Kranz On Copy: Insights and answers on copywriting and writing copy

You may want to check out a new ebook by Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Daniela Barbosa and Greg Merkle: The Conversational Corporation. I had a hand in it and am quite proud of how it turned out.

For banks these days, it's all doom and gloom, right?

Not necessarily....

In fact, many of the smaller banks -- the local institutions with a regional focus -- are doing very well. They never leapt onto the mortgage derivatives bandwagon driven by the biggest banks. So today, they're sitting on piles of cash, ready to make loans.

While they have money, however, they may not have the marketing experience they need to leverage their new-found advantage.

That's where A New Dawn is Here: Fresh Opportunities for Healthy Banks comes into the picture. Produced by Trinity Communications, a Boston-based services branding/marketing agency, New Dawn is packed with practical insights and real-life examples that can help healthy banks seize the initiative and grow.

Disclaimer: Yes, I did work on this project. And I'm proud of it, too. If you're working with banks, you may find it an interesting read.

I just read a NY Times review of a new book, House of Cards, about the collapse of Bear Stearns. In the article, the reviewer cites a familiar villain in this crisis: a failure to diversify investments.

Which got me thinking. Like eating 5 portions of fruits and vegetables a day, diversifying our investments is something all of us know we are supposed to do. Yet, in practice, few of us -- and apparently very few investment officers in positions of responsibility -- actually do it.

It's not difficult to see why. If every investment class (say, stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.) performed equally well, diversification would impose no pain. But that ain't the way things are. In any given market, some assets outperform others -- some by large margins. If you were to be true to the principle of diversification, it would mean taking money out (or restricting the money you put in) of the highest performing assets and spreading your investment dollars in assets that are not performing as well.

That's tough stuff. So we don't do it. And it's why so many fund managers didn't do it.

Right now, an indignant population is pointing its collective finger at these managers and calling them "greedy." But is that an accurate assessment? More importantly, is it a judgment that gives us insight that might prevent future calamity?

Put yourself in the manager's shoes. You're judged by performance. And not in a vacuum, either; you're judged relative to the performance of the fund's competitors. In this environment, bottom-line numbers are everything. You either did as well or better than the competition -- or you did not. Period.

So, in this situation, would you have the guts to diversify? To pull or restrict investments from the very same assets that are producing for your competitors? To resist the carrot of seven or eight digit bonuses and the stick of ignominious dismissal? Would you have the guts to stand up to your boss and say you were willing to sacrifice quarterly, bottom-line performance for responsible, long-term stability? To stand by the principles of "diversity," "responsibility" and "accountability" in notoriously macho cultures (remember State Street Bank's infamous 'pink pump'?) that believe caution is for wimps? Prudence is for pussies?

Maybe you would. But many people would not.

It's all too easy to call the other guy "greedy." It's a lot harder to look in the mirror and acknowledge that the current economic crisis is the product of faults -- lack of foresight, laziness, self-indulgence, lack of courage and yes, greed -- in which we all had a share.