We are surrounded with wonders. Every day various technologies come to our help in the most amazing ways. And yet we often forget to value the hard work and the immense energy that was spent in making all this available to us. Our life is a fast-food drive in, we just want to eat in the fastest and easiest way without having to understand why are we hungry in the first place.

This is directly related to how education is perceived and executed and who are our first teachers.

When we are children we are very busy growing up. It’s no easy task, we have to live up to society standards and that’s why we are very selective in our choices. Which toys we like, which friends we like, which sports we like, which people we like, its all about new data processed at very high speed and most importantly “without prejudice”. A friend can become an enemy and then become a brother. A toy is inseparable one day, we hate it the other, you get the picture.

One day this kind of open minded social network is forced to stay put in a room with an old guy as the “guardian” for a HUGE amount of time…

You have a very well targeted audience with huge buying potential, LOCKED in a room with you for an almost unlimited and mostly UNINTERRUPTED time frame! (Seth Godin rejoice!)

Does that mean you can sell anything at any price, no questions asked ? Well that must be very well what we are thinking or we are really not that interested in selling, because if you look at how we try to teach our children during their most perceptive years its obvious we are doing a horrible job. But can we really afford to ?

Boring classes lead to attention deficit which lead to boredom associated with learning and boring class after class this information is written in stone. If learning is boring, so is working which directly relates to creativity and production loss of generation after generation. This is a direct economical, sociopolitical and humanitarian loss.

Whereas interesting classes, passionate teachers, awareness of what really is at stake would lead to convert those little minds in lifelong extremely loyal customers of knowledge! Creativity, productivity, health, awareness, everything would rise as a result of this with a huge direct impact on the worlds quality of life.

I remember for example being thought about how a battery works in terms of chemistry. Lots of formulas, lots of big words and history and names. It got a little interesting when a frog was involved but it was immediately replaced with big and boring charts. I think about it now, and how interesting it is actually to “know” with the real sense of the word how energy is created and preserved. What does energy mean. How it gives life to a toy. How it can be used in other areas of my life and the power that such knowledge yields. Its the concept of “energy” that needs to be sold first, and what a product it is to sell! But no, we don’t need that. All we want to do is use “energy” to put in a formula to derive some other constant in an “equation”. Splendid pitch right ?

Today’s marketers have amazing tools at their disposal. They track everything, from attention spans to eye balls. Crowd analysis, statistical charts. Behavioral analysis, direct marketing, personalized messages and many many more. All directly applicable to the subject.

I am sure if the best marketers in the world would have the chemistry book as a client, they would restructure every lesson into a great pitch. Use high tone voices full of passion while selling it and literally pour knowledge into your soul. They would recognize the combination of a great product, value the perfect audience and do everything to make the kill !

You probably think the kids don’t have the money to pay for such good marketers time. If you calculate the potential outcome of such an investment and the ROI you’ll see they are the richest and easiest client there is…

We have the tools, we have the means, we have the knowledge, we have the power and we have the time to do it. Why don’t we ?

Pick any topic out of a school book and turn it into a marketing pitch, complete of media planning, creative, script and all, share it with me if you like. You’ll realize that if you put the same passion you put into selling, lets say, hamburgers, you are holding in your hands the next Big Mac!

Sadok Kohen

It was 1972 when Michael Corleone told Sonny “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”. Companies where run from a top view perspective. The order chain was very well designed coming from the “Boss” trough all the ranks down to the simple soldiers. And if a few had to die in the process of making money, be it associates or customers, it was an acceptable loss. Machiavelli would proudly stand on top of the means that always justified the ends.

And then came Web 2.0. The rules suddenly changed. The business drive was taking its power from the most unusual source: its customers. And soon enough Machiavelli started to take a beating. Few examples:

• Digg kicked out a user for the very “acceptable” reason that the information the user posted was illegal, and deleted the post. The users revolted: Digg had to accept the chances to be sued.
• YouTube started to put advertisement in user videos. There was a huge protest, they had to stop and ask for permission.
• Google stopped its downloadable video service. Google lost some of its credibility.

To all of this instances the Godfather could have said: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”, but what would have happened then? Ironically he would have probably be trampled by an angry “mob” while buying fruits.

Take away the personal out of the Internet today and replace it with business: you get Web 1.o and then the burst…

So what could the Godfather 2.0 have told to Sonny ? Maybe: “Not Personal ? It’s STRICTLY personal!” and then opened a social networking site for mobsters.

What are your suggestions ?

Sadok Kohen