Citizen Brand

Green is good

Read "The Power of Green" by Thomas Friedman in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.  Friedman says the green movement not only has gone mainstream, but it represents the future platform for a "new, unifying political movement" in the United States.  He says this movement is necessary to address the three major issues all Americans now face: "jobs, temperature and terrorism."

"How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with 50 green states — not an America divided between red and blue states."

Change is in the air.

Mounting Evidence

The rest of the world is waking up to the facts.  We are doing harm to this planet that we live on.  The question is have we gone beyond a tipping point of no return.

Audeamus points us to a report released today by the British government written by a respected economist.  It states the cost of beginning the process to turn the tide of global warming now underway will be one percent of global wealth - if we begin today.

The cost of waiting, according to Sir Nicholas Stern - formerly the chief economist at the World Bank - will be anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of all global wealth.  Read this article at Forbes.com.

Global warming is a sad example of an issue that has been clouded by political rhetoric instead of being made clear through reasoned research and science.  This is not a partisan political issue.  But it is clearly a vital economic issue that is already having an impact.  And as this report points out, the worst is on the horizon unless we put our best minds to work to solve it.

The technology exists.  The ideas are abundant.  The question now is do we have the will to put politics on the shelf and apply ourselves to identifying the extent of this problem and developing a plan to fix it.

We all can make small contributions toward a solution.  Let's all make an effort.  It is going to require the world working together to solve this one.  Can we do it?

Front Porches vs. Backyard Decks

It has been a full day of ideas and discussion at the first annual Public Innovators Summit.  The event is sponsored by The Harwood Institute and Fast Company along with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation.  Leaders representing government, nonprofit, corporate and media sectors have come together this weekend in the mountains of Utah to figure out how to generate innovative thinking to address societal challenges.  There is a consensus that the private sector celebrates and rewards innovation and that a similar approach is needed if we are to improve education, health care and the general standard of living for many people who are in need.

A common theme of our discussions is how to create a greater sense of community overall.  We have talked at length how technology can be both a hurdle to community development as well as a great generator of communities.  Not surprisingly, this group understands the power of technology and many ideas emerged about how to leverage technology to help non profits grow stronger both financially as well as reputationally.

My favorite analogy of the day came from Art Dunning, Vice President of the University of Georgia in Athens.  He talked about how there was a greater sense of community in the days when most homes had front porches.  Sitting on the front porch guaranteed interaction with your neighbors or anyone else who might be happening by.  People who knew each other and communicated regularly were more likely to be interested in each other and watch out for each other.

Art said all that changed as people moved to the suburbs and replaced the porch on the front of the house with a deck in the backyard.  The social center of the house moved from the public arena at the front of the house to the privacy of the backyard.  It became invitation only.  Neighbors were redefined not as people who you knew but as people who lived on the same street as you.

I thought this was a simple and powerful observation.  What we need to do is figure out what the front porches of the future are going to be to help us reconnect with each other.

Public Innovators Summit

I'm just outside Midway, Utah at the Zermatt Resort (feel sorry for me?) to attend the first annual Public Innovators Summit sponsored by The Harwood Institute and Fast Company.  The Summit is supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The list of attendees represents a cross section of leaders in business, government, education and non profit organizations.  The driving force behind the Summit is Richard Harwood, founder of The Harwood Institute.  You can easily understand the reason for this Summit when you understand the Institute's mission.  This is from their website.

Rich Harwood founded the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation to help people imagine and act for the public good. For almost 20 years, he and his colleagues have been evolving both the ideas and the practical approaches for changing the negative conditions in society that too often divide people and keep them from making progress in their neighborhoods, communities, and the nation as a whole.

At The Harwood Institute, we seek nothing less than to spark fundamental change in American public life - so that people can tap their own potential to make a difference and join together to build a common future. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works within a long tradition of small, catalytic, and public-spirited organizations in American history that have sought to improve public life and politics.

We believe there is enormous potential to unleash in America if we can pursue an alternate path for ourselves, our communities, and this nation.

What attracted me to this Summit and my desire to be selected as a participant is part personal and part professional.  One of the drivers of our company is to help our clients get on the path to becoming what we call Citizen Brands.  We believe it is now a must for corporations to be engaged in helping to improve society, not just sell their products and services.  That is my professional reason for being here.

On a personal note, I love the idea of spending a couple of days engaging with other people who share a common interest of figuring out how to make a difference in the world and to help convince others to do the same thing.  Not to mention, I'm back in the mountains for a couple of days.

I look forward to sharing some of the discussions that come out of the Summit.

Order has been restored

We have taken a lot of heat here in Kansas because of six people who have controlled the State Board of Education the past few years.  Their actions have included removing the teaching of evolution in the schools and the teaching of abstinence as the sole method of sex education. 

Kansas voters took care of this problem yesterday.  Read more in the Lawrence Journal World and the Kansas City Star.

Kansas has always been such a progressive state in so many ways and yet our reputation in the past few years has been denigrated because of a handful of individuals.  This is one of those moments that restores your faith in our electoral process.

Times they are a changin'

Need evidence change is in the air?

Jeff Jarvis recently told us that television and YouTube are going in opposite directions, viewership wise.

Steve Rubel pointed us to an Associated Press story saying e-mail is officially old school already.  Consider this quote from the article: 

“In this world of instant gratification, e-mail has become the new snail mail,” says 25-year-old Rachel Quizon from Norwalk, Calif. She became addicted to instant messaging in college, where many students are logged on 24/7."

But wait a minute, maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Back at YouTube, as Adrants points out, the days of no control by the 'Tube may be on the wain.  Freedom of the airwaves can only last so long I guess.

Half lives are getting shorter for everything it would appear.

Anyone want a used Blackberry?

The Cause Generation

If you are between the ages of 18 and 30, then it is likely you are part of the generation that will tip the balance in moving cause and corporate social responsibility from a nice to have in business to business as usual.

Proof of this comes from the 5th Annual College Explorer Study sponsored by Alloy Media + Marketing and conducted by Harris Interactive.

Calling all brands.  Are you paying attention?

Lunch

As we head into a long holiday weekend in the States, check out this new magazine called Lunch.  Just when you thought maybe there were no new, refreshing magazine concepts left to launch, here comes Lunch.  What is it?

"LUNCH is a magazine for the smart, savvy (post)consumer aged anything between 16-60 years old; LUNCH is more an attitude than an age. Value-conscious but increasingly aware of living a lifestyle paradox: responsible, trendsetting but also trend-driven. Wears Blackspot as well as Converse. Loves shopping, buys organic food and drinks Diet Coke, wears People Tree as well as H&M, weekends in the country, frets about global warming but flies EasyJet, wore a MakePovertyHistory band, loves festivals, breaks into a trot when approaching Selfridges. Has probably boycotted Nike, Nestlé et al, albeit temporarily. Loved No Logo and Supersize Me, reads Vogue and Closer.
Recognise anyone?"

Thanks to Audeamus for pointing this out to us.

Goldman Sachs Goes Green

Fast Company tells us that Goldman Sachs is taking a strong stand for the environment.

Arguably the world's most prestigious investment banking firm, Goldman recently adopted an environmental policy that calls for "world governments to tighten restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions, commits to investing $1 billion in renewable energy, and proposes a Center for Environmental Markets, a research partnership that will explore how the free-market system can solve environmental problems."

This is the kind of leadership that companies need to emulate quickly.  Green issues are only going to grow and the employees of the future want to work for companies that are truly trying to make a difference. 

This move will only solidify Goldman's position as a global leader and puts them well on the road to becoming a real Citizen Brand.

Talking to Customers

One key attribute of a Citizen Brand is open communication with everyone inside or outside the organization. Southwest Airlines is one of my favorite brands and it is a company that has always been open in all of its communications.

Right now, for example, Southwest has been in the news regarding a potential change in their open seating policy.  If you have never flown Southwest Airlines, then you may not know that there are no assigned seats.  You board in three groups - A, B and C - and you take whatever seat you want when you get on the plane.  It has become part of the Southwest culture and an important part of their ability to operate more efficiently than other airlines.

Not everyone likes it of course.  In fact, some people will avoid flying Southwest just because there are no assigned seats.  I personally like it.  But the fact that there are customers who don't means Southwest has to listen.

So what do they do about it?  Do they just suddenly change their policy and then try to spin some kind of announcement to make it sound good?  No, they don't.  Instead, the CEO of Southwest is discussing the issue on the Southwest blog.  There has been no decision made, yet here is the CEO talking direct with customers about the issue and its pros and cons.  Refreshing.

Too bad it seems refreshing instead of being the norm in business communications.

More on this at Andy's blog.