Check out this “Happy Hunting” guide from Dentyne gum, designed to help women land men, and men land women. OK, icky enough. But then check out the “backstory” section, where they advise women to memorize a made-up story about being a professional cheerleader, or being in a commercial as a kid; and guys to fake having been a caddy on a PGA tour, or to say they once played a dead guy on CSI. So, we’re all so boring we have to lie about who we are and what we’ve done to get someone interested? As Susan on A Bird’s Eye View says, “Are they nuts? Or am I? Are people seriously interested in meeting potential dates whose conversations are built on a totally phony premise?”

Can you imagine doing this at a networking event, just making up stuff to catch someone’s attention, like, say, you planned a national political convention, or the Superbowl, or whatever? So they’re impressed, and they call you, and they want to hire you or work with you in some way. At what point do you ‘fess up, in either your personal or professional life? OK, so I understand that the Dentyne thing is supposed to be funny and viral, but it is such a commentary on the value of flash over substance in our society that I couldn’t let it pass by unremarked.

This one will, without a doubt, somewhere, somehow come back to bite you. I know people do pad their resumes, and pump up their experiences to sound more interesting than perhaps they were, so caveat emptor, folks. While I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my time, I never did this one. I guess I’m lucky in that every time I’ve done something stupid, I’ve been caught, usually in the most embarrassing way possible. Every time. It’s a great incentive not to go there—honest.

Bruce Schneier has posted some of his favorite airline security cartoons, and invited readers to chime in with theirs. My favorites among those listed so far are:

security snakes, boarding pass, please, and dumb bombs.

Someone sent me this poem from Marge Piercy’s Circles on the Water, and it is so perfect for today’s celebration of workers here in the U.S.:

To be of use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Poem: “To be of use” by Marge Piercy from Circles on the Water. ©
Alfred A. Knopf. From The Writers Almanac

Check out this mid-1960s Braniff ad about the future of air travel. I’m not sure which I find scarier, the line: “You don’t have to carry a passport, because a computer already knows more about you than you do,” or those weird egg-like seats. I like the idea of being able to set your mood to a certain level, though. And the idea that you could just push a button and chow appears. Unfortunately, the reality is oh so much different!

Would anyone right now even be willing to hazard a guess at the future of air travel?

(Via IFTF’s Future Now.)

We all know that some things just ooze ego, and we like to use those things at meetings to make attendees feel important. It’s kind of like that ad for Volkswagen where people in various types of cars shout things like, “because my daddy never hugged me” and “because I’m compensating for my shortcomings.” Some things just make people feel important—but how do you know for sure what the best ego-stokers are?

Volkswagon, in what I think is a pretty brilliant marketing campaign, came up with Ego Emissions Index, a site that assigns ego-ratings to just about everything. While so far it seems to only put ego emissions ratings by brand on cars, if your meeting is in Las Vegas, you’ll be at an ego-tastic 98-EE-rated place. L.A. isn’t far behind, at 94. And if you hold a reception at an art gallery, you’re appealing to a whopping 98 EE crowd. What I don’t understand is why motels get a 52 EE label, while hotels, which I think of as more appealing to the egotists among us, are rated lower at 49. Meetings get a 49 EE, too.

If you don’t like what you see, you can vote your opinion, or add a new thing to be rated. Go on, it’s a blast!

Here’s a great resource for planners of meetings for people with disabilities (which is just about everyone, I’d guess), brought to you by the Treasury Board of Canada.

Thanks to the MiForum listserv for the pointer.

There’s a new kid in town when it comes to finding the lowest airfares. Called Farecast, it finds cheap fares between specific cities, but the really cool part is that it also can tell you whether you should buy now, or hold off a bit because the cost is likely to drop. It still just covers major airports, but likely will expand to the rest of the market as time goes on.

Thanks to Gary for the pointer!