Sodcutter's influence grows: Steven Colbert weighs in on Mayo v. Miracle Whip

Last week on the Colbert Report, Steven, having no doubt read my post on Miracle Whip, defended Mayo's honor with so many puns it made my head spin. See it here.

People You Should Know About: Matt Miller

Matt Miller / American / 1961-

For several months now, I’ve been part of a group of former Starbucks employees who gather weekly for coffee, conversation and encouragement. I’m happy to report that the group has begun to shrink, as several have now found jobs. A couple weeks ago, it was just Kristin Anderson and I. We met at Herkimer Coffee up on Phinney Ridge – a local coffeehouse I’ve been enjoying fairly regularly recently. Good coffee, nice people, and a fun little roasting operation right in the cafe.

When we were finished with coffee, Kristin, who lives in the neighborhood, suggested we visit the local bookseller, Santoro’s Books . I’m a sucker for bookstores, and I do my best to buy local whenever possible, even if it costs a bit more. (And many local bookstores, Santoro’s included, have discount programs that reward you after a certain number of purchases – the discounts aren’t as deep as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, but you essentially get the eleventh book free once you’ve purchased ten.)

When I visit a bookstore for the first time, I like to focus on the feature tables and newer releases, which gives me a sense of how the bookseller perceives their clientele and what books they deem worthy of their customers’ attention. (If I see too many Glenn Beck “books,” for example, I’ve learned that it’s best to slowly head for the door, keeping my eye on the help and my fellow shoppers.) I’m happy to report that Santoro’s has a great selection, with lots of local interest titles, as well as a helpful, knowledgeable staff.

One of the titles that caught my eye was Matt Miller’s “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity.” The title sounded a little cutesy, especially the whole “unleash a new prosperity” bit – it seemed like it might be another happy talk business book. Then I glanced at the dead ideas Miller chose to write about, and the book suddenly had my attention. The dead ideas are:

1. The Kids Will Earn More Than We Do
2. Free Trade Is "Good" (No Matter How Many People Get Hurt)
3. Your Company Should Take Care of You
4. Taxes Hurt the Economy (and They're Always Too High)
5. Schools Are a Local Matter
6. Money Follows Merit

If it were up to me, “Journey was a great band” would also get a chapter, but I think that might distract and offend a few readers. I’m only about sixty pages into the book, but have found it riveting and occasionally alarming. My concern about the future -- given the state of the global economy, the seeming impossibility of our leaders to act, and the odd insistence on the part of so many that “American dominance” is a viable starting point from which to engage the world – is growing weekly. The structure of the book, which lays out the problems associated with all six dead ideas before the whole unleashing of prosperity thing happens will no doubt heighten my anxiety in the weeks ahead. (I’ve thought about skipping ahead after each chapter, but I’ve pretty much decided to trust that Miller wrote it this way for a reason.)

In the introduction to the book, which you can read in its entirety here, Miller lays out three steps for “breaking free of dead ideas,” which we would all do well to apply in many areas of our lives. They are:

1. Identify the dead ideas that matter. We all believe some pretty wacky things; some of them just help us get through the day, while others probably retard progress, making us less effective. We need some disciplined thought and a little courage to identify the dead ideas that impede progress.
2. Understand each dead idea’s “story.” It is useful to understand why we believe certain things, where the idea came from, what has changed since the idea was broadly adopted? And whose interest does the dead idea serve?
3. Reach for new (and paradoxical) ways of thinking. This often involves asking questions people don’t want to answer and proposing solutions (higher taxes!!) people don’t want to consider. But it’s often the only way to fight through a dead idea and make changes.

I’ll devote a few brief posts in the weeks ahead to some of the ideas in the book. Please leave a comment or email me if any of the six dead ideas are of particular interest.

Matt Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (one of those lefty outfits) and the host of “Left, Right and Center” on NPR. He worked as an aide in the Clinton White House.

To shill, or not to shill

I was surprised nine days ago to see an email in my inbox from someone called “Starbucks VIA Moderator.” I knew that the big national launch of Starbucks’s instant coffee product, called VIA, was imminent. I also recalled that I had written a little review of the product in my blog back in February. And I recalled that what I had written was pretty reasonable – my honest opinion, with little editorializing and only few snide asides.

The subject line on the email read “Love that blog!” so I was confident that Starbucks VIA Moderator was not someone in the legal department. Starbucks has a bunch of lawyers, and while I always enjoyed working with them, there is little chance that an email from them concerning something I had written about Starbucks would contain good news. It turns out that they were looking for “user-generated content” about VIA to use on the VIA website. Well, all right, I thought, this could be my big break. The world is full of people whose blogs or tweets or videos are discovered and “go viral,” and the result is often a sort of modern variation on fame and fortune. (For the lucky, this amounts to a brief period of relatively painless notoriety and excruciatingly small additions to bank accounts. The unlucky somehow end up embarrassed and broke, but with at least two lawyers on retainer – one criminal and one to negotiate the book deal, or more likely, a reality show. It’s sort of a choice between “what might have been” and “if I’d known then what I know now.”)

The email promised that my material would be used in such a way that visitors to the Starbucks VIA site who chose to read it would see what I wrote and actually see it on the Sodcutter blog. I thought this seemed pretty cool – the last thing I wanted was for someone to cherry-pick the very best things I said about VIA. So I was leaning towards saying yes.

But wait! There’s more! In addition to the potential for tens of new visitors to my blog, the email also promised me a three-month “subscription” to VIA from the Starbucks Store.com. The definition of a three month supply seemed shockingly generous: three twelve packs per month beginning “by the first of November.” This struck me as lavish, because even acquaintances who’ve said positive things about VIA to me nearly always qualify their praise with comments like “it’s great for backpacking” or “it sure beats bad hotel coffee.” And the truth is, I have not purchased or consumed a single serving of VIA since I had written about the samples I received in February. And not only am I not a backpacker, one of the great joys of our annual family camping trip is hauling out the old Melitta cones and one-cup coffee filters and making coffee each morning.

So after re-reading my original comments about VIA and getting some input from a few friends and having my ex-lawyer wife (she’s an ex-lawyer, not an ex-wife) read the two-page legal document that allows Starbucks to use the material anywhere in the universe and in any media already or yet to be invented (really, that’s in the document), I decided to give the go-ahead.

And oh! What a whirlwind it has been! For about two hours on “launch day,” the first few lines of my article and a link to my blog, though not front and center, were somewhat easy to find. Now, after four days and thousands and thousands of people tasting VIA and “generating content”, my moment has passed, my content buried behind page upon page of headlines like these:

“Livin la VIA loca”

“Via – pretty good”

“SUPRISINGLY WAY BETTER THAN PIKE PLACE.” (not good news for last year’s big breakthrough product!)

“Versatile Means More Options” (also under consideration for inclusion at dictionary.com)

“Haven’t tried it, but I love it.” (what is this, foxnews.com?)

Would I do it all again? Sure I would. Any regrets? None.

But now I either need to take up backpacking, spend some nights in lousy hotels, or figure out what to do with all the VIA coming my way, because I still prefer fresh-brewed coffee. And unlike many of my fellow content generators, I can taste the difference, just as much now as I could in February.