James' Travels

The Post Crisis Consumer

2009-10-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Business Will Change the World, chapter 4: If you won't buy it...

2009-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Business is the most powerful force shaping our lives, so this chapter asks: How do we guide business to do more good and less harm?

I believe that this question is one of the great callings of our moment in history. If we can aim the unprecedented power of global business in the direction of progress, and I believe we can, then we might not only avert a number of potential crises, we will also make enormous improvements in the lives of billions of people.

So, how do we do it? First the general principle, then the strategy:

If we don't buy it, they won't make it. And if we do buy it, everyone will try to make it. Business is that simple.

When you purchase a product you fund the entire supply chain that got that product to you, from mining, drilling and logging, through design and manufacturing, to transport, wholesale and retail. You give the CEO his allowance.

And so that very same CEO and his counterparts in companies all over the world spend billions of dollars trying to figure out what you and your friends want, hoping to make the types of things you will buy. So if we come together and send a clear message that we will only buy products that uphold our values, companies will fall over themselves to make them! And the clearest message you can send to a company starts with a dollar sign.

Telling a company that we don't like their labor practices but continuing to buy their shoes sends a clear message: "We want your shoes regardless; don't worry about it." And likewise, telling a company that we love their commitment to the environment while not buying their dish soap does nothing to pay salaries and keep the lights on; it tells them that we don't care. Money is the language that business listens for in the market, and it's the language that we must use in order to be effective in guiding business.

So the lesson is simple. Continually shift your purchases towards the more ethically and environmentally sound companies and products, reinforcing their good practices and drawing their competitors into that space.

Of course, if only you and I do this it won't make a difference. We need masses. This is where the principle must be breathed into a powerful strategy for success. I believe that any effective strategy here is going to have three components: stories, leaders, and tools.

Stories: If you're reading this you likely understand the importance of guiding business to do better, but many people don't. They don't feel a connection with or responsibility for the history of the products they buy - the people and environments that are affected both positively and negatively. We need great storytellers to capture and relate the fascinating, emotional, human stories behind our products, in all their immeasurable buoyancy and desperate tragedy. Films must be made, books written, songs sung, until millions realize the huge opportunity and responsibility that we have to improve our world.

Leaders: This is going to be a big, controversial, chaotic movement, and I believe it will grow exponentially over the next 5 years. We need passionate, self-assured, single-minded leaders to stand up and guide this growing community towards effective action. The great principle of their leadership will be partnership with business, finding and supporting the great businesses and encouraging the others to catch up. This focus on progress will give hope and energy to the movement, and financial incentive for businesses to listen.

Tools: Right now it costs people a lot of time and effort to find businesses and products that uphold their values. But it doesn't have to. The technology exists to make this as easy as pulling out your cellphone and scanning a barcode. I've been working on a project called WikiChoice to do just that, and there are different projects around the globe with similar aims. We need the best minds, the most talented programmers, the most visionary technologists to devote their focus to these tools. The right tool is going to change the world. Can you build it?

Right now, and while you sleep tonight, and tomorrow and every day and night thereafter, businesses all over the world are going to be building the future of this planet. You have power in that process. We all do. And now is the moment in history when our influence on business is most critical. Business is changing the world more boldly than ever before, and it needs our values to guide it towards progress. If we rise to that challenge we will turn the most powerful force in the world to the work of our common values: fairness, compassion, and respect for the earth. Let's do it together.

[I'm working on one of the starting points for this movement. Check back soon for more info.]

There Are Only Magicians

2009-10-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Harry Houdini. I could almost stop there. The man remains the greatest legend of illusion our society has known. It's said that there was never a jail that could hold him. His ability to transcend locks, baffle restraints and trick death was, simply, magical.

Magic is what you call it when someone does the impossible. Of course he can't find your card, or conjure a dove from the air, or escape from an upside-down water-filled cage. It's impossible. But then he does it, and it's magical.

Time and again Houdini defied the expectations, the near certainties of the crowd that this time he had risked too much, this time it really was impossible, this time he might die trying. But each time Houdini made possible what everyone thought was impossible.

His magic? Training. Houdini was a physical specimen. At a young age he was both a trapeze artist and a champion cross country runner. As his magic career flourished he began training his coordination until he was almost equally dexterous with both hands. While conversing with friends he would often do sleight of hand tricks almost subconsciously and without looking, or tie and untie knots with his feet. He would submerge himself in his bathtub for minutes at a time and he learned to dislocate his shoulders to aid in escape acts.

Houdini never tapped into a magical ether. He had no sixth sense, no connection to a parallel universe. Houdini simply worked harder and smarter than anyone around him. He did not have magic. He made magic.

The same is true for the kind of magic that I find most fascinating - the ability that some people have to create a product or business or piece of art or organization or movement -- from nothing. Looking in from the outside it looks like conjuring, some powerful spell that gives mass and voice to an idea. But from the inside it is mostly training and preparation. It is complete commitment to the hard work of creation, coupled with a reckless disregard for what is and isn't possible.

In the end there is no magic. There are only magicians.

Business Will Change the World, chapter 3: The Crescendo

2009-10-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

So this is where we find ourselves. Business is the most powerful force shaping our world, and likely the most powerful force influencing our individual lives. And even more sobering, there are good arguments to be made that our business decisions - where we work, what we buy, and how we use it - impact the world more than any other part of our lives.

Now for the crescendo. We are the beating hearts of the business juggernaut, and our purchases are its lifeblood. A political analogy is apt here. Every time we buy something, we vote for that product and the company that makes it, funding their role in changing our world. These commercial votes are the crucial deciding factor in determining which companies get to shape our world and how they get to do it. We hold the controls to the whole system!

But there's an enormous problem: We don't apply the same values to our purchases that we do to other parts of our lives. In most things, including our politics, fairness, compassion, and respect for the natural world are paramount, even if we interpret them differently. But not in our purchases. Instead we ask only that a product does what we need it to do, and that it is cheaper than the one next to it.

We have divorced our values from the most powerful force in the world.

And so business has learned how to make amazing amounts of good, cheap products. And we have funded them. But at what cost? Stories of exploitative labor and environmental havoc have filtered back across the globe, coming from the same places as the products on your local store's shelves. And we all sit anxiously as our planet's temperature rises, wondering what the world will look like in a decade. Cheap comes at a price.

This is not to say that business is bad. Far from it! Business has lifted people out of ruinous poverty by the billions. Business has given us new ways connect with one another and to enjoy the beautiful planet we find ourselves on.

Business is not bad, and is not good. Business will do exactly what we tell it to do, so long as we speak with our wallets.

Business will change the world. It will do so faster and more drastically than ever. And we hold the controls. If we begin to base our business decisions on our values business will transform to accommodate us, and will take the shape of the values that we hold in common - fairness, compassion, and respect for the earth.

So now the question is, how do we that?

Business Will Change the World, chapter 2: Most Powerful Force

2009-09-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Business is the most powerful force shaping the world. I don't often use superlatives like 'biggest,' 'best,' or 'most powerful,' because they are usually wrong. But today I'll make three assertions, and they will all be superlative. Although these can't be definitively proven, there is evidence by the freighter-load to back them up, and it's headed your way.

Assertions:
1 - Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.
2 - Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.
3 - Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

Assertion # 1: Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.

Perhaps the biggest change in human culture since the advent of agriculture is happening right now - billions of people are moving from rural lands to cities, following the promise of prosperity offered by business. In Africa and Asia 1 Million people per week are showing up in cities, looking for a future. As people move off the farms and grazing lands that used to sustain them, they become consumers. Business's influence in the world grows with every new family that arrives on the outskirts of a city.

Some of business's other accomplishments: The percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has dropped by half since the early 80s. The average person's income in the world today is 50x more than it was in the late 1700s, at the kickoff of the Industrial (i.e. Business) Revolution, and that's adjusted for inflation. Today there are over 1 billion cars on the roads. There are over 1 billion computers running Microsoft Windows. There are over 1 billion people using the Internet.

Maybe bigger, we're changing the composition of earth's atmosphere, and the huge majority of that change comes from business - even the gases attributed to cattle are largely from industrial (i.e. business) farms. With me now? Let's move on.

Assertion # 2: Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.

Look around you right now. How many of the things that you see were made by a business? Business is why your world looks the way it does - all the stores and restaurants and cafes and furniture and gadgets and styles and movies - all business. The paycheck that covers your rent and bills comes from business, even if you work for a non-profit or the government. Business is where they get their money.

Even more fundamentally, since business so profoundly shapes our world, our choices must often conform to the mold that business has built around us. Many of our biggest decisions: our professions, hometowns, whether to buy or rent, when to marry and retire, are deeply affected by business.

Assertion # 3: Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

What you buy and how you use it, where you work, and what you invest in - your business decisions - have a greater impact on the world than any other part of your life. The things you buy touch people around the world - miners and smelters and farmers and fabricators and stitchers and assembly line workers and cargo ship deck hands and retail managers and janitors. Your purchases fund the entire supply chain. Your work and investments support businesses that do similarly, on a larger scale than you personally.

Almost all of the resources that you use - oil, minerals, trees, electricity - are connected to these decisions, along with almost all the greenhouse gas emissions that you're responsible for.

Let's recap. Business is the most powerful force shaping our world, and shaping your life. And your part in business is the most impactful thing that you do. Business will change the world and you will support it, whether it does what you like or not. My questions for you are: Can you shape business as it shapes the world? If so, how, and why don't we? Discussions of these questions coming next.

Business Will Change The World, chapter 1

2009-09-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

[This is the first chapter in a series of thoughts regarding business's role in the world, and our role in business as consumers, workers, and citizens. It began as a workshop at The Idea Camp D.C.]

Business will change the world. This isn't a pitch or a proposal, this is a fact about the future. I am as sure of this as I am of the sun peeking over the eastern hills come morning.

The last 200 years plot a story of global transformation. Billions of people moved from subsistence farms to cities, where employment and education hold the chance for prosperity and wealth, and services like water and electricity promise comfort. Last year, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than not, and the move is accelerating. By 2030 it is expected that 5 billion (5,000,000,000) people will live in urban areas and their slums and suburbs.

This is a massive cultural and geopolitical change driven by business, starting with the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s and continuing in today's information revolution. Business is the most dynamic form of organization: self-funding and profitable, facilitating mass employment, bankrolling governments and nonprofits, meeting the needs and desires of a huge portion of the world's population, and growing faster and larger than government's ability to oversee it.

Despite the recession, business as an aggregate institution is stronger than it has ever been, with more of the world dependent on its success than ever before. As technology continues to advance and the global economy recovers to growth, business will have an enormous impact on what tomorrow looks like - perhaps a greater impact than any other single factor. This series of articles will investigate business's influence on the world and on our lives, and the opportunity that we have to sculpt this dominant force in the shape of our common values.

For good or ill or both, business will change the world. What are we going to do about it?

On Walking

2009-07-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

When I have the time, I love walking places. Today I was walking through Kampala, from a restaurant back to my hotel, a walk of about one hour. And despite the close traffic, rugged footpaths, and insistent boda-boda drivers, it felt extremely peaceful.

I asked myself why.

While walking I have long periods during which I know exactly where I am, exactly where I'm going, and exactly how I'll get there. This, I realized, is rare in my life. And perhaps in modern lives generally.

Our physical and mental lives are dominated by quickness - cars, emails, cell phones, airplanes. We move so fast that we lose sense of presentness, and we reach destinations so quickly that we struggle for direction, and the whole game is evolving so rapidly that we don't always know how to get where we want to go.

But walking, I have it all.

Today as I chose my footfalls and shifted my laptop bag from one shoulder to another, I thought about how wonderful it would be to make my whole life like a walk - to feel present in my place, to be sure of my direction, and to be confident in my methods.

I think I'll walk that way.

Television and The Cognitive Surplus

2009-05-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I finally pulled the plug on television. Since I don't own a television, this meant not visiting hulu.com any more. Since then I've noticed some extra time in my life that I'm not used to using, that has long been consumed by passive consumption.

Here Clay Shirky talks about the vast 'cognitive surplus' that our society has, the free time that we don't yet know what to do with and generally spend on things like television, and how social media like Wikipedia are beginning to tap into it.

My favorite stats from his talk: The entirety of Wikipedia represents about 100 million hours of human thought. Americans alone watch 200 BILLION hours of television per year. That's 200,000,000,000 hours. Or 2,000 Wikipedias per year.

If people spend 1% of that television time do something productive, that's 20 Wikipedias per year. And this year we're going to sprinkle in a WikiChoice.

(ht @gapingvoid)

The Haps

2009-05-16T01:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update for those who would like it.

- I've been working with some friends to create WikiChoice.com, a platform for people to align their purchasing power with their deepest values. This thing has huge potential. We're just rolling out the first, skeletal iteration of the site. And we need your help. Hit the link above to check it out.

- There's a short piece of my writing up at the Ecclesia Collective site right now. It's a reflection on the American Christian church, and though it is critical, I hope readers will realize its "both-and" message and see it as an encouragement at least as much as a rebuke.

Anti-Consumerist Consumers

2009-05-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

Simple Shoes, a for-profit company that sells shoes to consumers, just put out a manifesto against consumerism. In order to sell more shoes.

Are they sincere in their sentiments? Sure. But the duplicity is inescapable. You can't market against consumerism. So why do we as consumers buy in? I think it has to do with Social Object theory (a la Hugh Macleod). People need something physical to rally around; we need atoms to show and share and talk about. We need things to help us remember and to show others what we believe, who we are. And the only ones offering these Social Objects right now are consumer products companies.

Simple Shoes wants people who are sick of consumerism to buy Simple Shoes, and to show them to their friends as proof that they're sick of consumerism, so that their friends will buy Simple Shoes, too. It's not malicious, it's just mixed intentions -- you can't be an anti-consumerist consumer products company.

But anti-consumerism is important and needs a voice. It needs a Social Object for believers to rally around, to identify each other by and amplify the conversations. It needs something they don't have to buy. First thoughts on what this can be? An open source design, a distinctive icon, that can be made from things found in common household, no purchase necessary, easily disseminated through virtually free electronic media. People should be encouraged to make one for themselves, make many for their friends, have parties to make them, give them away freely.

Will be meeting with designers, artists, dreamers about this. Anyone want in?

Acholi Beads Glimpse: Stepping Stones

2009-04-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Acholi Beads Glimpse: Stepping Stones from James Pearson on Vimeo.

The beginning of the Acholi Beads story. Our Ugandan partners had their lives upended by Africa's longest running war. See their backbreaking work in the stone quarry, and watch their eyes light up as our partnership gives them hope for a better life. For more info visit http://acholibeads.com

24-Hour WikiChoice Tagline Contest!

2009-03-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

[Update: Hit up the WikiChoice blog to see the winners!]

WikiChoice is coming right along, and in the spirit of community we've decided to open up a contest to crowdsource taglines! We're looking for something short, inspiring, and focussed on the WikiChoice mission.

The best so far: "Postive choices for a world of impact" from Charles.

Can you do better? Leave a comment here, or at the new WikiChoice blog.

Socially Proactive Business, noun

2009-03-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

Socially Proactive Business, noun: A business whose success is directly and inextricably tied to the alleviation of a social ill, and/or the continued improvement of that societal cirumstance.

Sample Usage: As more and more customers buy jewelry from the Socially Proactive Business "Acholi Beads", the company has to buy more beads from war affected women in Uganda at fair trade prices, so more families escape poverty.

Origin: Coined right here on this blog. See here.

10,000 Hours of Love

2009-03-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

I just downloaded the audio version of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Outliers. I haven't listened to it yet but from what I've heard much of it centers upon research done at Florida State which suggests that thousands of hours of deliberate practice are needed to become an expert in any complex field, whether you're a cellist or a neurosurgeon. This has become known as the 10,000 Hour Rule.

Gladwell says that the best practicioners in any cognitively difficult field have one thing in common - they put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become the best. That comes out to about 3 hours per day for 10 years, skipping practice maybe every other Sunday. It got me thinking about what I want to be the best in the world at, and how little I practice these things.

When I held this principle up to my spiritual pursuits I saw something very clearly, something I believe is worth sharing. I deeply value the teachings of Jesus, and he once was challenged to choose which of God's commandments was the greatest. His answer:

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

What if I practice Jesus' greatest commandments for 10,000 hours? What if I deliberately focus on loving God and caring for my neighbor the way I do for myself for three hours every day? Who would I be if I became one of the best in the world at Love?

And better yet, what if thousands of us practice loving our neighbors as ourselves three hours per day for 10 years? What would our neighborhoods look like then? Or our citis? Our countries? How might the world change if we all became experts at Love?

It's worth a try.

A war between limits and wonder.

2009-03-08T03:14:00.000-07:00

Make My Birthday Happy in Nepal

2009-03-03T02:44:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends,

It's my Birthday. I'm 27. I've got a bunch of great friends, a solid roof, and a comfy bed. I don't need much.

But I have friends who could use a gift. All they ask is $1 per month. And what can they do with $1 per month? They can put long distance wireless computer networks all over Himalayan Nepal. Seriously. I've been there; I've Skyped from 13,000 ft. It's amazing.

And the things the internet does for communication in villages that are 3 days' hike from the nearest dirt road, the things it does for medicine, for education! And education is the key. It's transformative.

Please go here: http://bit.ly/7jhvG and give them $12 for the 12 months my 27th year if you can. Any amount is great, though.

Many Thanks,
James

PS - if you decide to donate, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know. I'll be excited. That's a good birthday present.

Three Principles of Ethical Economics

2009-03-01T23:14:00.000-08:00

As I prepared for my recent 'Discipleship Economics' workshop I tried to strain some foundational principles out of my swirl of thoughts about personal economics grounded in personal values. So far I have come up with Three Principles of Personal Economics that I hope you'll find as valuable as I have. They are all based on what I call the Transcendent Virtue: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

1) Simplicity - Free your time, commitment, and money by limiting your personal needs and meeting them with a minimum of resources. If we ought to care for our neighbors as we do ourselves, it stands to reason that our personal economics must leave room for our neighbors. This begins with limiting how much of our resources are devoted to our own needs.

2) Generosity - Simplicity without generosity is only stinginess or laziness. If a need can be filled by giving your Time or your Commitment, that is probably the best way. Give money as an act of relationship, not in lieu of it. Money is best given within established, ongoing relationships. Generosity should be proactive: Set aside time, commitment, and money; seek out great ways to use them. The results might amaze you.

3) Ethicality - Even as you simplify your lifestyle you will continue to buy things. Many products are made using substandard ethical or environmental practices. Make a serious effort to buy only the most ethically and environmentally sound products. Remember, your neighbor is anyone that you have the opportunity to care for, and each time you make a purchase, you have the opportunity to care for the people behind your product.

(The difficulty in finding this information is why my friends and I are building WikiChoice, a web service that will give you instant access to the best consumer choices. Follow us on Twitter here.)

WikiChoice Wins Best Idea!

2009-03-01T22:22:00.001-08:00

Two ideas from our little Creative Action Group were chosen for the top 3 ideas of The Idea Camp conference in Irvine, CA this weekend - Bake It Forward and WikiChoice. And WikiChoice was chosen as the best idea of the conference!

The video below starts with Emily pitching Bake It Forward, then there's a pitch to put non-profit logos on band-aids, then at 4:10 you can watch me pitch WikiChoice. Enjoy.

The Idea Camp Competition - Top 3 from Jonathan Chan on Vimeo.

The Ethical Imperative

2009-02-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

[Last minute post before the Idea Camp tomorrow. These topics are fascinating. I can't wait for the discussion]

Economics has lately been on most people's minds, and perhaps on mine more than some. Instead of the national and international economics favored by the evening news, I've been focused on personal economics - the economic decisions of individuals and families.

As I mentioned in my last post, my views on personal economics grow in the soil of my values, and the greatest value, as I see it, is the golden rule in its most positive form - love your neighbor as you love yourself. That is: give another person's needs the same consideration as your own.

It follows, then, that our personal economics must make room for other people's needs. But my observation of the American lifestyle shows me that we have trouble making room for ourselves. We carry bulging budgets, heavy with debt, obligation, and entitlement, unable to bear the weight of an outside request.

In my case, and in yours if you agree with me that empathetic love is a high value, a personal economic imperative has become clear: Simplicity.

As I prepared to write this I first tried to define for myself what the term Simplicity meant in regards to my personal economics. I have used it to describe what sort of house I wanted to live in, how many hours I wanted to work, even how many pots and pans I wanted to own. So it was hard to pin down a definition, but I think I've come close.

"Simplicity is the freeing up of your time, commitment, and money by limiting your personal needs and meeting them with a minimum of resources."

The importance is obvious - by using less of your resources on yourself, you have more to invest in others, in your neighbors as it were.

The practical ramifications of this sort of Simplicity are as difficult as they are obvious, especially for American accustomed to a self-serving consumer culture. Here are a few examples, I'm sure you can add many more:

Don't live in the most expensive house you can afford. Choose the least expensive house that meets your needs.
Don't trade in your used car just because the sexy new coupe is out. If it runs, keep it.
Share and borrow things like power tools, sports equipment, even cars and computers if you can.
Stay out of consumer debt.
Eat out less.
Make your own entertainment instead of buying it.
Rethink excessive holiday gift giving.

The list could go on. I'd love to hear your ideas on Simplicity! Now to bed. Big day tomorrow.

Personal Economics Gone Interpersonal

2009-02-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

As I've been working through more thoughts related to economics, I've realized that my values have deeply shaped my economic opinions, like a place's climate gives rise to its crops. So I feel that it's fair at the outset to tell you that I believe humanity's highest virtue is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Call it loving your neighbor, call it transcending the self, call it lovingkindness, empathy, mirror neurology; call it whatever you like. In my opinion, our ability as humans to place the needs of another person on the same level of importance and priority as our own is our highest calling.

My ideas about personal economics grow in this soil.

Posts to come include thoughts on simplicity, ethical economics, generosity, and perhaps more. Looking forward to a continued conversation.

Economics 101: Money, John Maynard Keynes, and Monty Python

2009-02-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

In a couple weeks I'll be at the Idea Camp (you should come; it's free) facilitating a discussion about money. Now, as a caveat, it's worth saying that I don't have any right now. But what I do have are some hard-earned ideas about money, about our culture's relationship to money, and what we might do well to change about that relationship.

Over the next couple weeks I'll be working out some thoughts on this blog, so please feel free to join in the discussion and help me refine my understandings. For starters, a quick foundational discussion of values and economics.

Economics, more than being about money, is about how people make decisions. It's about how we decide what to invest our resources in -- our time, our money, our commitment, etc. The most influential economist of the last century, John Maynard Keynes, went further than to study and describe decision making, he prescribed it:

"For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight."

The foulness of which he writes is the love of money, a vice known to many as the root of all kinds of evil. Keynes prescribes a subjugation of values such as generosity to this vice for at least 100 years, after which he says society will have become so rich as to throw off such "psuedo-morals" and see "the money-motive at its true value ... a somewhat disgusting morbidity."

Keynesian policy prescription became the basis for much economic thought and policy, including Roosevelt's New Deal. I believe his moral prescription has shaped our country as well.

When John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) first came to America, he says he was struck by the unabashed pursuit of excessive wealth. The British at the time were more reserved about money, he recalls, most being satisfied with a comfortable salary for an honest day's work. But not the Americans.

Keynes' prescription has been realized, with restraint and generosity being caged to let avarice and precaution work their dark magic on our economy. What Keynes did not realize, though, is that decades of economic wizardry would see several generations brought up seeing fair treated as foul and foul as fair, seeing excess praised over simplicity and selfishness rationalized as economical. His prescription for economic growth was also one for risky cultural engineering. As Shumacher asked, How can a system founded on greed ever lead to peace?

And Keynes also seems to have failed to ask the question, Where is the rich man who says, 'I have enough'? He is rare, and often so rich as to be statistically invisible. Bill Gates might fall into this category, and perhaps Buffet and his peers, though he keeps investing. But the millionaire down the street has not stopped his pursuit of wealth, though he lives like the kings of not long ago. I myself hover around the 90th percentile in world income, but I haven't found that financial peace of mind that Keynes promised.

My economic thoughts will buck Keynes and subjugate macroeconomic concerns to personal and (I'm stretching here) universal values. Where Keynes believed that economic development would solve the values problem, I suspect that values will guide us to a more sustainable economy.

Recovering Christmas

2008-12-24T22:34:00.000-08:00

A Yuletide Retrospective

I always loved Christmas. As a child I would crawl into bed with a tense and churning stomach each Christmas Eve in anticipation of the joyous bounty the morning was sure to bring. And Santa never disappointed. The month following would consist of discussions like poker games with friends - I'll see your He-Man sword and raise you a Robotic T-Rex. The victor, in this case, already had the spoils.

It did not strike me until much later what an irony those mornings were. My family, and a host of families like mine, was clear that Christmas was to be a celebration of Jesus - a Jewish craftsman who chose a life of wandering poverty and charity. Looking back it seems at very best a thin, shaky connection between our seasonal excess and this historical man who embraced poverty as a lifestyle, perhaps an ethic.

It took several trips to poor parts of the world to wake me to our cultural doublethink, and since then Christmas has held a fair amount of ambivalence for me as I watch many people disregard Jesus' values to celebrate his birth. But this year I believe we have the opportunity to change.

Santa's Got A Whole New Bag

The anthem of change has been lifted from campaign events on all sides of the political roundtable - a soundtrack to the presidential election. The economic meltdown has sent our leaders scrambling to develop changes that will refound us on solid ground. We have reached a point in our nation's history at which the need for cultural change has become widely evident.

The Christmas season began with a retail blitz, as it does each year, on the day after Thanksgiving - Black Friday. The name itself is unsettling. And this year's melee held an even darker omen - as the first WalMarts on the east coast opened, a temporary security guard at a New York WalMart was trampled to death by shoppers made inhuman by their hunger for bargains. Since then it has become clear that this Christmas is de facto different. People are uneasy riding atop this tumultuous economy and have held their purses and wallets more closely than recent years. It's a change we can build on.

One Vision For A New Christmas

Jesus' teachings were largely about love - of God, of neighbors, of enemies - about what this love looked like in the context of a life, and what a kingdom founded upon love might look like. In celebrating his birth we celebrate his life, his teachings, his purpose. Giving needless gifts to our friends and family in this context is non sequitur. It reminds me of a quote I heard from a famous Jazz musician: "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Giving video games for Jesus is like killing ants for Buddha.

Here's one idea for a Christmas that would honor Jesus. Throughout the year, as you engage in and experience acts of love, the type of love that Jesus taught, write them down, journal them, blog them, remember them somehow. Then, as Christmas approaches, plan a way to share them with your friends and family. Write a story or a song, make ornaments that honor them and tell their stories as you hang them, have a time of sharing these stories over Christmas dinner, and remember together how Jesus' life influenced yours. Invite the other people involved in these stories to Christmas celebrations. Join together in marvelling at how a first century Jewish man could have such a profound impact.

And perhaps plan an act of love to carry out on or near Christmas. Use the money that would have gone to unneeded presents and meet a need that is deeply and truly felt by someone you know, or someone you could know.

If you are committed to celebrating Jesus during Christmas, give it some thought. I can't wait to hear what you come up with.

Merry Christmas.

To Be Human

2008-12-14T22:50:00.001-08:00

To be human is a terrifically confusing endeavor.

The Idea Camp

2008-12-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been starting things. Acholi Beads, WikiChoice, the Children's Book Project - things that didn't exist until I played some role in creating them.

This has been a strange experience.

I was never a 'start things' sort of person. In fact, I have long looked with a fair amount of envy at people with that magic for making something new, for envisioning and executing. So my recent exploration of creation has given me a chance to study from the inside what I've long watched from the sidelines. I still feel like quite a novice.

This is one of the reasons I'm excited to be at The Idea Camp in February of this coming year. This new conference/roundtable aims to bring together social innovators - people with the knack for coming up with new, important ideas and making them into world changing realities. I stand to learn a ton.

Another reason I'm excited is to reconnect with Charles Lee, The Idea Camp's organizer, who I met briefly this summer in North Carolina. Charles is using ideas of open source activism to move people from complacency to compassion, and from compassion to proactivity. I draw a lot of inspiration and guidance from his work.

Another reason I'm excited is because you're invited. The Idea Camp is February 27 and 28, 2009 in Irvine, CA, and it's free. Follow the links and register on the website and you're in. And drop me a comment if you plan to come. I'll look forward to seeing you there.

Acholi Beads: The New Luxury

2008-12-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

I just posted some thoughts over at the Acholi Beads blog about The New Luxury. A quick excerpt is below; go here for the full post.

The New Luxury acknowledges that value cannot be bought, but that we can buy based on values. It asserts that meaning is broader than a slogan, more attractive than a photo, and deeper than any pockets. It assures us that beauty created in a studio pales when compared to the faintest reflection of real love. And the new luxury insists that we will not be blinded by advertisements or manipulated by marketing; we are too smart and passionate to allow our dollars to be tempted away by false promises of happiness.