Weblog
Nov 27, 06:12 pm: Buy your way to a better world
I’m too late to chime in on the Net2 Think Tank about using the social web during the giving season but, heck, tardiness has never stopped me from sharing my thoughts before.
I think it is great that we can buy Red and get yellow bracelets and that we can give to causes on Facebook. Wonderful. But, let’s face facts, buying isn’t going to change the world. It might bring awareness to problems. It might allow us to show our allegiance to a variety of causes. But it is working on the wrong end of problem.
I’d like to see something that takes the consumer interest in various issues, the burgeoning CSR trend, regulatory and other data and mashes it all up so that we can make better decisions about companies and support those corporations that are making sustainable choices that have positive social impacts further upstream in the product and production process — not just people who put marketing window dressing on a product and then donate a percent of proceeds to a cause.
Look at what the Sunlight Foundation is doing. Or Maplight. They are using mashing up data to tell us something about politicians. Where the money is coming from. Who the influencers are.
Why can’t we apply that same kind of visibility to corporations?
I’d love to see something that allowed me to look at a mix of regulatory missteps (as a company been fined for polluting, have the used poor contracting process for outsourced labor, what kind of consumer or employee complaints to they have against them), where they spend their dollars (do they donate to politicians or causes, do they have charity or volunteer program that engages their employees), their environmental impact (how green is there product, their plants, their practices) and employee practices (do they offer health insurance, do they recognize domestic partnerships, are they diverse) and see that all mashed up in some way that helps me to concretely reward companies that have the values I care about built into their business.
Maybe this looks like an index or exchange, maybe ends up being a numerical rating, I’m not sure.
I think that I’d like to interact with it by plugging in the issues I care most about and then getting a company rating that is associated with a product. So, I’m looking to buy a car — let me put in the issues that I care about and then rank the car companies. The same think can apply to a stereo, shoes, food brands, etc.
Does this already exist and I just don’t know about it? If not, where do we start? How do we mash up this data so that we have visibility into the philanthropy and impact of the corporation and not just the visibility of cause marketing?
tagged: causemarketing, csr, bsr, socialchange, mashups, net2
Aug 28, 03:37 pm: Philanthropy is an industrial model
You know, where we know the outcome. That’s how nonprofits are asked to write grants, yes? We’re asked to explain what we’re going to do. And explain what the outputs and outcomes are going to be.
Dead model, people.
Based on assembly lines and needing know exactly what the car or tractor coming off the other side is going to look like.
We need to move philanthropy to a strong and confident positon of “I don’t know.”
I don’t know what the outcomes are going to be but these are the ones I want.
I want to measure and change and measure and change.
I want to talk to the people I’m serving — our constituents and funders the whole way through. So that we can make and change and make and change to meet the real needs we’re seeing.
We aren’t going to get to any kind of social network philanthropy until we can start talking about the things we don’t know.
tagged: philanthropy, change, model, industrial
Aug 26, 04:14 am: No kidding: Change happens in business
Wal-Mart Partners With Gay and Lesbian Group:
‘Wal-Mart is going about this in a very pragmatic way,’ said Justin Nelson, president of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, an independent organization with 24,000 members. ‘They have been viewed with some degree of skepticism by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, and it’s important for them in terms of gaining market share to change that.’A Wal-Mart spokeswoman declined to comment on the trio of moves and would only confirm the company’s partnership with the NGLCC.
The initiative comes as Wal-Mart aims to broaden its appeal and woo both upscale and urban markets, but this is not the first time Wal-Mart has attempted to appease critics in the gay and lesbian community. In 2003—after years of lobbying by activist groups—Wal-Mart extended its workplace nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation.
Ford and the environment. Wal-Mart and GLBT community. C’mon. Where is it we think change happens?
(thanks BB)
Aug 25, 04:43 am: Ford and environmental activists: a place where change can happen
Maybe. Maybe not. But Ford Motor Company needs to step off a cliff and make a big change. People are asking them to.
This Detriot News article, Ford faces reality has a couple of money quotes. This bit:
At www.fordboldmoves.com, Ford is giving voice to its severest critics, effectively acknowledging the validity of charges it once rebuffed and allowing executives to confirm harsh realities normally denied.There’s Brad Brownell, Ford car group marketing manager, making the (successful) case to fast-track the Shelby GT-H:
‘As you know, dealer profitability is at an all-time low. The morale is low. This is something we can announce saying, ‘Hey, we’re listening to you guys. This is a partnership. You asked for it, we delivered.’ ’
There’s Robert Shanks, vice president and controller of Ford’s Americas unit and a close associate of Mark Fields, the Americas president charged with engineering Ford’s turnaround in North America:
‘We’re in trouble because we kind of sat still while others plowed ahead and stayed in touch with consumers and provided better quality products and provided products that the consumer believed had more value.’
Powerful admissions, those, that would make headlines in more normal times. That they’re presented on a slick corporate site, available almost anywhere in the world, suggests that Bill Ford’s overdue cultural revolution is gaining traction and, second, that Ford’s troubled sclerosis runs deeper than many realize.
Corporate site. Cultural revolution. Confirm harsh realities. That’s powerful stuff. That’s standing at the edge of the cliff.
And there’s this:
In a segment titled “The Future of Fuel, the Future of Ford”—effectively presaging the truck-and-SUV implosion driving the draconian cuts—representatives of two environmental groups critical of Ford frame its current predicament with an eerie exactitude.‘Ford has the worst fuel efficiency of any automaker in America,’ says Jennifer Krill of the Rainforest Action Network. ‘We don’t want Ford to go out of business. We don’t want Ford to stop being a symbol of American innovation. Quite the contrary, we want Ford to be as strong an auto company in the 21st century as it was in the 20th century.
Adds Richard Kassel of the Natural Resources Defense Council: ‘Ford has a business model that relies on selling gas guzzlers at a time when people don’t want gas guzzlers. Ford is operating in a regulatory climate that rewards companies that don’t invest in environmental technologies. And of course Ford has a legacy of costs and other challenges to overcome, and all three of those take us where we are today.’
Change requires people you probably don’t like or, anyway, people you think are wrong, wrongheaded, going in the wrong direction.
They’ve walked to the edge of the cliff. Now, they’ve got to be willing to step off.
tagged: ford, environment, activism, automobiles, change, industry
Jun 15, 05:17 am: Opportunity to get more companies to be GLBT friendly?
Just in time for Pride, SimplyHired has launched a GLBT friendly job-search. The rainbow graphic makes things a little, er, hard to read but, still, it’s a great idea.
I’m just thinking: what would happen if those non-GLBT companies suddenly started getting a lot of cover letters that advocated they explicitly change their hiring or discrimination practices? Not that I’m advocating that or anything. But that would be a pretty interesting campaign eh? Make the various hiring managers and HR departments feel the love. So to speak.
(via www.techcrunch.com)
tagged: glbt, jobs, companies, discrimination, policy, change
Jun 8, 04:40 am: Save the Internet
tagged: , netneutrality, savetheinternet, moby, politicstv.com, ,
Apr 13, 04:20 am: A use for web 2.0 I wish I didn't need
Two days ago I started setting up a wiki for my partner’s and my friends and family. It is to collect information and provide updates regarding the breast cancer with which my partner has recently been diagnosed. I got the wiki idea from Phil. At this point, it’s a terrific tool for sharing a variety of information and giving people, who live far from us, an opportunity to participate in some of the research around Ramsey’s diagnosis and proposed treatment. A double-edged sword, I imagine, as we try to manage this but it feels good to be putting something together.
Dec 21, 11:22 pm: A quote worth clicking for
Really. Worth clicking for. Click.
Dec 19, 05:18 am: The change I'm after
Some resources:
