I understand the Freedom of the Press to be the ability for any person to express themselves. whether that be through the public square at noon, handbills, newspapers, mailers, blogs, podcasts, twitter, etc….
America leads the world in creativity. I don’t think that can be questioned. In her giant caldron, ideas are confronted, tested, merged, evolved, etc..
As time has gone on, it seems that certain voices, expressions have been given more and more loudness.
The power of individual persons has gone down and the power of corporate persons has gone up. Corporations do what they do best when left unchecked, a way to $$$ through the controlling of expression.
The press.. is no longer the people’s. It’s the shareholders and the power brokers. and probably a few others I don’t even know about.
I get to vote.. in many more ways than just in November every 4 years. I vote everyday to not partake of the spoiled, high fat information diet the ‘media’ serves up.
Been thinking about the ‘Economic Pearl Harbor of our times’ (Buffet’s choice of words) and it’s caused me to think of what we can do to create a sustainable society so that families can simply exist. George Soros, said we are at the ‘end of an era’. Rampant Greed & OverConsumption don’t seem to be working.
One interesting statistic George Bush can claim for his legacy is that the country started spending more than they made during his watch. Apparently spending more than you make works in Washington, but not in the real world.
So.. I’ve been thinking of formulating a calculator widget of sorts to help people understand how much money they actually need to earn based on health consumption levels.
A business broker consulting with me on buying a business first asked me to think of how much I REALLY need to live off of… What is the absolute minimum that you need to live. Most people can’t really go to deep into this question, because it forces them to examine how overconsumptious they have been. Nobody NEEDS a $5000 flat screen, or the $35,000 new car or the walk-in warddrobe full of 400 articles of clothing.
Only in examining how much food/shelter/clothing/etc.. you & your depedents need, will you realize how much you have to hunt, fish, kill.
It’s amazing how few calories the human body needs to sustain life… & I propose ‘enough’ is amazingly less that we think as well.
Attended a Web 2.0 expo once where each person was given a T-Shirt and were asked to complete the question and write the answer (i.e. Web 2.0 is…) I’d love to see a website with such questions and the ‘wisdom of the crowd’s’ response.
Most, in America, I’d propose equate Success with $$$.
But who can argue with these definitions of success?
A 112 year old man who did nothing all his life except wake up, love his family, eat right, not worry, and added more to society than he took
A 28 year old athlete fighting a battle with cancer
a white, religious teenager from wyoming who doesn’t want to be gay… but chooses life over suicide
A young black falsely accused & convicted by a white jury enduring 20 years in a south chicago jail
young vietnamese children who have been abused sexually, physically and who simply live on
Mexican politicians & policeman who endure death threats in defense of their integrity to serve the public good
25 yr old woman lawyer consciously sacrifices her career/financial ’success’ for the job of being a wife/mother with a man she loves, who is a public school teacher.
The older wiser man who doesn’t retire to country clubs & spas and instead engages the the world through service.
So..here’s a stab
Success is …. “many things.. mostly known only by yourself & a few friends”
As a marketeer, Do you follow the market? Do you be-come what your market wants you to be? Do you provide what your customers want?
or
Do you create a new market? ( surprise customers with something they want, but didn’t know they wanted) Do you be-come what you want to be? Do you follow your gut?
An interesting challenge… and one of the ultimate challenges that applies not only to brands, but also in all aspects of life.
>, I saw the wisdom of the crowd ( House of Reps) override the _____ of a few.
I work in CRM (Customer Relationship Management)-helping large companies benefit from all sorts of things like Self Service Web Applications, Enterprise Marketing, etc.. Watching the $700Billion bailout vote has reinforced my belief that Congresspeople need a better way to capture/understand/react their constituents.
Voicemails/Letters & Emails are not scalable.
There are all sorts of theories of whether or not our government is a democracy or a republic — and all sorts of theories on the ethics of congressional representation.
Here’s the rough draft for my own “I have a dream speech”
I have a dream.. a dream of one day millions of emails instantaneously being filtered, collaborated on, scored, and capitalized on.
I have a dream that one day, the technology used to help people get into the white house, will be used to help them govern while in the white house.
I have a dream that one day, the voice of the people will override the voice of the media… than one day the people will become the media.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics(Entropy) basically states that things will move towards disorder, randomness. (i.e. an alka seltzer dissolving in a glass of water). To apply it to life, basically when left alone to your own devices — things will start to become unraveled in your life. (the cleanliness of your house, your close relationships, your finances, and your spirituality)
Newtons 1rst law(inertia) states that ‘Objects at Rest tend to stay at rest , unless moved upon by an outside force.’
Spirituality/Self Improvement/Change Management/whatever you want to call it… seems to requires a very conscious choice to start the train moving … and then a commitment to maintain order/speed/etc…
The daily sacrifice required ( to lose weight, to stay informed of current events, to enjoy the fruits of relationships) requires us push against the natural tendency to ‘do what feels good’.
This work of ‘cultivation’ leads one to experience the miracle of growth. Because after all is said and done… when a tree/plant/baby/etc.. ‘grows’ it’s pretty much a miracle.
tended a presentation by Ralph Nadar recently and got to thinking why anyone can’t appreciate this guy — He’s spent the majority of his life as a consumer advocate!!!
So.. who’s going to take his place.. Consumer Reports? The BBB? small claims court? or the Web 2.0 midnight blogger who can create a national PR crisis in a few minutes?
Enforcing Business-to-consumer accountability with multi-national companies is a whole different ball game. The secret weapon to killing inhumane corporations is profit. Corporations are ‘blind’ — incessantly seeking higher revenue/lower costs
Adam smith’s invisible hand was theorized with the idea of smaller enterprises ( think 1800’s) not 2008 multi-billion dollar country type enterprises that can basically create demand & control markets through their armies of publicists, PR folk, marketeers and laywers. IT seems more than ever, this invisible hand is smacking consumers obside their heads.
I think it’s time for the invisible & visible hands of consumers to smack corporations obside their heads.
Consider if a voting block of 100,000 customers banded together to demand corporations spend 5% of profits towards providing jobs to disabled people… Imagine if consumers created a consumer union and demanded a union rep in the boardroom. Consider if this union was ready to walk at any moment… or can you imagine the cash flow issues if 100,000 consumers simply decided to pay their bills late for 60 days.Consider if each consumer purchased 1 share in the companies they do business with and they all showed up at the annual board meeting.
I have a dream - A company of the customer, for the customer and by the customer.
A Bill & Melinda Gates article in Forbes awhile back said they created a spreadsheet of the problems in the world, ranked them in terms of what would be the highest and best use of their resources.. and then started at the top of the list.
I think each individual is capable of doing this in their own life.
For me, on the top of my list is helping boys learn how to provide family sustaining wages such that they can be a strength to their family, their community, and the world.
My grandmother who lived through the Great depression said our generation is experiencing a ‘hidden depression’. Surely when a man (or woman) graduates college and then is offered his pick of $10-15 jobs - times have changed significantly.
Takeaways
1) It’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur- Boys (and girls) need mentoring/coaching on how to start businesses when they’re young
2) Blue Collar work is an honorable profession. Boys especially need to have more guidance into these areas.
3) The Consumerism in the past 20 years has overtaken what is sufficient to raise a family — raising the expectations for what a man needs to be able to provide — so then he needs to work extra, wife needs to work, credit cards need to be juggled etc… visit a part of your city with homes built 50 years ago(they’re 1/2 as big as today’s homes and the average family was probably twice as big)
Celebrities & their groupies enjoy rattling off the increasingly fashionable phrase “I’m spiritual, just not religious” It’s made me wonder what spirituality is all about anyway ? — Is it a big giant mush of feminine feeling, Is it a deep connection to mystical forces that only can be felt deep within yourself? Is it knowledge that you get that other people don’t?
My simplistic attempt so far that came to me around 11:30PM in a half asleep state:
Morality + Integrity = Spirituality
Morality = what you think is right/wrong, true/not true
Integrity = your commitment to what you understand to be right/wrong true/not true through as expressed through your actions/non-action
(As an aside.. religousity = your integrity to your rituals — ( weekly communion, baptism, etc..)
The problem for many, I think, is that it’s too mentally taxing to think of life in such morally simplistic terms. It’s easier to not be accountable (integrity), especially not by the strength of your own conscience (morality).
Generally, I think there’s hope — As the morality/integrity landscape continually gets eroded away by relativism/apathy … those who are questing for a more clear cut morality are finding it easier than ever — If for nothing else than shelter from those who profit from carefully orchestrated confusion — Hollywood, marketeers, politicians, & the media.
True Morality/Integrity/Spirituality has always been & always will be an alternative lifestyle because it requires authenticity. It requires you to life your life by the beat of your own drum.
So… Who are you? What do you stand for? What do you think is right/wrong? How true are you really to what you really believe?
This past week I got pre-qualified - a critical step in the home buying process. Its a rather vulnerable process… you quickly are asked to drop your financial drawers… then those people whom you gave your information to.. go into the figurative ‘back room’ and talk to other people and get back to you.
For the most part it’s like taking a bandaid off quickly… it happens quick and then you forget it.
It got me thinking about the single life.. not to be confused with the simple life. I think 99% of people hate the Dating process so much because..the pre-qualification process is always happening… its one endless examination in which you’re never really ever approved/pre qualified — yet, for many men(and some women) the payments start long before the approval process comes to a close.
the crazy thing is that you don’t even know what the approval process is. Try as you might … but the federal guidelines/rates are always changing and By my estimation, ever since the 1970’s we’ve experienced ‘expectation inflation’.
Gone are the days…when a humble, yet stable blue collar job could prove sufficient to qualify for participation in the american dream. Instead, many men & women, instead of of choosing a sub-prime life of unrealistic high payments and possible relationship bankruptcy are choosing the rental route..
Some of the approvers, however, are starting to get lax in their standards as … risky subprime loans are starting to get approved more and more… and while those romantic days were fun for many … now the real choice is whether they are going to stick around and make things work out.
I declare that the Federal Reserve of Men & Women need to have an interest rate cut… !! The inflation on expectations has risen to alarming levels and well… to be frank.. a depression already exists for many men & women.