Brandon's Blog

Enlightened Capitalism

The other day, I was really encouraged by an article over on WorldChanging about the ways that big corporations in the West are discovering the profitability behind virtues of environmentalism, sustainability, open source collaboration, and basic human dignity.  What stands out in the article is the positive examples of two large American corporations who, only a few years back, were notorious for their involvement in human rights violations and mistreatment of employees.  From the looks of it, Nike and Wal-Mart have realized that many of their actions that were meant to save money and increase the wealth of their CEOs and investors were actually hurting their profit margins in the long run. 

One of the things I find most encouraging from the article is how Corporate Social Responsibility as a separate department is on it's way out.  Rather than seeing CSR as just another way of managing their public reputation, companies are realizing that it is actually a source of innovation and future profitability.  Therefore, Corporate Social Responsibility is being seen as something to be more holistically embraced by every part of a company.

I'm wondering when we're going to see this kind of recognition from one of my favourite news publications, The Economist, who have seemed to view CSR as a burden to capitalism.  (CLICK HERE for The Economist's CSR special report and take note of the article links in the right hand column.)

Human Rights Celebration & A Little Caitlyn Update

We've had a nice trip through the mid-west in the last few weeks, from Denver to Minneapolis to Southern Wisconsin to Chicago.  Little Caitlyn has done well, despite sleeping in a different place every few nights.  Her "speech" (if we can call it that) has been taking on more distinction as if she's making quite an effort to form words.  And just tonight, she was beginning to pivot on one foot with tiny little steps, as if she's just on the verge of walking. 

In other news, I came across this brilliant little animation video in celebration of the 60th anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  (See also the Human Rights Action Center website for a better quality version in Quicktime.)  Have a look . . .

American Economics, Gig Posters, & Apparel

A few days back, I was delighted to learn that American Apparel are opening a retail shop here in Dublin on Grafton Street, just around the corner from the front entrance to Trinity College.  American Apparel seem set on proving that you can build a multi-national retail company without exploiting the poor in developing countries.  (So why don't they outsource some of their garment manufacturing to the developing world AND pay a living wage to their workers?)

CLICK HERE for 50 of the coolest gig posters. I think my favourite posters are the ones for The Shins, Cat Power, and Arcade Fire.  Also below is a gig poster for The National that my friend Matt found during one of his trips to the U.S. 

Also, have a look at some of Bob Carlton's thoughts on the recent economic troubles in the West.  His sentiments really resonate with things that I've been wrestling with these days.  (Only, he articulates it much better and with more creativity.)  The whole post is really good, but here's a quote that I found particularly insightful: "A generation brought up to believe that affluence represents some existential truth about our lives will, inevitably, be disoriented and angry." 

UPDATE:

As you might see from the comments on this post, the last gig poster on the "50 coolest gig posters" was designed by an old friend of mine.  You can see other posters that Tyler has designed HERE.  Also be sure to check out his website HERE.  I can't believe he designs posters for New Zealand's 4th most popular folk-parody band! =)

Solving the World's Biggest Problems, Microsoft-Style

There’s an interesting article on Time magazine’s website written by Bill Gates.  (CLICK HERE to see it for yourself.)  As you probably know, Gates recently left Microsoft to pursue his work with the foundation (named after he and his wife).  As a former CEO and technology guru, he has an interesting take on “creative capitalism,” but much of what he offered in the article left me scratching my head and even wincing a bit.

While I’m quite happy to see capitalism's finest success story (not to mention one of technology’s biggest innovators) turn his attention to global problems like AIDS and poverty, this article made me wonder if Gates' career change will go down like a Hollywood actor putting out an album.  (We could take inspiration from Bruce Willis and call it "The Return of Bill-bo.")

Old Sweatshop News & New Ethical Shopping Sources

Here's a great article from 3 years ago explaining the progress in keeping large corporations accountable for their sweatshop abuses in developing countries. (Also, here's a great Q&A article on what sweatshops are and how they work.)  In particular, the article mentions Nike and Gap, two of the most notorious companies for aggressively protecting their exploitation of garment factory workers. It would be nice to find some more up-to-date information on how this "corporate accountability" movement is going. Until there's an international standard on ethical labour practice enforced by the World Trade Organization, we can expect large corporations to continue to pursue their product manufacturing at the lowest possible price to them - and at the expense of human dignity for the world's poorest people.  It's just how unbridled capitalism works.  And why I believe (as mentioned in an earlier post) Milton Friedman's dominant laissez-faire economic theory in the U.S. is so harmful.

Wal-Mart Finally Responds to Pressure (and Other Musings on the Evils of Unbridled Capitalism)

Great news from the American "war on Wal-Mart" late last month. Apparently, the world's fastest growing corporation is growing weary of the attention that they are getting due to the harm the company inflicts on small communities and businesses, low wages, poor health coverage, support of sweat shops in China, etc., etc., etc. (EthicalShopping.com has a small article HERE and the NY Times HERE.) It's a hope-filled story of what can happen in a democratic society when people hold large, powerful corporations accountable for their business practices.

Unfortunately, the bigger issue in Western societies remains - namely, moral hypocrisy. For some reason that I cannot put my finger on, countries such as the U.S. are content to enforce labour laws on their own soil, but have no interest in keeping corporations accountable for their pronounced human rights violations in developing countries. (Have a quick look at this Wiki article on Export Processing Zones.)

Random Links

• Are President Bush and the other G8 leaders really that blind to their own hypocrisy??
• The World Cup Soccer Tournament for the Homeless
• Online production/consumption - a.k.a., 'prosumption' - at it's best (for creative writers)
• 10+ Ways to Discover Good Music Online
• WebUrbanist is becoming one of my favourite blogs (if only for the 'culture jamming / guerrilla marketing' category)
• A Dubious New Spin on Microfinance (a slippery slope?)
• Great thoughts from my friend Matt on the 'eco-friendly bandwagon' 
• Check out this blog that combines technology and environmentalism
  

Like Dry Earth Misses the Rain

Here's a phenomenal story of one man's mission to provide free medical care to millions of Haitians trapped in poverty.  I was absolutely gripped by the last few seconds that tell of how the Haitian people describe how much they miss this man when he's gone.  Is it possible for a suffering world to think the same of Christ-followers? 

A Note of Hope and Gratitude to John Cusack

Over the weekend, I was reminded of the profoundly subversive nature of Jesus.  The inspiration, however, didn't come from a sermon or a pastor or even someone who might call himself a follower of Jesus. 

Rather, it was in a Vanity Fair interview with John Cusack: 

Social Change Through the Social Web

I've been really fascinated by how online activism has continued to grow and thrive in the last year or so. (At least my awareness of it has grown.) Just recently, I added a little widget to the sidebar on your left from a site called Ripple, which works in a similar way to The Hunger Site. Different from The Hunger Site, however, is that when you click on the Ripple widget, you're taken to a page that gives you 4 categories of donation: water, food, education, and money. Whichever category you choose to click, you're taken to a page with an advertisement and the revenue for that ad is donated to a non-profit organization that fits the category (eg., Grameen microfinancing in the "money" category or WaterAid in the "water" category). So, essentially, companies (often with an insatiable thirst for logo recognition) will give money to one of the Ripple-sponsored charities just to win some ad space on your computer screen for a few seconds.



The other way that Ripple works is through Google Search. Every time you use Google through the Ripple site, the search giant gives money to Ripple who pass 100% of the proceeds to their 4 charities.

This is a remarkable and innovative way to raise money for good causes, especially given that annual online ad revenue climbed from about $2 billion in 1998 to more than $21 billion in 2007. Way back in 2000, Naomi Klein quoted a 1998 UN Human Development Report that said the growth of global spending on advertising "now outpaces the growth of the world economy by one-third." (Makes one wonder how the pace has continued to climb in the last 10 years!) With that kind of spending in the ad industry, my hunch is that there is plenty of room for further innovation in filtering a chunk of that revenue to good causes, à la Ripple and The Hunger Site.

CLICK HERE to read an article about other ways in which to use the web to promote justice and social change. Also, have a look at THIS ARTICLE to read more about the potential in social media for social good.