Free At Last

I just got off the phone with a physicist from Silicon Valley.  He’s not just any scientist.  He’s been the CEO of a super computer company and now is hired by venture capitalists to determine the potential of emerging hydrogen energy companies.  What he told me was eye opening.  Hydrogen has long been viewed as the ultimate solution to the energy crisis.  It’s the most common substance in the universe and can be converted to hot energy without any CO2 or other pollutants.  The problem is it currently takes more energy to convert hydrogen than the energy it produces.  (This is a common problem for new energy sources.)  Second, currently we have no hydrogen energy grid to deliver hydrogen fuel across the country.  Well both those problems are within our grasp of being solved.  All we need is the political will to make it happen.  My scientist friend said if we had the guts to invest $25 billion a year for five years, we would solve the last remaining barriers to economically creating almost infinite energy.  Second, for an equal amount we could create a Hydrogen Distribution Network to fill everyone’s fuel cells in our neighborhoods.  That’s a lot of money you say.  $50 billion for 5 years is $250 billion bucks.  But wait, that’s just two years of financing the known direct cost of the Iraq War.  It’s less than one half of one percent of Gross Domestic Product.  It’s less than one half the annual profits of the big oil companies.  And for what?  The end of our dependence and entanglements of Middle Eastern oil despots.  And the beginning of a new era of sustainable abundance.  So what are we doing about it?

Well the CEO’s of the bloated oil companies who collectively made $123 billion last year and came to Washington, got nicked with a few sarcastic remarks which don’t amount to more than throwing spit balls at an oil tanker, got on their jet fuel-guzzling private jets and flew back to their mansions. Why doesn’t anything happen?  Could it be the oil lobby has more influence than we do?

A lot is being written about the price of oil now because what’s happening is so serious.  This is how I see it:
•    Oil is a strategic resource.  It impacts the cost of everything.  The oil companies don’t make it.  They just pump it.  Oil companies don’t add much unique value.  Gasoline is as low-tech fuel; most of the energy released by burning it is wasted.  Oil companies have done little invention or innovation except in finding ways to extract it.
•    Oil is a natural resource.  Nature created it.  Since the use of oil impacts the quality of all our lives, those who control it have a special social responsibility to all of us.  This isn’t socialism; it’s common sense.
•    In the 1980’s we decided that competition wasn’t an important pillar of free market capitalism so we cancelled our anti-trust laws and the oil companies merged into a powerful club.
•    In spite of record profits, oil companies are investing little in new oil field development or refineries.
•    As percent of profits oil companies are not seriously investing in clean renewable energy resources; indeed the CEO of Exxon said that Exxon is an oil company not an energy company.  The biggest use of oil profits has been to buy their own stock and issue dividends to shareholders.
•    Demand for oil worldwide (including China and India) has risen 10-15% while prices have doubled.
•    Speculators have created an oil-commodities bubble similar to our internet-housing bubbles.
•    Turning food (corn) into fuel is boondoggle forced upon us by big agriculture.  It’s causing food riots and is a lousy fuel.
•    Our energy policy now represents the greatest transfer of wealth from working Americans to foreign despots in the history of the world.  Our children spend a day’s wage to fill up a tank of gas and money ends up building luxury hotels in Dubai or providing night-vision goggles to the Taliban.
•    The people who control our energy policy don’t care.  They are part of a new class of super-wealthy who have their own jets, their own schools, their own security forces, their own banks and fortresses and private islands to survive whatever happens.
•    There are many myths that all of this is the inevitable working of global capitalism and everything is playing out according to divinely inspired markets.  It’s not.  The economy as been rigged by years of corruption and concentration of power accompanied by a relentless P.R. machine telling us this is the best we can hope for.

One of the healthiest responses to injustice and avoidable suffering is to focus our anger into a loud voice aimed at leaders and allow our cultural megaphone to turn up our volume.  I suggest we grab our Congressmen by their lapels and insist that oil companies invest 25% of profits in a new, private Institute for Energy Independence which funds honest science in scalable clean renewable technologies especially hydrogen.  Insist big oil companies must have independent board chairs and at least 30% of the board be non-stock holders.  And take $25 billion a year out of private, no bid “defense” contracts (we evidently pay KBR $75 to do a load of wash for our troops in Iraq because of a no-bid contract) and build a Hydrogen Energy Web for energy delivery.  If we do this, car companies will build the cars.

None of this will happen overnight, but it will happen if we don’t give up or give in.  We must not listen to stories about how this won’t work by those who prosper from the status quo.  We are not helpless. Go to Write Your Representative or Congress.org and write your Congressperson today.  Demand a focused, funded plan to free us from oil slavery.

Imagine a future  free of oil.  In 5 years.  Just imagine.

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

14 comments.

Is This the Best I Can Do?

Last week I wrote a post referring to the popularity of video games and other entertainment that glorifies violence, objectifies women and simulates a reality in which irresponsible behavior and even evil have no lasting consequences.  I received a number of responses questioning if I was proposing censorship or suggesting the Bible might be worse than Grand Theft Auto.  While those comments might provoke interesting discussions, I was up to something very different.  The issue I am raising is, what is our responsibility?  Yours and mine, to spend our time and invest our talent and money in work that contributes to a better world rather than exploits human weakness.

My question reflects a flood of new ideals that are beginning to roar down the canyons of our cultural and business landscapes.  It’s called Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR.  Increasingly it also stands for Citizen Social Responsibility and Community Social Responsibility.  It reflects a new awareness that the consequences of our choices have far reaching impacts on each other and the future opportunities of our children.  We are discovering the hard way that polluting our air and depleting our water supplies is irresponsible acts.  We are concerned that masses of undereducated and underemployed people impact everyone’s quality of life.  We are asking, what kind of future do we really want?  Most of all we ask, is the society we’ve created the best we can do?

As far as passing new laws and regulations to control what we can watch…well, as many people worry, that’s a slippery slope.  The best regulation is self-regulation.  The best discipline is self-discipline.  And that’s the realm we have absolute control over if we exercise it.  We are fortunate to live in a free society that offers an amazing variety of jobs, opportunities and companies to work for.  The question is, do we thoughtfully exercise our free choice to invest ourselves in work that contributes to a better world or not?

It seems we have three fundamental choices.  First is work that is destructive to people and the planet.  This is work that exploits human weakness, preys on insecurities, greed, and our potential for addiction.  Or it pollutes our environment or poisons people.  Second, is work that doesn’t really matter.  We invest our lives making and selling things and providing services that are generic.  If the work disappeared, no one would notice.  Then there is work that contributes to the genuine quality of life, of people, and our planet.  This kind of work exists in every field imaginable because people’s intention transforms work.  If we consciously choose to make a positive difference and do it excellently, we can turn entertainment into inspirations, law into justice, and janitorial work into disease prevention.  The challenge is to take the time to deeply consider our choices.  Who do you work for?  Are you proud of your workplace, your company, your industry?  Would your children or your mother be proud of you?  Should they be?  Is your work the expression of your deepest and most noble longings?  Could it be?  The time we have is finite.  Most of us will invest at least 40 or 50 working years in a career, profession, or series of jobs.  Just what are we trying to accomplish?  Life is more than a quest for material possessions.  My experience is that if we get clear on our best intentions and our higher, love-based motives, opportunities will appear.  Perhaps where we already work. I just met a software engineer whose organizing his department to volunteer to help small non-profits with their databases.  This morning I had breakfast with a young Intel executive who is helping implement technology in hospitals and homes to reduce medical errors and medical costs.  I know a group of surfers who bring medicine to malaria-infested islands in Indonesia.  Surfers!

Perhaps social responsibility begins with an awareness that we are all responsible for how we invest our talent and energy.  It’s something I think about every day.  As I mentioned in my last post, I often look in the mirror and see my mortality.  I ask my soul how much good am I really doing?  Is this the best I can do?

Will Marre, founder American Dream Project

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

6 comments.

An evil way to make money?

Grand Theft Auto IV is a new videogame. It sold $500 million in its first week of release. It is the most financially successful piece of entertainment ever released in terms of first week sales. More than any Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Lord of the Rings movies. And it’s just starting. Grand Theft Auto IV is an amazing example of evil-genius. It is a visual banquet of hauntingly realistic animation that is as visually arousing as it is morally repulsive. The game asks you to identify with a sympathetic anti-hero who achieves goals by stealing cars, hiring prostitutes, killing pedestrians, getting drunk and driving wild. Of course the makers of this technically brilliant glorification of self-destructive insanity say it’s all harmless fun. After all, what we watch and think about doesn’t really impact what we really do. And, me, sounding like some very un-cool grandpa only makes it more desirable to my cool-seeking grandchildren to play it. Yea, yea. I get it. But I can’t help it. My blood is boiling.

I speak to business leaders frequently about Corporate Social Responsibility. I sum things up with the proposition that we are responsible for the future we are co-creating. That all of us are responsible for fostering a “healthy planet with healthy people.” All of us. It’s an important message. Today we are constantly tempted to make a buck through “negative innovation.” This occurs when we willfully promote ideas that undermine people’s ability or motives to meet their own genuine needs. It is a high-tech form of toxic pollution. When we separate our economic life from our human responsibility to each other, we descend into predators. When we develop products that destroy our planet, exploit people, and degrade the dignity of our own children, we erode our own spiritual worth. Is it ethical to spend millions of dollars and use the magnificent talents of artists and computer programmers to seduce teenagers to immerse themselves in a world of human misery made to look desirable? Is that the best thing we can do with capital and talent? I’ve talked to people who create or promote predatory entertainment and they all say the same thing. “I am not responsible.” They always claim that entertainment reflects cultural norms rather than changes them. “It’s what people want.” But is this just superficial justification of selling the glorification of suffering?

Media’s biggest cultural impact comes from what it decides to broadcast, post, print, or sell. And very often that’s driven by what sells to the lowest common denominator. At the lowest level of human consciousness we simply seek stimulation. We are attracted to novelty like a bug to a porch light. That’s why the media makers are always pushing the envelope. You see, vulgarity is shocking only if it crosses the line of established limits. And shock is what’s needed to stimulate a young audience. Brain research confirms what all seasoned parents have known. Teenagers are constantly searching for high emotional stimulation for low effort. There is probably no one more susceptible to a jolt from the outrageous, then a 14 year-old. For instance, over the past 25 years MTV has become the monster of the global Grid. It is beamed to over 100 countries and is the icon of American pop culture. It’s owned by a huge media conglomerate. It’s our message to the world of what makes us happy. Silly, isn’t it. Relatively harmless, right?

Maybe not. MTV recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. One media analyst observed that MTV’s primary legacy has been to popularize a culture that celebrates violence, glorifies materialism and exploits women. In fact, MTV may have done more to degrade women than any other single force in recent history. That’s not all. MTV is a steady diet of self-absorption, angst about trivia and a celebration of the paraphernalia of image. It drives conformity and isolation simultaneously. MTV has been very busy creating the new normal for our culture, claiming it’s only what their audience wants. It doesn’t mention that its audience is our stimulus seeking, highly vulnerable children.

While there are still some psychologists who claim watching anti-social, criminal or degrading behavior doesn’t change people’s attitudes or choices, the preponderance of evidence is that it does. New research confirms our thinking actually alters our brain chemistry and our habitual emotional responses. Just like junk food, junk thinking eventually poisons us.

Never in history have humans created a society where vivid emotionally engaging depictions of violence and sexual exploitation surrounded us daily. And frankly no one knows for sure what the result will be. But common sense tells us it does not promote the values of civilization or the behavior of a species serious about their responsibilities to their own children. Isn’t it rather simply an evil way to make money?

Free speech is great and an essential right of every person. It also comes with a responsibility. Shouldn’t we be motivated to use our position, our talent and our technology to create messages that inspire rather than exploit? I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. At the end of our lives will we be able to look in the mirror and say, “I did the most to create the greatest good I could?” Maybe it’s a question we should ask ourselves every day.

If you want to send Take 2, the makers of Grand Theft Auto IV, some feedback, email pr@rockstargames.com.

Will Marre
Founder, American Dream Project
Expert on Corporate Social Responsibility

10 comments.

Your Z Factor

Recently I spent some inspiring time with David Wyman, a Professor at Clemson University who teaches leadership and entrepreneurship. He showed me his X-Y-Z model of business strategy which, it seems, has great personal application. David explained that the “X” stands for business-as-usual. Doing what you always do. When you persistently offer X to the world, the world responds by asking for more X at a lower cost. The reason is you have many competitors. You don’t make much of a difference. This isn’t just true for stuff we buy at Wal-Mart; it’s true about us. The value we produce at work or bring to our children or spouses is simply what everyone else does; we are just X. Plain vanilla in a world looking from more delicious, can’t-take-my-mind-off flavors. Being only a generic worker or father or mother or spouse means, in fact, that we can be easily replaced. The house brand of any vanilla ice cream is easily replaceable. Sure, someone may love us because that’s what they do, but they’d love nearly anyone else in the same position.

To compete, most businesses try to add value. That’s the Y factor. But Y is easy to copy. It’s like making ice cream in the popular and trendy flavors. But like most factory made ice cream, soon competitors have identical or better flavors in better packaging and at a slightly lower price. In our work or personal life, it’s like trying harder. Sure you can work later or go to a soccer game, but so do most other try-hard employees and parents. Working and living in the X and Y world is stressful and exhausting. You can never do enough. Everyone wants more for less.

But there is another choice. It’s invisible to most. Nearly unthinkable to some. It’s your Z factor. (David is English so he insists on calling it the “ZED” factor.) Z is the unexpected unique value a business can create with a breakaway from business-as-usual idea. And it’s your own unique personality, interests and enthusiasm brought full force to your relationships and your work. The Z factor in business is something like Cirque De Soleil, which is a combination of opera, acrobats and three-ring circus perpetually blowing peoples’ minds in a new, unique form of entertainment. It’s the ipod combined with itunes that changed the way most of us “consume” music. It’s Cold Stone Creameries, which lets us invent a new flavor of premium ice cream every time we buy a waffle cone. (See Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne)

In business the Z factor is always what people value the most. It is more than innovation. It is the invention of new, unexpected value that creates an endless “Wow!” It always comes by over-investing in some aspect of value and eliminating what’s unnecessary. Walt Disney insisted on creating amusement rides that cost 2 to 4 times what carnival rides cost. He way over-invested in landscaping, architecture and employee training. Everyone, especially his bankers, thought he was crazy. But Walt Disney understood the Z factor. So what about us?

We live in a time of hand-wringing fear. It seems that we have all the problems a society could have. That means it’s a time for us to bring our own unique “Z” to the big game. What is it that others most value about you? If you aren’t sure, ask them. Ask them what you should do more of that you’re already good at doing. Ask them what you could stop doing that isn’t really valued or appreciated. What do you love doing, at your work, with your family, friends or spouse? How could you become the Walt Disney of what you’re already good at that you love doing? And what do you do when your family or friends express their most genuine appreciation to you? How do you make them laugh? What makes them trust you? What might you consistently do that would be the thing that your co-workers or loved ones would enthusiastically tell others when you’re not around? That’s your Z factor. It’s your unique one-of-a-kind value that is your great contribution to our future. What we all admire in others. The courageous expression of unique gifts driven by our genuine goodness. As Stephen M. R. Covey (The Speed of Trust) tells us when our competence and character is expressed at an extraordinary level of energy the whole world rejoices. It’s time to get our “Z” in gear.

Will Marre, founder American Dream Project

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

4 comments.

The Rule of Love

Many of you have responded to my blogs wondering what you or we can do about the issues presented. The answer is more than you may think. The people who most benefit from the status quo want you to feel that you can’t make a difference. It’s called learned helplessness. It’s a lie. No matter what you choose to do, how big or small, each of us matters. We are part of the tipping point for a better future. For instance, I donate a great amount of time teaching and speaking to students, non-profits and community groups about our individual leadership opportunities to help change our world right where we are. This is just one way I try to make my difference.

Last Monday I taught a class in Corporate Social Responsibility to a group of young executives at the University of California San Diego. On the subject of ethics I mentioned that 20th century U.S. culture descended into embracing the lowest level of classical ethics. The result is that our government now routinely enables large companies to sell us poisonous products. You see the bottom of the ethical barrel is the “Rule of Law.” It basically confirms that if something is legal, it’s ethical, even moral. But it’s often not. In fact when a country enshrines the “Rule of Law” as their standard of morality it unleashes a tidal wave of lobbyists corrupting lawmakers to make their special interest desires become legal. For instance, many of our antipollution laws are written so that it’s legal to pay a relatively inexpensive fine rather than clean up the brown field and stop polluting. As a citizen, this pygmy view of ethics puts us at increasing risk of being poisoned by the Frankenstein chemicals in common products and food. When our nation was founded we agreed that life, that is, its reasonable protection, was an “inalienable right,” a fundamental right. But lately our government has increasingly decided to sell its responsibility to provide for our safety to the highest bidder. The result is we still have cigarette companies figuring out how to make their death weed more addictive while they kill 400,000 Americans a year even as the FDA becomes a barrier to our children’s safety.

The latest ethical failure recently came to light when it was revealed that the FDA has ignored over 100 studies showing that BPA, a common chemical in plastic bottles and the lining of canned goods, pose a significant health risk to babies. Babies! Turns out sterilizing plastic bottles causes BPA molecules to get in milk that later stimulates breast.and prostate cancer. Canada has banned BPA plastic, and Japan banned its use in canned food 10 years ago. But in the land of the brave we’re on our own. Yes the chemical companies produced two studies showing the health risks were minimal and since we now have the best FDA money can buy, our safety regulators let it slide. It seems it’s not their responsibility to protect American babies. I wish I were making this up, but the Government Accounting Office just released a report stating that our Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency have been systematically compromised by government contractors and special (business) interests. Turns out over the past eight years these agencies, established to protect our health from the unrestrained gravity of greed, have been taken over by the industries they are supposed to regulate. So the cancer screening reviews of ten common chemicals that you and I are frequently exposed to in our households and consumer products have not been conducted due to internal restrictions on the scientists that you and I pay to protect our children (EPA Undermined on Health Dangers, Investigators Say).

Since the dawn of history merchants have railed against regulation. They always claim individuals right to choose is more sacred than health and safety rules. They always claim that regulation will cause economic collapse. English business tycoons in the 19th century claimed that capitalism would fail without child labor. Slavery was justified for 150 years as an economic necessity. And American carmakers in the 1960’s and 70’s said that government regulations mandating seatbelts and pollution control technology was completely unnecessary. “If the people choose, the market will dictate what is best for us” is always the cry. Using human choice and the marketplace as the mechanism for what is safe to sell is nothing more than a weak attempt to morally justify unrestrained self-interest.

I told the class that there is more to ethics than what’s “legal.” A higher level is the “Rule of Justice.” It’s based on the Golden Rule. It asks chemical company executives and scientists to ask themselves, “What kind of bottle do I want my children drinking from?” If we could just achieve that standard as our ideal we could restore integrity to our entire society. But the highest level of ethics is even more inspiring. It is call the “Rule of Love.” It challenges us to ask, “How much good can I do?” Imagine a world where that was the common question in a business meeting. It’s the concept of Greatest Total Value. What is the Greatest Total Value we can provide to our customers, employees, society? I have found the exciting result of asking this question is it unleashes people to think of previously unimagined value innovations. Innovations that lead to higher quality, less waste, and unique products and services.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with capitalism. It’s morally neutral. The problem is with us. Only humans can make our businesses and government moral. Are we really willing to poison our own babies rather than demand genuine moral leadership? We are better than this.

(Effective Regulation is one criterion of American Dream Project’s America’s New Agenda. To found out more and add your ideas, click here.)

Your single voice matters. It matters because you’re not alone. Your voice can be a part of a chorus, inaudible to you but very noisy to the world. Speak up. Most especially, go to Write Your Representative or Congress.org to get your Congressperson’s email address and write him or her in reasoned but passionate tones (For Congressional letter writing tips, click here). When enough of us do, they will listen. We are changing the world either by staying silent or by speaking out. I send emails to the Presidential candidates. Of course they respond with requests for donations, but no matter, I still express myself. Write someone today. It matters. If you agree with what I am saying, pass it on. This is not my day job. I am doing this for my grandchildren. We all need to do something because we can.
Will Marre, founder American Dream Project

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

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