When I launched this blog it was an extension of my unrealistic interest in  wiping the power of manipulative people off of the face of the Earth.  (Hey, everyone needs a super power, right?)

There’s no place for people who knowingly lie, manipulate and take advantage of others. (Except maybe careers as attorneys, politicians or owners of certain multinational corporations.)

Though our DNA is against us when it comes to being easily fooled by manipulators, it doesn’t hurt to try to learn how to have better radar against the tactics of predators.

The pain and cost of being a part of the flock of sheep is high. It is a price the majority of the population pays, but we don’t have to. A little common sense goes a long way.

Seth Godin just wrote a post on manipulation that encapsulates some of the best ways to identify and beat the manipulators. Here’s a sample:

Here are a few general categories of behaviors that manipulators seek out:

* Believing something because you heard someone say it on a news show on cable TV.
* Being a child (or acting like one).
* Buying penny stocks.
* Repeating a mantra heard from a figurehead or leader of a tribe without considering whether it’s true.
* Trying to find a short cut to lose weight, make money or achieve some other long-term goal.
* Ignoring the scientific method and embracing unexamined traditional methods instead.

Read the full article here …it’s short and worth it!

The following photos are from QuickSprout.

Socialnomics has put together a video driving home the reality of how social media is fundamentally shifting how we communicate, connect and consume culture in the 21st century.  Share it with anyone who tells you that social media is a fad, technology is isolating people rather than facilitating face-to-face meetings, or that Twitter is stupid.

One of the most significant shifts that social media is driving is the spirit of collaboration rather than competition in some business spaces and in intellectual property systems.  These are both driving scalable innovations that will benefit everyone.  What you don’t know won’t hurt you, but it will leave you in the dust as life moves forward with amazing changes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

If you still don’t understand what social media is this will help:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you heard of Brian Keith Voiles? Probably not, but if you have eyes you’ve seen his ad campaigns and you probably even bought products that he created ad campaigns for.

Would you like to have the formula he gets paid $12,500 to put into use for Fortune 500 Companies?  Are you curious as to how this formula is used to influence your buying decisions?

Well then, today’s your lucky day, isn’t it? You’ll notice this formula whenever you read a sales letter or an ad. Remember that the key to writing a sales letter is that the job of every paragraph is to make the reader want to read the next paragraph.  Now that you know this you may catch yourself thinking of this when you hypnotically continue to watch an infomercial or read an enticing offer.

This is the secret skeleton used to write the most successful ads that grab your attention and motivate you to give out those credit card digits.

1. ATTENTION – Write a headline that GRABS your reader. Fear or curiosity are good places to start. For example: “Ex-Truck Driver Makes $21,815 a Month Doing What You’re Not”

2. INTEREST – List the benefits of your product or service. Acknowledge their problem while showing you have the solution. Show that you’ve been where they are and you can help them.

3. CREDIBILITY – Mention referrals and references of how others have benefited from your product or service.

4. PROVE – Show testimonials with full names and cities or countries. Offer a risk-free guarantee.

5. BELIEVABLE – Give your full contact information. Make it easy for them to buy with no hassles. Let them know why they should trust you.

6. SCARCITY – Have limited offers, special time sensitive sales, discounts on a few products in limited quantity.

7. ACTION – Ask for the sale. Make it simple.

8. WARN – Let them know the pain they’ll experience if they don’t use your product. i.e. If you’re selling a wrinkle cream let them know how dry their face will be and how much deeper their wrinkles will get without your product – if that’s true. Don’t lie.

9. NOW – Tell them why they should buy right now.

That’s it. Now you’ve got the skeleton that the best copywriters in the world use.  If you’re a marketer this won’t be gold, it will be platinum.

If you’re a consumer, this is a platinum shield to help you take a deep breath and question if you REALLY need that product or service before parting with your hard earned cash.  Read the formula a few times and you’ll start to notice it in the structure of commercials, the language of print advertising and the content of major marketing pitches that effectively get you to buy whatever they’re sellin’.

Sexy time.  It’s not always at the same habitual time like breakfast or teeth brushing time, right?  Or is it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Researchers at the University of Texas did a study in 2007 with 2,000 participants that revealed 237 reasons why people have sex.  (Really, they couldn’t stretch it to 250 to get a good round number?)  But, you won’t find much published information on when people have sex …unless you’re a marketer.

We all know that sex sells and subliminal advertising sells.  Therefore one would expect marketers and advertisers to be all over research on sex, and they are.  If you’d like to know when people have sex it’s very easy to find the answer.  Just open a magazine.

If you choose any magazine randomly and flip through the pages you will notice that most, if not all, of the ads for watches feature prominent watch faces set to 10:10.  Why?  Because statistically most people have sex at 10 pm.

Some of us are morning sex people, and some of us prefer sex earlier or later than 10 pm, but the research in marketing circles says that most of us like our sexy time when we turn the lights out at 10 pm.

The question is, “Does it work?”  Well, I’ve never looked at an ad for a watch and become aroused or felt compelled to buy a watch much less look at the one on my wrist.  But maybe I’m the exception.  What happens to you when you see a big, handsome bold-faced watch set to 10:10?

I bet you didn’t know you could learn so much from a watch ad in a magazine.  When they pay that much attention to try make a watch sexy just imagine what goes into trying to sell you a pair of sexy shoes or a brand new car.

…and after you open a magazine and see this, the answer is “Yes, I am psychic and I’m reading your mind.” (It’s a side effect of studying psychology, influence and persuasion.)

What happens when a popular ‘natural’ product company is bought out by a larger company?  Sometimes business as usual, but often times not.

Because larger companies have larger overheads and less efficient distribution systems they dilute the quality of the product.

Maybe it’s leaving out ingredients that made the product popular or maybe it’s adding chemical ingredients.  Either way, it’s good to read labels on products that you’ve thought were ‘natural’ to be sure.

Mercola.com just posted an article exposing the blind influence behind successful natural products that major corporations buy.  Here’s an excerpt:

Burt’s Bees lip balm was originally sold at independently owned health food stores. But more recently, Burt’s Bees products have appeared everywhere — in grocery stores, drug stores, and big-box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. That’s because Burt’s Bees is now owned by Clorox, a massive corporation that has historically cared very little about the environment.

Many of the products you may trust and respect for their independence and social responsibility are now owned by big corporations that are going out of their way to hide their link to the small, socially responsible brands.

Read the rest of the article here

Old school distraction advertising just doesn’t have the impact it used to …especially when used on new media.  Even the New York times is chiming in on the failure of advertising on social media sites.

As an avid participant in social networking and social media this concerns me only in that successful revenue models for all of those eyeballs has been elusive so far.  That means that Facebook could go away at some point because they never figure out how to make it profitable.

For advertisers this isn’t as bad as it looks.  The solution for advertisers is to join the conversation and stop spending most of your money on pitching ads.

Instead spend some of that money turning your employees into an army of reputation managers on Twitter and company bloggers while hiring outside experts to craft and drive a full fledged social media campaign.  You’ll spend a fraction of the cost for better and longer lasting results.

The truth about social media is that in dollars it is much less expensive than traditional media campaigns, but it does take quite a bit of time if you do it right.

One full time in house person can do an outstanding job for you.  Even having an employee devote two hours a day to Twitter, blogging, creating backlinks, participating in forums, etc. can have a meaningful impact on your bottom line.

If you’re still wondering if it’s worth the time and money to invest in building your brand online consider two things.  One: Dell made $1 Million on Twitter.  Two: Your customers live and talk about you to others online, not on TV, radio or magazines so if you’re not where they are what’s the future of your company going to look like?

Have you watched your local nightly news lately?  Probably not if you’re like most Americans under the age of 61, but you’ll still get my point.  I’m guessing you’ve watched more financial news in the last month than usual in reaction to fear around money, stocks and the economy in general.

I accidentally saw the first few minutes of local news recently and noticed that it looked just like it did when I was a kid and my parents watched it.  They have the same formula as always: An intro with visuals that include flashing police car or fire truck lights and an audio track of a reporter talking in that ridiculous reporter-sing-song voice telling you that the content they’re sharing is VERY important and significant.  If they’re lucky they can splice some security camera footage into the piece too for an extra scary effect.

I’m sure they still cover the weather at exactly 17 minutes after the hour too, but for the sake of this post we’ll stick with the intro.  News, whether it is on broadcast or cable television, on the web or in newspapers, generally leads with some story aimed at reminding you that the world is not a safe place.

It’s probably even a little worse since they created the oft-used phrase, “In a post-9/11 world…”  The truth is that we don’t live in a country where suicide bombers are blowing up cafes and you’re more likely to get hit by lightning or win the lottery without a ticket than to be harmed by a terrorist in America.

This truth is exactly the same now as it was 5 years or 50 years before 9/11.  That’s just a fact and it has nothing to do with how much our president has or has not protected us or that you aren’t allowed to carry a regular sized can of shaving cream on to an airplane anymore.

It has to do with the low number of terrorists who have the inclination or means to harm us.  We don’t live in Columbia or Israel where terrorist violence is a reality. We live in America where impoverished drug addicts with guns are actually a bigger threat than terrorists.  And when was the last time you or someone you love was car jacked by a crack addict or directly threatened by a terrorist?  That’s my point.

Back to the media, it’s not that they like to scare people.  (At least I hope not.)  It’s because consumers are reactionary creatures that respond to emotional content.  That’s also why they always ask the asinine question of, “How do you feel?” to the woman whose son got killed an hour ago in a car accident or the guy who made the 3 point shot to win the basketball game.

Have these interviewees ever given a surprising answer even once in the history of the world?  Nope.  Guess what, the guy whose house burned down says “I’m in shock and upset that I lost everything, but I’m grateful that my family made it out in time.”  Surprise!  You never here him say, “I’m excited and going to Disneyland on the insurance money.  It’s a godsend that my shack is gone and I can cash in!”

The fact that many news consumers forget is that the news is a product.  Therefore, if you study advertising you’ll understand why the product of news is sold with the same methods as selling the product of beer or the product of voting for a politician.

Consumers are emotional creatures that unconsciously react to advertising.  Add to this fact that people react more strongly to negative advertising than positive advertising.  If my news program makes you afraid by making you think crime is up it concurrently attracts you to watch my news because you think I’ll give you information on what’s happening that will make you feel safer.

I create the problem that you should be afraid while positioning myself as your answer to feel safer.  It’s the same schtick for self help gurus who tell you they have the answer for your health, relationship and money issues.  The day you feel safe is the day you lose dependence on being a daily news consumer and the day you believe your life is not broken you lose the desire to spend money on books, CDs and seminars to fix yourself.

Ironically, crime in America has consistently been going down for well over a decade even though most people who regularly consume news think it’s always going up.  If you see a petty crime reported as the lead story every night the images of flashing lights repeated daily is what your brain remembers.

Perception is reality when you’re being blindly influenced.  If they want good ratings they need to give you a perceived threat so you’ll tune in to “stay informed.”  It may be worthwhile to question how informed you really become blindly consuming what others determine is “news.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

The other night I watched the film Bigger, Stronger, Faster which is just out on DVD.  What a quintessential American film.

The main question of the film is, “Is it cheating if everyone is doing it?”  This question comes from filmmaker Chris Bell’s life of believing that he could attain a Schwartennegeresque body without using anabolic steroids.  His brothers and countless others have built massively muscular physiques on steroids after waking up from the blind influence of believing that their boyhood heroes like Sylvester Stallone and Hulk Hogan were lying about building muscular bodies through nutrition, exercise and and natural supplements.

Another issue is that most performance-enhancing supplements are sold by putting pictures of people on steroids on the packaging and in the marketing and advertising campaigns.  It’s hilarious to learn how “before” and “after” pictures are often photographed on the same day and then digitally altered.  It’s blind influence to the highest degree.

Today steroids in high school locker rooms are consider to be a big problem.  Is it a problem?  Why are steroids not okay and Ritalin is okay when Ritalin killed 186 people between 1990 and 2000 and according to this film anabolic steroids have only killed 3 people in history?

Underlying this quest for the perfect body is the false American dream propelled by a win-at-all-cost culture that only considers it cheating if you get caught. Though performance-enhancing drugs are the focus, it is easy to see how this belief system flows through American policies and practices in politics, the military-industrial complex, sports, business, education, etc.

Our current economic collapse reflects how the lie of “If you work hard and play by the rules you’ll prosper in America” has infected our society.  Not that this can’t be true, but looking around at Wall Street, Enron, O.J. Simpson and their ilk, it appears that cheaters generally have a better shot at enjoying larger amounts of wealth and power …unless they get caught.

It’s a sad commentary on humanity, because this isn’t just how Americans operate, that most people seem to spin a roulette wheel around integrity.  We all lie, cheat and misrepresent to varying degrees.  Individually we make up lines of what is acceptable and what is not.

Is it okay to cheat on a college test but not to lie about an extra-marital affair?  Is it okay to use insider information to prosper financially but not okay to lie on your taxes?  Is it okay to tell your girlfriend she looks great when you think she has horrible taste in clothes and makeup?  Is it okay to lie about your employment history on your resume?  Is it okay to pretend there’s a Santa Claus?

It’s all subjective and worth acknowledging to ourselves how we have our own ways of cheating.  The funniest ways are how we lie to ourselves and the most dangerous ways are how we lie about ourselves.  Before any of us point fingers at others it’s a good idea to look in the mirror to see how we cheat and whether or not we think it’s okay.

After watching Bigger, Stronger, Faster you’ll see that determining whether or not it’s okay to lie or cheat to get ahead in life is a very grey area.