A pseudo-perspective: so my wife and I volunteered for many of the organizations that we felt helped to raise our kids to be contributing members of society: PTA, Boys & Girls Club, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, dance, swim team, football booster club, wrestling booster club, Susan is a Deacon, I’m an Elder in our church and then the kids were out of University, married, on their own and whew! Susan always had a knack for getting things done and if you were in her way, she figured out how to get your job. She got involved with the city via the ARTS Commission and Diversity Commission (no one had ever been the chair of both at the same time), big events, good sized budgets then the City Council got in her way. She ran and got elected to the City Council 14 years ago. She still has stuff she wants to do but in 2 years, she’s intending to let someone else help lead the city. No better humbling way to see how things get done or not than run for elected office and learn what you can and cannot do. The noisy gongs may have short term influence but the perspective for the whole is limited until you’ve been elected as a decision maker. Susan lost 2 attempts to the Mayor’s office because she didn’t want to stoop to the level being used against her by the incumbent. Karma does have a habit of coming around, eventually.
I do vote / support businesses with my feet and wallet on a personal level, but it is a compromise.
A recent YouTube post about the ‘Dark history of Weyerhaeuser’ tries to paint a dark past but in the moment, the author admits it was good business and visionary at the time! Lol. Their use of AI imagery is so obvious and laughable, it distracts from the intended message? Which I’m not sure what it is but stir up emotion? I feel my career has had a positive impact on a wide range of technologies, issues, businesses and people. And am proud of the small contribution and impact I may have had on your trajectory. Keep up the conversations!
Thanks for sharing all of these thoughts and the kind words, Bruce! I really appreciate that Susan stuck to her principles here, too! I don’t like the philosophy of some that you have to get power first, then you can do good because something changes about a person along the way in the blind pursuit of power. And I agree that Weyerhaeuser did many good things when I was there, and I felt it (and you!) did a lot to educate young people like me!
This is perhaps controversial, or even a bit defeatist. I view activism and non-profit participation in largely the same lens. I no longer view the point of either to be about changing the world, but rather changing you. Measuring our impact here from an individual consumer perspective always ends in the same depressing, defeatist perspective of “what difference does it make?” But when I view it thru the lens of how it changes me as a person, there is room for a deeper conversation about my personal values and the life I want to live.
if you want to think about external impact, then there is the starfish parable :)
I think it has to start with aligning with myself. That way, it served a purpose whether or not it had an external impact. At the same time, external impact is a good bonus when it happens!
Personally, I appreciated that Taco Bell brought back the Mexican Pizza…. If only ICE lost access to state-of-the-art telecommunications until they cleaned up their act…. 😜
thanks for this post. i also believe that individual choices are important, -- lived how you educated your new provider about why you were making the switch. but for them to be effective, they must be multiplied. consumer action /activism is an old strategy facing new frontiers that are too technical, intertwined and provide services that are often essential , but ultimately have the potential to be so effective because they confront systems . i saw a poster once , in Adbusters magazine, with the slogan saying something like: " refusing to consume is the highest act of resistance. " good for you!
A pseudo-perspective: so my wife and I volunteered for many of the organizations that we felt helped to raise our kids to be contributing members of society: PTA, Boys & Girls Club, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, dance, swim team, football booster club, wrestling booster club, Susan is a Deacon, I’m an Elder in our church and then the kids were out of University, married, on their own and whew! Susan always had a knack for getting things done and if you were in her way, she figured out how to get your job. She got involved with the city via the ARTS Commission and Diversity Commission (no one had ever been the chair of both at the same time), big events, good sized budgets then the City Council got in her way. She ran and got elected to the City Council 14 years ago. She still has stuff she wants to do but in 2 years, she’s intending to let someone else help lead the city. No better humbling way to see how things get done or not than run for elected office and learn what you can and cannot do. The noisy gongs may have short term influence but the perspective for the whole is limited until you’ve been elected as a decision maker. Susan lost 2 attempts to the Mayor’s office because she didn’t want to stoop to the level being used against her by the incumbent. Karma does have a habit of coming around, eventually.
I do vote / support businesses with my feet and wallet on a personal level, but it is a compromise.
A recent YouTube post about the ‘Dark history of Weyerhaeuser’ tries to paint a dark past but in the moment, the author admits it was good business and visionary at the time! Lol. Their use of AI imagery is so obvious and laughable, it distracts from the intended message? Which I’m not sure what it is but stir up emotion? I feel my career has had a positive impact on a wide range of technologies, issues, businesses and people. And am proud of the small contribution and impact I may have had on your trajectory. Keep up the conversations!
Thanks for sharing all of these thoughts and the kind words, Bruce! I really appreciate that Susan stuck to her principles here, too! I don’t like the philosophy of some that you have to get power first, then you can do good because something changes about a person along the way in the blind pursuit of power. And I agree that Weyerhaeuser did many good things when I was there, and I felt it (and you!) did a lot to educate young people like me!
This is perhaps controversial, or even a bit defeatist. I view activism and non-profit participation in largely the same lens. I no longer view the point of either to be about changing the world, but rather changing you. Measuring our impact here from an individual consumer perspective always ends in the same depressing, defeatist perspective of “what difference does it make?” But when I view it thru the lens of how it changes me as a person, there is room for a deeper conversation about my personal values and the life I want to live.
if you want to think about external impact, then there is the starfish parable :)
I think it has to start with aligning with myself. That way, it served a purpose whether or not it had an external impact. At the same time, external impact is a good bonus when it happens!
Personally, I appreciated that Taco Bell brought back the Mexican Pizza…. If only ICE lost access to state-of-the-art telecommunications until they cleaned up their act…. 😜
thanks for this post. i also believe that individual choices are important, -- lived how you educated your new provider about why you were making the switch. but for them to be effective, they must be multiplied. consumer action /activism is an old strategy facing new frontiers that are too technical, intertwined and provide services that are often essential , but ultimately have the potential to be so effective because they confront systems . i saw a poster once , in Adbusters magazine, with the slogan saying something like: " refusing to consume is the highest act of resistance. " good for you!