It started because my body made me pay attention. 

I wasn’t well. I didn’t want to admit it but my body made me.

So once my body got my attention, I did begin some activities that really changed my health. I immediately stopped drinking soda at that time and ever since then I’ve picked up one or two good habits here and there along the path. It’s like I’ve been collecting these habits over time to build my future. I guess it’s my plan to counteract aging.

Recently, I’ve been reading this book, the one I told you about earlier, and I feel as if I am crossing a new threshold in my understanding of the relationship between my health and my consumption. Let me again state that in our dizzying culture, this is becoming insanely complex. We are drowning in food and processes of obtaining that food that make us sick. It’s difficult to figure any of this out. It takes time and patience. You should be skeptical and you should read labels not marketing. Know what you are putting in your body. It’s really almost as simple as that old saying, ‘you are what you eat.’

I have been frustrated in this process many times, but over the years I have come to realize, as long as you keep pushing forward in your knowledge and keep building on the good habits along the way, you will get to health. It’s a personal journey to figure out what that means to you-both health and pushing forward but if you are actively participating in it and trying to understand, you will get there.

There is a quick serve restaurant by the name of Noodles and Company. I had admired them for a very long time for two reasons, 1) open and complete access to nutritional info regarding the restaurant menu and 2) one of the most elegant web site to find that information.

This has been one of my favorite web sites for a matter of years. Recently, that all changed.

Pre Redesign Noodles and Company Web Site

Now I can imagine the internal dialogue. ‘Our web site is so outdated, we need to jazz it up, make it an experience’. I’m almost certain this directive did not come from an expressed customer need but rather a marketing executive with a new idea or perhaps a new hire coming in to ‘really push the online Noodles and Company web presence’.

Web Site after Redesign (warning, this web site plays music automatically, without asking you)

Well, that’s where the problems began……..they were bored with the very functional, very on brand, very easy to use web site they used to have. They wanted a web site that’s main purpose (information gathering) was hidden amongst fun adventures that ‘engage a customer with the brand’.

Dear Noodles and Company, I’m your customer, your marketing team was wrong!!!

So, instead of passively sitting by I used the new web site ‘Noodleville’ to contact the Mayor of Noodle town. (no, I’m not kidding)

I received a prompt response, I’ll give em that. The response engaged me in further questions, ‘did I find the information I was looking for?’. Yes, but on the way to finding that information, I was blasted by the web site’s automagic music blast and the spinning and motion sickness from watching the town buzz by each time I chose a different navigation item.

I was also told that they wanted the web site to be more of an experience and they were disappointed that it was not satisfactory for me. It wasn’t satisfactory for me as I don’t want to play with my Noodles and Company web site, I want to find information, usually quickly as I’m heading out with people to lunch or some similar situation.

I responded to the questions, telling the mayor of Noodletown that this was really an unacceptable reply to my concern. I explained that I work in this industry and I am a very regular customer and well, the new web site wasn’t good enough. I begged them to go back, luckily I still have the Way Back Machine.

Lesson of the day….

Just because you think it’s a good idea inside the organization, it doesn’t mean it is……. the last time I heard from the Mayor, I was assured the my feedback was appreciated and would be passed on to the marketing team. Unfortunately, I’m very doubtful they will listen to me. I’m sure they are in love with their new online experience meanwhile customers like me have to make different choices about where to eat because frankly, they’ve made the information gathering just that much harder and it’s not worth it to me. If I want that one dish I know the info on, I’ll go there, but if it’s something else, I won’t patronize them. I can’t support that kind of navel gazing web site design. It’s the principle of the thing. Maybe they will surprise me and come up with some way to meet needs of customers like me and have their experience. Here’s hoping.

Changing your perspective can definitely help your attitude.

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

She says, “…some readers thought the opinion I expressed about the movie Sicko was actually Google’s opinion. It’s easy to understand why it might have seemed that way, because after all, this is a corporate blog. So that was my mistake — I understand why it caused some confusion.”

No, I wasn’t confused. I knew it was her opinion and not Google’s. However, she needs to take a course in how to not be professionally unwise. In her position, it was unwise of her to say anything about the movie or risk being ‘misinterpreted’.

No, I got you loud and clear, you want money and you intend to get it by using advertising. She goes on to clarify her point from the first blog post…

“But the more important point, since I doubt that too many people care about my personal opinion, is that advertising is an effective medium for handling challenges that a company or industry might have. You could even argue that it’s especially appropriate for a public policy issue like healthcare. Whether the healthcare industry wants to rebut charges in Mr. Moore’s movie, or whether Mr. Moore wants to challenge the healthcare industry, advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue.”

Advertising is democratic? (insert jon stewart ‘Whaaaaaaa?’)

Advertising is not an effective medium for public policy issues like healthcare. Advertising is trying to sell you something. Always. Now, that’s not the worst thing in the world, we are a capitalist society so we’ve got advertising, that’s part of the deal. Google even makes it relevant, which is great.

The problem is that she is saying it’s democratic. I don’t think she is quite clear on what that word means. You don’t ‘pay’ for democracy nor is advertising a place for public debate unless you’ve got some pretty deep pockets.

This is a perfect Blogging 101 lesson. When you blog for your company on said companies blog site, it’s best to keep the politics out of it. She could have sent that first blog post to all the clients she was trying to reach as an EMAIL. That’s who she was targeting her message at and it probably would have been very effective. Instead, she garnered a bunch of blog o sphere negativity and probably didn’t make anybody internally @ Google excited about having employees blog if they are going to say things like that.

Late breaking news, there is an ‘official apology/retraction’ on the blog now.

Let me be clear. I do not blame Google for this. I blame Lauren. If Google’s policy was more like my employer’s blogging policy, maybe she would have thought harder about the ‘think about consequences’ part.

Google mentions that they review every blog post. This puts them in a position of responsibilty for every single post. We don’t do that at my company which makes the individuals responsible and not the company. I believe strongly that this forces people to think harder about what they put out there. If the company is approving my post, I may not be as careful. If Google wants to encourage coporate blogging, they might want to think about getting out of the way.

Good news for the poor beleagured health insurance and pharma companies though because, “…companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?”

Gosh, what to do. Instead of fixing the real problem, they can help you, “…place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.”

As long as people think everything is ok, then it must be, right? Google can help promote your message. (whether it’s true or not)

Not only is the blog a blatant advertisement itself, there is no place to leave a comment telling them politely that I find this tactic unseemly and I thought Google was better than that.

Will the loss of innocence never stop?