Funeral Words

The Great Debate

I want to see if I can start a debate on this site. I know I have readers out there and I know some of you personally because you have kindly told me about your interest in funeralwords.com. I also know you’re a smart bunch of hard workers and insightful thinkers. Now’s the time to put some of those smarts to work.

Latest from TomPeters.com

H5N1, The view from Asia: "When, not if..."

Naysayers ("What, me worry?"), suggesting that much pandemic talk is "alarmism," abound in the United States.

Not so in Southeast Asia.

Arrive Hong Kong from Sydney this morning. Only English-language paper out at 5 a.m. is The Standard, the biggest HK business paper. Page 1, News Section, blaring (no exaggeration) top-of-the-paper headline: "Tough Bird Flu Action Ahead." Among other things, detailed quarantine plans were explained—they are Draconian.

Summarizing the headlines and personal discussions in Taiwan today, I believe the mood/expectation is: "When, not if ..."

Couple that with, among other things, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt's interview in the current Time [get article for a fee—CM], now talking about tens of millions of possible deaths, and, well ...

Personally, I am moving into Full Alarmist Mode. Putting on my analytic hat, I shall assume that there is a 25% chance of a catastrophic economic (not to mention physical) occurrence as early as the coming summer. I will begin to make significant business and personal financial decisions immediately based on that likelihood.  (bold added)

To my mind there are, on this issue, two kinds of people: alarmists and fools. There are indeed many reasons to believe that the worst will not occur. But reverting to business-school language that I normally find anathema, there is utterly no reason to believe that there is not a non-trivial statistical likelihood that a catastrophic event of epic proportion will occur within the next 12 months. (Sorry for the triple negative.)

Undisguised "alarmism" is clearly the Asian mood. Perhaps we should pay attention to those pinioned in the eye of the storm.

Link to TomPeters.com

[Note: I don't want to see this happen. Still, we funeral directors have a lot to loose if this thing all goes to hell in the proverbial handbasket. We are talking the potential for 150,000,000 yes million people dead from this virus worldwide and a catastrophic failure of our economic systems. Stuff we take for granted could just stop. Everything from package deliver to fire and police support could disappear for months. For instance, what happens if I can't get heating oil delivered at my house next winter because the truck drivers are sick, dead or to scared to leave their houses. How do I get food if the Stop and Shop gets shut down for quarantine purposes? Never mind how do I get caskets and supplies to bury people with. Serious stuff, it requires our steady attention. BT]

Our Audio Experiment

Okay folks, here it goes, the big audio experiment I have had in mind since the Chicago Convention. On Tuesday of that week, Lynn Ochiltree, Bob Rosson and I led a session called 60 Ideas in 60 Minutes where we took an hour to blast out as many business ideas using our experience and audience participation as well.

For my part, I brought a worksheet outlining 10 quick ideas for everyone to take home with them. You can download that file in PDF format by clicking the link just below.

Download BT's Quick 10 Ideas PDF

Here's where the experimental part begins. At convention I ordered the entire audio library, every session provided in MP3 format (the same files that your kids and grandkids play on their computers and portable players). This allows me to post the recording of my talk right here on this site so you can here the stories that go along with the 10 ideas. Any computer built in the last several years and connected to a high-speed connection should have the ability to listen to these files with just a click. You can also download them to your computer for later listening. Keep in mind that each of these files runs about 5 Mb and will take some time to download with a dial-up or other limited access connection.

Download BT's Quick10 Audio Part 1

Download BT's Quick10 Audio Part 2

Download BT's Quick10 Audio Part 3

Here's where the experimental part comes in. I need your help to test these files and make sure they work. Please take a minute to click on one or more of these links, see what happens and then post a quick comment using the link just below. If it worked, let me know. If it didn't, let me know that too. If you want more of this kind of content, tell me. If you will never bother with media files ever again, you can tell me that too.

This is an experiment in funeral service publishing and the only way it will serve you better is with some consumer feedback. It only takes a minute, so click the link and tell me what's working and what's not working about this website. I want to make it better for us all.

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic week.

BT

Joan Didion Book

I have read half of The Year of Magical Thinking (see below for a summary and link) and I recommend it highly to those who want to learn about grief. Direct and insightful, Joan Didion gives us a rare insiders view of grieving penned by a true professional writer.

It is not a feel good book about funeral service. The funeral director comes and goes in half a page and her journey continues. (Perhaps we can learn something from this)

With the holidays fast approaching, this might make a great gift alternative for some of your clergy and caregivers.

Glocalization--Take 2

In my last post I mentioned the challenge of exploding diversity in this world because of the internet and the availability of MILLIONS of channels of entertainment, news and information from all over the world. I suggested this would cause more and more challenges for us in funeral service as we struggle to understand our communities, so that we can market and serve the people in our neighborhoods. After all they come from such increasingly diverse backgrounds and in many ways DO NOT HAVE TO FIT IN!!!!! They can just pop on the internet and feel connected to friends, family, past, language and ethnicity. They can feel right at "home" without ever needed to meet their neighbors. In a very real sense, the internet shuts down (or at the very least slows down) the melting pot! OOPS. That was always a key strength of America.

Well this morning I pushed the thought a little further. How about our individual families? Aren't they WITHIN THEMSELVES much more diverse than ever before? What will it take to create bonding and cohesion within families so that they can even find a way to hold a meaningful gathering themselves, never mind invite anyone else along to participate?

I don't have much in the way of answers at the moment. Good answers always come from good questions, however, and I know we need to ask these questions more and more often and open our minds to new possibilities. Otherwise globalization, glocalization, diversification, on and on will rush right past and leave us without a way to make a living.

BT

P.S. For a quick definition of the word glocalization, see my previous post.

Lots to think about out there.

We always build the big picture out of little observations and bits of evidence. Here's a couple things I came across this week we all should consider.

Recession on the Way?

I bumped into the business manager of our local symphony. Continuously operating for more than 75 years, this little community orchestra has weathered many ups and downs. Nevertheless, he had lots of concern about a big drop in subscriptions this year. We talked about this for several minutes and came up with a couple of key issues.

Hot New Book About Grief

I went to three different bookstores today looking for a copy of Joan Didion's new book The Year of Magical Thinking. All three, sold out. And get this, it's a book about grief!

Based on the summary I have read, Joan Didion and her husband returned from the hospital where their daughter had gone into septic shock due to complications from pneumonia. That evening, her husband died silently of a massive heart attack as he sat in a chair. This memoir follows her journey of grief out of those terrible circumstances and back into a working renewed life. Here's a quote from the Publisher's weekly review:

"We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss," she writes. "We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes." Didion's mourning follows a traditional arc—she describes just how precisely it cleaves to the medical descriptions of grief—but her elegant rendition of its stages leads to hard-won insight, particularly into the aftereffects of marriage. "Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age."

This book debuted #4 on the New York Times bestseller list. Expect it to pop up in conversation sometime soon. You can find it here on Amazon.com.

A (word) Picture is Worth...

What will happen should the Avian Flu arrive in America as a true killer disease? Speculation rages about whether or when the dreaded pandemic will occur. We certainly know the form of virus that kills birds continues to work its way around the globe with reports of outbreaks in Greece and Turkey only a few days ago. So what happens when a disease like this becomes human compatible and spreads rapidly in the modern world?

In the Wall Street Journal

A reporter from the Wall Street Journal called last week to talk with me about changes in funeral service, the expanding use of technology and all the rest. An article appeared as part of the Sunday Edition (which gets published through a number of regional daily papers) which included a quote from my interview. You can find the article online at:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112942738756769892.html?mod=sunday_journal_primary_hs

Check it out when you have a chance.

Convention Wrap

Okay, here's the wrap. A few more products and resources from the NFDA Expo floor and time to move on. My apologies to those who did not make the cut this year. [Note To Vendors: I would certainly consider reviewing and featuring new products throughout the year. I just need to know about them. Send email information and when appropriate samples or demos and I'll see what fits.]