Masters: Marshall McLuhan, William Novelli, and Tom Wolfe
by Bruce Piasecki, Author of Doing More with Less
We live in a time of accelerating social unrest and communication failures, where the ability to listen deeply and resolve matters of import are often lost in wheel spinning. I am talking here not only about politics, but communication failures between neighbors, lovers and firms, too.
Over the last eight/nine years, after Doing More with Less became a bestseller, I was introduced to an array of incredibly interesting money managers, achievers, and social leaders. In response I wrote five biographies.
I wrote them to chronicle in everyday language the origins, ambitions, and results of these exemplar lives that navigated the day to day with impact and social value. I wrote the mini-cases like Freud, Churchill and Emerson did for their days on earth. I am not willing to say mine are as lasting as those of the prior decades, but I did use them as my model to capture the essence of the lives of “Giants in Social Investing”, and those excelling in quiet genius and social intelligence. Having written those biographies, I can now see where these lives were made possible.
Now I want to write about the big three who first saw all emphasis on social good coming full steam, like a locomotive, at us: Marshall McLuhan, Tom Wolfe, and a relatively unknown master William Novelli.
The Tall Titan In a Fine White Hat Tom Wolfe
It is easiest to start with Tom Wolfe, not only because of the fame of his name, but also because I was blessed in knowing him the last nine years of his impactful life. Tom Wolfe nominated me to join the Lotos Club, a Club established by Mark Twain and his friends, in mid-town Manhattan, because he liked my book Doing More with Less. Tom said: “This book is a book for the rest of this century.” I have been trying to live up to that insight ever since, and find it a bit intimidating and generous at the same time. I now realize, after thinking more about Novelli and McLuhan, what he meant about the rest of the century. In a world of nine billion, we all must learn to do more with less, and forget the waste and wheel-spinning.
Tom Wolfe was a generous man, a supportive man.
Having graduated from Yale in rapid fame as the founder of new journalism, Tom was a profound Americanist who found “we are still on the Frontier of America, Bruce. We are still finding out how fully hilarious and fun we are as a peoples and a nation, full of abundant stupidity and wealth, lost in this errand in the wilderness.” He chuckled when he told me the story about his hate mail on “Bonfire of Vanities”, his book and film on New York bankers and racism. He had his lawyer sell “that box of hate” to the New York Public Library for “nearly two million. This is only possible in America.”
One of the lovely hand drawn Christmas cards Tom Wolfe mailed my firm’s address shows a proud upstanding minister before a room full of well-dressed church goers. But they are chatting with each other, not facing the minister with any respect nor honest attention. “You need to cut thru all this inattention,” explaining his flamboyant and lasting style.
Tom wrote, and made famous, Marshall McLuhan.
It was done in a 1965 piece written for the New York Herald Tribune newspaper and reprinted by 1968 in his book The Pump House Gang. His buzzy subtheme states: “Suppose he is what he sounds like, the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Pavlov. What if he is right?”
The essay is brilliant, generous and right on, explaining the quick pace, spasm, and value of Marshall’s way of speaking. If you want a fine demonstration of Marshall’s genius, I recommend the new film posted at this link by the literary performance master John Dennis Anderson. The link is here.
Who Is William Novelli and What is Good Business?
So assuming Wolfe is dead right about the lively Marshall, and that you see what I mean by his Marshall’s brilliantly meandering style of insight after insight from the Anderson show, let me now praise a less famous mastermind. His name is Bill Novelli, the founder of the impactful communications firm Porter and Novelli. Novelli has sold his portion of the firm, and now gives back running the Business for Impact center at Georgetown University.
Like Wolfe, I am lucky to know Novelli personally. We are the two business types on a eight Doctor Board of Directors for the Medical Consortium on Climate and Public Health. Bill keeps us focused with his sharp wit and pragmatism every meeting, as co-chair. This group, associated with George Mason University, represents before Washington and the states the medical positions of the forty five dominant medical societies. They do original research on public opinions on science and climate. I am honored to be on their Board, but I say all this for is simple recommendation:
Read Novelli’s new book GOOD BUSINESS: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World.”
It just came out by John Hopkins press, and is well worth the $27.95 in hardback. I do not wish to repeat the respectful forward by the Chair and CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton; nor echo the points of the CEO of the American Association of Retired Persons Jo Ann Jenkins. They add their name to this book because of the recognized contributions of Bill Novelli across the last half century.
What I like about this readable book is its insider account on how he fought, with about 125 other stakeholders, “the tobacco wars.” This after humble first work helping Unilever sell soap. After his rapid rise in Advertising in New York, Bill now explains his tools and insights in helping create the filed of social marketing. This is a world only possible after the work of Tom Wolfe and Marshall McLuhan. It is a world full of grace, force and fascination.
Read the book, look at the filmed performance on McLuhan, and think fondly of Tom Wolfe. It will help your summer, and your work.
