How Stuff Consumes the Planet - Cheaply

This is the 'golden' segment of the eye-opening, mind-expanding presentation Story of Stuff by one curious Annie Leonard. She wanted to understand the truth behind the materials economy. So she searched, and here is her knowledge, simplified.

Story of Stuff is to production/ consumption line (not cycle) what An Inconvenient Truth is to climate.

WATCH this video, SHARE it, and ACT UPON the message. Yes, I've shouted. From the NEXT> roof top.

Thank you!

Via: Truemors

E-mail: nextbyramla AT gmail.com

To De-Serve? Or To Serve?

Look! How happy people are when they serve!
Service creates both joy -
and opportunity!
Credit: Kifo @ Flickr

Institutional education teaches us that we can grow up to trade our talent for goods and status from the world. We "Deserve."

The products of the institutional world think too much of what they deserve from the world. As if the world will somehow open a warehouse's door and start handing out goods in return of Certificates of Deserving.

This singular notion is the root of much ill. Look again, the word "deserve" can be re-written as DE-SERVE.

Here's how the American Heritage Dictionary defines "De-":

de-
pref.

1. Do or make the opposite of; reverse: decriminalize.
2. Remove or remove from: delouse; deoxygenate.
3. Out of: deplane; defenestration.
4. Reduce; degrade: declass.

So DE-SERVE can mean:

1. Do the opposite of service. Do a dis-service.
2. Remove (the element/tools of) service. From something.
3. Not be of service.
4. Reduce, degrade (the idea of) service.

Now can we imagine the world out there opening to door to the big warehouse of resources to someone with this attitude?

No one cares what we deserve. Ask anyone but your loving ones, and they will tell you how much they themselves deserve - besides counting to you the many deserving kinds of people in the world: the poor, the down-trodden, the smarter, the faster, the hungrier - it goes on.

So if we approach life the "I Deserve" way - we may end up far behind in the line of six billion human souls - and then count the other beings on Earth.

SERVICE helps us jump ahead of the queue. 6,000,000,000+ souls are always looking for service, many of those in your web of life. Multiply that by the number of service each one of them needs. Add to that a few other billion things that need services.

The People-Centered Model of Business shows the cosmos that we can serve. Find or create your own space below:



Service is what creates opportunities. Service is why we do business. Service is what keeps us in action and demand even when Google makes us feel like a speck of sand in the desert.

Now - do you feel you still have space in the world to live and do something of meaning?

The New World of Power is Humbling – and Abundant

Problem:
In a world of free ideas, why and how are we still needed?

Mastering the Problem:
Your unique reason of being today, and your "unique edge", is in the human element. Skills and technology and ideas - once the staple of competitive edge [a term outdated in a world of crazy collaborations] - come cheap(r). To just about anyone. For example, if we thought having a social network was still the latest path to billionaire glory, we haven’t yet known Ning.

The ability of a person to make unique connections, and sustain them through service is a truly human endowment. We are gifted with that capability, and a “web” that needs us. And there is work enough for everybody – the number of problems/opportunities is never exhausted. The abundant mind sees the reason of being in in working to solve problems/ create and fill opportunities.

As long as we serve, we are needed. As long as we are needed, we don’t need worry about an edge. When we serve with more courage and passion, we develop more numerous and stronger ties - and so gain "interestingness".

Benefits:
Which place of work would you rather leave:

a. one that demands (more) work for as few benefits as possible from you?
b. one that makes it a mission to create a space where you can express your talent while working on a win-all business model? Such as the remarkable The Hub?

It's a contest between the demander (a) and the server (b). Your answer is the answer of any sane person - you like those who serve you. You will be liked by sane people if your serve, at a quality.

So the benefits: Costs of broken ties saved. Lesser time spent making new relations and creating trust. New ideas and partnerships brought in by passionate partners. A happier life, lesser partner turnover, consumers in love, healthy sleep and a glowing skin.

Also read: Google Made Ideas Free. So Where's My Edge?

Image credits: Paper Men, by Brokenarts

Google Made Ideas Free. So Where's My Edge?

Everybody knows it. From programmers finding code, to ex-lovers looking up dirt on jilters, to graduate students procuring thesis - Google has it all.

Google is the highway to 100-ideas-a-minute factories. So how on Google earth are we to have what is variably known as "competitive edge" or, in quaint business speak, "unique selling proposition"!?

In human speak, it means, to thousands of corporations and millions of free agents, "What worthwhile thing can I offer if ideas are free? When someone else has done it already? Or I look a fake doing it? Or someone can simply steal my idea?"

Over: the Edge?

I've been through this anxiety. It paralyzed me when undertaking a new enterprise. A mere curious googling of keywords of a "new" idea would reveal darn! I have arrived too late. And just as I can be "inspired" by those I Google - [no, honestly, I don't disrespect the concept, inspiration is a valid-legit thing] - well, so, anyone can also pick my idea and run with it. So what now?

Yet there is one answer. Like all things in life, the "answer" to this contemporary challenge is deviously simple.

You Are The Center of Your Web of Life - and There's Nothing Taking That Away!

This amateur sketch (excuse my MS Paint skills!) puts us as the center of the "elements" of our unique life - these elements being other people, organizations, resource, places... just about any "organism."

We are each thrown in a certain set of circumstances. These circumstances yield a singular "mix" for each one of us. From our own position, we will have the ability to connect to other elements.

This “lifeset” becomes a macro-organism that thrives on adaptability and change of its parts. It’s like any other living organism in that respect.

The key is to understand the golden principles of making this "web" work for us, which are:

1. What goes round, comes round.
2. Do to others as you would have them do to you... because of principle #1.
3. Integrity (thoughts, words, actions, message being one) and honesty reinforce the ties (the thin lines in the sketch) amongst the elements, and increase inter-reliance. You need other needs you need other needs you...
4. More ties = more power.
5. The connection is received by the other by way of SERVING them, not DEMANDING rights from them. One makes a connection by GIVING, not asking or taking. This web is created by Human Duties & Service, not Human Rights.
   

Why Do We Do Business?

What comes first when a person passionate about an idea wants to build a business around it: the idea, or money?

In a class where I was teaching entrepreneurship, we came across this question again and again. What really is entrepreneurship and why do people start businesses? Since the class was an academic route to entrepreneurship, I also had to figure in another angle: why would my students want to start businesses, given that they weren't "naturally" doing it?

I feel that in order to work out any idea, you need a vision. Vision is seeing a context for the idea (or an idea in the context). That makes an idea relevant to its use. Having an idea in itself may be quite worthless. You can get three ideas per second just searching the Net. I call these "ideas from the outer space."

The beauty lies in the vision of the person driving an idea. They can read the past, present, and future - find the gaps - and fill them in. Or they can see things that never were, and say, "why not?"

There is no text book on what does or should the vision hold. Life is amazingly dynamic, and every instance there is a new world, new circumstances. There will always be work to do for humans and not calendars and computers around for simply this one reason: only a human can deal with the amazing chaos of life. So there is a new vision for each time and its unique circumstances.

In this era, the global society is rapidly becoming aware of long-forgotten Responsibility/Response-ability. Responsibility to ourselves, our families, our communities, our environment. This is one wave that will just not turn back without changing the landscape. Nay, this isn't just a wave. It's the Tsunami of Change.

These new times demand a radical re-thinking of why we do business. To my mind, the days of the gold-diggers and king-makers are over. Not their reign, but their kind of mindset. The new generation of people is generally not dreaming on individual level - they feel responsible for change around them. At the very least, we know we can't keep escaping.

In these times, entrepreneurs won't think old-style: to madly pursue an idea and grow rich at any cost. The modern entrepreneur is doing a balancing act.

And for those entrepreneurs who are looking for a new kind of vision, a new thinking, a new mindset, a balance - I present the PC MOB: the People-Centered Model of Business. This model says, "We do business for the people." What? How? Why? The paper (PDF; 540K) answers the questions.

It's a first draft, and I can already see a ton of things to add and change. I'm excited. Get it here (PDF; 540K), read it, distribute it, link to this blog entry. Share with friends, use the ideas and send me your comments. Agree. Disagree. Let's talk!



E-mail: nextbyramla AT gmail.com