Googley Eyes.
It might be laughably naïve, but waking up to a sparkling Memorial Day morning the thought bloomed that maybe, just maybe, this is the metaphor writ large.
After all, it was days and days of rain dampening what’s reportedly the coldest New England Spring in two decades before the sun found the gumption to crack through the gloom.
Made me start to think/wish/hope that after 128 days of living on the darkening edge of uncertainty, toxic distractions, and bizarre oddities — a government bought and sold as a meme coin — op. cit. can again vanquish ibid., and light can stage its uplifting return.
To which the remarkable Bob Brihn replies, “Don’t overproduce the moment.”
He's right on that: renewed downpours are now forecast for the next three days.
He's also right on this: we can read too much into things that might appear monumental in the moment, but, in retrospect, turn out to be not so much.
Just before the holiday, we all got a good whiff of that.
At least anyone who, like me, willingly gave up 156.36 minutes of their lives to watch Google’s all-things-AI product announcement.
In some ways it was like AI itself: blindingly fast, brilliantly fluid, entirely dazzling on first glance with 100 new products — 1.5636 announcements/minute — in the allotted time.
It's only in the aftermath that the critical eye saw the output as more future than present, fascinating in breadth and scope, and amazing as a coming attraction.
Still, a whole lot of breathtaking show with far less immediate go.
You might think this is a point where the world shifts on its axis, and it might well be. Eventually.
But for right now, I call it a master class in brand management, especially as it pertains to the specialized field of public affairs.
You’ll note that nowhere in the keynote did we hear any mention of monopolistic practices and regulatory consequences, the teraflops of wasted energy on the “never mind” of Google’s cookieless future, or the avalanching defection of Google search users to other AI-enabled platforms.
Instead, what we saw was a brilliantly framed and emotionally powerful argument to let Google do whatever Google wants to do because the payoff is so damned cool.
The lawyers call it “bargained for consideration”; the politicians “quid pro quo.”
Either way, and saying this without a lick of sarcasm, they pulled it off so well that nobody saw the wires lifting the lady off the stage.
The trade-off in the middle of all the technological gee-whiz: you don’t want to break up with Google, and you certainly don’t want the government breaking up the corporation, when they’re so close to making so much that's so extraordinary go from "what if, to what is."
And you know what? It’s not the weakest argument in the book. Especially when delivered so creatively and cleverly that the sale is made without anyone even seeing what was really being sold.
Putting the sticky policy conundrums aside, professional hats off, honor is due.