broadly because at the shops he finds there is “no local element.” Laermer ties up these threads with a trend, as well: “Since we are the most networked people in history, you can’t get away with stating anything sloppily anymore,” he writes. “When you communicate with your customer, be careful.”   

Dear Blog Person:

Junk. That’s what these last few years has amassed.  In an effort to combat mass eye-rolling and sighing, I have written a new book that looks at the glorious and positive news and knowledge we should look forward to in the next decade.

This blog is about 2011—and getting there. The book is a guide to the fantastic decade ahead for capitalists, out on 4/10 and now via Amazon.  

I created 77 short-short chapters based on research, forecasting, hunches, and insider data on topics as wide-reaching as…the berth is huge.   I’m the man behind Full Frontal PR, trendSpotting, and the recent collection of no-BS advice to salespeople called Punk Marketing. Each has a cult following for being just left of bullshit and contains funny, digestible and valuable stuff for whoever dives in. In the new collection– my most adventurous and the last for a while—I am working with a publisher as “out there” as I am. 

Heck, since the idea of a book is old world to start with (my Mom didn’t bring up no fool), McGraw-Hill and I are crafting a hilarious design that is even a bit farfetched. That means: bullets, lists, thought-bubbles, icons, outrageous moments, and footnotes (my trademark) that are actually next to the sentences themselves. You can even read the thing upside down.  Speaking of stand out, with the book is this, the wholly up-to-the-minute destination called, of all things, Laermer.com. On it are planned daily updates on news, trends, thoughts and impolitic asides for 2011’s participants to giggle with—and add their takes.  Also, I will drop in quizzes, prizes, and more quizzes.   Now the pitch: Just grab a quiet moment and read –either my book or this blog or anything except another damn email. As for me: Look. I’m as cynical as you are, and I know how many trend books are out there. But I’m not Faith Popcorn with a finger in the air! That’s why nothing here is proffered as deathly serious—unless you count the chapter on the death of reading.   Enough from me—at least for a second… See you here. Call me if you need a laugh. 

Vonnegut was a genius.

No one understood creativity in our world like Kurt Vonnegut did. He always said the problem was that people thought too small.

In his last TV interview, the great thinker said he thought what America needed was a “cabinet post” of Secretary Of The Future.

On “Now on PBS,” the esteemed PBS program hosted by David Brancaccio, he said he thought such a hosted position “would help us live a more sustainable life, not pollute a place where generations in the future have to live. You could also take that to businesses being run in a more sustainable way. Politics. The deficit. “Listen to his words:

KURT VONNEGUT: Look, I’ll tell you. It’s one thing that no cabinet had ever had, is a Secretary Of The Future. And there are no plans at all for my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: That’s a great idea. In other words a Cabinet post–

KURT VONNEGUT: Well, it’s too late! Look, the game is over! The game is over. We’ve killed the planet, the life support system. And, and it’s so damaged that there’s no recovery from that. And we’re very soon going to run out of petroleum which powered everything that’s modern. Razzmatazz about America. And, and it was very shallow people who imagined that we could keep this up indefinitely. But when I tell others, they say; Well, look there’s– you said hydrogen fuel. Nobody’s working on it.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: No one is working seriously on it is what you’re saying.

KURT VONNEGUT: That’s right. And, and what, our energy people, presidents of our companies, energy companies never think. All they want to do is make a lot of money right now.

We will miss you, Mr. Vonnegut. And you’re right. The Government does not want to look ahead. Only (as a horse’s) behind.

We Are Happy To Serve.

And I am going to beat McDonald’s yet! (More on that in future posts.)