• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, November 20, 2014

My oldest kid has reached an age where the notions of winning and losing have been broached, ever so delicately, by his non-parental elders. Actually, that’s not right: it’s less winning/losing and more winning/not-quite-being-the-first-winner-but-hey-great-work-everyone’s-a-winner-even-the-nosepicker-in-the-corner. I hate this. As much as I don’t want to see the kid’s spirit crushed before he learns that the world will tell you, often loudly, that you suck, I also don’t want him to live in a self-contained reality where failure doesn’t exist. There’s no space on the mantel for Meritorious Achievement in Trying trophies.

I thought of this while watching “Conversations With Tomorrow,” a new video series from Alger. Alger plies its trade in the asset-management sector, which generally can’t be bothered with trifles like online branding. So the fact that Alger cares enough to rouse its marketing minions and assemble a thoughtful, professionally rendered series in which Serious People engage in Important Talking Sessions should, in itself, prompt us to get the pom-poms out of storage. Awesome doing of marketing thing, money-business company! Way to go! Here’s a sticker commending you on your basic sentience!

See the problem here? No, asset-management firms don’t do much in the way of online video. But celebrating Alger for doing more than the other companies in its competitive set - which is to say, just doing some damn thing - is the equivalent of handing out commemorative participatory ribbons to every kid in the potato-sack race.

Heavens, these clips are boring. “Boring” doesn’t go far enough, even when accompanied by a tartly descriptive adverb (“breathtakingly,” “staggeringly,” “consciousness-alteringly,” etc.). Tactics I used to stay awake while viewing the first few entries in the series included thigh-pinching, eye-gouging and face-immersing in sink filled with water and ice cubes. None of this worked. Eventually I just stood up, at which point I started wobbling like a dead tree in the face of a stiff breeze.

I don’t blame the speakers - far-smarter-than-you folks like personalized medicine guru/genius Dr. Daniel Kraft and energy wonk Donald Sadoway - or the choice of the topics (technology, medicine, energy). In fact, I really dig the central concept: What are several of our most important sectors going to look like in 2064? Will there be commercial teleportation? I sure hope there’s commercial teleportation. Attempting to brand Alger as the futurist in its competitive set is a canny move - well, it would be if the competition gave a hoot about branding, anyway.

No, I blame whoever was responsible for over-stylizing these clips, whoever made the choice to position the speakers in an empty, airy loft and shoot them in ever-so-elegant black-and-white. You’re not making a student film here; you’re making something that, in theory, will reinforce the perception that Alger is sharper and more attuned to the future than the other folks who’d deign to invest your retirement cache. The overtly artsy tints and the length of the clips - six or seven minutes? Take it easy there, Lord Attenborough! - make it challenging to focus on the breadth and complexity of information conveyed.

I could go on. A title like “Conversations With Tomorrow”… did I ever tell you about the time I self-medicated and tried to make sense of “Dark Side of the Moon”? I had something like 31 conversations with tomorrow during the album’s 43-minute running length. Even the intro to the series is sandpaper-dry, save for a moment or two of accidental alliterative whimsy (“Our film series ‘Conversations With Tomorrow,’ which features featured thinkers…”).

Hey, I failed here as well. It’s my job to remain alert during my viewing of content like “Conversations With Tomorrow.” I couldn’t pull it off. There are no winners here.