David, the LiveWorld CFO, told me a story recently of calling tech support for a company. The tech support specialist introduced himself as “Tim” and politely asked how he could help. Of course, Tim had a very noticeable Indian accent so during a part of the conversation while they were waiting for the machine to reboot David asked, “so… your name is not really Tim is it?”. As suspected Tim’s actual name was a very respectable multi-syllabic Indian name but the company told him to pick a more common U.S. name for when he answered calls from the U.S. When he answered calls from England he was “Collin”.

Seriously, are we fooling anyone? I wonder if the call would go any worse even if the support answered with “my name is Nandakumar but you can call me Tim”.

As we come out of a presidential election season the topic of authenticity is near and dear to me. The classic joke is “how can you tell when a politician is lying… his lips are moving”. In many ways the election became referendum against an unpopular president, a war and a financial meltdown. But I also wonder if authenticity played a part. Sometimes when I listen to a candidate I am not even convinced that he or she believes what they are saying. My young college age kids are particularly cynical to what they see and hear. They heard in Obama someone who they could believe. In part, because they believed he at least believed what he was saying.

Authenticity is unfortunately and unnecessarily rare both in politics and corporate messages. Who do you believe?

I had sent out a twitter message this morning saying:

“Is it cynical of me to characterize the election as choosing between hope (with no specifics) over fear (with no answers)?”

It looks like other’s had that a similar thought today. From Seth Godin’s blog:

It’s too easy to criticize hope

And in the end, cynicism is a lousy strategy.

I found this speech by Barak Obama to support my impression that he is an interesting candidate. I continue to see him as someone who sounds reasonable. I wish that were not such a rare quality in a polititian. In this speech he talks somewhat about his personal faith but more about the role of faith in politics. He charts a course in between the left and the right extremes.

I am a swing voter (registered Republican) and generally find politics distasteful… ok, let’s say “slimy”. My podcast about faith (The Bible Study Podcast) is particularly labeled as free of politics. So for me to even take the time to listen to a political speech is rare, let alone one almost 40 minutes long.

In particular I share Obama’s view that the value of the separation of church and state is not just for the state. “Folks tend to forget that during our founding it wasn’t the athiests and the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the first ammendment”.

Do I agree with all of Obama’s politics? I doubt it. Do I think having someone who seems intelligent and reasonable in the oval office would be a nice change. I do.