The AIDS of Social Media

This being early 2012, the media has finally dispensed with the annual cavalcades of the previous year's events, allowing them to turn their attention to doing what they do best: spreading fear and doubt about our collective future. Personally, I'm an optimist. I'm the guy who walks into a room full of horse manure determined to find a pony. So while I choose to look beyond the press's propaganda in search of sunlight, I fully understand that the road to redemption can take you through some pretty dark places.

At the moment, the darling on everyone's dance card seems to be social media, the phenomenon which is really nothing new save for its technological ability to intrude on your privacy, increase the rate of human polarization and destroy people's ability to form real human relationships while simultaneously compromising access to your bank account.

Sure, Facebook is enjoying all kinds of popularity right about now, but something tells me its success has less to do with its inherent benefits and more to do with the laggard economy: After all, if you've been out of work for a few years, Facebook is a wonderful way to fill your spare time. What happens when the economy fully recovers is yet to be seen, but for my money, I'm betting Facebook takes a serious dive the minute the employment rate takes a substantial leap.

Until then, however, millions of people follow the Facebook faithful, like lambs to the slaughter, completely unaware that every keystroke is recorded, saved and searchable even after they think every one of them has been deleted. Like those tattoos of a foolish, carefree youth, bad data never really goes away. It sticks around for life and pops up in the oddest, ill-timed places. Background checks revealing other-than-laudable photos and stories continue to derail the most promising employment interviews. But that's not the worst of it. This just might be:

I'm watching an entire generation of digitally-dominated young people completely stranded by social polarization. The technology that contends to "bring people together" in fact does just the opposite. Not too long ago, for example, people actually socialized and were motivated to do so. There was no internet, so there wasn't nearly as much to keep you home, exploring the world from your video screen. If you wanted to meet someone, you called them on the phone and talked to them in real time. If you hoped to meet someone, you went to a library where people didn't download books. If you wanted to thank someone, you sent a real, handwritten note through the mail. And if you wanted to see someone, you made plans to go do something together, rather than chat about it through a video screen.

Thanks to digital technology, nobody has to do anything with anyone else any more. You can download books to your Kindle and movies to your own living room, eliminating the need to sit in a crowded theater. Sadly, the chance for bumping into that romantic stranger you've been dreaming about has been eliminated, as well. In fact, the more you look around, the fewer opportunities you can find for genuine human interaction. You can thank social media for that. You can also thank social media not only for an increase in lonely, depressed people, but for propagating a culture in which those poor, unfortunate saps are raised without any idea of how to interact with other people in real life. Newsflash: Real human beings don't react to your pointing and clicking.

I live in a world where thousands of false prophets spread gospels about the deliverance of social media. They point to the Arab Spring as evidence of social media's great benefits to mankind. Well, I'm calling all those prophets out with a prophecy of my own that spells the doom of social media's dominance. And it goes something like this:

History has proven repeatedly that among nature's greatest forces, few compare to the power of the human heart. There are a lot -- and I mean a lot -- of unfulfilled people out there, yearning to feel the warmth of others, but who remain too enslaved to the intimidation proffered by technology, specifically social media. So they remain in their designated cubicles, writhing in their loneliness, yearning for a reason to justify an escape. The problem is that two entire generations have been undermined in their attempts to seek personal fulfillment. They've been led to believe that social media is an acceptable substitute for genuine human interaction.

Well, it isn't. Not for the high school kids waiting desperately to go out on a date and not for any of my clients, each of whom continues to insist I visit them in their offices rather than "do the meeting by Skype."

So where and how does this all end? The way most social dynamics do: Catastrophic fear.

Most people, for example, believe that AIDS is an easy-to-contract, 100% fatal disease. Ask any knowledgeable medical authority, however, and he'll tell you that AIDS, in terms of contagion, is actually more difficult to contract than a great number of diseases. That's not to say you shouldn't be careful with what you do and with whom you do it. What it does say, is that what really powered the efforts to control and hopefully eradicate AIDS was the fear it's been tagged with. Gonorrhea and syphilis are far easier to contract than AIDS, but neither are fatal, so they don't get as much air play. But AIDS is a "killer" that scares the hell out of people. Everyone knows someone who's died of AIDS, so its story always gets on the front page.

My point here is that these days, for things to really change, they have to be tagged with serious fear. And that's what's going to bring down social media. It's only a matter of time until Facebook (or something similar) becomes massively infected with one or more viruses that will devastate hundreds of millions of users' accounts, and accordingly, their lives. In a relatively few short seconds, all of the "sharing of data" guarded by supposedly "secure technology" that "stores its data in the cloud" will turn into just so much digital sludge, infesting and mutating data with effects that reach far beyond users' Facebook pages. It's not hard to imagine bank accounts, real estate records, medical data, personal information and more either damaged, destroyed -- or worse yet -- made publicly available to anyone, anywhere, any time.

That's the kind of nuclear meltdown that changes people's habits. That's where social media will hit the wall. And hopefully, that's when human beings will take back their lives and relationships. Not because they want to, but because they'll finally have a reason to justify wanting to.

Think it can't happen? Fine. Keep denying your humanity and entrusting your life to unsupervised algorithms. But you've been warned. And wearing a condom isn't going to save you.

Branding Rescues America

As the United States of America continues its journey through its dark, dreary depression (I know, it's technically a recession, but I'm actually referring to its citizens' states of mind), it seems no political, economic or social leaders can come up with any practical solutions to our problems. By practical, I mean something other than a scare tactic or a distraction. Let's face it, terrorism, illegal immigration, Obama's birth certificate and global warming are all grist for the tabloids' mills, but when you get right down to it, the fundamental solution to America's problems is jobs -- or the current lack thereof. And no matter how many sex scandals or scare tactics you throw at them, the American public isn't buying any of it. They need work.

One doesn't have to cite John Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith to know that if people don't have money, people don't spend money. And if people don't spend money, nobody makes money. But if you're going to increase jobs in America, there are two important lessons you're need to learn:

The first lesson is that capitalism and businesses run rationally on cold, hard numbers. Businesses do what they can to lower costs - especially human labor - in order to maximize profits and undercut their competitors' prices.

The second lesson is that the first lesson is usually false. And here's why:

While it seems intuitive that businesses obey the first law, the truth is that most businesses - and certainly the American consuming public - are anything but rational. As I often tell my clients, if every business decision were entirely rational, all purchases would be determined by price. What American businessmen, policy-makers and politicians overlook is that most decisions made by humans are non-rational in nature. This would explain, for example, why dopes stand in line for hours to pay double retail for Apple iPads and iPhones when dozens of other competitive products do far more at substantially lower prices.

Of course, my being a branding guy, you must know where this discussion is headed. But if you don't, keep reading, because it makes a lot more sense and can be deployed with the real results everyone wants but nobody seems able to deliver. Bear with me and see if this doesn't add up for you:

Consider that, as I've published, branding is getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem. If you accept that the purpose of branding is to create the perception that there's no place else to shop, your brand becomes the only game in town. You can charge whatever you like for whatever you sell. If you're branded properly (and that's a big "if"), you should be able to place two identical products on a table and have consumers buy yours at a 20% premium -- simply because it's your brand they're buying.

Now consider this: What if an entire country had a brand strategy? What if "Made in USA" were developed into a true, actionable brand strategy (rather than hacked together by some feel-good political cronies)? I'll tell you what would happen: American businesses could sell American products and services at higher prices, simply because they were American. Those higher prices could afford American labor, which would keep jobs here in America, because after all, to be "made in the USA," you have to be, well, made in the USA. Think it can't work? It already has. And I can prove it. Just ask yourself this one simple question:

Which country commands the highest price for a wrist watch?

Apple: A Second Generation Brand

Now that the other shoe has dropped and Steve Jobs is gone, we can expect the predictable onslaught of media rehash and overhype regarding Apple, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and the future of the world as we know it. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about "Apple without Steve Jobs."

So for those who still wonder, here's what I expect is going to happen to Apple, now that Steve Jobs is gone:

First, before anyone gets too hard on Apple's management heirs, let me begin by reaffirming my position that Apple's brand jumped the shark way before Steve Jobs' demise. In fact, in 2010's Apple Jumps The Shark, I pointed out exactly why the bloom was off Apple's rose. The seeds for Apple's descent were sown into Apple's long range plans.

From a strictly branding point of view, for example, Apple's lack of stated brand strategy allowed it to become a fashion brand, in which its primary brand value relies on its coolness as defined by its user public. And the using public, as we all know, is very fickle when it comes to defining what's cool.

Simply put, the more people embracing the brand, the less cool it becomes. And if all you've got is cool, that means you're on the clock -- it's only a matter of time until you're no longer cool.

This is not to take away from Apple's wonderful technology and design and all that other stuff over which media pundits gush like pre-pubescent schoolgirls. Sure, I like that stuff, too. I'm a Mac guy. But from a brand perspective, there's trouble in paradise.

Second, with the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple now becomes a Second Generation brand, with a Caretaker Manager at its helm. As I've written here previously, brands often follow the same trajectory of the Three Generations of Wealth: The first generation (its founder) creates it; the second generation (his heirs) spends it; the third generation (his disconnected drone grandchildren) loses it. As pointed out in Apple Jumps The Shark, the brand had already lost its vision somewhere around the time when Jobs had begun transferring authority to Tim Cook, his heir to the throne.

Far from its original rebellious roots, the brand has become fortressed, secretive and severe to the point of bullying its competitors - along with its users - in the marketplace.

Apple's increased rate of required upgrades, dependency on proprietary services and, perhaps worst of all, nudging its hardware and software toward "cloud usage" all speak to a ruthless corporate soul revealed as the baton was being passed to new leadership.

And then there's Tim Cook. Poor Tim Cook.

His is not an easy task. Forever being compared to Jobs, he immediately took his first misstep by introducing the iPhone 4S in a presentation far too similar to Jobs' format. Had he been more brand-aware, he would have taken steps to ensure "there's a new sheriff in town" and created his own personal style rather than remain tentative for fear of rocking Apple's stock price. By taking the Caretaker Manager's road, Cook has ensured himself a place under the microscope, doomed to the same fate suffered by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer when he took the reins from Bill Gates. And the longer Tim Cook allows the media to define him as Steve Jobs' Caretaker Manager, the worse it will be for everyone involved.

Yes, Apple will survive. No, it will not be the same brand.

Steve is gone. Get over it.

Political Brands: Mitt & Herman

At the time of this writing, there's more than a year left before the 2012 presidential elections, which means that the political brand strategies - or more accurately, the lack of political brand strategies become most apparent to the American voting public. With Barack Obama barely holding on to his presidential perch, all kinds of Republicans from various walks of life have jumped into the freak show, causing more head scratching than serious consideration.

I won't burn your time with the usual ignoramus-bashing. I'll leave that to the shallow-thinking media pundits who usually manage to misinterpret even the most obvious political ploys. Besides, I'm a branding guy. I'm surrounded by the mediocre, mindless meanderings every day. They don't interest me. What does interest me is the increasingly rare instance in which there seems to be at least a modicum of strategic thought. That's what makes the difference. And that's why I find two of this year's political brands so fascinating.

Forget the old school perspective. The days of qualified candidates went out the window with Y2K. What we have now is more along the lines of American Idol, where audiences applaud the best quip quoted in a nationally-televised public forum. Candidates speak less from knowledge than they do from their media coaches, each battling for the next day's most aired soundbyte.

Okay, I can deal with that. Times change. Empires crumble into dust. I get it. In fact, I can embrace it. Which is why you may want to consider the only imaginable Republican ticket with any kind of brand strategy behind it: Mitt Romney and Herman Cain. That would be Romney as president, Cain as Vice President, simply because Romney has some political experience and Cain is more of the "can do" guy who admittedly lacks any political experience. Neither have much foreign experience, but that's what Secretaries of State are for.

Forget your politics for a moment. Here are two brands that are not only compatible, but effective in getting elected. Think I'm off track? Think again:

1. Romney and Cain are the only two Republicans with any semblance of brand strategy. Romney champions himself as "the only candidate with both private and public experience." Herman Cain promotes himself as a self made businessman, priding himself as a Washington outsider. In an environment of sustained economic recession, that's the kind of news Americans are asking for. Private sector guys who have created jobs. Even the Clintons didn't have to get beaten over the head too many times to learn, "It's the economy, stupid." Just like the Clintons, Obama squandered his newfound political capital on health care instead of the economy during the initial phases of the recession. Two business guys will be able to call him out on that, big time.

2. This time out, the Salt & Pepper factor works in Republicans' favor. Long hampered by the Republican party's "old boy, all white male" reputation, a Romney/Cain ticket is - sure, I'll say it - a white guy and a black guy running against a black guy and a white guy. It's balanced. When John McCain tried to crack the code, the best he could come up with was a train wreck called Sarah Palin. His choice was clearly a political ploy. But Cain's got the chops. This is no pander job. He's got what the public wants.

3. Both candidates are clearly defined, resulting in both Romney's and Cain's ability to speak in specifics while other candidates merely spout generalities, slogans and meaningless platitudes. If you notice, whenever Romney gets questioned, he lists a "seven point plan" in which he rattles off specific tactics along with the rationale for each. That's brilliant, considering that nobody - other than Cain - has managed to package his proposals in a clear and understandable manner. For his part, Cain promotes his "999" plan the way he promotes pizza toppings. Hokey, sure. But who cares? It's sensible, if not overly simplistic, and for once, avoids the old "baffle them with bullshit" serenade.

4. Both men are gregarious and centered, with Cain showing human traits of humor and self-confidence. Cain's appeal is in direct contrast to the icy, detached stage fright that most other candidates exude. For his part, Romney knows how to zig while other candidates zag: By allowing the other monkeys on the stage to jump about and pander to whatever political fad happens to be sweeping the nation this week, Romney merely stands calmly, allowing them to chase the right wing, which gives him the appearance of appearing moderate.

Put them all together and the combination of Romney and Cain isn't as far fetched as it may have seemed a month -- or evena week ago. And if you think that's too bizarre to happen, recall two other events that seemed even stranger:

Despite the conventional wisdom about "American racism," Barack Obama we resoundingly elected the first non-white president of the United States --and that Sarah Palin came as close as anyone feared to becoming its vice president.

Saving the Economy 1-2-3

At the time of this writing -- well, let's face it, at any time anyone whines about government, taxes and debt-drowning economies spiraling out of control, the air suddenly gets clouded with smoke and fog rather than clear cut solutions. The year 2011 will no doubt go down in history as the Year of Fear, wherein every western country had to deal with severe economic panics. Once great civilizations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Japan have been rocked by economic chaos. The international community has been plagued by fear and speculation, climaxing in Standard & Poor's unthinkable downgrading of the United States' credit rating, due mainly to America's unacceptable handling of its national debt.

The downgrade was shocking. Unacceptable. But not, as it turns out, completely unavoidable. Because it turns out there's a way to solve all of our economic problems quickly. Permanently. And with no need to raise taxes at all. No cuts in services are required, either. In fact, if you do this right, medical and social services could actually increase without even breaking a sweat.

Of course, if you ask the dolts in Washington, D.C., they'll tell you it's impossible to balance the budget without cutting more and spending less. But I'm a branding guy. I have no political constituency to lose, so I can dare to be bold. And I'm here to tell you that it can all be solved as easily as one, two, three.

The first issue to accept is that the problem isn't taxes or what we spend. The real problem is the underground cash economy that avoids taxation. If you think that's a small number, think again. Search anywhere on the internet and you'll find that everything from minor labor to illegal arms deals to backyard marijuana sales are generally exchanges of under the table, untraceable cash transactions which are never taxed.

There are generally two reasons for cash transactions, depending if you're transacting legal or illegal business. In the illegal market, paying tax on drugs, contraband and the like is tantamount to a one-way ticket to prison. It's an admission that you actually did pay for something the government forbids. In the legal market, people do cash transactions to avoid taxation. After all, what the government doesn't know about, the government can't tax. And at any tax rate higher than a few points, all tax rates do is motivate people to find a way not to pay them. This is why the pudgy guy with the five o'clock shadow and green teeth at the car lot will sell you that used Chevy for $2500 plus sales tax -- or $2000 if it's all cash.

Lest you think the American Underground Economy is trivial in stature, let me state that the average internet search (where such things are discussed) puts the annual figure somewhere in the trillions of dollars every year. That's a trillions of bucks on which the government collects no revenue at all. Nothing. And it slips out of the public coffers every day for just one reason:

They're all cash or barter - untraceable - transactions.

But what would happen if we eliminated cash completely? What if everyone were given debit cards and little swipers they can attach to their smart phones (which by the way, is already in wide use out there)? Here's what would happen: Every single transaction would be tracked and reported. Who paid it. Who received it. And even if it didn't expose the people involved, the system could automatically tack on the appropriate tax before approving the transaction.

It's not as nutty as you think. Merchant Service Providers (MSP) already do that when they verify every single credit card transaction they process. This is just one more nano-second stop along the way. But here's the real kicker:

With far more revenue exposed to taxation, every single local, state and federal authority could actually lower its tax rate. And I mean really lower it. In fact, I'd recommend doing away with the entire tax structure in favor of a 1-2-3 plan:

One percent of each transaction goes to the local government.

One percent of each transaction goes to the state government.

One percent of each transaction goes to the federal government.

That's a total of 3% on any transaction anywhere in the United States, applied to any and all transactions, collected at the moment it's paid. Add the 3% on the underground economy's trillions to the 3% of the legitimate market's trillions, and to paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen, pretty soon you're talking serious money. Crisis-solving money, with corporate and personal taxpayers alike rejoicing because the days of double digit tax brackets are gone. If I haven't lost you yet, consider this, too: Because everything is tracked, reported and paid in real time, there's no more need to file income tax returns. No more Internal Revenue Service. No more audits. Just pay as you go government. How cool is that? What's the worst that could happen - the illicit drug culture turns to the Euro for its commerce? Please.

Fairer taxation. Lower tax rates for you and me. Higher revenues for the government with less government bureaucracy. It just doesn't get any better for this.

Unless you're an income tax preparer. In that case, you'd best be dusting off that resumé.

Technology Causes Recession

Some years from now, this article will probably be woefully out of date. Well, the point of the article won't be out of date, but this particular instance will have long since been relegated to the history books, just one more exhibit in the freak show known as Modern American History.

At this writing, the world economies are in chaos. Major nations around the globe are watching their credit ratings melt. People are rioting in the streets. Budgets are being cut. Unemployment is very high and morale is very low. It's a tough time for optimists.

Among the strangest behaviors we're enduring are wild, mega-swings in global financial markets. Whereas a daily 20 point rise or fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average was big news in the 1970's, swings of 400 to 600 points - in either direction - have become more commonplace. One explanation is that there are simply more shares and more people to trade them. Another is that we now have the technology to trade those shares much more rapidly than ever before.

It doesn't take a genius to do the math. When a micro-chip can observe, analyze, deduce a result and execute a trade order for millions of shares from hundreds of companies in less time than it took you to read this sentence, you know things are moving at a pretty brisk clip. It's not surprising, then, that market actions and reactions would occur with ever-increasing rapidity.

But that's not the real culprit here. The demon you want is hiding just below the surface, affecting far more than the price of today's stocks. As I've written here previously, technology speeds up just about everything except for human nature. As a result, it's technology, more than anyone realizes, that's adding to - if not causing - our recessionary times. Let me clarify this:

Unless you've been hiding under a a very large rock since 2008, you no doubt have heard about or painfully felt the very real effects of the global economic recession. If you're been fortunate enough to be spared the financial pain, I doubt you've escaped the unending re-hash and faux analyses by television "experts" whose simplistic explanations pass less for truthful explanation than they do for furthering political agenda. Most of those pundits draw their opinions by citing "similar situations" throughout history, including expansions and contractions dating back to the Great Depression of the 1930's. Although there are some similarities to be compared, there's one giant difference that, for some reason, negates just about all of their relevance to today's issues:

Technology. And here's how:

While technology can move data at nearly the speed of light, it does nothing to speed up human behavior. In the old days, both human behavior and data moved at the same speed, because both were powered by humans. For example, if you wanted to buy a stock, you called your stockbroker, who in turn called his floor trader, who placed the trade. The transaction could take hours or days. Same thing with selling. Today, however, there are fewer brokers and traders because everything has been reduced to a simple point and click.

So a huge problem arises when a political administration announces a long term plan to aid economic recovery, mainly, an economic plan takes time to be assessed, implemented and resolved. However, speculating on the viability of a long term plan takes less than a millisecond, which means unlike the days of yore, speculation moves at a far greater rate than real information, which in turn dooms all markets to higher risks of failure because technology is manipulating it based on fear rather than any wisdom borne of financial strategy.

That last part is something not to to be considered lightly. In the end, technology may speed up action but completely ignores wisdom, which means that market decisions - and the plans designed to affect them -- must incorporate technology's need for speed or face a higher risk of failure than necessary. This week the Federal Reserve took an unprecedented step by announcing its interest rate level would be maintained at low levels for the next two years. It's a hugely historic tactic, in that it's the first economic pronouncement designed to destroy the effect of speedy speculation by providing a base of stability for the long term. Previously, the Fed had encouraged speculation by offering only short term announcements. By removing the speculative data from its announcement, the Fed has effectively diffused at least one factor of market instability, which technology cannot distort -- and we need more of that.

The old days of deliberation are long gone, no longer a factor in the eye blink world of the microchip. No matter what your business, know that it's moving at a faster clip than you are -- and unless you manage it, it will mange you. If one truth remains, it's that bad news travel fast and doesn't often wait for wisdom to catch up.

Why Most Gurus Aren't

I don't know what I was was thinking when I became a branding consultant. I had no idea it would get this involved. I mean, I totally knew that the world had no idea what true branding was about. Most of the planet dismisses brand as little more than identity: a name, a logo - and if you're one of the screaming hordes of lemmings - maybe a social media plan a la Facebook. These days, I find myself spending far more time educating clients as to what branding is, and isn't, long before we even start building their brand strategies.

Sigh.

Unlike what most "gurus" will tell you, brand strategy isn't there to give you a good feeling or even inspire customer loyalty. Brand strategy is there to power a company's financial success. Period. In reality, they may pay it politically-correct lip service to the media, but no management staff really cares how much its end users "value the relationship" if there's no business to be had from it. Let's face it, the only relationship that really matters is between the company and its cash register, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll derive those exact benefits from your own brand strategy.

Of course, having become the buzzword of the millennium, branding has been perverted by all kinds of hack, frauds and poseurs, each claiming they know what brands do and how they can make yours sparkle. The only trouble is that when you hold their feet to the fire, none of them seem to be able to connect the dots to the bottom line.

It's easy to publish books or point a video camera at yourself and spout platitudes about relationships, social media and conversations with your end users. What's not quite as simple is providing real tactics in real time that produce real results on a very real income statement. Unfortunately, that's precisely the problem I have with all the various New Age Gurus out there who have more press agents than they do clients.

My own formula for hack detection goes something like this: The number of books, tapes and seminars a "guru" hawks is inversely proportional to the actual number of clients he's helped succeed. So before you fall for the latest buzz-driven hype, make sure you're getting the real thing when you read, hear or hire a brand strategist. Being the humble, helpful guy that I am, I've prepared a little checklist for you:

1. Does the guru have any clients in the real world? You'd be amazed at the number of "gurus" out there who have, surprisingly, no clients at all. That's because they make their livings selling books, seminars and theories that sound great but have never been tested in the marketplace.

2. What results has the guru achieved for those clients? If the results can't be measured in real dollars and cents, you can stop right there. "Raising awareness" for a brand doesn't put bread on the table, Jack. Who cares how many people know or love your brand if none of them are willing to pay for it?

3. How have those results been measured? Don't be taken in by statistics you wish were true. Remember that a company that has one sale on Monday "doubles their sales in less than a week" if they sell just one widget by Wednesday.

4. Are his recommendations based on rationale or socially popular intangible "fun facts," i.e., "All the kids are doing it!"? Are his strategies pro-active, or simply reactions to the latest social media reports?

5. How long does the guru stick around after picking up his fee? Is he a "drive-by consultant" that tosses a ten pound report on your doorstep on his way out the door or does he help you implement his recommendations?

6. What was the guru doing before he decided to become a guru? Anyone can call himself an expert. Hey, Dog The Bounty Hunter passes himself off as a top gun TV star, but before that, he spent far more time as a drug-addled, incoherent loser. That's not to say that people can't change, just that you want to kick the tires before you take them for a test drive.

I could go on, but you get my drift. For every guy out there taking advice there are ten willing to give it to him - most of them at over-priced rates. Be careful out there: what you see -- or think you're seeing -- isn't always what you get. Unless of course, he's a "guru," in which case you know exactly what you can expect.