It’s February 12th… 212 day.

A nice little 212 surprise from the kids this morning (with a little help from The Spaniard – my wife).

The fingers in the upper left are begging that I hurry up and take the picture.

Universal Orlando Resort is promoting their vacation destination with a mock advocacy effort attached to the Web site, iwantmyvacation.com – “Helping people obtain the vacations they deserve”.

Cute idea? For some, maybe (I think they could do better).

Unfortunately, someone included a “Bash the Boss” game as part of the effort. In it, players control an animated employee that punches an animated old-school stereotypical boss as far as possible. Beneath the title of the game it says…

“It’s even MORE fun if you’re playing on company time!”

People are better than this.

Universal (and its parent GE) can’t possibly want to perpetuate this message. It has too many employees itself – too many shareholders. Can you imagine if GE’s 300,000+ employees played the game just once – the amount of lost time?

It’s cynical.

Earned media attempt? There are far better ways.

Someone was in rush to meet a deadline.

Learn from it.

Dig deeper. Be positive.

(need to the see the universal mistake?)

My wife had roughly 10 of her sorority sisters in town this past weekend (we’re deeply into adulthood now but I believe they still call themselves sorority sisters). They’re writing a book together (you’ll see them on Oprah at some point – I’m serious).

With little remaining room in the house, I asked my boys (7 and 4) if they’d like to go to Aunt Cheech’s house with me (my sister’s) or camp out at the office (my daughter was staying with the ladies of ASA).

The office won by a landslide.

We packed up the sleeping bags, a small TV/VCR and set out on our camping adventure.

After 45 minutes of locating everything we needed for our deep suburban expedition (and one quick trip to Burger King – the boy’s unfortunate choice), we arrived.

“This is great.”

“This is just like a house. But without the living room.”

“Can we sleep here every night.”

It was a great evening. We drew pictures, had dinner at the conference room table and watched a Disney flick. Nothing fancy needed.

Getting ready for bed, we went into the bathroom to brush teeth and to be sure no additional trips were needed until morning.

From the next stall over, my four year old said, “This bathroom is fresh. It’s so shiny. Are people coming over?”

Early one morning two weeks ago, I walked out of the gym, looked over toward the bank of newspaper stands and noticed one large and centered headline screaming from the USA TODAY box.

"Optimism has fallen, divisions increased"

It was the day before the inauguration of our newly elected president.

My first thought (without knowing what the article was about) was, "What an incredibly negative message to lead the day with. What editor could possibly have let that through?"

I kept moving, deciding I’d check the basis for such a headline later in the day when I was online. Why? Only to provide my small "check and balance" on the media, I guess.

Apparently USA TODAY (based on 3 surveys of roughly 1,000 people each and one poll of another 1,005 by Gallup) chose the day before the inauguration to loudly proclaim a national fallen optimism and that our "united we stand" was ever weaker due to our increased divisions.

The headline was irresponsible and subjective (as were many of the opinionated comments in the "straight news" article).

I know many people who are excited about the future of our country. I know many people who are optimistic about what lies ahead for them. I know people who realize how fortunate they are to be Americans.

In fact, I believe the editor at USA TODAY who allowed the headline does too.

The first sentence prior to the last paragraph of the article reads…

"Even so, by 53%-42% Americans predict the country will be better off four years from now."

Hmmmmm.

Perhaps the headline should have been…

Majority of Americans optimistic about the future

Scratch more than surface. Go beyond the headlines.

(the piece at USATODAY.COM)