'Girl You Know It's True'

Have you ever noticed that we spend most of our lives trying to be something that we are not? When we’re young, we want to be older, and when we’re old, we redefine what old is.

The same is true in business. For many of us, we do everything possible to appear larger than we are. In proposals or even conversations with prospective clients, I most often say “we” in referring to who will get back to them or who will be executing some task.

Outside of graphic design, there is rarely anyone else involved in the services I deliver. I guess I am always afraid that sounding like a one-person shop might scare some people away. But then again, when you hire me, you hire me. A lot of times, big companies will use their “A” team to pitch a potential client, only to immediately turn the reins over to an entry-level person as soon as the account is secured.

We must remember that it is tempting, but ultimately fruitless, to project something that is not authentic. Looking your best is one thing, but manipulating people is quite another. That truth was made clear this week during the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The ceremony was absolutely breathtaking – an amazing feat of technology and human precision. Its visual impact and seemingly perfect execution was almost intimidating, but was it actually as perfect as it seemed?

It turns out that the climax of the production – a surreal display of fireworks surrounding the stadium – was indeed too good to be true. Realizing that there was no way to secure the 29 locations needed to pull it off and not wanting to add to the already poor air quality, organizers decided more than a year ago to enhance the show with digital fireworks. And since the Chinese controlled every video feed from the site, everyone in the world saw the same thing – even the people inside the stadium.

A couple days later, it was revealed that the emotional and patriotic anthem sung by the cute 9-year-old girl was not quite as it seemed, either. Now, we in America are certainly not shocked by the concept of lip-synching. I remember the silly “live” performances on “American Bandstand,” and who can forget any number of Britney Spears stage disasters or even Ashley Simpson on SNL?

But this was not a case of mouthing the words to your own pre-recorded soundtrack, this one had Milli Vanilli written all over it. The Olympic organizers decided that the real singer, a talented 7-year-old with an imperfect smile was simply not cute enough to represent her country on the world’s biggest stage. So they simply replaced her. Well, everything except her voice. They morphed the two into the perfect performing child, and we were all enchanted by the performance.

I think it is a shame that the powers involved felt the need to compromise the integrity of the event by trying to fake us out. Would it not have been amazing enough if they played it straight? How are they perceived now?

We as a nation do not expect perfection (just look at our elected leaders), but we do expect honesty. I think the same is true of our clients. We may not be the biggest company around, but this is what we can do, and this is what you can expect. All the cards on the table.

Plus, you never have to worry about the CD skipping.