Outsourcing, unemployment, poverty, and taxes…is there a better way?
What if we offered incentives to companies who follow practices that improve life for our citizens and economy, while at the same time providing needed financial injections into countries with less prosperity?
It seems to me that the big challenges facing us are situations such as when a company gets giant tax cuts to spur their growth, but then they take their “growth” out of country. So in essence, the money they “get” from the government (our money) isn’t used to support our country as expected.
What if instead of tax cuts, grants were issued to companies based on their proposals to improve the quality of life for all of their stake holders? Reasonable profits/dividends for investors, fulfilling jobs and decent wages for employees, and a sustainable and environmentally conscious company. Then they can still outsource in other countries to make a less expensive product, which will support less prosperous countries better than straight handouts. But they that way, they wouldn’t be using our money to do it. At the same time, they can use our money to expand their companies in ways that directly benefit us as a nation and their in country employees.
What if companies were charged taxes for everything, just like the rest of us, but were then able to get grants from that tax pool for specific projects and initiatives? With the requirement of measurable outcomes for those projects and initiatives, would such a system be able to grow business and our economy, while improving the quality of life for our citizens?
What if we eliminate tax cuts? Are tax cuts the best mechanism to use? If companies and individuals paid taxes to support our common needs as communities (such as sewer and water systems, healthcare, etc), would we still have Americans missing out on “the American dream”? What if we tried a different mechanism such as a grant system like nonprofits use? That could spur business growth and economic prosperity, while ensuring better oversight of how our tax dollars are spent. We could decide who gets what grant, instead of companies deciding whether to pay taxes or not.
Would that be a more effective approach, or less effective? What do you think?
The Social Media Agreement (Extending the Social Contract)
The Players
Creators – People that provide Systems for the public’s use whether free or paid
System – The tool or tools a Creator makes available for Users
Users – Us, the public, the consumers/constituents/clients/friends/people
User Community – A group of Users that form a community interested in a System
Facilitators – Those of us that help System Creators understand the needs of Users, and vice versa
The Agreement
Note: This is a social agreement that is a list of principles, and not a contract, or a list of rules.
- Creators make Systems that create potential value for Users
- Users create value for themselves and others using the Creator’s Systems
- Useful, Fun, and Effective Systems are marketed by Users through viral marketing (evolutionary style, best systems win)
- Facilitators work to build a community of Users that feel a sense of ownership of, and responsibility for, the Creator’s system – This ensures that Creators are supported in continuing their work, as well as improving and expanding their System
- Facilitators work to support Creators in taking ownership of the welfare of their Users and the User Community that forms around their System
- Users provide honest feedback to other Users about Systems (good, bad, or otherwise)
- Users allow Creators a reasonable amount of time to make reasonable adjustments to their Systems
- If Creators are non-responsive, Users move on to other options (again, market evolution)
- Users are open (though not required) to allowing Creators to understand and admit their mistakes, and take action to correct them
- Creators openly admit mistakes and omissions, ask Users for input, and then take corrective actions
- Users will create value for Creators if they get value from the Creator’s Systems (through trade, money, appreciation, and other means)
- Loyalty is not based on control, but rather responsiveness to needs and social connections between Creators and Users
- Facilitators build and support the connections between Creators and Users
- Transparency is inherent in the system, because communications are publicly available
- Users and Creators work together to meet each others needs, mainly to Create, Be Of Value, and Sustain Themselves
What Do You Think?
What do you like about this contract? What’s missing or not working?
When I turn 120 years old, I will say goodbye to all my friends and family, smile pleasantly, and fall over dead. My body will be completely physically and mentally exhausted, shredded from head to toe and inside out. I will have lived every day to the absolute fullest. Every emotion and thought, every encounter, every single moment, fully and completely experienced, accepted, and cherished.
If life were a race, I would throw my body across the finish line with one last breath after running as hard as I possibly could. I will take care of myself, and pace myself, but I will have run as hard and fast as I possibly could, at a pace that will allow me to finish the race with my last possible effort. Because it’s not about the finish line, it’s about the race itself!
Where are you holding back? Where could you put more heart into your efforts? What are you waiting for?
Frontpage Server Extensions and WordPress Permalinks Conflict Fix
Running Microsoft Frontpage Server Extensions and WordPress on the same server can result in neither working properly. After some research to find out why fixing Permalinks in WordPress would break a Frontpage site on my webserver, and vice versa, I found the following tip that works like a charm.
Basically the issue is Frontpage and WordPress both editing the .htaccess files, and they both edit them differently. A found an article that explains the issue and a fix here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Permalinks.2C_.htaccess.2C_and_MS_Frontpage
In, 1991, I was in middle school!! Jenny shared this awesome historical info about the internet, which is the earliest statement I’ve seen that could be reworded as “We need to invent Google”!
1991 outline of the web’s “Resource Discovery Problem”
… which as we know went unsolved for quite a while. Outlined here in 1991 http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/FAQ/KeepingTrack.html
“The Resource Discovery Problem” is the answer to the World’s 2nd ever FAQ on the worlds first ever web page (http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html)
This very first answer points to what we now know was the Resource Discovery solution:
“By the way, it would be easy in principle for a third party to run over these trees and make indexes of what they find. Its just that noone has done it as far as I know because there isn’t yet an indexer which runs over the web directly […] In the long term, when there is a really large mass of data out there, with deep interconnections, then there is some really exciting work to be done on automatic algorithms to make multi-level searches.”
My friend, and Greensboro, NC based nonprofit tech guru Trish Perkins, recently asked me about connecting a WordPress based website with Salesforce.com’s database system (which is FREE for 501(c)(3) nonprofits by the way). I thought sharing my answer with everyone might be useful. These solutions will work for any website, but I’ve given specific instruction for one based on WordPress.
Web-To-Case
The first thing that comes to mind is setting up the web-to-case functionality in Salesforce, and then linking to the web-to-case form or embedding it in your WordPress site. In Salesforce.com’s own words:
“With Web-to-Case, you can gather customer support requests directly from your company’s website and automatically generate up to 500 new cases a day. This can help your organization respond to customers faster, thus improving the productivity of your support team.”
To learn more about setting up web-to-case, check out Salesforce.com’s excellent help and training here:
http://na2.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/customize_casecapture.htm
Email-To-Case
There is also a system to do email-to-case. Again, in Salesforce.com’s words:
“Salesforce.com can automatically create a case when an email is sent to one of your company’s email addresses, such as support@company.com. This Email-to-Case functionality auto-populates case fields from the content of each email. For example, an email subject heading becomes a case subject.”
If you use email-to-case then you could either have people send in emails, or you coud use Contact Forms 7 (WordPress only) on your site (or some other form system) to make a form that once completed is emailed to the Salesforce system. To learn more about email-to-case, check out the help here: http://na2.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/customizesupport_email.htm
What’s your voodoo?
Have you accomplished this goal in a different way? What was your technique?
In any moment, we are who we choose to be, and for only that moment
Once you label me you negate me – Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Absolute thinking has done as much as anything to destroy our character and integrity in modern times. I’m referring to the black and white, divisive lens we sometimes view our world through. We constantly judge ourselves and others, and decide we are either good or bad, right or wrong, happy or sad. In reality, we are a blank canvas from moment to moment, and we change who we are and what we do millions of times in our life. One moment we’re “good”, the next moment we’re “bad”. We can look at the overall pattern of “good” moments versus “bad”, and decide if we are headed in the right direction, but we can never be “good” or “bad”.
I’m “good” because I went to the gym yesterday , and ate completely healthy. But wait, I slipped today and ate that one bag of Skittles, I’m “baaaaaaaddd”. But what about tomorrow, when I go to the gym again , and eat completely healthy again? Am I still bad, am I good, what am I?!? I am Sean, and I am a person who commits acts that are “good” and “bad”. In any given moment, I am who I choose to be.
What’s my point? Absolute thinking destroys our ability to be who we want to be as groups and individuals. And when we use it to hold other people to their past behavior (often in the form of judgment), we all but squash any chance for redemption.
Doing the right thing (sometimes, it’s a two part process)
Moments of error will always happen, because we are humans and we are fallible; but our character shines through when we let it. When we evaluate what to do in the next moment, and take action. When we realize we’ve had a momentary lapse of integrity, what do we do next to make things right? We are not “good” or “bad” people, we are people. Our impact on the world is not determined by how few mistakes we make, but by what we do when we realize we’ve made a mistake. Do we label ourselves as “bad”, “failure”, “terrible person”, allow the mistake to go unreconciled, and start making more of those mistakes because we tell ourselves “that is who we are”? Or, do we remember our true nature, get back on our path, and reconcile the mistake we made?
Our true power, comes from our ability to re-invent ourselves in any moment. To be who we want to be, and create the change we want to see, we must drop the labels and set ourselves free.
Share your moment of freedom with me
When did you last amaze yourself with a moment of freedom? A moment in which you found yourself doing something you never would have believed you could. How did you give yourself that freedom? What did you create as a result?
Google has some of it’s people spend 20% of their time creating new ideas and tools. What if we did that in education? After reading Danny Silva’s article “What would Google do if they ran a school?”, I had the following thoughts. One of his suggestions was to apply the 20% rule in education, giving students 20% of their time to work on a “product” of their choosing.
I remember doing class projects when I was a kid, but they were restricted in scope and either forced to be individual or entire class projects. And what’s more, they were almost NEVER on a topic I was that interested in. What if we used the 20% class time idea to allow students to not only work on their own ideas, but also to work freely with other students (if they choose to)? We could encourage team projects, but not mandate them. Perhaps we could even combine Danny’s networking idea and have students in different grades and classes working together on projects? Would that help reduce inter-grade bullying/violence/etc?
And I love the idea of encouraging each student to choose their own path. They can pick from their passion, be encouraged and supported by their teacher(s), and bring one of their ideas to fruition by the end of semester. Imagine if the school using its community network (Danny’s idea), identified needs in the community and a listing of those needs were provided to the students. Then they could self organize based on the need they are interested in and form groups to tackle the issue. Bridging the divide between school and community, allowing the kids the 20% creative time, encouraging learning based on inquiry and real world problem solving, connecting students to each other, and building a stronger community. Wow!
And the cool thing to me, this is all realistically doable!!
How do we support our educational system in making this happen?
Do you know a school that is already doing this type of thing?
I just finished reading the phenomenal book “What would Google do?” by Jeff Jarvis. Having been completely influenced and inspired by this work, the first thing I did was look for other readers who have applied the knowledge. I found a visionary application of the ideas to education by Danny Silva in his posting “What would Google do if they ran a school?”
After reading his post, I said to myself; if their area of expertise was nonprofit effectiveness and technology, “What would Google do?”
Instantly my brain was energized by a tidal wave of ideas for how to be more effective at supporting nonprofits, citizen groups, and individuals in creating change. For years I’ve been providing technological tools to nonprofits and individuals…the proposition was simple; I’m good with technology, and I want to create positive, forwarding change in the world. So, if Google were me, what would they do?
Be an Information Clearinghouse - Provide information, facts, tips, and experiences via my blog, Twitter, Facebook, and email updates. I already do this to share my daily learning with others, but by putting a specific focus on it, I can gather more information and connect more people with the information and social connections they need.
Create Opportunities for Community Sharing – I participate in amazing dialogs with individuals and nonprofits that continually yield real insight at a pragmatic level on how to create change effectively. By creating online and offline spaces for community discussions, I can support more people in connecting with each other and sharing information.
Community Building - Support groups and individuals in recognizing the communities they are already part of and intentionally growing and nurturing those communities.
Facilitate Collaboration – Work to support groups and individuals in working together to identify and accomplish common goals, the pooling of resources, and mutual promotion of each other’s work – reducing duplication of efforts and competition for limited funds
Identify and Demonstrate Unique Value – Support groups and individuals in understanding the unique value they provide and how to demonstrate that to funders and supporters in natural ways instead of wasting money on PR and media work
Create Agile and Iterative Change-makers – Support groups in being agile and iterative in their program work to get more accomplished in less time and with smaller budgets
Eliminate Divisions – Support people in seeing the “other side” as people with needs – Faciliatate understanding on all “sides” of the other “sides” needs, and collaborative efforts to get everyone’s needs met
What are your thoughts? How could we as a community of people creating a better world be more like Google? How can we be more effective?
