Google Wants Me to Be A Mensch

Generally speaking, I have a love-hate relationship with Google. Google is my go-to search tool, but Google+ stinks. I joke all the time that Google is going to take over the world someday, but the thought actually makes me sick to my stomach.

During the holidays, to my surprise I got a well-crafted black box with an invitation to a Google Engage webinar and a book entitled Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. If you don’t know, Guy is the former Chief Evangelist for Apple, and I love Apple when my devices are working. I skim the Contents page, see that Chapter 3 has a section called “Be a Mensch” and I immediately flip to page 28.

The only other time I’d heard the word mensch was in the Sandra Bullock movie Miss Congeniality 2 when she’s dressed up like an old Jewish lady in the rest home and tells Stan’s mother, “Oh, who would want to hurt Stan, he’s such a mensch.” I assumed it was something positive, but had no idea.

The book explains that the Yiddish connotation for mensch describes someone who is “honest, fair, kind and transparent, no matter whom you’re dealing with and who will ever know what you did.” Hmmmm. What is Google trying to tell me by sending me this book?

Anyway, I succumbed to the marketing ploy and signed up for Google’s Engage program which is designed to activate agencies with Google’s advertising opportunities. If you register, you even get a custom dashboard to view all your client activity. Ooooh. Aaaaah. I’m not sure I’m loving Google’s strategy to get under my skin and engage me – it doesn’t feel honest, fair, kind and transparent – but I have to admit I’m loving the book!

One thought on “Google Wants Me to Be A Mensch”

  • Good feedback! Google is a poweful force in both tech and media fields these days. I agree, Google+ is a failure…far too complicated for even a tech-savy individual such as myself. Yet, I use google search like it’s my life!

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