Existential Markets

Updates on transforming conservation-oriented investments into experiential investments; i.e. carpool for 20% mobility transit energy reduction into karaoke carpool experience; sharing native plant seeds to plant at property boundaries for habitat corridor creation; inviting rotation of friends for special vegetarian meals 3x per week (equals 1 day of meals) or more. ; \\ to how modeling and acting celebrities are sort of the ultimate existential/experiential industry expression [and professional dancers sometimes get to a point where the work is about their body and life culminate in expression], or how apple's store and brand was about the experience rather than the tech, or starbucks being about a gathering place rather than just its coffee, or McDonald's about its convenience, "non-judgment" and "happiness"/loving it happy meals and play place for kids. Very similar to how CK Raju would state corruption and religion being the two primary vehicles for colonialism; good experiences are the essence of what often fuels religion. Instead of corruption, systemically positive alchemic/allegoric transformation can be the appropriate and compelling alternative to outmode.
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Dreams*(?) and Development

​A three part dream that happened this morning before I woke up to take out the trash and recycling with post-slumber commentary:
1. I'm in a new [or maybe rather more appropriately capitalized, New] Detroit neighborhood restaurant/cafe watching a s​kit​/presentation akin to Goldilocks and the three bears between the owners and employees during its preliminary grand opening.

Goldilocks, a young ​caucasian girl, pours and presents a big bowl of hot chocolate as she narrates the origins of the cafe and what it values ​in balancing its business aspirations ​as part of the community. She sweetly closes her story punctuating it with a casual "that'll be $40 bucks, hun." For the bowl of hot chocolate as the punchline to the community and up-and coming city entrepreneurship story.

The customer (not identifiable to the audience/nor heard) implicitly complies and requests for something additional to which the matron of the cafe quickly gathers the other local employees, gets on the phone and discusses in Zulu or some other language heard in South Africa with all the staff huddled around, before she confidently hangs up the phone to declare to the imaginary customer: "I have good news, you're eligible for an additional $0.30 per hour sitting fee too!"

We (the audience) laugh and ​as I turn away ​I ​​start figuring out how to make a sliding scale menu cost structure for non-locals and locals that can accommodate more people with less outrageous prices while still accounting for the higher I come demographic who wouldn't hesitate to buy a $40 bowl of hot cocoa (or in real life, pay more than $40 for a hair cut).

2. My dream transitions to sitting at the counter of another cafe/diner that bears a less monied air to it: imagine a classic 1950s hamburger joint  converted into a general diner/cafe that hadn't been updated since the 50's that's in a Downriver (low-income labor town) community like River Rouge or Wyandotte. It's now under the ownership and operation of an immigrant Indian woman and she's working to serve us friends as her guests before it officially opens.

I ask if there's any local favorite juice available as she opens and closes a basic household refrigerator that's nestled on the wall facing the counter and register. "All I have for drinks is in that fridge." And I note that A box of wine was the only fruit beverage available. A classmate from second grade, Vijay [Vijay!? What are you doung here in my subconscious bro? Still got that cool San Jose Sharks winter coat too], smiles and sarcastically proclaims "Ecorse' s finest!" And gestures with a culinary kiss to the air. I laugh [his sense of himor is still on point].

I'm now outside the restaurant with my friend Onyx, pouring two glasses from that boxed wine as we "celebrate" "Ecorse's finest" -- and the fact that we both witnessed French hosts serve us boxed wine [yes, in real waking life during our time as guests in southern France while performing on tour]. Onyx smiles agreeing with that tone of voice you get at the end of sharing a memory in the way a fire burns down to smoldering coals, and mentions that "having some music from the 90s playing would be great right now." I mention if WiFi is available we might be able to pull something up and quietly ponder what kind of music could constitute the best of the 90s.

3. My dream transitions again and I'm inside a neighborhood salon+barbershop where one of my former employers, Mrs. Michele Loveberry --who in real life owned a salon while briefly leading a non-profit-- is working with a customer already after promptly arriving at 6:00am on one side while a barber works with someone else toward the front on the other side of the room. My friend Jemeer and another guy tells me how important barbershops are for the community (true, and we've had a conversation like this in waking life before) as well.

Post-Slumber Commentary

So here's what I think we can learn (or at least be reminded of) from the dream above among other things: 

1) there's a point when a well-grounded and intentional price policy becomes outrageous to the average person and yet entirely acceptable for a new target audience--I.e. the $40 haircut yuppie or in the case of my dream, the gentrified who pays $40 for a ridiculously large bowl of hot chocolate.

Speaking with my friend Ulysses, this is exactly how countries like Finland operate--

2) The $0.30 per hour sitting fee sounds like something (a terrible something) that a crowded New York or San Francisco kind of city actually would do, except they'd charge you even more for just being there. For [dystopic neoliberal urbanization/gentrification​/colonialism​] comedic purposes, $0.30 is ​"​reasonable​"​--just small enough to be petty, but the real offense comes from its mere existence​ ​​and audacity to charge people for their mere existence​.

3) I still work even in my dreams to figure out things like equitable cost strategies and price points.

4) Zulu (though I don't know the language well) and South Africa are a very interesting parallel--in waking life I met a journalist who focused on apartheid and how similar patterns manifest in Detroit last year. For those unfamiliar with the city, Detroit is approximately 83% black, ~89% "minority", and highly segregated as a city still. The economic development patterns also tend to reflect this too with most investment underway in majority white downtown core financial and cultural districts. Meanwhile, most of the neighborhoods remain overlooked unless they're ripe for ["market"] exploitation [or straight-up exploitation in itself] according to the downtown administration and deep pocket developers.

5) There's an interesting contradiction to connecting boxed wine with the expression "Ecorse's finest" --the river that makes "downriver" communities was called the Rouge River by the French settlers (and still called that today by residents) because of all the grapes that would grow in the region. It's hard to say what the soil and air quality would be for growing grapes for wine there today as it's somewhat an industrial labor town now, but if we of the region were to begin making wine there again, I wouldn't be surprised if boxed wine would the way to start as the expertise, "market audience", and taste palate for most people in southeast Michigan would probably take time to develop before we skip ahead to fine wines. Alcoholism in Michigan is a major problem, and it happens to be, at least during some point within the past 5 years, among one of the most common Google searches in our state.

6) The Salon/Barber Shop dream builds directly from a conversation I had last night realizing how continuity for employing and owning a business in Detroit remains by the person, and often ends at the entrepreneur rather than continuing with the team/a community to support the training and workers beyond the founder. I also think the gender roles (one side salon, another side barber) is something to note though I haven't got much insight for it beyond observation. Mrs. Loveberry's mother opened and owned a historic salon business, one of the first in Detroit, and the legacy of her entrepreneurship remains under celebrated except for those who may have known her directly or through the family stories like my friend Jemeer and Mrs. Loveberry. Mrs. Loveberry recently retired and left the state. 

I now realize she was part of the 93% businesses in Detroit that are black, and of them, 90% are/were run with 1-4 employees. The continuity between owner to new generations differs from places in Japan or even Vietnam where businesses survived for centuries--even surviving colonialism and world wars--with artisans and other people who continue the line and legacy.

In my waking life, I know/know of an interesting cross section of the cosmetic industry. I also connected [albeit briefly] with someone from outside Detroit focused on using barber shops as places to address mental health in the black community. They all have important elements, and the opportunity to convene and discuss how workforce development + business ownership advances in the city's neighborhoods is important and feasible to implement with someone like Chase Cantrell of Building Community Value and the folks who put on Hair Wars.


References

Toward the end of this sketch, Trevor Noah speaks in Zulu--deep in the comment section of the original clip on youtube someone gave a translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwT-2KdK894

Designing to Demystify Development Doings

Last year, I advised the 2018 Detroit City of Design Strategic Action Plan's creation as part of a group of other UNESCO/Detroit Design-connected peers (if you want the fancy technical term, we're referenced as the Peer Advisory Board on p. 147) -- though I'd be remiss to say a lot of the comments and advisory I contributed went unheeded by the consulting firm tasked to do the report.

In particular:
1) the need to address the legacy of economic suppression, divestment, or even outright oppression that made and let institutionalized racism continue in the city
i.e. from removing skilled trades and the arts from k-12 in recent years and dismantling the public school system's efficacy, or a highly segregated population that results from a mix of insurance and housing policy that resulted from remnants of the early 1900s when supremacist/terrorist groups groups like the KKK openly influenced and controlled business districts and cities.
2) the need to shift toward skill-based "gig economy" resilience rather than building more job pipelines
3) the role of cultural competency and "industry translation" for delivering genuine inclusion and better informed public decision making that lets people take advantage of the projected surge in industry and Detroit's shiny new "UNESCO City of Design" status.
One of the best ways to do that is to connect the every day practical things that normally seem out of reach to the average Detroiter with better communication, and not all of it should rely solely on written word (and yes, I realize criticizing the bias in communicating with text with an equally lengthy article-sized written narrative isn't optimal but we're starting here with a different audience in mind).

Which brings us to the Development industry. The more we learn about the development industry, the more I find it's traditionally about making debts profitable (at least for the big players, but really, when was the last time you ever heard about a small-player in the development industry, if you ever hear about the development industry at all?).

So with an article from early 2018 about Dan Gilbert's desire to use tax breaks and funds that normally would go to things like schools and corrections (go read it and then come back to finish this), it's an opportunity to demystify a bit of this further--here the question becomes whose debt and to what end does it become a profitable investment--for the public and/or Dan Gilbert's works.

In this case, by capturing the tax revenue via brownfield redevelopment incentives (for those without an environmental science or economic/city planning background: brownfields are land that's been contaminated with something like industrial waste, fuel spills, etc. that would make it unsuitable for normal living/farming etc.; but still useful for developing buildings on top of or "fixing" aka remediating the soil so that it's healthy again).

That normally would go toward basics like education. For others (like Ben Mallah of Koncrete's "Life for Sale" show), it's often by flipping large properties--sometimes accelerated by using bank-loaned money to achieve aggressive profit margins (i.e. 2:1 ratio of profit to investment) -- so they're constantly burning to find another bigger property to pay back the investing bank(s) before they get into hot water with their lender(s).

Yet even when we teach people to read in the U.S., we begin with picture books -- yet here we are attempting to learn and teach with the limits an ambitious and dedicated journalist is limited to working with by deciphering troves of text.

So here's a design challenge: I'm certain there's a way to turn the following chunk of text excerpted below into a diagram, infographic, or something that more people would be able to quickly understand:

So how does all this work when you get down in the weeds? One incentive Gilbert is using is called a "brownfield." It allows developers like him to collect property tax revenue to pay for remediation costs after they redevelop contaminated or seriously blighted properties.

In a hypothetical scenario that illustrates how brownfields work, Gilbert's Hudson site property is valued at $100 in 2018. Let' say later this year, the city and state approve a brownfield incentive for it. Next, Gilbert builds on the land, so it's worth $150 in 2019. The city and state continue to collect tax revenue off the original $100, but Gilbert collects tax revenue off the $50 increase.

Gilbert then captures tax revenue off the property tax increases for the next 20 years. So if the property is worth $1,000 in 18 years, Gilbert collects tax revenue off of $900, and the city and state still only collect it off of $100.

The property tax money that the government collects goes to several "jurisdictions," including schools, libraries, parks, jails, cities' general funds, and more. According to the MEDC, Gilbert will be collecting tax money intended for jurisdictions that fund education at the county and state level. So when the property tax revenue collected from that $900 goes to Gilbert, it doesn't go to schools.

In that way, Gilbert's use of the brownfield impacts schools.

But there's another layer. The projects are in Detroit's Downtown Development Authority district. The DDA currently receives the tax money that Gilbert will use — not the schools. Thus, Gilbert can claim that schools aren't impacted because the money is diverted from the DDA to his company. However, the DDA takes the money from the schools, so education taxes are ultimately what funds Gilbert's projects.

-Excerpted from:
https://metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/01/11/yes-dan-gilbert-wants-to-use-school-money-to-fund-his-new-downtown-projects

You could especially visualize this as an elegant sankey diagram of sorts -- see this for a black and white example in petroleum energy and this with colors in energy; better yet check out Canada's energy systems and imagine how it might be done to demonstrate tax and business investment.

For a crude attempt, here's my take on what I just read:

In a hypothetical scenario that illustrates how brownfields work, Gilbert's Hudson site property is valued at $100 in 2018. Let' say later this year, the city and state approve a brownfield incentive for it. Next, Gilbert builds on the land, so it's worth $150 in 2019. The city and state continue to collect tax revenue off the original $100, but Gilbert collects tax revenue off the $50 increase.

2018 Value (note: let each + = $10 )

$100 ++++++++++

2019 Value: Gilbert Builds on the Land ( note: let each ~ = $10 in 2016 )
$150 ++++++++++~~~~~

Gilbert then captures tax revenue off the property tax increases for the next 20 years. So if the property is worth $1,000 in 18 years, Gilbert collects tax revenue off of $900, and the city and state still only collect it off of $100.

$900 (note: each ++++++++++ = $100, and if I understand the lines above correctly, that money still comes from you, the tax payer)

Gilbert's $900 (which he and his companies will make some kind of argument that says the jobs created and the business they attract, especially for remediating contaminated soil to build upon, will make it worth while for Detroiters and maybe the state--if you're extremely lucky, maybe you can figure out a way to become a shareholder or take equity in the project to influence what happens, the odds however are extremely slim for the average person)

++++++++++
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Meanwhile, Detroit's $100 (which, from the ashes of taxpayer dollars, we'll hope good things will rise for the tax paying residents again--in other words, this is the hypothetical portion that the public has the highest likelihood of maintaining accountability and influence over for ensuring the revenue goes toward actual priorities in the interest of the city's residents) remains the same, possibly unadjusted for inflation too:

++++++++++


Total Hypothetical Property Value coming from the Detroit Tax Base: $1000

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There's still a much better way to depict this which I've not taken time to illustrate with my ascii art rendition above. How could we show the money flowing from the tax base? I'd reference the petroleum diagram in terms of what the fund actually supports and how it gets prioritized for this particular development scenario. And then add the colors etc. to make it more visually appealing.

Yet where do we go to make this kind of development and data literacy happen? Design advocates would say "Designers! Ask the designers!" and inevitably you'll find there's a high-end design firm lurking somewhere in a trendy downtown office hungry for a commission or contract from someone with a decent pocket book.

As the public waits, where can we go? Perhaps someone might wish a non-profit for supporting design might exist to provide these services. In Detroit, the Go-To clearinghouse might be Design Core Detroit (formerly DC3), which is the Org I referenced at the start of this post. But they're a clearinghouse who tends to pursue big-picture funding and reputation with a limited team, it's easy to suspect a measly infographic isn't really in the scope of their perceived responsibility. In function, they're a Chamber of Commerce who laid claim on Detroit's "creative + design industry" and replicated all the traditional organizational functions a typical Chamber of Commerce does to keep its membership and influence in a city.

Say what you will about the New York Times, but spend enough time looking at their work and you'll find outstanding work when it comes to conveying some of the data they use to examine stories -- take for example this piece that points to school segregation and success by comparing money, race, and student success.

For the City of Detroit (and the world at large), one thing that would distinguish its industry might be the way it communicates important data -- the kind that's visceral to our day to day lives like traffic accident statistics, crime, disinvestment/investment/development, accessibility, education, home and utility affordability, glocal civic engagement (as in, how local decisions and elections intertwine with global issues) etc. in a way that accelerates public literacy and competence around the issues.

While data for literacy rates in Detroit might be a contested topic, the reality that most people tend to do better with pictures

On the other end of the spectrum, we might appeal to the Designer's Guild for Justice or maybe some kind of diasporic remnant of the Occupy Movement's Design and Research collectives.

For now however, I'll leave this question "who's going to do the design work?" to all of you...

Detroit native Aurora guides a group through the stories in this Detroit youth-made mural during an anniversary observance of Vincent Chin's murder and in solidarity with the Detroit Asian American community on the final remains of Detroit's Chinatown. Shortly after telling her story, she expressed her frustration and surprise that she discovered the city of Detroit was bidding on a rail transit development proposal through a late night broadcast on BBC World News before hearing anything from the City.

REFERENCES

Life for Sale: Focuses more on large multi-unit buildings (Apartments, Senior Citizen Homes, Shopping Plazas), but gives you a taste of how developers would focus on large tracts of land. I don't necessarily agree with or enjoy his sense of humor, you'll still learn a lot about the scale of investment in the industry from watching the early episodes in the series.

This episode turned on the "Aha." for demystifying how real estate development works and looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gC8dUcoKFE

The trick is to continue buying and selling else he'd have to pay tax--I don't understand all the details yet but I get the impression there are a lot more millionaires out there who are just as caught up in a similar game:
https://youtu.be/TGEPle4uFPU

Awaiting the close of a deal between a bank loan, etc.:
https://youtu.be/3YoAbBRCa34

Buying/Flipping a Senior Citizen Complex:
https://youtu.be/GjCBJtibA7k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zfq5-Sj4GU


Detroit's #1 Billionaire, Dan Gilbert technically does want to use money that funds schools for his development projects; also thinks people miss the nuances to why big developments deserve tax breaks.
https://metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/01/11/yes-dan-gilbert-wants-to-use-school-money-to-fund-his-new-downtown-projects

NOTE to people about tax breaks:
For environmental science students who took Dr. Riebesell's land use planning and management course, development incentives -- especially brownfield redevelopment, etc. -- these are typically emphasized as a good thing. A brownfield is normally a contaminated (i.e. risky, somewhat toxic or at least polluted enough that you can't just set up and do typical building on) site that people stay away from--real estate developers are more likely to sprawl out their developments and encroach upon pristine land (i.e. cut down a forest, drain a wetland, or push out a historic neighborhood as the likely alternatives).
However, I question whether certain habits become relevant once an individual or entity reaches a different scale. A billionaire like Dan Gilbert might be able to defend his actions by pointing to the basics for how a profitable business needs to run. Yet he no longer operates a basic business or like a normal business person starting at ground zero from scratch--he literally influences governments and entire media cycles with his mere presence. He has the capacity to look at prioritizing his funding and investments in ways that consider the constraints and needs of the environment he chooses to operate in beyond a traditional charitable-foundation model. So unless he's operating on archaic development business practices, cleaning up a brownfield development project likely can be done without taking all of the incentives that the media suggests he's requesting.



Sankey Diagrams:
Petroleum Energy -- Black and White, corresponds to a common source
https://goo.gl/images/vDLyJY

Energy -- Note for Colors
https://goo.gl/images/wknBV2

Canada's Energy System -- Probably the best of the three diagram examples I provide yet
https://goo.gl/images/u11J6t


NY Times Interactive Data: Money, Race, and Success -- see how your school district compares to others:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html

Poverty & Politics

An essay spurred by this article: "Poverty Doesn't Need Technology, it Needs Politics"
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902

Something to agree with, something to disagree with, plenty to consider for whatever walk of work and life you're in right now.

The raw implied assumption with Silicon Valley superstar-studded tech entrepreneurship conferences and hackathons designed to "disrupt poverty" is that any economic mobility that emerges from a business can be a transformative step in uplifting individuals out of cycles of poverty.

That’s a broad but valid starting point. For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see results with larger-than-life personalities who are praised by the media for their daring and subsequent wealth.

For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see.

The same line of reasoning applies to why countries might welcome foreign businesses looking to "exploit" emerging markets in the name of economic development--consider China 20-30 years ago welcoming U.S. commerce, people considering countries like Vietnam today. Similarly, this is how some might see plus sides to speculation in the gentrification debate in major cities like Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh, or Detroit. There's a degree of truth to being the first to provide desired goods or services in a place that does not yet have access to them yet. Sometimes, it also does a lot to give people economic & social mobility. Being able to have a well-paying labor job and moving up into different areas of education and business sometimes happens, but it's becoming rare and there are also plenty of places in the world where opportunity for wealth (or even basic employment) will not readily connect employees to higher echelons.

Another Kind of Entrepreneurship [Still] HappeningIn most cases, when someone can associate widespread need with a business opportunity it's easy to associate the potential for wealth with potential for economic impact, but they're not the same thing.

At the same time, there are lots of businesses that aren’t powered by smart phones or big data which still need attention. Whole chunks of the U.S. remain about 30 years behind metropolitan centers in technology use, and many of the needed businesses in those communities will never be visited by a Silicon Valley company. It’s easy to forget that a significant sum of businesses still make the backbone of most communities in the U.S. are small to medium sized businesses that we probably take for granted or forget about:
An immigrant Korean-American family opening a dry cleaner.
A Black family opening a small produce market in a neighborhood of Detroit far from downtown.
My friend creating a powerwashing/yard cleaning business.
All of them count as entrepreneurs and have businesses that meet some kind of need without relying on apps at this time.

I think the article's premise for critique is in the right place (in case you haven’t read it yet, see “Poverty Doesn’t Need Technology, it Needs Politics”)--especially considering context and dominant themes we're in and able to witness: we know some people get very wealthy for unfair reasons (monopolistic businesses, speculative investors, land grabs through closed-door deals, etc.) while most others struggle even with honest hard work and doing what they can to work intelligently--it's wealth stratification--and the ties between systemic injustice and perpetuated cycles of poverty.

In Detroit, several long-time community residents & property owners who took care of their own properties and are looking to expand by purchasing land for sale by the city are still unable to do so while major business barons like Dan Gilbert and John Hantz are often able to negotiate inepensive purchases (land bought by cents per acre). Technology won't solve the fact that some people have unfair advantages or narrow interests in their business.

A moment's tangent to address exceptions for "fair wealth creation"
I personally think there are ways to creating and attaining extreme wealth that exist independent of systemic exploitation. For example, knowing how to scale through online commerce might be a way that people can legitimately earn something. That said, even I've yet to make it work and I believe for most people it rarely happens because the tools for creating a viable high-growth business must be met with:
1) decent preparation
This includes learning, focused hard work, and the ability to maintain your focus on the work without getting distracted by competing priorities like basic needs, family, etc.
2) earned relationships
It takes time, learning, and effort to cultivate good relationships and the integrity to establish and maintain a solid reputation
and
3) lucky and/or carefully facilitated opportunities that work in your favor
For example, you might need to be able to recognize a big problem that affects others (potential clients/customers) exists in advance, or happen to have a working solution ready in time for disasters or the latest breakthrough (i.e. imagine the folks who first recognized the potential for smart phones).

Ujima: Politics, in a Philosophical Sense, and Business with Bigger Purpose
Politics is the articulation of desired action--it sometimes involves explicit and tangible actions, but more often than not it's about people talking about things that they want or believe. I'm not a fan of this, but we know politics are important: articulating a desired action creates the possibility for design--creativity with intention as Cornelius Harris (one of the first creators of techno music from Detroit) would say. This means we can then design potential solutions to meet fundamental needs.

As long as it's operating, a business will (hopefully) always be creating something. What matters is that in the broader scope, the business and people working in do so with a sense of responsibility that makes relationships clear to other organizations and actions that are intended to meet the needs of people in a specific place--a community. For those who unfamiliar with the holiday Kwanzaa, this is approximately what the principle Ujima highlights: collective work and responsibility. While Ujima is often focused on a very close community and family, the idea applies well to organizations too.

In this sense, recognizing that a business can exist as part of a broader intention is essential to the idea that we need to create businesses that are part of real communities--whether directly connected to physical neighborhoods or abstractly connected to other entities that can influence a cause.

So even if the business has a very narrow focus, it's possible for its employees, leadership, customers and stakeholders (people affected by the organization even if they're not customers) to recognize how it serves a role in the bigger picture. Maybe it specifically creates bearings for an automotive supplier, they have a role in transportation and the broader arc of transit accessibility in its multitude (aka transit justice). Or it creates fight gear for women, it can focus its existential responsibility as an enterprise on fitness and/or women's empowerment as we see with Society Nine. That's not necessarily their number one priority as a business--a company like Society Nine wasn't built to give every woman a solution for fitness or to teach them how to participate in professional/recreational fights, but it does exist as part of the broader ethical fabric of the company's existence.

Acknowledging all of the above, I don't believe wealth exempts a business or individual from responsibility and their relationship to the rest of the economy and society. Being able to acknowledge privileges--whether earned or endowed--might be a way to beginning to leverage them toward positive contribution and impact as well.

The gap between enthusiasm for Corporate Social Responsibility and genuine change tends to exist in part because most businesses look at it from a short-term perspective shaded solely by public perceptions of charity (e.g. send your employees for a day to clean up a neighborhood, build houses, plant trees, with a local non-profit), or at worst as a shallow marketing & PR initiative. They don't integrate the broader political context--potential environmental & social impact--into priorities for their core culture and operations.

Changing Paradigms About Charity
As a general public, most of us have a naive or divisive interpretation of charity: we might look at charity as a good compassionate activity for helping the needy on generous terms.
A less pleasant but also valid perspective might criticize charity as something that perpetuates dependence--either with judgmental narratives about needy people who might rely on external aid, or in more nuanced views dependency on philanthropy and Non-Profit organizations to make up for the gaps that employers which underpay their employees and communities create.

Both are valid perspectives, and I imagine returning to the idea that understanding a business with deeply political curiosity can help answer or facilitate evidence for solving the fundamental issues we face with charity.

Aligning Politics for Purpose in a Company
Most companies altogether don't choose to prioritize these charitable efforts in a way that aligns with their existing area of potential impact. Again, we can concede that it's very challenging to operate a functional business in the first place especially in a small or medium sized enterprise where attention, staff, and other resources might be thin.

In larger enterprises, there's a hope that the company can delegate responsibility to an isolated department and hope all problems will be solved by a department made of corporate environmentalists and social justice advocates. But think about what this means: do people delegate their every day social responsibilities to an ethicist to take care of their own personal responsibilities on their behalf? Responsibility for taking care of things that really matter to us are still belong to and require us to engage in fulfilling of our duties, even if we can hire assistants, coaches, consultants, therapists, or counselors.

How many major companies have a department for Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, of Community Relations, or Environment Health and Safety, etc.?
Ask people working in those departments at any level, from Chief Executives/Officers to interns, and you'll likely find frustrated employees who believe the rest of the company's leadership must to take ownership of their strategy for broader environmental and social responsibilities (even profitable ones like efficiency initiatives) to match what they say they need with what to do.

Keeping aware of your socio-political relationship to systemic problems as an individual and/or enterprise matters--you're inevitably connected to something, an integral part of something that can become more inclusive or create value for the community(ies) your work affects.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902

Value in a story

About a year ago, I contemplated a lot about existentialism in marketing: if a product engages an audience (especially the consumer) with an actual experience, the product--and in turn, the brand--becomes priceless, the added value becomes invaluable.  I also made an ethical distinction between outreach and marketing.  You can read that post here.  Now, I'm finding a continuum between community-based ethical enterprises and stories: stories humanize our relationship with whatever good or service we engage.

Ironically, my revelations are heightened by the fact that I'm starting to work closely with an Australian company to examine the "story of stuff" for sustainability in global supply chains--while many people whom I know are focused on very exciting sustainability and community building on a local level.

Hansen and Lydersen: "Exquisite Smoked Salmon"
Playing music as Ole smokes the salmon gives a story that differentiates his product from others, and adds value to the smoked salmon altogether.  It's clever marketing that makes consumerism a bit more humane thanks to the touch of a story and a product procured with passion.  But how integral is the music to enriching a customer's experience?

Interface: Net-Works
Interface is a carpet company.  For those who might not be familiar with building materials and sustainability in industry, carpet companies pack a surprising punch when it comes to re-imagining how our economy can function [1].

Interface's net-works program might be considered a "social enterprise", but they're throwing in a fine new phrase that's worth noting in the lexicon of commerce: "restorative enterprise", which asks:  How can a company improve a place or process for the human and ecosystemic community?




While they might not explicitly say so in their marketing, it's focused on using their supply chain to cultivating a coherent thread of sustainability that removes discarded fishing net from coastlines and benefits island communities.

I recently got back from a summit (check out the highlights from ReRoute) in New York which poses the same kind of question for business and economics in general: "How can we make business and economics more enriching and non-degrading to the people, and other co-habitants we live with?"

There's a movement/field of study called solidarity economics, which looks at this, and from discussing with conference luminaries, it's clear that the "new economics" movement is well underway.

Telling the story of our stuff looks like an excellent start in a global economy.  Yet at the end of the day, I think we beam the most when people we know, see, and embrace directly do well.

I'm really excited at the prospect of consulting Interface's Australian company to show the global story of their sustainability initiative, and will look forward to the time when I do the same here in the Great Lakes bioregion as well.

[1] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "Circular Economy" video gives a good big-picture overview of how the carpet industry's business of "cradle to cradle" material reuse happens.

#11 VIII 2013