Talkonomics

Whenever I have a business meeting at a real company – halogen-lit hallways, black shiny shoes, ties, cubicles, and shiny coffee-dispenser that smells of stress and futile attempts to extract a non-toxic espresso – I wonder what it would be like to live such a life. Would things be more efficient? Would there be more red tape?  Would it be easier to find answers – or a shoulder to cry on? Would I think differently?

Having been a free-electron for most of my working career, I still approach going to work with the same attitude I had at five, when office seemed like a very exciting game, which grown-ups got to play instead of going to the kindergarten.
Things do change, however, as responsibility creeps on and your start-up actually starts hiring. I imagine I am not the only fledgling entrepreneur, who, never having worked in a normal office structure, suddenly has to learn to manage, delegate and get results.

And this is where things can get out of hand. The other day I saw a spark of terror in my 40-something colleague’s eyes as I asked him : “What’s our contingency plan?” I was about to follow up with my favourite: “Failure is not an option,”– but stopped short as paleness spread across his usually ruddy face and his cheerful Swiss demeanour seemed to collapse in front of my attempt at managerial efficiency.

I was clearly not getting anywhere with directives from my “how to run an office” crash-course, which is now entering it’s 6th Season on Fox – “24”. After all, it appeared that our office was not a Counter Terrorist Unit, and my delivery of Jack Bauer’s lines only paralyzed our already slow employee.  Yet, I was not being different from many other new media entrepreneurs, who, faced with the stress of managing a young business in a new economy at an uncertain time, have subconsciously assimilated CTU as a model for a modern office in which things get done.

For a confirmation, don’t look any further than the number of new media and production executives who have instantly adopted the CTU ring-tone. The other day a friend of mine actually missed several important calls because he was watching season 5 and thought the phone was ringing inside the TV.

All of this might seem silly and a fad, but I believe we should look deeper. It is a known fact that popular culture is greatly influenced by what’s  on TV, and that certain words, especially the ones from successful commercial spots, infiltrate not only the way we communicate, but also the way we think. In my case, and in what I believe is the case of many others, it also influences the way we go about our business, and, therefore, what we create in the end.

There is one person who I believe could help us track the future effect of the CTU- and “Prison Break” -bred executives on the texture of our economy. He is Steven D. Levitt, the rogue economist behind Freakonomics – a brilliant book, that teaches us how to think and look for the real cause of many economic phenomena, as opposed to trusting the obvious. Things are not what they appear, if you look hard enough: the drop in juvenile crime, for instance, can be a result of legalized abortion several decades earlier, and not of political moves by self-serving politicians. In questioning the obvious and looking for the sharpest solution, the author of the book is a kind of Jack Bauer of new economic thought – and I am certain that the effects of TV Talknomics won’t escape his brilliant investigation as they become more apparent in the evolution of the media world.

What  will those sings be? Watch out for office protocols, Field Ops, video-chats, secure access levels, surveillance cameras and satellite uplinks – and let’s just hope that at the end we won’t all be taken over by the Division.