• Skip to content

Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

header image
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Third Ingredient
    • Age of the Customer
  • Speaking
  • About Jim
  • Press Room
    • Jim In the News
    • Press Materials
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Third Ingredient
    • Age of the Customer
  • Speaking
  • About Jim
  • Press Room
    • Jim In the News
    • Press Materials
  • Blog
  • Contact

Social Media

When The UGC Says “Nu-uh,” You’ve Gotta Problem

February 28, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Once upon a time, but not that long ago, a brand message could be successful even if it was close to a work of fiction. 

Created by Madison Avenue wordsmiths, copy for an ad or brochure was crafted to manipulate and motivate using puffery, a legal term referring to acceptable marketing exaggeration. And most of the time it worked. In fact, generations of consumers allowed themselves to be manipulated by puffery that became part of the soundtrack of our lives. Here are three Memory Lane examples:

“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.”

“Put a tiger in your tank.”

“The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Here’s a local example: “Largest inventory in the tri-state area.”

Since the release of the Internet for commercial use in 1993, the 10,000-year-old Age of the Seller paradigm has shifted in favor of the Age of the Customer. The primary differentiator between the two Ages is control of the information, which your customer now co-owns, including the truth about your products, services, and marketplace behavior. This customer control is derived in part from something called User-Generated Content, or UGC. [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Customer Care, e-business, Ethics / Trust, Management Fundamentals, Marketing / Branding / Advertising, Social Media, Start Ups, The Age of the Customer, Uncategorized Tagged With: management fundamentals, marketing, small business, success

The New Pharisees

November 12, 2020 by Jim Blasingame

November 7, 2020, is a date that will live in infamy. On that first Saturday following the election, an ignominious convergence of interests created a new and dangerous global force. #GODHELPUS.

Prior to the election, we asked small business owners which presidential candidate they thought would win, 71% of our respondents said Trump. After the election, we asked them how the unresolved vote-processing should play out, two-thirds said the counting process should be allowed to proceed.

Regardless of how this election ends, millions of Americans now fear that winning at the polls isn’t enough to overcome a new force: The newly organized machine made up of Big Tech, Main Stream Media, Wall Street, the state political machines, and the Deep State.

This new force is what I’ve named “The Machine.” History is replete with parochial political machines, but this one is a global, 21st-century model, and it acts like 21st-century Pharisees. The unelected group that controlled ancient Israel, Pharisees claimed the power of “binding and loosing.” In other words, they could bind you up or let you go. And “you” were whoever acted against their interests, even if it was your constitutional right to do so.

Parochial political machines, in cities like Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago, are legendary and infamous. But what’s new is that The Machine has never before been able to link up for a common purpose across virtual and geographic boundaries with the help of their fellow travelers.

Let’s take a look at the cogs in The Machine.

Global Corporate

What’s new about Corporate America is that we should now refer to it as “Global Corporate.” Never mind where they were founded or are based, their allegiance is to whoever they can gain influence from across geographic, virtual, and sovereign boundaries. From today forward, every American must understand that the U.S. Constitution, revered on Main Street, is merely part of the Global Corporate reality and one of the issues they must deal with to pursue their goals. 

Big Tech

Big Tech is also Global Corporate, but this sector has weaponry unprecedented in political machine history. They control how we use the Internet and have more money than God. For example:

  • Almost 40% of Earthlings are monthly users of Facebook;
  • Google has over 90% of online search;
  • Half of every e-commerce dollar is spent with Amazon, which creates an annual revenue that would make it 41on the U.N.’s global GDP list of 194 countries.

To use a military analogy, Big Tech can deploy aircraft carriers launching stealth fighters at whomever they oppose, who are armed merely with light infantry.

Social Media

Social media platforms are both Global Corporate and Big Tech, but they deserve their own category. Remember, barely 12 years ago, MySpace was the dominant platform as we were just learning about Facebook and Twitter. Today, hiding behind the gift called Section 230, social media platforms are impinging on the single most powerful ideal in America – speech. And because of the complicit cogs in The Machine, it appears they will be able to continue.

The Media

As of today, with the assimilation of the New York Post, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, the Mainstream Media is now just The Media. And in a dangerous alloying of Global Corporate with The Media, the richest man in the galaxy leads that e-commerce giant mentioned above, while owning one of the most powerful newspapers in the galaxy.

Somewhere around 2015, The Media began their descent from journalism into unabashed, unveiled partisanism. The behavior of The Media in 2020 has elevated George Orwell’s prophet status above even the immortal Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The State

What was once considered the “Deep State” must now be shortened to “The State.” When you combine the behavior of Comey’s FBI, the current Wray FBI, the inexplicable delay of the Durham Report, and the politicization of the CIA, any illusion of deepness evaporates. Do we still have a democratic republic when unelected bureaucrats openly impose their will on the direction of the country with impunity?

And with transparency that would be refreshing if it weren’t so unprofessional, one need only to tune into cable news to witness The State and The Media linking up, as newly-removed FBI and CIA directors undermine the institutions they just left.

The Pandemic

The 100-year global pandemic has pushed 2020 into the perfect storm category. Of course, The Machine didn’t create the coronavirus, but its agenda has used the pandemic to achieve critical mass with Rahm Emanuel’s strategy: “Never let a crisis go to waste.” By leveraging the pandemic fear, besides slanted reporting and polling, The Machine launched a national early voting, mail-in ballot campaign that would not have been possible in any non-COVID year. Only a fine-tuned apparatus could have pulled this off across the country.

Obama and I disagreed on most policies, but when he was elected, I wasn’t worried about the future of America. It was just the natural gyration of a democratic republic – something good would ultimately come from it. Besides, Obama was elected by the people, fair and square – twice. Even those of us who didn’t vote for him respected that and moved on to fight another day.

But things are different now. Yes, most of the cogs in The Machine existed in 2008, but they had not coalesced as the current, fine-tuned force, communicating over a common frequency. And in that coalescing, they’ve achieved a critical mass that should concern every American. Including Biden supporters.

A democratic republic such as ours relies on Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The “Never Trumpers” achieved relevant status by finding purchase in the give and take of political motion. Intellectual honesty demanded that these recalcitrant Republicans be regarded as an example of the health of America’s seminal and most precious ideal – free speech. But going forward, I propose two important questions that every American should be asking:

  1. How will the “Never Bidens” be treated by The Machine?
  2. What will America do when the New Pharisees block President Harris’s Twitter account?

Perhaps one benefit of this year is the end of pretense. All the cogs of The Machine are now uncloaked, sailing under the same flag and operating over a common frequency. After 2020, romance, naivete and ignorance now only exist on the TV Land channel.

Finally, to paraphrase the spirit of the powerful poem by Nazi-era German pastor Martin Niemöller: When they come for my speech and you say nothing, who will speak up when they come for yours?

America will survive Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. But will America survive The Machine and the New Pharisees?

Filed Under: Coronavirus, e-business, Government / Politics, Social Media, Technology / General, The 3rd Ingredient

Relevance – the Customer’s new prime expectation

November 14, 2019 by Jim Blasingame

When describing what influences the behavior of individuals as they pursue their lives, you would likely include concepts associated with goals, plans, passion, desire, ego, personality, etc. In matters of human interaction as we meet, love, and work together, there is often an abiding struggle between my passion and your ego, for example, or your goals and my plans. Indeed, successful long-term personal relationships are heavily weighted on my tolerance of you today and your forbearance of me tomorrow. Give and take. And the world goes round.

But in the marketplace, affection and sentiment give way to contracts and performance, because tolerance and forbearance are always subjective, often inefficient, and sometimes unproductive. Consequently, a very powerful concept developed over the millennia that is the nucleus of how marketplace participants minimize conflict and find common ground. In classically efficient marketplace style, I’ve reduced this concept to one word: expectations.

[Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Customer Care, e-business, Ethics / Trust, Leadership, Social Media, The Age of the Customer

Categories

  • Banking
  • Business Planning
  • Buying a Business
  • Cash Flow
  • Communication
  • Coronavirus
  • Corporate Culture
  • Customer Care
  • Cybersecurity
  • Demographics, Generations
  • e-business
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Ethics / Trust
  • Finance / Accounting / Taxes
  • Franchising / Licensing
  • Futuring
  • Global affairs
  • Government / Politics
  • Human Resources
  • Innovation / Creativity
  • Intellectual Property
  • Investors
  • Leadership
  • Legal
  • Management Fundamentals
  • Marketing / Branding / Advertising
  • Miscellaneous
  • Mobile Computing
  • National and Global Economy
  • Negotiating
  • Networking
  • Profitability
  • Sales / Sales Management
  • Social Media
  • Start Ups
  • Technology – Blockchain
  • Technology / General
  • The 3rd Ingredient
  • The Age of the Customer
  • Trade: Import, Export, Globalization
  • Uncategorized
  • Work-Life / Balance

Archives

  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017

Share this page with your friends and followers

© 2025 · Jim BlasingameContact Us