I’ve been having some fun with Tony Silber, my friend and the Publisher of Folio: Magazine (the magazine about managing magazines). It seems that my blog entry titled, “I’m Not Giving an Inch,” in Folio (titled here as "Call Me Hank Stamper”) required some clarification. Tony called my position (and me) reminiscent of “The Last Samurai,” a movie where the protagonist resists progress and is ultimately crushed by it. Well I feel that is a bit of an extreme characterization of my position (and hopefully my fate), and so I responded. If you’re really bored this Thanksgiving weekend, give it a read.
Here is my original post, on Folio: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/i-m-not-giving-inch
Tony’s comments: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/last-samauri
My response: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/samurai-responds
I like the photo!
Swine Flu Outbreak Averted on JetBlue Flight
LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK – Alert passengers were lauded late last night when JetBlue Flight 672 from Los Angeles touched down at JFK International where an inflight plane-wide swine flu crisis was avoided.
The trouble began soon after the flight had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport when a man, sitting in seat 11a, coughed slightly. Passengers immediately began screaming, with cries of “run, he’s got the SWINE FLU!” Despite the seat belt light still being lit, virtually all passengers on the left side of the plane began crowding over to the right, causing the pilots to seize manual control of the aircraft to avoid going into a barrel roll.
The man, 51-year-old Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, reportedly jumped up, saying he didn’t have the flu but was on the tail end of a really mild cold, but this did not fool the heavily-warned travelers. According to eyewitness accounts, at that moment a woman screamed, “and,….he’s got a HANDKERCHIEF!” which apparently was the final straw for three rugby players from Ireland who made their move amid the chaos, tackling Bahr and wrestling him to the ground.
The three Dublinites then dragged the man to the back of the plane as he continued to protest and swear that there was no way he had the flu and was not contagious. Bahr was then quarantined for the rest of the flight in one of the rear cabin bathrooms and denied all forms of snacks – even the Terra Blue potato chips - by nervous flight attendants.
Center for Disease Control Director Millard Fillmore praised passengers, saying that this kind of quick thinking and reaction can prevent the epidemic from spreading, saying, “this just proves it’s not a hysteria, just a prudent response.” Eight year-old Chauncey Quinn claimed to have “nailed the guy in the face with a hand sanitizer spray as he went by,” high-fiving his father, Edward Quinn. The rest of the flight was uneventful save the continuous knocking and pleadings from the locked bathroom. At JFK, a hazmat team removed Mr. Bahr from the lavatory following a quick evacuation of all the other passengers.
The H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, has killed 1,489 people over the last six months, which, despite being a far lower total than virtually any other flu strain in history, seems to have lodged in the public imagination as the Great Scourge of Our Time.
The trouble began soon after the flight had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport when a man, sitting in seat 11a, coughed slightly. Passengers immediately began screaming, with cries of “run, he’s got the SWINE FLU!” Despite the seat belt light still being lit, virtually all passengers on the left side of the plane began crowding over to the right, causing the pilots to seize manual control of the aircraft to avoid going into a barrel roll.
The man, 51-year-old Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, reportedly jumped up, saying he didn’t have the flu but was on the tail end of a really mild cold, but this did not fool the heavily-warned travelers. According to eyewitness accounts, at that moment a woman screamed, “and,….he’s got a HANDKERCHIEF!” which apparently was the final straw for three rugby players from Ireland who made their move amid the chaos, tackling Bahr and wrestling him to the ground.
The three Dublinites then dragged the man to the back of the plane as he continued to protest and swear that there was no way he had the flu and was not contagious. Bahr was then quarantined for the rest of the flight in one of the rear cabin bathrooms and denied all forms of snacks – even the Terra Blue potato chips - by nervous flight attendants.
Center for Disease Control Director Millard Fillmore praised passengers, saying that this kind of quick thinking and reaction can prevent the epidemic from spreading, saying, “this just proves it’s not a hysteria, just a prudent response.” Eight year-old Chauncey Quinn claimed to have “nailed the guy in the face with a hand sanitizer spray as he went by,” high-fiving his father, Edward Quinn. The rest of the flight was uneventful save the continuous knocking and pleadings from the locked bathroom. At JFK, a hazmat team removed Mr. Bahr from the lavatory following a quick evacuation of all the other passengers.
The H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, has killed 1,489 people over the last six months, which, despite being a far lower total than virtually any other flu strain in history, seems to have lodged in the public imagination as the Great Scourge of Our Time.
Call Me Hank Stamper
Did you ever read “Sometimes a Great Notion” by Ken Kesey? Yes, the Ken Kesey with the psychedelic bus. Before the Merry Pranksters and after his successful “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Kesey penned this novel, one of the great works of American fiction, a sprawling tale of the struggles of a northwest logging family, the conflict between brothers, the small independent logging company the family owns and their fights against larger timber interests.
The most recurring metaphor in the book is fighting progress, alluded to in the form of the Stamper family home, which is built right on a bend of a great river that is constantly eroding away the property. Over the years the Stampers have built a crude series of barriers and wired posts and piers to prevent this from happening, but the river is relentless, as rivers will be. Some of the most vivid passages in the book portray the father and older brothers’ attempts to keep the river from destroying the property, typically out in the night in vicious storms, lashing the piers back together, fighting the river of progress, the river of change. The book was made into a film starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, with the original title embodying the philosophy of Henry Stamper, “Never Give an Inch.”
Out west last week, I was pitching print advertising (along with our online properties) to marketers who thought I had landed there from another planet. To one, print was so alien that he took a genuine interest in it. It was a novelty. More and more marketers just start conversations by letting you know that they’re not doing print as a matter of fact. Many of my competitors and fellow high-tech publishers have given up, letting the river flow, and you can see the results in the steadily eroding group of high-tech titles still in print. I can’t quite explain why, but like Henry Stamper, I refuse to yield. I refuse to bend to the times, to just accept the advertiser’s misguided notions that print is dead and not even worth talking about. While I’m happy to sell a few white papers at the end of the call, most of the time I’m taking them out to the woodshed to disabuse them of their anti-print bias -- whether they buy it today or not.
It’s up to those of us in the industry to stand up passionately for what we believe in and what we know to be true. The easy days of print as an accepted medium are over. Washed well downstream. But we know people are still reading our publications, and becoming aware of and interested in companies through the print ads. It’s up to us to lash together the arguments and fight. We’re deep into contract season and I’m getting on planes to visit customers. And not giving an inch.
The most recurring metaphor in the book is fighting progress, alluded to in the form of the Stamper family home, which is built right on a bend of a great river that is constantly eroding away the property. Over the years the Stampers have built a crude series of barriers and wired posts and piers to prevent this from happening, but the river is relentless, as rivers will be. Some of the most vivid passages in the book portray the father and older brothers’ attempts to keep the river from destroying the property, typically out in the night in vicious storms, lashing the piers back together, fighting the river of progress, the river of change. The book was made into a film starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, with the original title embodying the philosophy of Henry Stamper, “Never Give an Inch.”
Out west last week, I was pitching print advertising (along with our online properties) to marketers who thought I had landed there from another planet. To one, print was so alien that he took a genuine interest in it. It was a novelty. More and more marketers just start conversations by letting you know that they’re not doing print as a matter of fact. Many of my competitors and fellow high-tech publishers have given up, letting the river flow, and you can see the results in the steadily eroding group of high-tech titles still in print. I can’t quite explain why, but like Henry Stamper, I refuse to yield. I refuse to bend to the times, to just accept the advertiser’s misguided notions that print is dead and not even worth talking about. While I’m happy to sell a few white papers at the end of the call, most of the time I’m taking them out to the woodshed to disabuse them of their anti-print bias -- whether they buy it today or not.
It’s up to those of us in the industry to stand up passionately for what we believe in and what we know to be true. The easy days of print as an accepted medium are over. Washed well downstream. But we know people are still reading our publications, and becoming aware of and interested in companies through the print ads. It’s up to us to lash together the arguments and fight. We’re deep into contract season and I’m getting on planes to visit customers. And not giving an inch.
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