The Age of Stupid

If you haven't seen the Age of Stupid, go see it. Not because it's a cinematographic achievement or because you're likely to learn something new. But because you'll be taking action in voting with your feet and giving credibility to the important message this movie conveys.

I was in Las Vegas attending a conference and found a theater that carried the live premiere. There might have been 20-25 people in the theater. A group of UNLV students kindly asked me to join them so I wouldn't have to watch by myself. I wondered how 20-year olds look at this, the pathetic inaction of most of our leaders, the corrupt and criminal stalling and misinformation tactics of many corporations, and still have any faith that regular political processes will yield anything positive and meaningul.

In short: Are we, as a species, stupid enough not to take the necessary action to ensure our own survival, and in the process cause billion of fellow human beings to suffer climate-inflicted hardships and catastrophes.

There are several important subtext messages in this movie, including:
- This movement is still too much on the fringe, not yet mainstream enough. More people need to realize the urgency of the problem and exert pressure on themselves and their government to do something about it.
- Too many people agree with the IDEA of doing something to save the planet, as long as it doesn't inconvenience their day to day, obstruct their view, impact their property values, etc... The world has no time to wrestle with NIMBY mentalities or 'someone will come up with a solution that doesn't require any sacrifice'.
- Trying to do the right thing and get others to wake up still is considered radical, or criminal. Just ask the Yes Men (you guys rock!!! Brilliant New York stunt!), or Greenpeace activists, or anyone trying to go beyond words to make a statement.

To the so-called Greatest Generation, the one that stepped up in a big way to win WWII: Can we make you proud and do you one better? London parents sent their kids off to the countryside to live with strangers during the Battle of Britain. The entire US industrial machine turned on a dime and supported the war effort. Women entered the work force by record numbers - while keeping all the work they were already doing at home. And so on...

This type of mass scale mobilization is what we need now. None of this 'let's maybe think of reducing our impact somewhat by 2020 and see what happens' crap. Let's be bold. Let's do it with purpose and pride. Let's be the generation history books in 500 years look back to and teach kids about the way we stepped up and ensured the well being of all future generations.

Talk about making an impact. Talk about redefining what it means to be human, no longer a destructive force in this world but a healing and building one. Wow, I want in...

Discover Hope Fund

We're going to a fundraiser tonight for a local non-profit, Discover Hope Fund. This is a micro-credit organization that takes the concept further by focusing their efforts not just on funding entrepreneurial efforts in developing communities, but applying educational and support resources along the way. Their values as stated on their Web site are amazing and am copying them below. Read and I hope you are as inspired by them as I am. This is the kind of world we should all live in.

Igniting Personal Power

We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to give their greatest strengths to the world. We know that when a person is inspired to light their internal and external power, the world changes. Stepping through the door of opportunity takes initiative and courage and commitment to continuous learning. We believe that out of this amazing work, self respect creates a backdrop for constant growth. In turn, future generations see this powerful way of being and integrate this strength into the fabric of their communities. We believe in being change.

Practicing Authenticity

We believe in the sanctuary of integrity and know that our actions resonate out into the world and constitute the type of world we want to help create. We practice authenticity by reflecting what is true for people through listening and actions that honor the foundation of people’s passions. We believe in being awake.

Promoting Abundance

We believe that once personal power is nurtured, the vitality of the entrepreneurial spirit is liberated. When the doors of opportunity are open, we can usher in a life of abundance. This core value is rooted in absolute love framed by compassion and generosity that expands to children, communities and the world. We believe in being hope.

Letter to the President

I received yet another solicitation from Organizing for America (OFA), President Obama's group to mobilize his electorate, to donate funds to support his position on health care. I sent the following reply to OFA and to the White House:

'As much as I believe health care for all to be important, the most critical issue our civilization is facing right now is that of the way our lifestyles and industrial processes are depleting the natural resources of our planet and forever polluting our environment.
I want to see President Obama make this the first, second and third priorities of his presidency. Anything less would be a dramatic failure in leadership and would have dramatic consequences for our environment, economy and health.
If the President makes this the centerpiece of his agenda, there will be no limit to the financial and political support I will be willing to give him.
Thank you.'

Yet another view on health care

There are many views being expressed in the health care debate currently alive in the US. It's hard to find someone who's not passionate about their viewpoint - and relatively entrenched in their positions.

I recently read Kyrsten Sinema's 'Unite & Conquer: How to Build Coalitions that Win and Last'. One of the key points she makes in the book is that in order to build support around an initiative, it is important to build agreement around what problem needs to be solved, and be flexible on how that problem can be solved.

This intuitive approach has clearly been missing from the debate. Everyone has strong views on 'single payer', 'public option', 'government-run', 'insurance company profits', and so on... These are mechanisms but in themselves solve nothing. Focusing the debate on these things makes for good political posturing but does little to address the real issues.

I watched Michael Moore's 'Sicko' yesterday. As always, well done, very moving, but also somewhat overdone. I felt he weakened his argument by painting such a rosy picture of the systems found in France or the UK for example. These systems are not nearly as perfect as he paints them (I've experienced both personally), although they are definitely better than what the US has today. And that's the point I think Moore should have pressed. For the money being spent on US health care today, we absolutely deserve a much better, fairer, more effective system.

Moore talks from the point of view of the people who need health care and who experience great hardships due to the way the system currently works. This is the story that should be at the core of the debate, not all these mechanisms and options and 'means to an end'. Health care is about real people, real suffering, real hardship.

President Obama - similar to Hillary Clinton 15+ years ago - I think was too quick to present a solution. His opportunity was to create alignment and momentum around the problem needing to be solved, then bringing together his strongest 'team of rivals' yet to come up with solutions that would 1) solve the problem and 2) have chance of becoming law.

I liked Moore's parallels to police and fire departments, schools, post offices, as public services we take completely for granted. But again they argue in favor of making the entire system public. The fact is that the US health care system is almost entirely private, and any lasting solution will need to build from that point. We can't put the entire health insurance industry out of business overnight for example, that wouldn't necessarily help and that is the type of talk that freaks out a big chunk of the population. Of course that doesn't mean we can't deem health care coverage of public utility and regulate it as such, with strong safeguards...

So let's try to refocus this debate. Let's agree on what really isn't working in the current system. Let's also agree on some fundamental principles, like everyone who needs health care has the right to receive it, regardless of ability to pay. Like the fact that having had health problems in the past is reason to be eligible for more help, not being denied coverage or service. Once we're aligned on what isn't working, and what success would look like in terms of end-user outcomes, it makes it easier to identify how to best solve for that.

That can include looking at what is already working in other parts of the world, but looking objectively. The French system is amazing and unrivaled from an end-user perspective, but it is a massive and quickly becoming unsustainable financial burden on the French economy.

In the end, US voters should demand no less than the best health care system in the world, as measured by its inclusive coverage, ease of access and affordability, best in class facilities and care, and ultimate success in improving the health and well being of all Americans, especially those who need it the most.

Social Media's astronomic rise

A colleague recently shared these stats/insights gleaned from recent reporting about social media's reach and impact (have not personally verified them). These speak for themselves.
I'm not one of those who think everything will change as a result of social media. But many things have changed, among those the ability of marketers, politicians or newsmen to control their message. Those days are over. No way to hide behind smart advertising and slick PR. I love it!

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

Profit vs. benefit

Bill Maher recently wrote an insightful post arguing that not everything has to make a profit in order to be a good idea. It's actually quite sad he even had to write that, it's a testament to how twisted some of our thinking has become.

Am not sure where this started. But one movement we can certainly point to as part of the problem is those who believe that paying any amount of taxes is bad, and that the government's responsibility is to keep as much of our money in our own pockets as possible.

Don't get me wrong, I like keeping as much after-tax income as I can. What gets missed though is the trade-off. The other side of the coin. And when Ilook I sure don't like what I see: Fast deteriorating public education. Non existent public health. Massive national debt.

Bill Maher is right. Profit is not the right measure for many things. Benefit is. We should look at how our public dollars are invested not based on financial efficiency, but on value generated. What is the benefit of adequately funded public education? What is the benefit of universal access to quality health care? What is the benefit of sustainable farming? What is the benefit of reducing dependence on fossil fuels? When asked that way, the question gets re-framed and the answer starts informing the choices we need to make.

I'll be the first to say that not all tax dollars are used wisely. And the ''pork'' that gets attached to most appropriations bills in Congress (or in State legislatures) is disgusting. Anti-tax militants love to highlight all those earmarks and amendments that spend huge amounts of public funds on obscure programs aimed at benefiting a small elite with usually no lasting value.

What is desperately needed is a bottoms-up budgeting effort to reset what we should expect from our government and what we're willing to pay for it. Next to each line item should be some kind of benefit statement, i.e. why is this here.

And I mean everything. Let's carve up the hundreds of billions of agriculture subsidies and understand where this money is going and what it's buying us. Are these subsidies encouraging responsible land use? Sustainable farming practices? A healthy food supply for the nation? The brilliant movie Food, Inc. argued the system is actually encouraging the opposite.

How about the hundreds of billions spent on defense? Where is that money going? How much of it is actually used to secure the nation's borders vs. funding offensive efforts away from our shores? What is the benefit statement, short and long term, for these investments?

In the end, what I'd love to see is a 'Bill of Rights'-like charter, maybe even a constitutional amendment, outlining the primary responsibilities of the government to the people of this country. Imagine seeing things in there like insuring a healthy food and water supply, access to clean and renewable energy, healthcare for all regardless of ability to pay, etc...

We take some things for granted. Like everyone expects the fire department to show up if their house is on fire, whether poor or rich. We all accept that the nation's roads and highways are for everyone. We all hope for (this one becomes questionable) equal treatment in the justice system.

Yet we've come to accept some blatant inequalities as fact of life. Ability to pay defines the type of healthcare you have access to, the quality and reliability of the food you eat and water you drink, even the air you breathe to some extent.

Al Gore, in his award-winning documentary, states that all research, data, facts about climate change point to an 'inconvenient truth'. This can be said for other things as well.

The US has led the world in many areas over the course of its history. It has never failed at anything when it pursued clearly defined objectives and applied the necessary amount of resources, time and focus to it.

Let's challenge our leaders to set their sights on ambitious, challenging and most importantly noble goals that will show the world we can muster our ingenuity and resources to produce the kind of free and equal society all should aspire to. Now there's something to get excited about!

Go solar!

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!” Thomas Edison said this. In 1931.

Humans have long understood the power of the sun and its connection to life on earth. Early civilizations, from the Egyptians to the Aztecs, worshiped it as a deity.

For a few decades now we've known that we could harvest the sun's energy to generate clean, renewable energy. Yet much less than one percent of our energy supply comes from solar.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, enough solar energy strikes the nation in a single day to power it for a full year. Read that again and think about that...

I was reading earlier that solar seemed ready to break through in the early 80's after the Carter administration funded research into it. But then Reagan apparently killed all the funding and advances stalled. I wonder what lobby was behind that decision (big coal? big oil?)...

Seems like things are moving again, at a rapid pace. Lots of funding is fueling lots of innovation and technological advances. Subsidies are making solar commercially viable, something it will need for a while until a certain scale can be achieved.

One type of project that I find just brilliant: Making covered parking out of solar panels. For anyone living in the lower half of the US for example, where the sun is abundant, you know how painful it is to get back into a car that's been sitting in the sun. Many places - malls, employers, airports, etc... - have huge outdoor parking lots with no covered parking. What if we could cover all these parking spaces and pay for it by licensing the 'roof space' to electricity producers? Truly seems like a win-win.

Other examples are big 'box' stores like Wal-Mart's or grocery stores using their huge flat roofs to generate at least part of the power needed to run the store.

There is no limit to the ingenuity of human beings and the marvels that modern-day engineering can produce when enough time and resources and focus are applied. Let's make clean, renewable energy the challenge of this generation, let's succeed and make that our gift to the next hundred generations.