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The owner not only puts her dog Jesse to work,
She helps keep the talented canine in shape.
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Per Seth Godin, blogging every day is good because it improves your ability to communicate and your analytical skills. Regardless of audience size, personal growth is a great reason to take up blogging.
Bonus: If you get good, you can expand your reach from a few people to being an influencer in the larger conversation.
The globalization of the world economy and the increased ease of relating to people via social technology, both domestically and internationally, has made interpersonal ties with digital contacts as seamless as real world relationships for Gen Y, changing our notion of community. Rachel Botsman, co-author of the newly published What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumerism, discussed some of the findings of her research in a TED talk earlier this year.
Botsman found four core drivers in the shift to collaborative consumption:
- A renewed belief in the importance of community
- A torrent of peer to peer social networks and real time technologies
- Pressing unresolved environmental concerns
- A global recession that has fundamentally shocked human behaviors
These drivers are very interconnected.
The recession shifted many employed working and middle people from a life lived on credit to one of paying down debt and squirreling away discretionary income for a rainy day. The long-term unemployed find inventive ways to stretch a dollar before turning to family and friends, when available, for assistance when their savings, and then government support, dries up.
In both cases community is elevated. Interpersonal experience increasingly supplants excessive consumerism as a way to spend one’s leisure time. The status of stuff becomes less relevant in a world tat increasingly relies on friendship and family, however one defines the terms. Who you know takes on a greater import that what you own. Peer-to-peer networks allow you to expand the reach of your social web, which can mean increased opportunity, personally and professionally.
All of these relationships require an investment in building social capital, requiring some degree of trust as a foundation. That growing trust allows for redistribution markets like SwapTree and BookMooch and product service systems like Rent the Runway, Zipcar or Bag, Borrow or Steal to gain a foothold in a global economy otherwise focused on planned obsolescence.
A positive side effect of these changes, Gen Y is unconsciously taking a step towards addressing environmental issues by shifting to systems that allow for the rotation of ownership and use of goods and services This shift means fewer critical natural resources plundered as the utility of extant goods is expanded over time.
As collaborative consumption moves from trendy to normative behavior, the user community will continue to expand as more people participate. It could mean increased cross-cultural engagement and a lessening of the carbon footprint of humanity, which may open the doors to more directed action on environmental and social issues.
photo by jonno259
One of my favorite annual posts, here are my top reads from 2010. While I read about 50 books a year, only a handful are standouts.
Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer by Shannon Brownlee (NF)
Americans have grown to believe that more medicine is better medicine. When just “4% of treatments and tests are backed up by strong scientific evidence,” there’s no system to appropriately assign effective and cost-effective treatments to any ailments. With the marketing arms of Big Pharma and medical technology firms working to build interest in their products long before their release dates, health care has grown as dependent on advertising as most consumer goods producers and retailers. In outlining the success that the Veterans Administration has had in overhauling their own health system, Browlee outlines some concrete steps that could drive down costs for patients, employers, insurance companies and the government.
61 Hours by Lee Child (F)
Worth Dying For by Lee Child (F)
I have read every book in the Jack Reacher series. Each book reminds me why I impatiently await the release of each new title. I can”t put them down. More so than previous books, readers were let in on some of the details of Reacher’s military past in 61 Hours. Child’s works are always compulsively readable adventures that leave you guessing, sometimes wildly, as you try to keep up with Reacher’s strides.
Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? by Seth Godin (NF)
It’s no longer enough to be a cog in the machine. According to German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, “Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one else has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” If you can bring a unique perspective that leads to process improvement, cost savings, increased profit margins, ecetera, you may be on the verge of being indispensable.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (F)
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (F)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson (F)
Let’s be honest. These books are literary crack. About 1800 pages of reading whips by once the first 100 pages set up the backstory. I’m crushed that the author died 3+ books into what he envisioned as a 10-book series. Hopefully the mostly completed fourth book that his lover has on the deceased’s laptop will someday be published.
The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin (NF)
I admit it took me three months to read this book because it was so dense and fact filled that it took that long to process. It was a fascinating read looking at the psychology of human development and the major technological revolutions throughout history that have driven greater self and community-awareness.
Ten minute video summing up the book’s main points here.
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: These books were not necessarily published in 2010. They do not necessarily belong on a list of best books ever, books to read before you die, or best kept secrets. It’s just a list of the books I enjoyed most in this calendar year.
Related: Favorite Reads of 2008, Favorite Reads of 2009
In July, Vernon wrote about needing to shift her closest relationships to support her personal and professional goals. On the one hand, you may have completely innocuous contacts who aren’t actively holding you back, but help maintain a stasis that doesn’t give you the occasional kick in the pants you need to grow as a person. Alternately, some relationships allow you to keep that white-knuckled grip on bad patterns that you need to resolve before you can move on to the next adventure in your life.
But when you’re ready to let go, shift happens.
By doing so, we create room for nutritious people to show up and help us learn, grow, and move towards our next level of success. . . I realized that when the people around you are in a different place in their social, emotional, or spiritual development, their energy can have a real stymieing impact on how you show up to life each day. Once these people lose their hold on you, you feel lighter and you can shine brighter.
When I got laid off a two months ago, I suddenly had the time to reassess what I wanted and redirect my energy towards the people who challenge me to be better. I’ve actively sought out people that I want to be like and whose trajectories and energy I admire, because focusing on where I want to be is going to take me further than settling for the status quo. As I result I’ve met a lot of people for lunch and coffee; I’m still slightly surprised when someone that seemed so out of reach a few months ago doesn’t hesitate to meet up and talk.
Overall, both the long-time friends and tertiary acquaintances passing through, inspire me. These are the people that believe in the possibility and reality of who and what I want to be in 5 years, whether they’ve verbalized it or not. My peeps are the folks that only saw a bright side to a layoff in this dreadful economy; it would be the impetus for something better, and they have not let me forget it.
Without realizing it, I shed the naysayers and the people who, through no fault of their own, reinforced my insecurities just by the very nature of those relationships. Fully embracing the professional I could be with a bit more focus and practice, I am so much more aware of the psychological triggers that held me back, and I’m more readily dismissing them when those moments appear.
And I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people that are inspiring me to be my best self just by being their true selves. For the record, I include Elisa, Susan, Monica, Andrew, Julia and Tamara in that category, along with a bunch of people who don’t have a linkable online presence.
It’s been to tremendous effect. I have more energy; there’s a bounce in my step that just hasn’t been there for so long I can’t remember the last time I bounced. Having discovered the joy of the runner’s high, endorphins, I’ve lost a few pounds. Totally novel to me, I constantly feel like I’m on the cusp of something big. . . of a transition that will change my life, irrevocably for the better. It’s almost beyond words. I feel alive.
In letting go of people that aren’t a reflection of my soul, I believe in the achievability of my goals more than ever.
Your turn. As Vernon prompts, “Do the relationships in my life empower me to live my best life?” If not, what are you going to do about it?
It should come as no surprise that a newly published University of New Hampshire study found that “walkability” within one’s community is a key factor in enhancing that person’s ties to the area, as well as their quality of life.
Among the findings:
individuals in more walkable neighborhoods tended to have higher levels of trust and community involvement, whether that was working on a community project, attending a club meeting, volunteering, or simply entertaining friends at home. Residents in the more walkable neighborhoods also reported being in good health and happy more often than those in the less walkable neighborhoods.
Easy access to fundamental goods and services should bring some degree of peace of mind to residents. If the local economy is thriving and foot traffic strong, crime is likely less of an issue. In turn, lower ambient stress in day-to-day living shouldn’t be a wild reach; if you’re less worried about crime, you can focus on taking advantage of the amenities your community offers.
Repeat contact with merchants and consumers fosters relationships in your regular haunts; these repeated interactions give a face to your community; running into the same folks when I’m grocery shopping or at the gym helps generate the comfort of familiar environs. It doesn’t seem beyond reason that one might be more invested in that community’s health with these social ties in play.
This study looked at neighborhoods within 2 New Hampshire municipalities, which leads me to wonder how the size of the community as a whole could effect the speed and amount of social capital developed. Does the same attachment and commitment occur in a subset of a large metropolitan area?
Suburbs are smaller enclaves of the same shared experiences that can be had in big city neighborhoods. With fewer possible hubs and spokes within your community, is your social capital and community loyalty more easily strengthened by repeated contact with fewer people? Or would the variety offered by a city neighborhood provide a kind of diversity in choice that could have a greater positive impact on quality of living within those blocks?
Should we be more concerned about neighborhoods with a clear deficiency, like the food deserts that make nutritious meals almost impossible in impoverished urban areas? Did disengagement from one’s community lead to the imbalance, or did a shortfall of resources take its toll? Can enough social capital be built to overcome policy and urban planning shortcomings in the long-term?
Social capital is a requisite part of the sticky web of alliances and relationships that we consider every time a new bond, referendum or candidate is up for a vote, all of which can impact the walkability of our community and start the cycle anew.
photo by nerdegutt
I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe
Earlier this month the Obion, Tennessee fire department declined to put out a fire that burnt a trailer home to the ground because the owner had been delinquent in paying an annual fire services fee to the county. Four pets perished in the blaze. When it began to spread to a neighbors home, the fire department kept the neighbor’s home from burning up because the owners had paid the requisite fee.
Reaction has been split on the fire fighters’ actions; some are appalled by the moral shortcomings, while others are trying to make the case for personal responsibility. Conservator Daniel Foster summed up the morality argument thusly
what moral theory allows these firefighters (admittedly acting under orders) to watch this house burn to the ground when 1) they have already responded to the scene; 2) they have the means to stop it ready at hand; 3) they have a reasonable expectation to be compensated for their trouble?”
Radio and Fox News personality Glenn Beck countered that people need to except the inevitable costs of personality responsibility.
If you don’t pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can’t use those resources, and you’d be sponging off your neighbor’s resources… It’s important for America to have this debate. This is the kind of stuff that’s going to have to happen, we are going to have to have these kinds of things.
I have to wonder if Beck would have been so indifferent had it been toddlers or grandma that perished in the fire because the fire department declined to act? Would fire fighters have been able to physically do nothing had the scenario involved people instead of pets?
It seems that as America life grows increasingly polarized, with marginalized populations increasingly being targeted to gin up (primarily) white voters that feel left behind in the current economic straits, we’re losing our compassion.
In the past week a CVS pharmacist in NJ denied a customer a refill of her asthma inhaler while she was in the midst of an attack because she was $1.50 short. Despite offering to leave behind ID and to return with the rest of the payment, the pharmacist refused her the needed treatment, even after her boyfriend expressed concern that an ambulance would not make it in time to help her. Over $1.50? Really?
Is that really the kind of stuff that has to happen?
Substitute Dish blogger Zoe Pollock called out a newly released Northwestern study (via Wired Science) that found cleanliness to be next to judgmentalness in several experimental environments. Undergraduates who cleaned their hands or recited prepared marks about their own high degree of cleanliness made much harsher remarks about the morality of common social issues like adultery or smoking.
Researcher Chen-Bo Zhong noted that,
Acts of cleanliness have not only the potential to shift our moral pendulum to a more virtuous self, but also license harsher moral judgment of others.
Previous studies have found empathy levels to vary on the basis of shared social groups, whether by some recognizable trait like race or arbitrary assigned clustering of research subjects. Thus, are unconscious prejudices a barrier to resolving major social failings like homelessness?
Even though 2 people may have more in common than not, once those differences are pointed out, how do we keep empathy from waning?
At a recent Netroots Nation session, one presenter discussed the development of campaign ads to promote health care reform legislation in the South. The most successful ad placed persons that could be self-identified with at the start of the ad before moving on to other racial groups, because the realization that reform could affect “me” enabled the viewer to connect with more marginalized groups that would more greatly benefit from health care reform.
A greater impetus for social change may come when we’re better able to draw clear parallels between the lives of those in the greatest need and those with the means to make a difference.
In the past month, I’ve read two books that probably were not the best choices for consecutive reads, but they have kicked up a lot of thought, mostly questions, about the best levels of insertion for intervention on social issues.
The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett outline how thoroughly corrosive the practices that establish economic inequality are in Western society. Certainly, low-income workers and those living in poverty experience the effects of such disparity in a much more extreme fashion; the ultimate cost of this institutionalized gap that is growing wider is to restrict the quality of living and life experience had by all, including the wealthiest few. From life expectancy to education attainment to crime rates, all can be quantitatively tied back to the financial gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans in chart after graph after chart. The capitalist backbone of our society, which relies on consumption, with little consideration of the social and environmental costs has short changed us all.
The solution isn’t nutritional counseling to address obesity or stay in school campaigns, those are all bandages on the bigger issue that would require sacrifice and major philosophical and lifestyle shifts for society at large to resolve. Despite globalization, the flattening of communications and the urban migrations that move us closer and closer to more intimately sharing our day-to-day experiences with strangers and acquaintances and distant relatives, we don’t seem to be at that tipping point for an empathy that connects our everyday struggles with those in our community and connects those struggles with the overarching rules that bind us in society. A shift in awareness could shift the possibilities.
In the interim we have philanthropy, which seeks to make up for many of the disparities we currently accept as a fact of life. The somewhat recent emergence of Philanthrocapitalism is well documented in a book by the same name, subtitled How Giving Can Save the World. Though Bishop acknowledges that inequality allows for the growth of extreme wealth in the hands of a few; he dismisses discussion of making adjustments to capitalism when applying that wealth and business practices to social issues can have an impact on those in need when billionaires are committed to giving back.
Philanthrocapitalism has caught on in a big way. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates launched The Giving Pledge a few months ago, an effort to receive public commitments from America’s wealthiest to give away the majority of their riches. As of a few days ago 40 billionaires had made public commitments for a variety of reasons. But is it enough for the wealthy to funnel funds toward pet causes, particularly in an economy that will likely stagnate for Main Street Americans for years to come?
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek says no (via Andrew Sullivan).
Though “admirable” that the charitably-minded seek to “[remedy] the evils that they see …their remedies do not cure the disease, they merely prolong it. . . The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. The altruistic virtues have prevented the carrying out of this aim.”
Zizek went on to say that “it is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that results from the institution of private property.” In fact, from his point of view, billionaires moving into the realm of philanthropy are merely “repairing with the right hand what we ruined with the left hand.”
Is it enough to address single issues that stem from the most basic inequalities resulting from our current brand of capitalism? Do we have a responsibility to treat the root cause regardless of how difficult it would be to make change there?
If your doctor consistently gives you medication for your pain, without investigating and resolving the cause of that pain, the ailment could linger or fester to something worse. If philanthropy is a means for mitigating the symptoms of larger societal issues, can we ignore the fundamental inequalities that create the environment for the other issues that spring forth? Or is it some sort of placebo that gives us a false sense of accomplishment that we’re doing something to make a difference?
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