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| O'Reilly profiles an array of outstanding trailblazers |
Back in October, ad man Terry O'Reilly presented his latest book,
Against the Grain: Defiant Giants Who Changed the World at the Vancouver Writers Festival in Granville Island. He is well known among CBC Radio listeners for his show,
Under the Influence, where he talks about different aspects of advertising through actual case studies.
Against the Grain profiles 19 people who were trailblazers in their respective fields, and in particular when others either criticised them or scorned them.
There's Gustave Eiffel who was a brilliant engineer and owned his own iron-production factory, but Parisians hated his design for the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, he persisted and was smart enough to sell shares to fund the tower as well as take in revenues from entrance fees and from the restaurants and cafes on the structure.
Another is Suzanne Simard, who saw how clear-cutting and planting new trees didn't necessarily mean a new forest would grow back in a healthy way. She discovered that in the forest, there are "mother trees" that other trees depend on for nourishment, and that they communicate with each other through an underground network. Simard also found some tree species have a symbiotic relationship, like the paper birch and Douglas fir.
However, the forestry industry didn't believe her until her findings were finally published in a peer-reviewed publication. She wrote her first book, Finding the Mother Tree, and has just recently published a follow-up, When the Forest Breathes.
Interestingly O'Reilly includes former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, more for his positive election campaign in 2015. Refusing to do the usual attack ads against his opponent, incumbent Stephen Harper, Trudeau instead offered a more hopeful and optimistic vision if he was in charge and won over a lot of young voters.
Taylor Swift is also a good choice to profile, though many people under the age of 50 already know all about her. But O'Reilly found her a fascinating business person who genuinely loves her fans and finds ways to interact with them on her terms.
Some were bused to Swift's home where she made cookies and took pictures with every single one, or made hospital visits, and donated to the food bank of every city she holds a concert in. In addition, following her Eras tour, she gave out millions of dollars worth of bonuses to everyone from the musicians and dancers to the truck drivers hauling all the equipment for the shows.
I enjoyed reading the chapter on Roger Neilson, the former head coach of the Vancouver Canucks in the 1980s. Turns out he was a baseball fanatic more than a hockey one. His interesting obsession was to memorise the rule book and find creative (and sometimes funny) ways to get around them, or use it to call out the opposing team to his advantage.
The Canucks were in the Stanley Cup finals in 1982 and it was Neilson who inspired fans to wave white towels during the games. I remember that clearly in high school, as a classmate's father was a big Canucks fan and she told us about the white towels.
Against the Grain was written very similar to the way O'Reilly presents his radio show, and when reading the stories, you can almost hear him reading them too.
However, there are some stories with complicated concepts to explain, like Simard's theories on forests and Katalin Kariko on developing mRNA vaccines that helped protect people against Covid-19, that O'Reilly kind of glosses over their scientific importance. He's good at giving context to advertising giants like Albert D Lasker and Bill Bernbach, but science is O'Reilly's weak spot.
Nevertheless, Against the Grain is a good roundup for fascinating individuals who were determined to follow their instincts or beliefs despite the chorus of criticism against them. In particular Richard Williams' story of manifesting Venus and Serena Williams into champion tennis players even before they were born is a crazy fairy tale that really came true. Definitely an example of someone going against the grain.
