James' Travels

There Are No "Supposed-To"s, and other thoughts on how to live

2010-03-27T12:56:00.001-07:00

I love meeting people in transition: graduating students, travelers, career switchers. It is such a tense moment of life, crawling with uncertainty, opportunity, and risk - there is no better time for the type of conversation that shapes lives.

Here is what I like to tell people going through such transitions, and what I like to tell myself as I navigate the ceaseless transition of living.

First, there is no such thing as 'supposed to.' There is no predetermined path through life that we must divine; no secret map to fulfillment that, if missed, will leave us floundering. We have a profound freedom as human beings to assess the options presented to us, and to choose those we believe are best. Are we going to make mistakes and have false starts and change our minds? Of course! But what greater joy than to chart one's own course, and what better map than our own constantly developing sense of purpose?

Second, as Westerners we face a challenge almost entirely unique in human history - an over-abundance of options. The typical college graduate is halted not by a lack of opportunity, but by a wave of it. Not that we all have our choice of highly-paid positions, but we can pursue almost any field or profession or interest we like, in almost any country in the world! And the kicker is, we never know which option is best. We can't. We don't get a trial run. The best we can do is apply all the experience and knowledge and sage advice that we have access to and dive in, and be ready to learn along the way.

Third, once you've chosen your pursuit, there are three principles to bring to it in order to maximize it. One, Commitment. Every successful pursuit I have seen has come from a deep commitment to that pursuit. If it's not worth committing to, don't do it. If it's worth doing, commit. Two, Enthusiasm. Get excited and enjoy the ride! If you can't have a little fun at it, it's probably not for you. Three, Flexibility. This is the balance to Commitment. Remember, you didn't get a practice run, and you made a decision with incomplete information. Don't let one decision shape the rest of your life if you don't want it to. Always be ready to learn and course-correct.

Fourth, failure is always an option. I've heard it said that if you want more success, increase your failure rate. I've personally set out on a good number of failed adventures, and learned a ton along the way. Of the several projects I currently have going, most will likely fail. And that's fine! The point of it is the journey and the things you learn and the people you meet along the way. And if the end of a particular path is failure, that does not erase one experience or conversation or relationship you had in getting there.

Fifth, have a little whimsy. My friend Bob first introduced me to whimsy, and the idea is simple: just do some stuff. Have an idea? Do it, see what happens, don't worry so much about the outcome. And when I looked at the people that I most admired I found that they all seemed to have some whimsy in them. They weren't the ones sitting back doing cost-benefit analyses of each new idea, they were out doing stuff, with commitment, enthusiasm and flexibility, not bound by the outcome of each experiment, but enjoying every bit of the journey along the way.

!deation Conference

2010-01-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

Great ideas are the first small step towards making a difference; execution is the journey. Or as Thomas Edison famously put it, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

That's why my friend Charles is launching the !deation Conference this April. His vision is a gathering of innovators and practitioners coming together to envision and execute new ideas. And the first conference is focused on the humanitarian non-profit world.

He's queuing a great line-up of speakers including Scott Harrison, Ben Keesey, and Jake Harriman, and just as importantly for this venue is the network of folks in the audience. Charles brings together a community of people who are out to change the world, and when they get together in the same space, sparks fly.

Check out the conference website and connect with Charles on twitter. Drop my name or jamestravels in the referral box when you register and I might see you there.

The Decade of Reinvention

2010-01-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the future. That's what I think to myself every time I remember that it's 2010. There was so much Y2K buildup 10 years ago that it didn't seem strange when we made the jump to 2000, but I remember thinking even then that 2010 was impossibly distant, shrouded in sci-fi mystery. And now here we are. In the future.

As I look ahead to the next 10 years I can't help but think that this is a perfect time to take everything we've learned, all the paydirt of scientific progress and globalization and the communications revolution and put it to work building the world that we want to live in. So I've christened the new decade for myself as the "Decade of Reinvention." And you are welcome to join me.

Read the Decade of Reinvention anthem on Plywood People.

The Economics of Fast Food

2009-12-09T23:38:00.000-08:00

How people hurt themselves
in their own self-interest

The classical free market economics story runs like this:

Premise A: People only act in their self-interest.
Premise B: People often eat fast food.
Therefore: Fast food is often in people's self-interest.

And there are situations when fast food is in a person's self-interest. But eating it daily for lunch is not one of them. Nor is continuing to eat it after it has contributed to a person's obesity. But still people eat it. And eat it. And eat it. Why?

The answer, I believe, can be summarized in a single-word revision to Premise A above: "People only act in their own felt self-interest." The implication is clear - people are sometimes wrong about what is good for them.

A reasonable assessment of the decision to eat or not eat fast food at any given time might look something like this.

Pros: It's cheap, it's fast, it tastes good, it fills you up.
Cons: It lacks many key nutrients, it causes a dangerous glycemic response, it leads to obesity and it's associated illnesses, it increases the risk of diabetes, it leads to inflated costs in the healthcare system, it contributes to the homogenization of the food industry.

Looking at this list, you might again question why people eat fast food at all. I'll offer two reasons.

First, this list only includes conscious, rational decision points, while subconscious, extra-rational decision factors are also at play. In this case, two subconscious factors weight heavily on the positive side.

Instinctual Desires: our bodies evolved to crave fat and sugar, since they are calorie-dense and rare in nature, but they are abundant at McDonald's - two patties worth of one and a super-sized cup of the other.
Marketing Impressions: advertising seeks to associate images or feelings with certain brands or products, and fast food has benefited as much from advertising as any industry. When we step up to that counter, we're not just buying a burger; we're buying a feeling that was seeded there by months of careful marketing.

Second, the Pros in the list are immediate, meaning that if I decide to eat fast food I quickly experience each of the pros - the cheapness, the quickness, the taste, the fullness - while the cons are not immediate. I don't feel the lack of nutrients right away, I don't even know what the glycemic response does feel like, and all the other ones either won't affect me for a while, or contribute to some larger problem that one meal can hardly affect one way or the other.

Our brains are not geared for long-term thinking. As best I can see it, on average we can consider about one year in advance, and after that things start to lose definition rapidly. And moreover, when we are only a small part of a much larger problem we tend to minimalize and rationalize our part in the problem. So it's okay if I take this extra long shower or use paper plates instead of flatware or buy fast food instead of cook, because in the scheme of things my choices don't mean much. But of course these problems will only be solved when each of us makes the decision to change.

In the case of fast food our natural subconscious tendencies outweigh our reason. Fast food is rarely in our self-interest, but the immediacy of the benefits, the food's appeal to our instinctual desires, and the feelings that stuck from marketing campaigns often overcome the negatives, which, though numerous, rational, and weighty, are minimalized by their lack of immediacy. So instead of doing what is in our rational self-interest, we order a combo meal.

This is where economics needs to grow the most. The model of human decision making typically employed in economic models is to a mind what a stick figure is to a man. Only as economists learn to account for this more conflicted, nuanced version of humanity will economics reach it's predictive potential.

Welcome to the choicemob

2009-12-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

1 - Buy from Better World Books on December 7th: Click the choicemob button above to go to Better World Books. Order a book or a gift card, get free, carbon-offset shipping, and smile. (If you'd like your purchase to support Invisible Children specifically, use this link.)

2 - Spread the Word: Post something like the status below in Facebook/Twitter/AIM, whathaveyou.

I just bought a gift from Better World Books as part of the choicemob. You're invited to do the same. http://bit.ly/bwbchoicemob

Post about choicemob on your blog (sample post here), and use either this custom link or this code for the button you see above so we can track our effectiveness.
http://bit.ly/bwbchoicemob

<a href="http://www.betterworldbooks.com/?utm_source=choicemob"><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ku48p3u5O21qa5d1z.png" /></a>

Change your profile pics to the picture below (click for full size).

Everyone who helps share and pings the choicemob fan page or twitter or tumblr will be eligible for a giveaway of custom recycled choicemob gift bags by Emily Grace Goodrich.

3 - If you're giving Better World Books as a gift, let the recipient know:

Print out this card and include it with your gift (links to PDF):

Use this stencil to make choicemob gift bags. Print it on thick paper (or paste it on posterboard) cut it out, and spay it onto a bag - paper, plastic, cloth, whatever you like. Make sure to let it dry before giving it away. (click for full-size jpg, 10in width, 300 dpi)

4 - Start brainstorming the next choicemob: Chocolates for Valentine's Day? Sandals for Spring? Green top hats for St. Patty's Day? Share your ideas on our facebook page.

This is a great beginning.

How Choicemob will Change the Market

2009-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

The goal of the choicemob is to make it profitable for companies to practice Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth. Here’s why:

1 - The first priority of business is to make a profit. This focus on profit has pulled billions of people out of poverty and given much of the world unprecedented standards of living. But…

2 - Profit drove many businesses to bad practices. Over the last 50 years businesses flew all over the world looking to cut costs with the cheapest labor and raw materials in order to increase profits. Sometimes this led to abuses like child labor, deforestation, and conflict minerals. And we consumers didn’t ask many questions. We just enjoyed the cheap stuff and the rising stock prices. Anyone can tell you that this is unethical, and now that global business has gone from a $1 trillion game to a $61 trillion game over that same fifty years, we can see it’s also unsustainable.

3 - Only profit will convince the business world to embrace social values. Making money is still top priority for business. So if we want business to do good we have to make doing good profitable. Luckily this is way easier than it sounds. As a business owner, let me tell you: Consumers are powerful. If you buy something from me, I’ll keep making it the same way. If you don’t buy it, I’ll try something new. And if you buy from someone else instead of me, I’ll start doing what they’re doing. It’s that simple.

So if we aim our collective buying power at companies that uphold our common values: Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth, we can change the market. By supporting their bottom line and shouting all over about how great their social values are, we’ll draw the envy of other businesses. They’ll see that we’re serious about our values, and they’ll start to change to earn our business.

And when business changes, the world changes. This coming Monday we choicemob Better World Books. Let’s show the world that we mean business.

An invitation to the choicemob

2009-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

Business is changing the world, right now, every day, more dramatically than ever. Our industrialized, globalized, informationalized economy has offered billions a ladder out of poverty and improved livelihoods around the world. But it simultaneously exploits our planet and our fellow men at unprecedented levels. And it doesn't have to.

Business is the most radically adaptive form of organization, constantly testing the marketplace and shifting to accommodate. If we speak our values loudly enough business will listen and adapt. But we must speak in the language of the market - money and attention.

That's why I'm starting the choicemob. It's a simple idea: A community of people committed to improving the way that business operates by supporting companies that uphold our common values: Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth.

By driving sales and attention for these companies we will improve their bottom line and draw the envy of their competitors. We will help make social value the next disruptive force in the marketplace.

The first choicemob starts in a week in support of Better World Books. Check them out - they're an amazing company. We need as many people as possible to buy gifts from and write articles, posts, statuses about Better World Books - hundreds of people, thousands of people - the more the better.

If you agree that business should reflect our common values - Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth - please join the choicemob and invite your friends.

choicemob Statement of Purpose:

Meet Mama Esther

2009-11-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

The past couple years I've been working on a fair trade, socially proactive business called Acholi Beads. Esther was one of our first partners in Uganda, and has done incredible things to pull her family out of poverty. This is her story:

Mama Esther - A Video Portrait from James Pearson on Vimeo.

For more info, visit http://acholibeads.com

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.)