LeBron: It's not the Heat, it's the Stupidity.

I purposely waited a day before posting thoughts about this whole LeBron debacle so I could hear what the coverage of the Dallas Maverick's NBA Championship victory would be. They've barely been mentioned. LeBron sure has though.

There's a simple reason for it. LeBron set the bar very high and couldn't jump over it when it counted. The guy is a remarkable player, and let's be fair, he never had much of a title shot with Cleveland. So he left for greener pastures. I know they're greener because LeBron said they were. With the Heat, the heat would be off him for no championship rings on his fingers.

Still no rings. The Mavericks beat the Heat 4-2. They won because they scored more points than the Heat. They won because they won more games than the Heat. They won because they're a better team because they played as a team.

A concept LeBron James has yet to grasp. Maybe he should have stayed more than one year in college. Maybe he should stop listening to an obvious group of slobbering followers who tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. LeBron needs to be reminded that when he goes to the bathroom, he leaves a detectable odor. He's uh, human.

The bar got raised a bunch when, with the aid of a certain 24/7 multi channel sports monolith aka "The Mother Ship" he announced his decision to blow off Cleveland for Miami on national television. Then came the prancing roll-out of the new-look Heat. Lots of high expectations and high fives which raised the bar only further. Start planning that victory parade!

**Update** Parade moved to Dallas!

Then came his Twitter handle; @KingJames. King? All that was left for LeBron was to single-handedly win the NBA Championship, which essentially he guaranteed. Miami fans should have asked for a money back guarantee.

So Sunday night, just about the entire nation rooted for the gritty Mavs to knock LeBron and the Heat down a peg. Mission accomplished.

There not only has to be a morning after, there was a morning after and the talk was all LeBron all the time. About how he failed and the rest of of us we're supposed to get a life.

Crow with humble pie for dessert are not the best of meals. Hopefully LeBron will remember how bad it tasted.  Hopefully kids and the grown-ups that cover sports, will learn that sports, regardless of the level is about team.

Congrats to the Mavs. They won their rings the old fashioned way. They earned them. As a team.

Brian Olson
Founder/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations.

Hangin' with the Greatest Generation

It was Tom Brokaw who coined the phrase, "The Greatest Generation"  to describe the men and women who won WWII, then went on with the business of building America.

We've all met them. They're family members, friends and neighbors. Thankfully many are still around to share their stories. But we're losing them quickly. I have several favorites, not the least of which is my late father, Flying Officer L. "Hardy" Olson who flew with the RCAF during the war. He flew Wellington Bombers and was set to transition to the Lancaster Bomber for the invasion of Japan. No one was happier than he when Paul Tibbets and the crew of the Enola Gay dropped, as my dad called it, "The Big Cookie" over Hiroshima that led to the end of the war. The most conservative efforts had the invasion costing a million Allied casualties. One mission that saved a million.

In 1996 I had a chance to meet Paul Tibbets along with fellow crew members bombardier Tom Ferebee, navigator "Dutch" Van Kirk and radio operator Richard Nelson. They autographed a poster of the Enola Gay which hangs proudly in my office. Nice guys all, no swagger or bravado, just men who stepped up and carried out the mission that ended the war. I thanked them all on behalf of my dad for what they did. Tibbets died a few years later. He rests in an unmarked grave as it was feared it would be desecrated by some crackpot nut job. Not everyone understands the price of freedom.

My father-in-law George Portz served aboard the USS Missouri and was aboard for the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Harbor. Ceremonies made possible by the Hiroshima mission. Yep, a great generation.

Some years later, I was doing PR connected with the HBO series "Band of Brothers" and met one of the real soldiers profiled in the production. Carwood Lipton served with the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles." He told me he weighed 140 pounds when he jumped behind enemy lines on D-Day carrying 160 pounds of equipment.  I asked him, that if our nation was threatened again, would kids his age today step up like he did. "Absolutely," was his reply.

We shot the interview on September 10, 2001. My nephew just got back from a tour in Afghanistan serving with the 101st Airborne.

At Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, I volunteer with a gentleman named Saul Nova. Saul flew P-38's in the Pacific during WWII. (He was also qualified on the P-51 and B-25) He's 87 and sharp as a tack. A gentle and shy man. Again, no swagger, he just did his job when his country called.

This past Tuesday, I visited with Newell Moy at Centennial Airport where the EAA and Wings Museum are hosting the visit of the B-17 bomber, "Aluminum Overcast." Newell enlisted in 1939 before we got involved in the war. He later flew B-17's over Europe when we did. He's 90 and like Saul, plenty sharp. His favorite story involved him flying American POW's back home to America. His boss was Jimmy Doolittle. 
 
A nice man, part of a great generation. An honor to meet them, an honor to get to know them and we as a nation simply can't honor them enough. Nor ever forget them. Ever.

Brian Olson
Founder/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations

Aluminum Overcast-EXPERIENCE history aboard a B-17 Bomber

We just honored those who made the supreme sacrifice for our freedom this past Memorial Day. Much attention was focused  "The Greatest Generation" who served during World War II on land, sea and air.

This coming week you can both honor those who flew dangerous air missions during the war and at the same time see and feel what it was like for those brave young fliers. Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum will be hosting EAA's Aluminum Overcast, restored WWII bomber. Starting next week you'll see it over the skies in and around Centennial Airport. Only a very few remain flying.

It's a magnificent aircraft and while seeing it is incredible, flying inside the aircraft is a truly unique experience. Flights are open to the public and as you climb aboard, imagine what it was like to be an 18 year old kid, going out on a mission with the odds stacked very much against you returning alive. During a mission over Europe, temperatures inside the aircraft could be as cold at 35 below zero. All the way to the target and back, you'd be under attack from enemy fighters, flak or both.

Words can't describe the experience. But flying aboard this B-17 at least gives you an opportunity to sense what it was all about. The best part of the flight is you have access to just about all areas of the plane during your flight including the bomb bay, flight deck, the nose of the aircraft where the view is incredible and several of the air gunner positions.

Aluminum Overcast will only be here a few short days. Take it from me, it's a flight you'll remember the rest of your life.

If I still haven't convinced you, watch this video shot last year.

Hope to see you on a flight!

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant

Conversation Starters Public Relations

"We start the conversation about you"

The FDA, Facebook and Pharma. A lot of PF'n around!

Social Media is all the rage, unless you're in the pharmaceutical industry and waiting while the Food and Drug Administration figures out rules as to what Pharma can and can't post using Social Media.

Right now the FDA's policy is "Hurry up and wait" for a policy. There is a line, but it's a blurry one so Facebook at least, is trying to clear it up. 

Gnerally,  the pharmaceutical industry has been hesitant to get into Social Media, fearing that if they develop successful strategies using the medium, the FDA will come a long and change the rules after the game has started.

Some companies using Facebook want the ability to delete comments from their posts. Facebook says that's not the way it works. If you post, you live with the comments which could be good or bad. (Note to Pharma: Engage your critics)

Frankly, it's all very confusing. Pharma too often gets a bad rap, and Social Media would be a great way for for the industry to share its story, about the huge amounts of money it spends on research and the very lengthy clinical trials involved before a drug can even get to market. The industry jumps through more bureaucratic hoops than acrobats at cirque du soleil.

The best way to make people aware is to make them--aware. Meanwhile the FDA fiddles and faddles which leaves me flabbergasted. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that 8 out of 10 Americans go online for health information. Websites like our own client, Chemo101.com provide valuable and well researched information. Knowledge is empowerment.

Social Media is a great way to both educate and engage readers. It's way past time for the FDA to either lead or get out of the way.

Brian Olson
Founder/Consultant

Conversation Starters Public Relations

If you don't want to be quoted, don't say it.

Most of us have seen pictures of a ship launch. It's a grand affair. It starts with the smashing of a champagne bottle on the bow of the ship, then it gracefully slides down into the water and as it floats on that water we hear the sounds of applause. Everything goes according to plan.

Imagine however, if the ship just continued to slide into the water, then went under the water. It's what may have happened to the Newt Gingrich Presidential Campaign. It started out with fanfare, both traditional and social media announced the launch then the message that followed may have sunk the ship.

As Alexander Burns writes in Politico, the campaign is now fighting for its life.


Loose lips do indeed sink ships. It all started during an interview between Gingrich and David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press." Gingrich called his own party's Medicare reform plan "Radical." It was one of many gaffes and the response from his own party for both immediate and brutal as outlined in the Burns' Politico analysis. "Main Street" in key battle state Iowa didn't think much of it easier as seen in this video that went viral as the sharks circled the political waters. Gingrich broke Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment of politics.

I've talked before, and will talk now that it's not the communication pipeline that matters, but what you put into that pipeline. If the content is bad going in, it's even worse coming out. And as Burns points out, the campaign was caught flat-footed in trying to respond. No crisis management plan.

Whammy followed by whammy. Which makes it a double whammy.

The Gingrich campaign found out the hard way that bad news spreads at the speed of light these days. What's most surprising is they didn't seem to understand that going in.

Content dear friends. It's all about content. If your crisis management plan is back-pedaling, you only go backwards. If you don't want to be quoted, don't say it.

What you say can, and will be used against you. Over and over and over.....

Brian Olson
Founder/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations

We trust, but still need to verify.

I have no doubt the Bin Laden is dead. I also don't care to see a picture of him with his head blown off. But I at least, want independent verification that he is indeed--dead.

By deciding not to release photographs of the body, the administration has made murky became murkier.A few Senators thought they'd seen real pictures which turned out to be fake. It can only get worse.

As one story said, there are no pictures but thousands of words. Herein lies the problem.

At the very least, why not invite a non-partisan panel of members of Congress and the media to look at the pictures and the DNA evidence?  They, alongside the President, could then speak to us and confirm everything and put the whole thing to rest.

There are conspiracy theorists, who regardless of what they see or won't see, still won't believe it. But after all we've gone through as a nation since 9-11, we need more from the administration that to take their word for it. By having independent observers in, we don't compromise security of any kind and no one needs to be allowed to take copies of the picture with them.

We've seen too often pictures of the planes flying into the twin towers. Every news story about the decision not to show pictures of a dead Bin Laden shows file pictures/video of Bin Laden when he was alive. So we keep on seeing Bin Laden over and over.

It's nice of the President to go to Ground Zero today. 

But in this case, trust comes up short. 99.9% isn't enough. 100% proof. Please.

Brian Olson

Conversation Starters Public Relations

How did you get THE news?

Like we did on 9-11, we'll remember where we were when we got the news of Bin Laden being killed. Unlike 9-11, the way we got the news was far different.

We actually got the word at our house in a decidedly analog way. We were watching a show via DVR and got a phone call about it from our daughter. We quickly switched to live TV, then pulled out our iPad and smartphone.

It turns out the story actually broke on Twitter as someone who was living near the Bin Laden compound start tweeting when he first heard the sounds of gunfire and helicopters.

The tweet heard 'round the world.

The speed and huge amount of posts on Facebook and Twitter was phenomenal. As the President's address was pushed back more and more, Social Media became the source for news with reporters posting even before their stories cleared traditional broadcast. I heard a report this morning that Twitter traffic about Bin Laden peaked at 3-thousand posts per second.

One network posting on Facebook confirming  Bin Laden's death had hundreds of "Likes" within seconds of being posted. A few minutes later the post had over 20-thousand.

The most telling proof of the power and speed of Social Media came from footage shown as people got the word at a baseball game.  Fans checking their phones got the news, and the word quickly spread. It must have been weird for the players on the field to understand why the" USA!" chants began.

Was there misinformation? Yes. But most of what was posted was solid and backed up when we heard the President's remarks. Through it all, we shared ideas, shared posts and spread the news just like we told friends about the attacks on 9-11. Although back then it was by phone and e-mail.

One constant are the images from both events. For me it was the video of the 2nd plane hitting the tower. Sunday night it was people gathered in front of the White House singing our national anthem.

But how we got the news 10 years ago versus now changed and empowered us. We were part of the conversation, we helped spread the news.

Brian Olson
Founder/Consultant

Conversation Starters Public Relations