And now a word from the Greatest Generation

I was fortunate to hear a presentation this past Saturday morning by Lt. Col (ret) J.G. Hook. He was a Bombardier in WWII with the 2nd Bomb Group/15th Air Force based in Foggia, Italy. The unit flew B-17's which I hadn't realized flew out of Italy as well as England.

As Hook quipped, "8th Air Force (Based in England) had better PR than we did." He added it didn't hurt that the actor Clark Gable and the band leader Glenn Miller served with 8th Air Force.

At 85 years young, Hook is sharp as a tack and his stories were often humorous, and at the same time, sobering.

His unit didn't even have barracks. They slept in tents. With basic pay along with flight and hazard pay he made about 200 bucks a month. But it was his stories about the missions that told the story representative of the thousands who served, fought and often died.

The B-17's flew missions at about 30,000 feet. Temperatures were -30 to -40 degrees. Crews wore a flight suit, then electrically heated boots and outer gear over that. Then came the May West life preserver, a chest-mounted parachute followed by a flak jacket. A good 70 pounds (if not more) of flight gear.

On his first mission the aircraft was hit by flak, seriously wounding the navigator. Hook and another crew member knew only to put sulfa on the wound then a pressure bandage. The navigator survived, Hook won an the Air Medal for his efforts.

On his next mission, after completing their bomb run, one of the bombs was hung up in the bomb rack. The last thing you wanted to do was return to base with a bomb hanging in the bomb bay. So Hook made his way back to the bomb bay. There's a narrow cat walk between the bomb racks, maybe 6 inches wide on which he had to stand. Below him, looking through the open bomb bay doors, 30,000 feet of nothing. He was able to take a hammer and screw driver and work the bomb loose.

On another mission he got a few shots off at a German ME 262 jet. He missed but ended up burning out the gun barrel when the gun jammed. He was later billed 7 bucks for the barrel.

Another day at the office. Hook, at the time, was just 19 years old.

He made a key point about fighting the war. "It wasn't romantic," he said. It was scary and very dangerous. Over 46,000 B-17 aircrew were either killed or injured during the war. Hook made it through.

Being escorted to and from the target by the Tuskegee Airmen might have helped.

Hook later went on to teach school in the Denver area for 36 years before retiring. A life well-lived with much to come. His story is typical of all those of the Greatest Generation. A job needed to be done. They did it, then came home and helped build America.

Hook pointed out that WWII vets are passing away at a rate of over one-thousand a day. Let's never, ever forget what they did in the air, on the ground and at sea.

My father flew bombers in WWII. My father-in-law served aboard the USS Missouri. Both are gone, but not forgotten.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We start the conversation about you"

Friday Misc.

D-Day plus one.

Anyone NOT watch "The Decision" live from Greenwich, CT last night? I thought so. It's been interesting to see/hear/read the view from the cheap seats this morning. Mostly negative.

But three things stand out for me:

1. It remains the lead locally and nationally.
2. They spelled both LeBron's and ESPN's names right.
3. According to reports it was the most watched show on TV last night.

Mission accomplished.

Multi-tasking, make that focusing.

My career in public relations up until now has been having just one client, as in the folks who signed my paycheck. Starting my own firm is a whole new ballgame. Yesterday was a good example. It started with a 10am meeting with John Flerage, who is the Democratic Congressional Candidate in the Colorado 6th. Then came a video shoot with Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver. When I got back from that, it was time to open a screen play to work on a media release for the Hallmark Channel promoting an upcoming movie. (Can't share the plot with you right now but it's very good!)

All three very different situations requiring different focus and strategies. When I was a field producer for CONUS Communications, I had 26 different stations that I worked with. It was good preparation for what I'm doing now.

Cockpit Demo Day.

Every wonder what it's like to sit in the cockpit of a real jet fighter, corporate jet or airliner? Wonder no more. Tomorrow is Cockpit Demo Day at Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Brian Olson
Start the Conversations LLC
"We get the conversation started about you"

Excess excess.

LeBron James announces tonight where he'll play next year. Unlike Kevin Durant who announced his new deal with Oklahoma City via Twitter, James announces his decision in a live prime-prime time one hour special on ESPN.

Great Expectations Redux.

To his credit, all the advertising revenue from tonight's "event" goes to Boys & Girls Clubs of America. As I understand it, the announcement will be made at a Boys & Girls Club in Greenwich, CT. I begin shooting a marketing video for Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver today. As BGCMD says, it's a positive place for kids. Here's to all the money raised tonight making a positive difference for great kids. That's a good thing.

But is a one-hour special to say "I'm going to play for (insert city here) and for (insert amount here) dollars" a bit excessive? It's all a matter of perception. If you're a fanatic NBA fan, not a bit. If you're not, yes it is. Remember what I've posted about "Perception is Reality" here earlier.

Then this paper chase tidbit from USA TODAY. It impacts small businesses like Conversation Starters and non-profit organizations including the ones I love to support including Boys & Girls Clubs and the Jefferson County Action Center.

Effective next year, we all have to file a 1099 with the IRS anytime we buy anything from a vendor in excess of $600. Nothing like making things easier for all of us struggling to get something off the ground or helping kids and the hungry.

What's really weird about this, is the new rules are part of the new Health Care Legislation! I guess that's why the bill called for the hiring of thousands of new IRS agents.

As Gomer Pyle would say..."Soo-prise...Soo-prise!"

A bit excessive I'd say. Actually I just did.

Excess excess. It gets in the way of success in so many ways.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We get the conversation started about you"

News you can use.

A few online articles caught my attention this morning that I want to share with you. The first is from columnist Al Lewis of Dow Jones Newswires. I've known Al for several years and frankly have no idea what his personal politics are But his points about the recent IPO of Tesla Motors are biting...and hit the mark. He's an equal opportunity shamer and goodness knows there's plenty of shame to go around these days.

Al has an uncanny way of sorting through the hype and delivering facts in a way that make you think...and laugh at the same time. (Ok, maybe cry too)

I should note that I read Al's column on my iPad,* later switching over to this article on Bloomberg Businessweek about the growing use of the device by companies like Wells Fargo and SAP. It took some of these companies years to figure out the iPhone was a must-have for staffers. It took them just weeks to start issuing iPads.

It's no wonder when you see the growing number of iPad Aps that are strictly for business. I recently was talking with a realtor who has a PC-based business and while liking the iPad, was hesitant to buy one because of compatibility. I think she'd like Remote Desktop.

Personally I'm finding more and more business uses for my iPad. Not the least of which it being a great way to demo videos and the like to clients. It's handy in a one-on-one session, and for larger groups you just plug it into a video projector.

Anyways, as Ellen Degeneres would say, a few articles worth sharing with you this morning.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We get the conversation started about you!"
* (I own Apple Stock)

No PR for Haiti

Remember Haiti? It was in all the papers. For awhile. Then came that dang mess in the Gulf. From Page One to nothing.

My son-in-law just returned from a mission trip to Haiti. My daughter leaves for a similar trip later this month.

There is no more unique nor poorer country in the hemisphere. What's most interesting is that my son-in-law hasn't said or posted much about his experience there. I'm guessing he's still letting the experience sink in and I have no doubt he will share his story in a thoughtful and impactful way when the time is right. He did tell me yesterday that the earthquake damage in Port au Prince is beyond description.

Learning about preparations for their trips did teach me one thing. You just don't show up in Haiti and offer to help. The rules are pretty strict and for good reason. It remains a dangerous place, the government or what passes for government, is corrupt and not capable of doing much. The aid groups working there have learned from experience what to do, and more importantly what not to do.

The humanitarian need remains huge. The good news is there are groups who are well trained to deal with what needs to be done now and moving forward. Even better are the good people willing to journey to Haiti to accomplish it all.

As to the point of this blog, it's a shame that coverage of Haiti has gone from wall to wall to nothing. Yes, there is news being made elsewhere, but Haiti is an on-going problem that has festered for over a century. There are stories still to be told. Many stories. Here's to the media returning to do just that.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We get the conversation started about you."

For immediate release: In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Lies, pants, polls and fact-checking

I came came across this article on the Politico website this morning. It brings new meaning to the old saying about a lie making it half-way around the world before truth has a chance to put its pants on.

At issue is the accuracy or lack thereof, of political polls. An hour doesn't go by without out poll results about this political race or issue being released with the numbers being breathlessly read on air or posted on the Internet.

They have to be accurate right? I mean it's a POLL! As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast my friend."

One of the most watched races this political primary season was the Democratic primary campaign for Senate in Arkansas. Incumbent Blanche Lincoln was all but written off because polls said she was trailing challenger Bill Halter.

"Halter Surges!"

Turns out the poll data may not only have been bad, but deliberately manipulated. Lincoln of course, ended up winning, "surprising" the very same people who reported/wrote/blogged she was going to lose.

"DEWEY WINS!" 2.0.

As a journalist, I never liked polls. At best they were a momentary snapshot from a sample of a few hundred claiming to represent the views of thousands. There are, to be fair, solid and respected pollsters.

But in this 24-7 news environment and (mis)information spread at the speed of light on the Internet, everyone needs to take a moment, take a deep breath and do a little fact checking.

Before the advent of what we know now as the Internet, my friend, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson told me, "Show me two people with a mimeograph machine and I'll show you a lobby group." An analog description that works just as well in today's digital world.

It's easy for any group or cause to create an official looking website, post polls or anything else and as long as one person believes it and shares it, truth might as well not even get out of bed.

It worked, almost, in Arkansas.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We get the conversation started about you!"