Waterboarding and Leadership

The labelling of a recent case of parental abuse as waterboarding offers insights into processes of narrative-building

A recent case of parental abuse has been labelled as a waterboarding incident. The narrative developed after abnormal behaviour of a US soldier observed in public was followed-up by the local police. They discovered an incident at his home where the parent was reported to have disciplined his four year old daughter by holding her head under water.

It seems to me a clear example of how a story builds up and is captured as a narrative label. The move vivid the label, the more likely it becomes the way that the story is tagged in the mind of readers, and electronically in web-based versions which speed their way around the internet.

The reports are typified by one from the BBC

A US soldier has been charged with assault after allegedly waterboarding his four-year-old daughter, police in the state of Washington have said.

Reading further, I learned that the Police, had cited Sgt Joshua Tabor, a helicopter repairer who served in Iraq from 2007-08, had

…dunked the girl’s head in a sink full of water for not reciting the alphabet. Yelm police chief Todd Stancil said Sgt Tabor was arrested on 31 January. “From what I understand it is very similar to waterboarding,” Mr Stancil said of the alleged offence, according to the AFP news agency.

From what I understand of waterboarding, the analogy is rather stretched.

Water-boarding involves a prisoner being stretched on his back or hung upside down, having a cloth pushed into his mouth and/or plastic film placed over his face and having water poured onto his face. He gags almost immediately.

The Telegraph headline shouted US soldier gives four-year-old daughter ‘waterboarding’ over alphabet. The tell-tale inverted commas around the term waterboarding hints at an awareness that the story is not entirely free from metaphor.

I am not belittling the abuse that a child appears to have had inflicted on her. There may be a connection between Joshua Tabor’s actions, and experiences he had serving in Iraq, where the stories of waterboarding emerged. But there is also in this sad case some implications for leadership studies. Is it easier for waterboarding to become culturally acceptable under extreme conditions of military threat if there is a connection with more widely-expressed and primitive behaviours of bullying and abuse? Are leaders able to exploit these conditions, as in the well-known Milgram experiments?

Leaders we deserve?

I was struck recently by the popularity of the view expressed recently that Tony Blair and George Bush were criminals who should be arrested for their war crimes, including incidents of water-boarding over whose perpetrators they had ultimate responsibility. The argument has enough elasticity to blame the political leaders for the panic and abuse of one little girl in a town in Washington DC, years after the war ended.

When we put leaders on trial who are accused of responsibility for acts of mass murder and torture, are we also holding to them to account for monstrous acts, and for forcing others to comply with their wishes? Did they struggle with one of the ultimate dilemmas of leadership involving the rights of one set of individuals against the safety of another set? Are we also demonstrating the complicated collusion which plays out between the leaders we elect and the leaders we deserve?

Dilemmas of Leadership: Idealism versus Pragmatism at Manchester United

One of the dilemmas of leadership is that of idealism versus pragmatism. It can be examined in the struggles for control at Manchester United Football Club

The owners of MUFC are hugely unpopular with the fans. A protest movement has grown in strength in recent months [January 2010] Banners are displayed at home games. And one particularly creative idea has taken off. The protesters have appropriated the colours of the original team. The irony is that supporters wearing the shirts have stopped the financing of the club’s mega-store merchandising. But even this gesture illustrates a dilemma for the protesters. Do they attempt to weaken the club they love, to bring down its owners whom they detest?

It’s been a good two weeks for the team

According to the Guardian

Sir Alex Ferguson may consider this his most satisfactory week and a half since May 1999, when Manchester United staged a smash-and-grab raid to capture the Premier League, the FA Cup and the European Cup in the space of three matches. Now, at a time when his squad and his stewardship have been facing criticism, United have put together a mini-sequence of results that launches them towards the latter stages of the ¬season with their morale at a peak.

First came the 4-0 demolition of Hull City, the occasion for a demonstration of Wayne Rooney’s wonderful vein of goal-scoring form. Next, came the Carling Cup semi-final victory over Manchester City, to shatter their neighbours’ vaulting optimism. And today a convincing victory over Arsenal, the team whose current ambitions most closely resemble their own.

The triumph of a symbolic leadership act

As The Daily Mail put it:

As protests go, it’s a stroke of genius. They’ve managed to solve the conundrum [dilemma?] that has plagued football supporters of every disgruntled club in the land: how to stage a protest and still celebrate a victory. When I saw the focus of the ‘Love United, Hate Glazer’ campaign it struck me as a decidedly limp and passive way to rail against the owners.
Harking back to the origins of Manchester United as Newton Heath was sentimental and attractively nostalgic, but waving a different colour scarf? That’s not going to bring down a corporate empire, is it? Green for naïve; gold for yellow-bellied, I thought. How wrong I was. I saw the effect at Old Trafford on Wednesday night. The mass protest works brilliantly; probably better than anyone imagined.

Why the angry protests?

The episode may be seen as a battle of ideas. According to the protest group, the club has been hi-jacked by a group on American entrepreneurs, loading it with debt and only interested in personal financial gain. The protests were strengthened recently with news that the owners were refinancing the club. The offer document looked as if the finances were in worse state than even the protesters had been claiming.

The Club’s response

Not so, according to the club. Its iconic coach Sir Alex Ferguson has made public appeals that supporters avoid anything that might distract from their main role – giving full-hearted support, and certainly not distracting from this in any way. Chairman David Gill also appealed to the fans to get behind the team.

Gill backed the supporters’ protests before the Glazer takeover but has changed his opinion since the Americans took control. [Now he denies] that United will have to sell their most valuable player, Wayne Rooney, because of debts which stood at £716.5m in June last year. “Wayne has a contract through until 2012. He’s 24 and has got the best years of his life ahead of him. Very few players, particularly UK-based players, want to leave Manchester United.” The Glazers have floated the ¬possibility that United might sell and then lease back their Carrington training ground but Gill said he was “100% convinced” that would not happen.

The Dilemma of idealism versus pragmatism

Leaders have to deal with dilemmas or problems for which there are no simple answers. Rickards and Clark, in their textbook on Dilemmas of Leadership, suggest examining each case to find a provisional interpretation which can to be reviewed and tested. One such dilemma here is that of the two competing belief systems, of idealism (the protesters) and pragmatism (David Gill, Sir Alex Ferguson, the American owners).

The protesters work in the world of symbolic and visionary actions. This is akin to the world of charismatic leaders, one of whom arguably is Alex Ferguson. But Sir Alex, as much as David Gill, has to work in the world of rationality and pragmatism. For one thing, they have a wider set of interests in mind when they make a public statement. They seek to appeal to the supremacy of the bottom line. The financials are sound, and results are more than OK (that other bottom line).

Students of leadership are advised to explore the actions of Gill and Ferguson taking this dilemma into account. Maybe it is also worth remembering that big money winnings tend to go to the professional gamblers who also turn out to be good at assessing the rational and pragmatic risks in their decision-making.

The Battle for British Airways

Willie Walsh was brought into British Airlines with a justified reputation as a tough negotiator. His toughness has been met with robust rejection by the UNITE union. What’s going on at BA?

The global credit crunch has affected every international business. While there are strategic opportunities, threats are easier to see. According to a recent Business Week report:

Some observers question whether BA will shutter or try to sell (good luck in this environment) the BA OpenSkies subsidiary, which runs flights from Paris and Amsterdam to the U.S., just a year after it was created.

Further stoking investor fear, Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson said that he had looked at making a bid for BA but that “the airline wasn’t worth much anymore.” Branson then urged the British government not to intervene to save BA. “It would be better to wait for its demise,” he told the BBC.

At first sight, the news seems unfathomable. It seems that an e-mail had gone out to 30,000 UK employees [June 17th 2009] asking them to volunteer to take up to a month’s unpaid leave, or unpaid work. Such an appeal for loyalty seems unlikely to succeed in a situation where the leader’s style is noted as a rather enthusiastically confrontational one.

The story followed news of a personal gesture by Mr Walsh to work for a month unpaid. But this is too easy to dismiss by workers as being alright for someone like their well-heeled leader. Nor would the new offer be helped by the news that an offer to pilots has been made of shares in the company for a new deal.

According to the BBC

Mr Walsh said BA’s drive to save cash was part of a “fight for survival ..I am looking for every single part of the company to take part in some way in this cash-effective way of helping the company’s survival plan

Strikes averted, strikes threatened

The tough stance cut no ice with the unions. A strike over the Christmas Holiday period was overwhelmingly supported, and narrowly averted through a High Court action by BA. But the Unions continued to plan strike action, probably for the next major Holiday period in the Spring of 2010. In February, The company response was again to take a tough line.

In a ­letter to BA’s 38,000 staff, Walsh offered the opportunity to become “volunteer cabin crew”. He said: “I am asking for volunteers to back BA by training to work alongside cabin crew who choose not to support a strike, so we are ready to keep our customers flying as much as we possibly can if this strike goes ahead.” BA is confident that staff can be trained and certified by the beginning of March 2010, which is the earliest possible date for a cabin crew walkout if, as expected, about 12,000 employees vote for industrial action over staffing cuts.

Discussions between Unite and BA have failed to reach an agreement so far and both sides broke their silences today to cry betrayal. BA said Unite had misled the airline by organising a strike ballot while holding peace talks while Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said BA was attempting to break a walkout with “scab labour who have had minimum training”.

A leader’s bid for cooperation

When a leader makes a bid for cooperation, reputation is likely to play a part in its reception. An earlier post in LWD was highly critical of the BA leadership style under Willie Walsh. The outcome may help throw light on the old question of situational leadership.

Creative ideas needed

As often happens, a crisis can drive creative thinking out of the window. But are there opportunities for trying out new ideas to avoid the company sliding into further decline?

Toyota Fights to Preserve its Global Brand

Toyota faces its biggest crisis over a serious weakening of its reputation for quality control. How might creative leadership preserve its global brand?

Toyota has been hailed as the company of the future. This site has made no secret of its admiration for the company’s success. But events are now suggesting that the company has a lot of work to do in preserving its global brand. A year ago we wrote [Jan 2009] that Toyota’s business model was on trial:

Toyota is hurting, and Company chief Katsuaki Watanabe recently announced a projection for a first annual trading loss in its seventy year history. But Toyota’s pain still seems likely to be more sustainable than that being suffered by its rivals, whose fate is one of the urgent problems facing incoming President Obama, and who are pressing (begging?) for state bale-outs. For Chrysler, and GM, job losses are inevitable, while even survival in their present state seems increasingly unlikely. Its reaction to over-supply is to announced a temporary suspension of production for 11 days [Feb-March 2009] in all its 12 Japanese production units.

Now, [Jan 2010] Toyota is experiencing one of those crises which can rock a company to its core. Shares plummeted, as the company prepared to recall eight million vehicles globally because of problems with accelerator pedals on seven models.

At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, [Feb 3rd 2010] US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood alarmed both investors and consumers with the advice, which he later retracted, that owners of a recalled Toyota should “stop driving it”.

The carmaker said it was not aware of any accidents resulting from the issue and that only 26 incidents involving accelerator pedals had been reported in Europe. Last year, Toyota was forced to recall about 5 million cars worldwide over problems with floor mats trapping pedals. END
Toyota’s UK spokesman Scott Brownlee denied that the firm had delayed the accelerator pedal recall in the UK, stating it was a quality rather than a safety issue.

The Perrier Story

The developing story, although potentially far more significant has echoes of the Perrier case.

This relates to the crisis faced by the Perrier brand in the late 1980s. John Mowen & Michael Minor in their text book on Consumer Behaviour explain what happened

Perrier Group of America announced a highly embarrassing product recall [February 9, 1990]. The recall came in response to a report stating that Perrier’s high-priced bottled water was contaminated with benzene. Even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the benzene levels did not pose “a significant short-term health risk,” Perrier’s management requested the removal of the brand from supermarkets and restaurants in the United States and Canada.

The incident turned into a public relations disaster, in large part because the company’s explanation for the recall kept changing. After traces of benzene were found in Perrier bottles in other parts of the world, company officials altered their original explanation. Benzene, they now said, is naturally present in carbon dioxide (the gas that makes Perrier bubbly) and is normally filtered out before the water is bottled. For unknown reasons workers had inexplicably failed to change the filters. Meanwhile, Perrier still insisted that its famous spring in Vergeze, France was unpolluted. By 1995, Perrier sales had fallen to one-half their 1989 peak. The company had to mount a comeback strategy. While attempting to regain share for the Perrier brand through new distribution channels, the company began to invest in other brands that did not have the Perrier name attached to them. The question remains, however, will the memory of the benzene incident forever tarnish Perrier brand name?

Lessons for Toyota

In times of corporate crisis, Denial is still a likely response. What might Toyota do to avoid the dangers of permanent damage to its future as a brand? Can lessons be learned from the fate of Perrier? What steps might a creative leadership take?

Acknowledgement

With grateful thanks to Susan Moger for her insightful comments on this story.

Tony Blair, the Chilcot Enquiry and the Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership

When former Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived to give evidence to the Chilcot enquiry [January 29th 2010] he was greeted by a crowd of several hundred protesters. The placards read “Bliar” and the chants were “Tony Blair: War Criminal”

The Chilcot Enquiry was established to enquire what lessons could be learned from the invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair, as Prime Minister at the time, was always assumed to be the key witness. He arrived early, by a back entrance, to avoid confrontation with demonstators.

Tony Blair is regarded as a modern example of a charismatic leader. The plotting and his eventual overthrow have echoes of the fate of another Charismatic figure, Margaret Thatcher, two decades earlier.

WE use the term to refer to today’s leaders in all walks of life. It was origianlly brilliantly analysed by Weber, as a pre-modern form of leadership through which radical shifts in institutions are achieved. eber consdiered that charisma was less effective than a more rational mode of leadership in modern industrial societies. He examined the persuasive powers of a leader, and the assumptions of followerss of special, supernatural or magical gifts which provide the leader with legitimacy. The influence process appeals to ethical and emotional needs, rather than self-interested and rational considerations.

In the textbook Dilemmas of Leadership, there is a chapter on The Magic of Charisma. It outlines an all- too-often ignored ‘dark side’ of charisma, in its early and more modern form (‘new charisma’) of transformational leadership. ‘New charisma … is associated with follower empowerment. Such a view has to explain the processes of leaders who show little concern for empowerment… [and] poses particular problems to the new leadership position of moral rectitude and ethical values.’

The Magic of The Charismatic Leader

The build-up to Mr Blair’s appearance at the Chilcot enquiry suggested that commentators still were in thrall to the magic of the charismatic personality. The presumption in the media was that Mr Blair would be able to weave his spell, and would escape relatively unscathed, however deeply the matter was explored.

The calculus of risk

The early questioning probed how Government strategy had arrived at a decision to enter into a war with Iraq. Tony Blair made it clear that there was one critical event which changed strategy, and why. This was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11th, (the so-called 9/11 attack). Mr Blair told the enquiry that at that time, the prevailing strategy of containment of the Iraq regime was already becoming weaker, but 9/11 changed the ‘calculus of risk’ of persisting with the strategy. Put another way, the calculus of risk may be interpreted as attempts to deal with dilemmas of leadership. Conditions are ambiguous, requiring trade-offs, maybe compromises. For example, the need to act swiftly against a perceived and serious threat will be hindered by concerns for reaching consensus among allies. Gaining support is weighed against belief in one’s own position. Considerations of the legality of desired actions may be considered to be preventing thos actions and risking moral obligations.

One vivid example of the leadership dilemmas given by Tony Blair was the problem of obtaining better information from key witnesses (regarding claims of Saddam’s secret weapons of mass destructions). Obtaining the information was highly likely to put the witnesses and their families in mortal danger.

Seeing the big picture

At one point in the proceedings, Tony Blair indicated that he had a consistent way of seeing ‘one big problem’ of The Middle East, The Israeli-Palestine conflict, and Saddam’s regime. Such holding fast to the big picture’ is useful, perhaps necessary, for a visionary (charismatic?) leader to be able to dismiss reasoned objections to aspects of the grand plan.

He concluded six hours of questioning in similar vein, appealing to the public to take the long view, and focus on what might have been achieved in 2020 rather than the details of how the war was prosecuted. He believed his actions were taken in good faith in the interests of a just war.

Outside the hall, the protesters continued their demonstration.

Lessons to be learned

The enquiry is seeking to establish what lessons could be learned from the invasion of Iraq. It is a question which can be modified for students of leadership. What lessons can be learned about the leadership style of Tony Blair and prevailing notions of charismatic leadership? Why had the anger of the protesters been heaped on the head of one man? Are there lessons for leaders in business in other walks of life?

Congratulations to Professor Petra

Petra de Weerd-Nederhof was inaugurated as Professor of Organisation Studies and Innovation at the University of Twente on 28th January 2010. Her inaugural address was entitled “Organising Innovation is an act of Balancing”

Leaders We Deserve adds its congratulations and best wishes to Petra for her contributions towards consolidating the international networks of scholars and practitioners engaged in the leadership of creative and innovative efforts.

The celebratory video was prepared by Tudor Rickards and Susan Moger, of Manchester Business School, founding editors of Creativity and Innovation Management journal. Petra and her colleague Olaf Fisscher at the University of Twente took over the journal in 2001, with a team from the School of Management and Governance at Twente.

Cadbury Kraft takeover: More than meets the eye

So the mighty Kraft finally hunted down its prey and swallowed up poor little Cadburys. Howls of protest from the UK. Nostalgia and affection for the taste of Diary Milk swept the land. One caller to a (BBC Five Live) phone-in said Cadburys was her favourite chocolate but that she would never buy any again.

In the wake of the takeover (still to be ratified) LWD sought out an expert on Corporate Reputation for his views. Professor Gary Davies of Manchester Business School came up with several points that had been overlooked by other commentators in assessing the likely winners and losers of the takeover. He also added a more surprising comment based on his research into Corporate Reputation …

Dilemmas of Leadership: Book Review

The text Dilemmas of Leadership is in use on various leadership development programmes. But what are dilemmas? How will knowledge of dilemmas help a leader in the current economic circumstances?

Tudor Rickards, January 18th 2010

The 2006 edition of Dilemmas of Leadership suggested early in its first chapter that

The term [Dilemma] originally referred to a philosophical position that defeats logical attempts to resolve it. One of two outcomes has to be accepted, yet each contradicts previously held beliefs and their logical consequences. The early philosophers talked of being on the horns of a dilemma – where the choice is to be impaled by one or the other horn of an angry bull. Other powerful metaphors also illustrate what dilemma is like: ‘It’s being between a rock and a hard place’; ‘it’s a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea’; or ‘sailing too close to the rocks or the whirlpool’ (Scylla and Charybdis were terms used in mythology).

The essence of a dilemma is that there is no satisfactory choice that suggests itself on the evidence available. This is a position leaders find themselves in, all too often .. There is incomplete information about the consequences of the decisions. .. uncertainties are obviously worse when the decision addresses outcomes of strategic decisions at some time in the future. It can be seen that all leaders face dilemmas.

Since the book was written, the economic world has been shaken to its foundations. It is timely to rexamine the central concept of leadership dilemmas in light of changed circumstances.

Dilemmas and Discovery Learning

The authors suggest that any leader will benefit from developing skills at dealing with dilemmas through ‘map reading, map testing and map making’. By this, they mean examining belief systems for deeply held assumptions and then critically testing these assumptions so that the decision is made through a shift in perspective. There is a hint (p13) that the process has aspects of the work of Thomas Kuhn, who popularized the idea of a paradigm-switch when a belief system radically changes.

Chapters 2-9 examine leadership issues, each with its concealed dilemmas. Theis approach provides a way of structuring the major themes in the vast literature leadership. They can be illustrated by considering the materials in chapters 2 and 3.

There is a long-standing debate on whether leaders are born or made. In chapter 2 we see how this can be better understood as a dilemma arising because of two different theoretical beliefs, one assuming that leaders have special fixed traits, and the other believing that leadership excellence can be ‘made’ or developed. In chapter 3, leaders of project teams are shown to be facing the dilemma of setting clear guidelines under conditions which can never be completely clear of uncertainties (or ambiguities).

The approach has the benefit of demonstrating practical experience and theoretical ‘maps’ are valuable partners for leadership development.

Dilemmas for Today’s Leadership Challenges

Some of the dilemmas are immediately relevant to today’s leadership challenges. Chapter 9 poses the uncomfortable dilemma of ethical leadership. Can an ethical leader operate competitively? This question has taken on new significance in what might be called the post-Enron climate of business. Another dilemma, from Chapter 6, is stated as trust and the limits of rationality. We have written recently in this blog of the attention being paid to the irrational behaviours contributing to economic bubbles, and the failure of leadership to calm things down.

Do dilemmas matter?

A knowledge of dilemmas seems an arcane factor in a search for improved leadership performance. On the other hand, the book does a service in indicating that that leadership is a concept to which theory is still unavailable to provide universal answers. Rather, the authors argue, each leader needs to examine each challenge to develop a ‘conversation with the situation’ (p19) out of which improved understanding and actions may emerge.

Bubbles, Banks and Animal Spirits

In a recent edition, The Economist newspaper warns of the dangers of banking bubbles, fuelled by governmental stimulus around the world. Where should investors turn for advice?

The Economist [Jan 9th 2010] makes its case powerfully:

“In 2008 falling markets caused a vicious circle of debt defaults and fire sales …The Market rebound was necessary to stabilise economies [in 2009] but now there is a danger that bubbles are being created.”

The metaphor of a financial bubble describes a situation which markets show signs of growth, with ‘all signals go’ to encourage further investment and speculation. Some unexpected shock such as a radical innovation (railways, the internet) promises rewards for fast-movers. Credit becomes available for acquiring assets. But warning voices are unheeded, as investors become caught in a frenzy of activity. But the financial dynamics are inevitably followed by a very sudden implosion as the bubble bursts.

There are some principles worth keeping in mind. Almost everyone offering advice has a belief system or map. The better we study of ‘test’ the map, the more we can feel confident and draw conclusions.

The Invisible Hand and Animal Spirits

Since 2008, there has been a growing awareness of the limitations of the so-called Neo-Classical economics associated since the 1980s with Milton Friedman, and taken up in the USA and The United Kingdom under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher respectively. There has been a rediscovery of elements of John Maynard Keynes and in particular the notion that human behaviour is not simply guided by Adam Smith’s Invisible hand of the market but also by animal spirits which lead individual investors into a collective panic.

A recent book on behavioural economics suggested

The current crisis .. was caused precisely by changing confidence, temptations, envy, resentment, and illusions—and especially by changing stories about the nature of the economy. These intangibles were the reason why people paid small fortunes for houses in cornfields; why others financed those purchases; why the Dow Jones average peaked above 14,000 and a little more than a year later fell below 7,500; why Bear Stearns was only (and barely) saved by a Federal Reserve bailout, and why later in the year Lehman Brothers collapsed outright; why a large fraction of the world’s banks are underfunded; and why, as we write, some of them are still tottering on the brink.

The warning from the Economist was that “The longer the world keeps its interest rates close to zero, the greater the danger that bubbles will appear – most likely in commodities, and in emerging markets, where growth keeps investors optimistic and currency pegs import loose monetary policy”. Unsurprisingly, this is a matter of interest and debate in China at present:

BEIJING (Commodity Online): Is the Chinese economy caught on the verge of a bubble? That is the heated discussion these days among global analysts, investing pundits, hedge fund managers and economic experts.

Noted global hedge fund manager Jim Chanos says China is in a bubble that will burst soon. He says there are some serious problems with Chinese disbursement of bank lending. Chanos says that China’s economy is overheated and thus will burst badly. According to him the Chinese economy is being over-stimulated by its stimulus program of $586 billion dollars. Most of this money is going into speculation and overproduction of goods that China will not be able to sell.

But global commodities investing guru Jim Rogers has blasted Chanos for what he has said on China. Rogers, who has been passionately investing in China for the last few years, says that China is not in a bubble as Chanos has predicted. Rogers, who shifted his residence to Singapore two years back as he felt that Asian countries like China have huge investment potential, says that Chinese economy is on strong and sound foundations. Rogers points out that Chanos may not know the fundamentals of the Chinese economy and the basics of ‘bubbles. [Rogers has] lambasted Roubini’s lack of fundamentals on gold and said that the yellow metal was set to cross $2,000 per ounce in the next decade.

Faced with such conflicting advice, if a commodities investment company were evaluating its portfolio in Asian markets in the next year, what sort of research investigation should it consider commissioning?

Global Events and Hand-clapping

What’s a nursery-rhyme got to do with global events? Plenty. This little song has received nearly 20,000,000 hits on its YouTube platform. And that’s a pretty global event, and some exposure

How did I become one of the 20 million consumers of the YouTube video? Through that phenomenon of discovery by surfing around. In other words mostly by accident while looking for something else. One day we will have a better idea of how images and words impel people to ‘pass it on’. At the moment it passes for a mysterious force known as viral marketing, which operates thanks to the Internet