Originally published in https://wired868.com

In a recent media interview, the interviewee was asked this very direct question: ‘Have you ever accepted a bribe for a firearm?’

Gary Griffith, former commissioner of police, former government minister, former senator, a former captain in the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force who is now husband, father, and private citizen, was no less direct with his response, which I seriously doubt the interviewer would have anticipated:

“[…] Have you been involved in prostitution?”https://www.youtube.com/embed/4mV5y6vb6WE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

The exchange immediately put me in mind of my first entrepreneurial venture. It was inspired by a lackluster presentation made by Jules Bernard, who was at the time the country’s commissioner of police. Bernard’s presentation was so bad that, before he was through, I had already made up my mind to form a company to coach leaders to become more engaging presenters. 

Professional Presentations Limited failed spectacularly—do the reasons really matter?—and I pivoted to providing public relations services.

That was 30 years ago. Today, it is still the exception to experience an engaging presentation from a public official. I say ‘engaging’ rather than exciting because some of them sometimes seek to create excitement by resorting to folktales, which is reasonable, I suppose, as well as insults and naked aggression, which is decidedly not. 

The upshot of this lowering of the bar is that the media environment has been transformed from a space accepted and respected as a locus of acceptable behaviour and appropriate language into a wild space where media practitioners and the professional hobbyists who are often their guests feel that no subject is taboo, every public personality is fair game and the rules of grammar are little more than a completely unnecessary nuisance.

One can be forgiven for wondering if today’s media practitioners are guided by any rules at all. Is there an overarching philosophy that has at its core the pursuit of truth and which recognizes that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to arrive at that destination?

Are there any rules of behaviour for invitees and guests?

The media simply would never get their job done if they declined to ask hard questions. The corollary is that if you prefer not to have to handle thorny questions, give media people a wide berth. Stay far away from all ovens and kitchens if you can’t handle the heat. Unless you want long-lasting notoriety—remember ‘That’s insulting!’?—trying to embarrass or abuse the interviewer is not the way to go.

So, to return to Griffith, given the varied portfolios that he has held, I would have expected him to resort to any number of strategies to keep the discussion positive, fruitful, and solutions-oriented.

‘Acknowledge, bridge and go to your key message’ is a commonly used technique when the interview takes a nasty turn—or threatens to—and you know, thanks to Michelle Obama, that your best option is to go high.

Disrespect and abuse are rampant in our society and women are often on the receiving end of this toxicity. Why don’t we simply connect the dots and stop wondering why the scourge of gender-based violence is not in retreat in our country?

Griffith’s knee-jerk reaction was to opt to go low, preferring to ask about the interviewer’s experience of prostitution. 

Some would be tempted to normalise this behaviour by saying, ‘well, that’s Gary.’ Not I. 

What I see is a high-profile—not necessarily ‘responsible’ but certainly ‘with responsibilities’—public personality with an excellent opportunity for a teaching moment. But instead of seeking to reduce the aggro potentially contained in the interviewer’s question, he opted to fight fire with fire. 

I think this response is indicative of the systemic decline we are experiencing throughout our society. I also think that traditional and social media spaces provide an opportunity to collectively change the conversation from its current base level and create a more aspirational discussion.

Media owners have to become intolerant of talk show hosts who repeatedly insult callers by telling them to ‘go ask your mother’. Or who make slapping sounds on-air while eating and talking. Or who seriously asks the question ‘so what are we doing this morning?’ Or who, as in the case of one television presenter, accepts a personal telephone call on live television.

And the list goes on.

So, 30 years later, I am thinking maybe I should re-open the company. This time, however, the focus will not be on coaching leaders to do anything; the much more urgent need is to get all of us, high and low, to show one another kindness. 

And respect.

All MPs who’ve served for more than a decade should resign now—you’ve failed!

Originally published on Wired 868 Tuesday 2 November 2021 Guest Columns

Black Stalin’s lyrics in his 1988 calypso ‘We could make it if we try’  have been occupying a space in my brain.

He sang: ‘So the Treasury broke and they say that recession jamming/
And so to foreign countries Trinis start migrating/
They lose faith in their country, they say we gone down the drain…’

I can think of three waves of migration from Trinidad and Tobago. People left after the 1970 revolution, after the 1990 uprising and there has been an uptick over the past three or four years. This uptick in migration will continue because the country has flatlined and, again in the words of Stalin: ‘Now the Treasury flat and the country come back to Square One’.

Once people leave, they are unlikely to return.

Covid has brought us to a different ‘square one’ where we need a combination of good people, ideas and innovation to reset and rebound our economy and country. However, when I tune into the Parliament Channel, I am confronted with a phalanx of persons who display arrogance and a passion for destroying those ‘on the other side’—seemingly at any cost, with the entire country as collateral damage.

Taxpayers (the vendors in the street, the office worker, pensioners, others and myself) have funded the lifestyle of these members for more than 10 years.

And I question: to what end?

Every year through an oppressive web of taxes, we surrender more than a third of our income—which we earn at significant cost to our physical and mental well-being—for nearly non-existent government services. In some cases, we are paying for our own abuse, as government offices have us going back-and-forth all over the city for simple transactions.

There is neither vibrancy nor eagerness for tackling our deep problems. More than 25% have been members of Parliament for more than 10 years and they appear stuck, unable to pivot in a different direction.

The private sector has a term for employees who have this very syndrome: Incompetent.

In the corporate world, there is continuous assessment of the performance of leaders and if you have not delivered according to your KPIs (key performance indicators) there are consequences.

Unfortunately, our population has no opportunity to assess performance other than the ritual of quinquennial general elections. And, like a dishonest employee, your MP promises to do better ‘next time’.

So this moribund group continues a weekly parliamentary charade, pretending to be going about the country’s business. In the corporate world, a contractor who behaved like that would very likely be taken to court for fraud.

If you have been in Parliament for more than 10 years, you have presided over economic decline which began long before the Covid pandemic took root. You are responsible for the annual 500+ murders we have been experiencing, either because you created the cumbersome system to select a commissioner of police or you interfered with the selection process.

You have either ignored or facilitated the transformation of our society into the alleged ‘narco state’ some say we have become. You have contributed to the collective decay we are all experiencing. You have contributed to the brain drain.

Worst of all, your conscience doesn’t seem to be bothered or you don’t think you are doing something wrong.

In some places, you would have been escorted out of the building for failure to perform. You would have been required to go home and enjoy the permanent pension which you are guaranteed for the rest of your life.

In other places, you might have been taken to court, stripped of your benefits, or even jailed for gross mismanagement of public funds.

From your own personal reflection, you should have accepted that if you have not made a difference over more than 10 years, you have failed and should allow someone else the opportunity to make a difference.

Your conscience should tell you to resign but since it appears you no longer have a conscience, here’s my ask on behalf of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago:

All members of Parliament who have served for more than 10 years, either as a member of Parliament in the Senate or both, please submit your resignation—with immediate effect.

PS: Stay out of politics, permanently.

Originally published on Wired868 Dennise Demming on Tuesday 19 October 2021

If only Members of Parliament could master the same level of decorum and use of language as our esteemed President, this would be a more gentle place.

I contrast the language of the President with the language of the Prime Minister and feel sick to my gut.

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley recently made this comment about the Opposition Leader:

“[…] But the Opposition Leader wants to get around that by bringing the President’s name into the Parliament in a substantive motion so that she and her imps, pimps, and chimps can scandalise the President in the worst way…”

Raymond Ramcharitar claims to have used the phrase ‘imps, pimps and chimps’ over the past year to describe the Opposition. The last thing I expected was for my prime minister to copy and use such a degrading phrase to refer to members of the Opposition.

His reference goes, by extension, to the more than 300,000 persons who voted for the UNC. It is insulting and degrading for half of our population. Our dear Prime Minister seems to have forgotten that he is the prime minister of the entire nation, including those who did not vote for him and his political party.

By definition, the Prime Minister is saying that the Leader of the Opposition and her little creatures are hiding in cupboards, that her people control prostitutes for a percentage of their earnings and that her people are in some way chimps. Is this really what was intended?

Among friends, I have heard people refer to each other jokingly as ‘imps’, suggesting that some person was being naughty and even playful. However, not many people will tolerate being called a ‘pimp’ (except maybe in the rap music industry).

Still, to call someone a ‘chimp’ is to invoke the unfortunate theories used to justify Europe’s domination and enslavement of large portions of the world. ‘Chimp’ is often erroneously used as a synonym of ‘monkey’. And that, frankly, is an unacceptable utterance to come from anyone, especially if the holder of our highest office is using the term to describe any citizen of our fair twin islands.

It is now written into our history that one prime minister condoned and used the ‘ape’ insult to degrade his opponents in Parliament. Unfortunately, this cannot be erased.

At the US Democratic National Convention in 2012, former first lady Michelle Obama famously said these words: “Being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.”

Our population is discovering who our Prime Minister really is. The use of ‘give me a break’ to ‘kiss my ar**’ and now ‘imps, pimps and chimps’ says that some misfortune has befallen our Prime Minister. Why has his vocabulary become so sparse?

At a time in our history when our children more than ever need leaders whose behaviour they can model and emulate, our Prime Minister instead elects to use language that is unbecoming of the office he holds.

Respect for an office should not only be expected from the ordinary people it serves; surely (s)he who holds the office also needs to treat it with no less respect, mindful that the authority (s)he enjoys is an honour bestowed by those who pay the office-holder’s emoluments and fund his perks.

I look forward to the day when listening to our leaders in Parliament again brings me the same hope and joy as when I listen to her Excellency.

Pedestrian Injustice

Dr. Kotzebue’s interest in transportation was sparked by her experience growing up in the city of Hamberg, Germany where she walked and bicycled. She describes the pedestrian experience as one of injustice because pedestrians do not contribute to the air pollution and noise but they suffer the impact. They are our most vulnerable road users. She is also convinced that quality of life is a transportation issue.

Walk, Ride, Bathe in the Office
Her academic study and research continuously examine the possibilities of people being mobile in a healthy and sustainable manner. The answer lies in a combination of walkability, bikability, and a well-regulated private-sector mass transportation system. Achieving a human-centred approach to transportation begins with educating our children about the benefits of integrating activity into our daily routines. It may mean incentivizing employers to provide bathroom facilities and lockers for persons who walk or cycle to work to shower and change.

Cars versus Children
In 2020, Trinidad and Tobago imported 25,00 cars while 17,000 children were born. One can interpret this to mean that society consciously allocated more space to cars than to our children.

Event Planners Survival Strategies
At 13:30 the conversation switched to an understanding of how Event Planners have survived the pandemic. Owner/Manager Director of Imperial Events Marlon Jeffers talks about the importance of creating your own job and using passion and resilience to sustain a dream.

Creating New Products
From a background in the hospitality sector, Marlon and his associates provide a range of services from event conceptualization to execution. While business disappeared during the Covid Pandemic, he has been able to develop a new product to stage “Micro Weddings”.
He sees the creative sector as contributing to the healthy balance that is needed for all of us to thrive.

Originally published https://wired868.com/2021/10/14/demming-trying-to-put-the-pandemic-in-pans-way-is-putting-democracy-at-risk/ Thursday 14 October 2021

Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) is now run by a non-elected normalisation committee appointed by the sport’s world umbrella body, The Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa).

Led by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, our Parliament acted to override the collective will of Tobagonians when their election results with a 6/6 split spoke to collaboration.

The Pan Trinbago Executive has extended its term of office by another three years.

What these three examples communicate to me is that we are pushing towards autocratic styles of leadership instead of seeking to ensure that people are allowed to exercise their democratic rights. The central idea behind democracy is to provide followers with an opportunity to validate leadership, which we do via the electoral process.

Elections provide an opportunity for officials to be held accountable and to seek a fresh mandate. Followers look to leaders to act in their best interests as well as to provide ACT: accountability, collaboration and transparency.

In the absence of these three intangibles, either autocrats will emerge or chaos will reign.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, our country has held two in-person national elections and we are currently preparing for a third, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Elections.

Banks, financial institutions, credit unions and voluntary organisations have all held their elections using technology and blended approaches. If collectively we have the wisdom, capacity and technology to hold elections, why is Pan Trinbago using Covid-19 as the reason for not honouring their constitutional obligation?

If, as reported, the majority of their members have supported deferring the elections, I wonder how this majority was measured. If it was done online, then it follows that you can certainly hold your elections online as well.

If it was done in-person, then the excuse offered is hollow!

If it is true that the majority of their members are unvaccinated, then isn’t this an excellent opportunity to come out in support of the national vaccination drive?

I expect that, as a woman in leadership, the Pan Trinbago president will act in our collective best national interest. That, I submit, means promoting the vaccination drive to increase the numbers of fully vaccinated citizens and assist in a direct way in the fight against the uncompromising pandemic.

It also means, I suggest, demonstrating that although she may not be an internet native and may be in an age cohort which is largely resistant to technological change, she is willing and enthusiastic to embrace technology to find solutions to our myriad problems.

A way to vote freely and fairly is just one of them.

The election of president Beverley Ramsey-Moore heralded a wave of hope for forward thinking and doing things right.

I hope she is aware that her reluctance not to say refusal to seek to re-validate her leadership can completely undo whatever good she may so far have done.

Please, madam, hold the elections.

Tourism in Nevis
This edition of Demming Chronicles explored the island of Nevis with CEO of the Nevis Tourism Authority Jadine Yarde. Under her leadership, the focus is on developing a strong team to communicate clear messages. The Covid Pandemic provided an opportunity for collaboration between Nevis, St. Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla, St. Kitts, Saba, and Sint Eustatius to promote the concept of island hopping among different islands as a unique experience for visitors.

Intra Regional Travel
A major obstacle to Caribbean island hopping is the cost of intraregional travel to the extent that a ticket from New York to France can cost less than a regional ticket or one to get a person to the Caribbean. Jadine is confident that this long-standing issue can be solved if we collaborate and are prepared to engage in open conversations.

Leveraging Technology

She also commented on the importance of packaging our Caribbean offerings as an opportunity to share the unique cultural experiences of people who are resilient, proud, and fun-loving. To young people across the region, she pointed out that the new shift in technology brings with it opportunities to develop different methods of communicating and creating content to reach audiences whose interests go beyond sun, sea, and sand.

Whether it is “Nevis Naturally” or “Nevis Nice”, a warm welcome awaits you.

Register here: https://forms.gle/WS33kV7wSDNdDDeG8

Originally Published on September 29 View Point

From 1956 to 1981, Trinidad and Tobago experienced what it is like to be led by an unapologetically patriarchal leader who made decisions on our behalf whether or not we supported them.

During that period our two-island nation became the richest country in the Caribbean. For 25 years, the leadership style of former prime minister Dr Eric Eustace Williams was accepted—although, after the Black Power Revolution of 1970, it was perhaps more tolerated than accepted. Dr Williams was globally respected as a Caribbean scholar firmly grounded in the history of the country of his birth.

Since his death in March 1981, we have been led by individuals who have generally continued his style and made little effort to change the structures, systems and processes which were created under his leadership.

Understandably, our history nudges us to lean into a patriarchal style of leadership characterised by gender inequality, lack of inclusiveness and Father-knows-best authoritarian stances. From a ‘hassled’ approach to our digital transformation strategy to unclear guidance about the creation of dining bubbles, we continue to be led by men whose leadership styles prevent them from moving away from ego satisfaction.

This often dehumanising style was exemplified by our now former commissioner of police Gary Griffith. For example, he has publicly referred to citizens as ‘cockroaches’ or ‘criminal elements’. Some may have found his communication style appealing but to me a guideline of ‘one shot, one kill’ is totally inappropriate.

In a bygone era, there was doubtless a role for the patriarchal leader. However, the leadership style which brought us out of colonialism is not the leadership style required for us to thrive in a world which is in the throes of change and redefinition.

It is time for us to ditch the patriarchy and embrace a leadership style which is forward-thinking, inclusive, agile, collaborative and transformational.

We should thank the ultimate patriarch, former commissioner of police and former captain Gary Griffith for his services at the same time insisting that we need a different leadership style.

Your job, sir, is done!

Among the many initiatives for which you have taken the credit are a decreased murder rate, police being arrested for corruption and the investigation into the issuing of Firearms Users Licenses.

But to whom should the credit go for all the citizens—far too many!—who have been killed by police bullets? Are we all wrong, the large number of us who are of the impression that ‘zessers’ in the west are treated more gently than ‘zessers’ in other parts? Video Player00:0000:20

Are we all overly sensitive, the large number of us who recoil in the face of your verbal abuse and imprudent, intemperate language?

The new commissioner of police must receive the baton and carry on with the good we have seen from our now former commissioner. His job is to inspire our policemen and women to protect and serve equally, to support the social changes needed to improve our communities, to be positive role models for our citizens and to engage communities for our collective good.

His challenge is to modernise the systems, structures and processes while making it crystal clear that our collective responsibility is to keep each other safe under the watchful eyes of 7,000 police officers who are resolved and determined to protect and serve.

Come what may.

Welcome, good sir; we wish you all the best.

Goodbye, Gary.

Civil Conversations

The conversation begins with Spoken Word advocate and founder of the @2CentsMovement, Jean Claude Cournand who comments that spoken word provides an opportunity for millennials and others to have civil conversations about topics like politics, religion, and diversity. Comparing spoken word to traditional communications tools, he referenced the superiority of a good poem to tug at your heartstring over simply narrating a statistic.

Spoken word and Education

Referencing how spoken word is used in other parts of the world Jean Claude commented that Chicago has provided a case study of how it could be integrated into the school’s curriculum where teacher Peter Khan has integrated a “Poetry Slam” into his school’s curricula and all students participate. The benefits experienced go beyond reading, writing, and performing to developing their confidence and presentation skills. There is ongoing research globally to understand the impact of spoken word from an evidence-based perspective.

At 17:00 the conversation pivots to Devon Seale who is bilingual (fluent in Portuguese), a Calypso Monarch (2016), and a technology nerd. Inspiration for him comes from being around people who are passionate about what they do whether it is solving an “IT” problem or hearing an “encore” in the calypso sphere.

Digitization

In dreaming of the future of our country, he wished for us to embrace technology in all forms and implement the changes that are necessary to digitize our country. Among the many areas where service delivery can be improved, he commented on transportation and the easy win which could be derived by embracing technology.

Devon operates at the intersection of the Calypso art form, Technology, and Language. His motto is “Trust and Believe.”

Originally published Friday , September 17 2021 Wired868

Thanks to rapper Nicki Minaj, that question topped the Twittersphere recently. This came about after Minaj tweeted that her cousin’s friend had taken the Covid vaccine and ended up with ‘Swollen Testicles’.

Her tweet led our hard-working, super-busy minister of health to admit that he and his medical team spent all of 24 hours trying to verify the accuracy of the ‘swollen testicles’ story. He then announced to the whole world that they had found no evidence to support the claim that the vaccine causes testicular swelling.

Scientists the world over have identified and documented the Covid side effects. But not even among casual Covid followers and conspiracy theorists has there been any mention of swollen testicles. Until now…

So why go down that rabbit hole? But then, this is Trinidad and Tobago; here, common sense often seems to be not all that common.

My reaction to this particular ministerial statement was two-fold. First, it caused me to wonder what was the anticipated outcome of the announcement of this disclaimer and what was the thinking behind the advice to respond? Secondly, it spawned a few questions in my mind.

What was the process used to ascertain the veracity of the story? Was there a physical examination? Who conducted the examination? Was the examination completed merely by observation or was some kind of measurement necessary? The examination having been completed, what measures were put in place to ensure that all necessary protocols were followed and who verified the results?

Whatever the answers to these questions, the fact is that our country provided global comic relief to several talk show hosts and their millions of followers for at least 72 hours. And the memes continue still.

So if we are seeking an example of a recovery effort, we need look no further than the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Though steeped in controversy, the Dove reaction has ultimately been very successful.

Thus, as a response to this global clap back, it is clear that we have a choice. We can either run for cover and hope that the issue will be forgotten. Or we can put our creative minds to work and mount a global social media and traditional media campaign to answer that Twitter question about where in the world is Trinidad.

I thought of the book Where’s Wally? (called Where’s Waldo? in North America) which is a series of children’s puzzle books in which readers are challenged to find a character named Wally hidden in the group.

We do not have to go that route. But a proper—and timely!—answer will provide us with an opportunity to sell our tourism product to the world with the tagline ‘…and the birthplace of Nicki Minaj’. For example, a social media post could be: ‘Trinidad and Tobago, the land where the only new musical instrument of the 20th century was created and, of course, the birthplace of Nicki Minaj. #superballs.’

The 19th-century American showman and circus owner PT Barnum is often credited with the statement ‘Bad publicity is still publicity’. Maybe we have to see this as an opportunity for us to make lime juice when life provides us with limes instead of oranges, for us to turn an embarrassing reference into a positive campaign.

Maybe it gives us an opening to shine a spotlight on Trinidad and Tobago as a prime tourist destination, a great place to visit. If we are clever and act promptly, we may even be able to strengthen our bond with the rapper to bring global attention to our tourism product.

A few months ago, when American actor Michael B Jordan of Black Panther fame launched J’ouvert Rum, we failed to make capital of the opening. After the social media backlash, he quietly withdrew into the shadows, leaving us, some of us, to quietly mourn the squandered opportunity.

This is another big break. We cannot let it go to waste. As a country, we have the creativity. All that is needed is for us to have the cojones to take a bold step, strike while the iron is hot, seize the time and try to jump on the horse’s back instead of finding ourselves bidding frantically to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

#nickiminaj #superballs.