Winning The Fight...

We live in a world of litigation, arbitrations and settlements. Look around, it's really a world where the lawyers win and everyone else settles for what they can get instead of what they want or need. In this world, we have been told time and time again that we have to remain calm, keep a cool head or work on a compromise.

Well let me tell you one thing - the other guy isn't working on a compromise. Denis McGrath had a nice post yesterday on how the conglomerates are actively working to win. They are positioning their press and their negotiation tactics to divide the WGA and get them to settle for something less than they deserve.

The WGA and the writers themselves, bless their cotton socks, have been winning the PR war and communicating the inequity of the situation to the public at large. Great. Keep at it.

But that isn't going to win the war.

(and make no mistake that this is a war. I was in the military for four years and I recognize it even though it's taking place in a board room)

So what do you do when you live in a world which tells you to be reasonable and compromise and accept less than you deserve because your opponent holds all the cards and people are going through an extreme hardship trying to make their bills? What do you do? How do you end it?

You start by wanting to win. You don't play around. You act. You strategize. You find your enemy's weak spots and prepare to exploit them.

Then you get in the ring and get your knuckles bloody, and you don't stop until you hear "uncle."

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii. They made a decisive blow to America's throat. We were shaken. Near shattered. Then, incredibly they didn't press on to finish the job. They became scared of their own success and pulled back, allowing the American war machine to rise out of its slumber and come back -- hard. If the Japanese had pressed on, California might have become part of the Imperial realm of Japan.

You want a quick resolution to this strike? You want the conglomerates to come to the table with an economic package that encompasses the internet as it is today and builds for the future? Then hit them where it hurts and you keep hitting -- hard -- and don't let the conglomerates get a word in unless that word is "uncle."

The upfronts are coming. Let them come and go. Let the networks not have anything to show advertisers. Let the public know they are getting nothing but reality shows because the conglomerates didn't want to make a $100M less in profits (though they are still making a profit in the billions). You drag it out. You make them hurt right where it hurts most - the bottom line. You tell the stockholders of those companies that you aren't going to give up. You tell them that those companies were built on your creativity and that without you - they are nothing.

You don't appease tyrants. You don't let them "take back" what isn't theirs.

You get into the fight to win.