Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

11 February 2010

Vancouver 2010: Snowboarding preview

by Mike Jennings

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Now that the Super Bowl is over, you may find yourself looking forward to the pageantry of the Winter Olympics. Here’s who and what to look for in snowboarding this year…

Now that the Super Bowl is over, you may find yourself looking forward to the pageantry of the Winter Olympics. Here’s who and what to look for in snowboarding this year…

  • Lindsey Jacobellis – In the Turin Olympics Lindsey went a little too big off the last jump in the snowboard cross final and it cost her the gold. Afterwards the U.S. press criticized her for showing off and letting her country down. Lindsey would later explain how snowboarding is supposed to be fun and how she wanted to match the enthusiasm of the crowd with a stylish finish. Makes sense to me. Let’s see if Lindsey can redeem her honor.
  • “The Flying Tomato” – All sports have those athletes that come along and not only dominate a sport but also change its direction. What Tiger Woods is (was?) to golf, Shaun White is to snowboarding. I just want to say that I personally rock his signature line of Burton apparel and yes, I snowboard better because of it.
  • The Double Cork – It’s hard to describe this controversial halfpipe maneuver, so you’re going to have to click here to see it for yourself. Invented by Shaun White, it was deemed necessary for unseating him in Vancouver, but after Kevin Pearce fell hard and into a coma trying it in training, some called for a ban by the International Olympic Committee. No official ruling as of yet, so we’ll have to wait to see what happens.
  • Torah Bright – I felt this Australian phenom got robbed when she finished 5th in the halfpipe finals at the Turin Games. Since then, she won gold at the 2007 and 2009 X Games and is a favorite in this year’s Olympics. However Torah had to pull out of the 2010 X Games after suffering two concussions in three days in January—adding fuel to the fire to eighty-six certain maneuvers in Vancouver. Reports say she’s recovered physically, but as I can attest, concussions come with psychological effects as well.

I don’t know where I stand on banning maneuvers at the Olympics. On the one hand, I don’t want a governing body capping the level of competition in snowboarding. On the other, I realize each year this level gets more and more dangerous. What do you think?

5 Responses to “Vancouver 2010: Snowboarding preview”

  1. Sandra Atlas says:
    February 11, 2010 at 6:18 am

    I tend to be conservative — so, I think that capping the competition can be a good thing, if it helps to saves lives and prevent traumatic injury. Sometimes, people will to do almost anything to make their statement to the world. Setting some reasonable limits might help to keep the sport safe and prevent devestating injury.

  2. Mike Jennings says:
    February 11, 2010 at 6:25 am

    I see your point, Sandra. To add to it, I wouldn’t want people tuning in with the hopes of seeing someone get hurt. That’s what the UFC is for!

  3. Adrian W. says:
    February 12, 2010 at 7:46 am

    Capping the competition would hurt the sport of snowboarding. These athletes are the best at what they do, they are Olympians. Why should any one tell them that they shouldn’t push the limits of their sport? They are not going to go out there and try a trick they have never done before just so they can hurt themselves and get on television. They practice these tricks. If there were a cap on the sport, it would hurt the sport because people would get bored of watching the same tricks over and over. I’m sorry to say, injuries are part of any sport. They don’t put a cap on football because someone gets hurt do they? If people tune in because they want to see someone get hurt, they have a sick mind. Some people watch NASCAR races just for the wrecks, and NASCAR is capped. They are capped because they have restrictor plate races where they limit their top speed. Let the sport take care of itself. If people get hurt, people get hurt. That is what happens in sports.

  4. Mike Jennings says:
    February 12, 2010 at 10:16 am

    Thanks, Adrian, for representing the other side. I agree, banning the double cork would definitely affect “the sport” of snowboarding, but snowboarding itself would continue to evolve. Even if Shaun White wasn’t allowed to do the move in the Olympics AND the X Games, he’d still do it and it would get captured on video for all to see and emulate. I don’t know, maybe we just need better helmets.

  5. Adrian W. says:
    February 16, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    I agree Mike, those little shells they call helmets don’t help much. Keep in mind though, no helmet is going to stop someone from breaking their neck and becoming paralyzed. You can’t prevent athletes from performing with lots of safety regulations and you can’t let them go out there and risk their lives. Every sport in the world could be safer in a way, it’s just a matter of finding that common ground where people can agree that it’s not too dangerous and that it doesn’t take too much away from the sport.

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14 January 2010

Cultivating Insight and Innovation… One Adventure at a Time

by Jennifer Adams

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I have a seemingly immodest confession: I was not surprised to win the Communispace Values Award for Adventure last winter. After all, how many people can say they started the previous year literally walking out of their burning home in Boston with just the clothes on their back and their beloved chocolate lab in tow, and ended it 3,000 miles away, living and working in London? From Day 1 to Day 365, it was a year of extreme risk (uprooting a US life and journeying to a new and unknown land) and extreme reward (the immense gratification of helping open a UK office for a globally expanding Communispace)—one which is likely (and in certain ways hopefully) not to be repeated. Indeed, my 2008 was replete with what I would term obvious adventure, the sort that has the subtlety of a sledgehammer… or a reality TV contestant. (Yes, if my 2008 were a person, it’d probably be “The Situation.”)

I have a seemingly immodest confession: I was not surprised to win the Communispace Values Award for Adventure last winter. After all, how many people can say they started the previous year literally walking out of their burning home in Boston with just the clothes on their back and their beloved chocolate lab in tow, and ended it 3,000 miles away, living and working in London? From Day 1 to Day 365, it was a year of extreme risk (uprooting a US life and journeying to a new and unknown land) and extreme reward (the immense gratification of helping open a UK office for a globally expanding Communispace)—one which is likely (and in certain ways hopefully) not to be repeated. Indeed, my 2008 was replete with what I would term obvious adventure, the sort that has the subtlety of a sledgehammer… or a reality TV contestant. (Yes, if my 2008 were a person, it’d probably be “The Situation.”) 

Yet to say I was unsurprised is not to imply that I was not flattered or humbled. If there is one thing Communispace understands at a very visceral level, it’s adventure. I watch with awe everyday as my colleagues take risks, innovate at the speed of light, and push themselves, each other, and our clients to be better, smarter, more connected, more involved. Every day, with passion, dedication, and humor, my colleagues find new ways to unearth game-changing insights for our clients, new ways to move the marketplace to unprecedented heights, and new ways to make the company itself one everyone is proud to be a part of (and you will not meet a prouder bunch!).

But this is not flashy adventure; it is not self-congratulatory; it is not immodest; it is not so glaringly obvious as a burning building or a new London office space. No, adventure at Communispace is so subtle and subterranean at times, so constant and steady, I would liken it to a hot spring, a continuous stream of energy that infuses and seeps warmly into everything Communispace does. Yes, there are occasional geysers: opening up Asia Pacific offices, launching new versions of our community software, being named by Forrester as the Full-Service Market Research Online Community Leader or winning two Forrester Groundswell Awards (that last is not an intentional pun, I swear!). But most of the time, adventure bubbles right beneath the surface in everything my colleagues do: crafting client research agendas, projecting the voice of the customer into a room of executives, writing a whitepaper on what it means to listen, building sophisticated technology infrastructure, participating enthusiastically in company golf outings and The Communispace Follies, and planning for all that 2010 and beyond will bring.

And so, as we usher in a new year, born aloft by these continuous bubbles of adventure, I look forward to passing my fiery torch to one of my amazingly deserved colleagues…to a geyser of applause.

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8 January 2010

The “First” Decade

by Bill Alberti

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I thought I’d try a little experiment as I start the New Year. I wanted to look back at the past decade and see what really stood out—to better understand how the first decade of the 21st century would be remembered. So, here’s what I did. I copied text from Wikipedia entries for “events” during each year of the past decade and created a “word cloud.” The simple visualization tool gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a body of text. So in this case, the bigger the word, the more often it appeared in descriptions of the important events of the last decade. Have a look:

I thought I’d try a little experiment as I start the New Year. I wanted to look back at the past decade and see what really stood out—to better understand how the first decade of the 21st century would be remembered. So, here’s what I did. I copied text from Wikipedia entries for “events” during each year of the past decade and created a “word cloud.” The simple visualization tool gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a body of text. So in this case, the bigger the word, the more often it appeared in descriptions of the important events of the last decade. Have a look:

decade

I don’t know what to make of this. It looks depressing. There is a lot of “killing,” “kills,” “killed,” and “crashes.” Also, “US/United States,” “Iraq,” and “President” are prominently featured as one might guess. As are “government,” “Minister,” and “International.” “People” is a frequently mentioned word too, but probably associated more with all of the afore mentioned “killing.” 

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of the past decade will be remembered—for the politics and the tragedies that dominated the headlines. The other day I heard the past decade called “the nothing decade,” suggesting nothing good came out of it. Sad.

Against the backdrop of so much negativity and nothingness, it’s hard to think of any progress made in the past ten years. However, as equally prominent as any of the other words in the “word cloud” is the word “first.”

  • Firsts in science (e.g., first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight; first face transplant; first draft of the human genome).
  • Firsts in statecraft (e.g., first female president of Finland; first directly elected president in Afghanistan; first African-American president in the US).
  • Firsts in human rights (e.g., first gay marriages).
  • Firsts in pop-culture (e.g., first episodes of Survivor, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars).
  • Firsts in technology (e.g., first iPod, iTunes and iPhone).
  • Firsts in sports (e.g., first [and second] World Series wins for the Red Sox since 1918; first, second, and third Super Bowl wins for the Patriots; first National Championship win for Syracuse basketball; and first Championship win for the Celtics since 1986).
    NOTE: I might be a little biased in what I chose to represent in “sports.”

The developments of the next decade will in many ways be the further progress made against the firsts of the past decade.

And when we look beyond the Wikipedia entries, there are our own events that shaped the past decade for us—and many of them our own personal firsts. In the ‘00s, I got married; had a son; started a new job; and bought my first iPod and iPhone.

For me, the ‘00s were not a decade of nothingness. It was the beginning of something. I saw the world differently. I reimagined life and its possibilities—both for good and for bad. I was more connected—to the world around me and to the people in it.

I’ll bet that when we look back at the ‘00s with a little more time and experience under our belts, we will see the events of the past decade—both personal and universal—as starting points and firsts rather than as nothing.

What are your firsts from the first decade?

One Response to “The “First” Decade”

  1. joyce griggs says:
    January 8, 2010 at 8:49 am

    My firsts from the first decade
    Tweeting; Not leaving home without my Flip camera;Commeting on blogs while watching democratic primary results for Prez

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15 December 2009

“I’m the President, but he’s the boss.”

by Mike Jennings

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That’s what Barack Obama said when he gave Bruce Springsteen his Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. When I heard this I welled up with pride.

Like Bruce, I grew up on the Jersey Shore. Throughout the ‘80s my aunts would play his albums over and over again, telling tall tales of marathon performances at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. I didn’t understand the excitement at the time and thought it was old people’s music.

That’s what Barack Obama said when he gave Bruce Springsteen his Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. When I heard this I welled up with pride.

Like Bruce, I grew up on the Jersey Shore. Throughout the ‘80s my aunts would play his albums over and over again, telling tall tales of marathon performances at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. I didn’t understand the excitement at the time and thought it was old people’s music.

In the early ‘90s I attended the same community college as The Boss (I graduated) and frequently surfed next to the very pier that inspired the song, 4th of July, Asbury Park.

In 2000 I moved to California, and eventually became homesick and tired of the lyric-less jam band scene that surrounded me. Turning to my roots, I found comfort in the following songs:

  • Spirit in the Night – a song about partying in the Pine Barrens
  • Backstreets – a song about friendship
  • Independence Day – a song about fathers and sons
  • Thunder Road/Born to Run – songs about getting out of small towns

Why am I telling you this? Well if you’re from New Jersey you often hear people refer to your state as the “Armpit of America.” Sure, even I roll up the windows when I drive down the Turnpike, but if you head south on the Parkway that industrial aroma fades and you end up at the Jersey Shore, home to arguably the best songwriter since Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Click here for some artists who agree.

5 Responses to ““I’m the President, but he’s the boss.””

  1. Steve says:
    December 15, 2009 at 9:35 am

    Mike, you let me know any time you’re running low on the Bruce Juice. You gotta live it every day.

    - Steve

  2. Mike Jennings says:
    December 15, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Will do, Steve. Good to hear from you.

  3. Nina Kentsis says:
    December 16, 2009 at 4:06 am

    It’s great to know there are other fans of The Boss in our office! I’ve been listening to E Street Radio on Sirius every day for the past six months–the free subscription ends soon and I will be very sad. I hope you caught him in concert the last few times he was in Boston because a live show is amazing. My favorite songs are “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Growing Up,” “Sherry Darling,” “The Ties that Bind,” “Two Hearts,” “Incident on 57th Street” “Brilliant Disguise,” and, even though it’s a Tom Waits song, I do love their duet on “Jersey Girl.”

  4. Mike Jennings says:
    December 16, 2009 at 5:54 am

    I agree, I’m hoping this post bring us Bruce fans out of the woodwork. I like Darkness…, Growing Up, and Jersey Girl as well. I’m hoping to catch one of those expensive small venue shows in Asbury Park soon. Steve, any leads on that?

  5. Steve says:
    December 16, 2009 at 11:02 am

    I’ve seen Bruce in Asbury several times…doesn’t sound like any small venue holiday shows this year in light of the tour ending. I did just read though, he was at Asbury’s convention hall this past Monday filming video for the 30-year anniversary re-release of Darkness.

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24 November 2009

Health and Health Care: What I am thankful for this year

by Jack Cahill

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If you have been watching the new TV show V, then you know there has been some discussion lately about Universal Health Care. I would not pretend to know as much about the subject as V leader Anna or ambitious newsman Chad (played by Scott Wolf), but I do have some thoughts about health care reform that stem from personal experience.

If you have been watching the new TV show V, then you know there has been some discussion lately about Universal Health Care. I would not pretend to know as much about the subject as V leader Anna or ambitious newsman Chad (played by Scott Wolf), but I do have some thoughts about health care reform that stem from personal experience.

Over the past few years I have watched someone close to me battle a difficult form of cancer. Despite an initially grim prognosis, he has been the beneficiary of a number of cutting edge developments in cancer treatment (including the CyberKnife™ radiation treatment, now being hyped in Boston TV ads). As a result, he has been able to exceed survival expectations and has maintained a high quality of life. It seems that as one treatment starts to become ineffective, another comes along. This is a testament to the strength of medical technology development. I watched someone else wage the same fight 22 years ago. But these options were not available then, and the results were very different. 

But as great as the advances in the technology element are, what strikes me more is the improvement in the human element of how patients are treated. In 1997, I was hospitalized and had never before endured such a frustrating and horrible experience (with the possible exception of that time in Newark). But today, in the very same hospital, it has totally changed.

A large part of this may be due to the passage of the Patients’ Bill of Rights in 2001. But, I also believe part of it is due to medical professionals actually listening to their patients and taking them seriously, more like customers. Patients and their loved ones are treated with more dignity and respect, and are provided with better resources for coping. This is as important as the treatments themselves, because the stress levels are so high for patients and their families, and every little thing has a significant impact.

So this Thanksgiving, I give thanks for what is good in our health care system. I know that there is a lot that needs to be changed, but I hope these trends in the system are not affected. They represent the best parts of it.

One Response to “Health and Health Care: What I am thankful for this year”

  1. heather c says:
    December 3, 2009 at 6:09 am

    i took care of my father-in-law the last year of his life, which included a 2&1/2 month hospital stay in the VA hospital. i know exactly what you are talking about about. thank god for the patients’ bill of rights, which i had to bring up several times.
    i think a government option that competes with privately owned insurance companies would be a good thing. after all, if it isn’t competetive, no-one will want it.
    private insurance companies and drug companies already charge people a fortune, and in some cases, won’t pay for life-saving treatments. it should be regulated. power companies are regulated. construction companies are regulated. doctors are regulated. banking will be more regulated, so that the powerful and greedy can no longer steal from the nation, and loot their workers’ retirement funds.
    i think competency and compassion are what is lacking overall in the insurance industry as a whole, and a little regulation may be the solution.

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13 November 2009

All in a Day’s Work

by Richard Weiss

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It’s funny, I don’t recall being asked if I was an alto or a tenor during my interview at Communispace (quite frankly I wouldn’t know, as I do my best singing in the shower). Yet for the second year in a row, I donned my host suit, grabbed a mic and headed up to our makeshift theatre in our own Fenway Park, where I sang and danced in front of my closest 200 colleagues in the annual Communispace Follies.

It’s funny, I don’t recall being asked if I was an alto or a tenor during my interview at Communispace (quite frankly I wouldn’t know, as I do my best singing in the shower). Yet for the second year in a row, I donned my host suit, grabbed a mic and headed up to our makeshift theatre in our own Fenway Park, where I sang and danced in front of my closest 200 colleagues in the annual Communispace Follies.

billOf course, I didn’t go at it alone. From some of our newest employees to our CEO, everyone who wants to get involved is able to play their own part in the show. Maybe they sing their own solo about wanting to be a girl (I will call out Bill Alberti), have a fantastic duet with awkward tension, or even rap about their job.

Beyond the laughs (and sometimes tears), is something that I feel makes Communispace such a unique and fun place to work. In the midst of all that’s going around us in the outside world, we can take a moment to stop, reflect, and laugh at ourselves.

Don’t take my word for it, just peer into the world of the Communispace Follies with this highlight reel. After all, it’s all in a day’s work.

3 Responses to “All in a Day’s Work”

  1. Diane Hessan says:
    November 13, 2009 at 8:19 am

    Rich, you get the Best Director Award. Here’s to Round 3, which is next September!

  2. Colleen Finnerty says:
    November 13, 2009 at 9:42 am

    Thanks for posting the reel Rich – great fun to see what you all are up to. Good times as always.

  3. Catie Schadlick says:
    November 13, 2009 at 9:58 am

    Rich -

    I’m so glad you posted about this. I tried to fit it into my own post, but it was already jam-packed (which says a lot, I think). This was my first experience with The Follies since I missed last year’s due to night classes. Just want to say that I had a GREAT time and was really impressed with everyone’s performances. I think we would all have a much harder time taking our jobs seriously if we couldn’t also stop to laugh at ourselves (and our community members) once in awhile. Sanity through song and dance… who knew?

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11 November 2009

Fighting Hunger, One Turkey at a Time

by Guest Blogger: Catherine D'Amato from The Greater Boston Food Bank

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Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and at The Greater Boston Food Bank that means we’re in the midst of our annual Turkey Drive.

We hope to distribute 38,000 turkeys to our 600 member food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters across eastern Massachusetts. This is the same number of turkeys we gave out last year.

Yet, we know that our member hunger-relief organizations have seen their client loads grow by 11% over the past year, and some have seen increases of 40%. One in nine Massachusetts residents is in need of food assistance.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and at The Greater Boston Food Bank that means we’re in the midst of our annual Turkey Drive.

We hope to distribute 38,000 turkeys to our 600 member food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters across eastern Massachusetts. This is the same number of turkeys we gave out last year.

Yet, we know that our member hunger-relief organizations have seen their client loads grow by 11% over the past year, and some have seen increases of 40%. One in nine Massachusetts residents is in need of food assistance.

As I write this, the U.S. Federal Government is announcing a 10.2% unemployment rate—the highest rate in 26 years! The Commonwealth’s rate is not far behind in what might, at best, be described as a “jobless recovery.” Winter will further stress the finances of families struggling to pay for heating fuel as they try to meet their housing and food expenses.

At The Greater Boston Food Bank, we have not run out of food, and we work hard to prevent that from happening. We work with our legislators to keep the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program strong. We ask our current—and potential—food donors for contributions. And we ask our financial donors to be generous. Last year, we were able to distribute 31.4 million pounds of food—more than we distributed in any previous year.

Some Communispace volunteers at GBFB

Some Communispace volunteers at GBFB

If you’re interested in helping, you can contribute to our Turkey Drive. We’re able to provide a 12-14 pound turkey to a family in need for just $12.

Another way you can help is by donating food. You can also volunteer at The Food Bank, like Communispace is doing this week, or for your local food pantry or soup kitchen. Or you can even host your own fundraiser. For every dollar that we receive we can distribute up to $4 worth of donated food.

My point here is to find a way to make a difference that will inspire you, and others close to you, to take action. At The Food Bank we say that “everyone has a role in ending hunger.” Find your role. You will be glad you did, and so will those you help.

One Response to “Fighting Hunger, One Turkey at a Time”

  1. Sonia Sharigian says:
    November 11, 2009 at 6:47 am

    Thanks so much, Catherine. The GBFB has always been near and dear to my heart, and I’m thrilled to watch my colleages at Communispace give back. Best of luck collecting food, turkeys, and donations throughout the holiday season and difficult winter months!

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9 November 2009

A Culture of Fun: Pitching in and giving back

by Charlotte Daher

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This week marks Communispace’s annual Volunteer Week, which helps in bringing together employees and local Boston-area organizations. We’re continually striving to stay connected to the community by lending a helping Cookie Decorating with the Franciscan Hospitalhand whenever possible. Last week, I joined seven co-workers and volunteered at the local Franciscan Hospital. We decorated cookies (and ate a few of course) with a number of children who are either enrolled in the day care program or are there to receive treatments. And in December, we’ll be kicking off the return of our annual Holiday Toy Drive—where we help fill countless stockings with toys and necessities for the Franciscan kids.
This week marks Communispace’s annual Volunteer Week, which helps in bringing together employees and local Boston-area organizations. We’re continually striving to stay connected to the community by lending a helping hand whenever possible. Cookie Decorating with the Franciscan HospitalLast week, I joined seven co-workers and volunteered at the local Franciscan Hospital. We decorated cookies (and ate a few of course) with a number of children who are either enrolled in the day care program or are there to receive treatments. And in December, we’ll be kicking off the return of our annual Holiday Toy Drive—where we help fill countless stockings with toys and necessities for the Franciscan kids.

During this week, you will hear about our culture from some Communispace employees, as well as a guest blog post from Catherine D’Amato, President and CEO of The Greater Boston Food Bank. Over 50 Communispace volunteers will be serving meals this week at The Greater Boston Food Bank. I invite you to visit Verbatim throughout the week to read more about our volunteer efforts in the community and our culture—after all, you may want to know how a ‘Beard Off’ can help your organization grow!

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2 November 2009

Why Being a Market Leader is Both Scary and Fun

by Debi Kleiman

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Wowza, last week was a big week here at Communispace on the awards and recognition front – specifically, Forrester Research published a report naming Communispace a leader in the market research online community space. The report* ranks Communispace tops on all three major dimensions.

Then to top it off, Communispace, together with our wonderful clients, won an unprecedented two Forrester Groundswell Awards – you can read the full nomination stories on our website. Phew, that’s a lot of Forrester Research accolades in one week. And we couldn’t feel more proud, grateful, excited and yes, maybe even a little nervous.

Wowza, last week was a big week here at Communispace on the awards and recognition front – specifically, Forrester Research published a report naming Communispace a leader in the market research online community space. The report* ranks Communispace tops on all three major dimensions.

Then to top it off, Communispace, together with our wonderful clients, won an unprecedented two Forrester Groundswell Awards – you can read the full nomination stories on our website. Phew, that’s a lot of Forrester Research accolades in one week. And we couldn’t feel more proud, grateful, excited and yes, maybe even a little nervous.

Yes, nervous. When you are the market leader, you have competitors who want to knock you down, so you can’t rest on your laurels.  And you also have clients (or customers, or partners) who want to know what’s next and how you are going to be even better than before. And let’s face it, we’re a pretty driven and curious group here at Communispace too, so we’re putting pressure on ourselves and each other to “take it up a notch”. Definitely fun, especially given our love for pushing into new frontiers, but we could also find out some new stuff that maybe doesn’t jive with what we know today.  We’ll have to take a hard look at our resources, people, and capabilities to see what’s going to propel us forward and what’s dragging us down.

We’ve reached an exciting point in our company’s growth, it’s great to see all that we’ve accomplished in this young market space.  And the experience of getting here provides the fuel to turbo charge what’s next – but now we’ve got to crank it up even more than before. How do you keep the innovation fires burning in your organization? I’d love to hear your ideas.

* The Forrester WaveTM: Full-Service Market Research Online Community (MROC) Vendors, Q4 2009.

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26 October 2009

Reflections from PopTech on Scaling Change

by Bill Alberti

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I’m back in the office today after four inspiring days at PopTech. For those who don’t know or haven’t been, PopTech is an assembly of some of the leading minds driving change around the world… assembled together in Camden, Maine for four days of immersive sharing, learning, and connecting. From musicians to artists, to educators and scientists, to behavioral economists and journalists, to the experimental mayor of Braddock, Penn., all of the presenters are pushing the boundaries of their respective disciplines in new and creative ways. These are truly some of the most brilliant people in the world doing some of the most important work on the planet. I was humbled to be sitting anywhere near them.

I’m back in the office today after four inspiring days at PopTech. For those who don’t know or haven’t been, PopTech is an assembly of some of the leading minds driving change around the world… assembled together in Camden, Maine for four days of immersive sharing, learning, and connecting. From musicians to artists, to educators and scientists, to behavioral economists and journalists, to the experimental mayor of Braddock, Penn., all of the presenters are pushing the boundaries of their respective disciplines in new and creative ways. These are truly some of the most brilliant people in the world doing some of the most important work on the planet. I was humbled to be sitting anywhere near them.

As the conference went along, I kept coming back to a fairly simple question, “Are we innovating for the needs of the environment, business, art, public policy, etc., or are we innovating for the needs of human beings?” One could argue that the two are one and the same. But to me, the former requires a deep knowledge of the issue and a creative approach to its challenges. The latter—innovating for the needs of human beings—requires a deeper understanding of us. Of what it will take to get people—real human beings—and in many cases, lots of them—to change.

All of the presenters’ brilliant work requires us to change. To change our perspectives, to change our beliefs of what is possible, to change our behaviors. And it’s tough to get us to change. We go for the default option. And too often the default, seemingly innocuous choices we make carry with them terrible repercussions.

Many of the PopTech presenters shared alarming statistics detailing some of these repercussions. Did you know:

  • It takes 700 gallons of water to make one cotton T-shirt? 
  • 150K Cattle produce as much waste (untreated) as the population of Chicago? 
  • Education employs 100K people in California, only 40% of whom are teachers?
  • A vegan in a Hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat eater in a Prius?
  • When high school students get less than 8 hours of sleep their rate of depression doubles?
  • Cardiovascular disease kills more people in the U.S. than all other diseases put together… yet 95% of cardiovascular disease is preventable?

But if you only experience an issue in statistics, it’s impossible to engage in it. It’s impossible to feel it. Few have changed as the result of a statistic. 

Rather, it’s emotion that creates action. We are not rational beings that see a better alternative and naturally adopt it. We make bad choices, we behave irrationally (even predictably so as Dan Ariely suggests), we don’t feel the personal imperative or benefit to change and so we don’t change. 

While I am truly inspired by what I heard and experienced at PopTech, I am also struck by how much change is required for many of the proposed solutions to scale. I’m worried that many of the solutions won’t become realized as they don’t fully account for the alternative, the default, the subconscious choices we make every day.

Perhaps then, the biggest challenge is to better understand human beings. To understand not only that people need to change, but how they will or why they won’t.

7 Responses to “Reflections from PopTech on Scaling Change”

  1. Nelson Merchan-Cely says:
    October 27, 2009 at 12:00 am

    As a free lance writer for the Hispanic community in the Treasure Coast, FL with three different columns, Opinion 700 words, In Spanish and Art & Culture 1.500 in El Hispano, a 45.000 issues weekly newspaper, I am ready to promote what I consider good for our community.

    So please e-mail what you know about the subject and I will be very pleased to translate and let them know what is best for them to do.

    By the way that’s what I normaly do, but with your ideas and knowledge they will learn many more things they are not aware of happen in this universe.

    God bless.

    Nelson

  2. Nelson Merchan-Cely says:
    October 27, 2009 at 12:04 am

    Your cooperation is very much appreciated.
    Being in contact with so many intelligent people, through you, I can help my community more positively.

  3. Halley Suitt says:
    October 27, 2009 at 5:59 am

    Very interesting piece and I particularly like what you say at the end, “Perhaps then, the biggest challenge is to better understand human beings. To understand not only that people need to change, but how they will or why they won’t.”

    Another great conference like PopTech is TED. I hope PopTech is presenting their speakers on video the way TED has been doing for a few years. This will help solve the need you mention — the need for change. Getting all these great ideas out there on YouTube is a great way to make people think and change.

    Here’s a link to Will Wright at TED showing his game SPORE which will help us play out scenarios on fictional planets where global warming or other environmental issues happen in minutes instead of centuries. I’ll bet you’ve seen it already. Not only does it help us understand human beings, it lets you build them, and then see how their changing planet affects and changes them.

  4. Halley Suitt says:
    October 27, 2009 at 6:05 am

    Whoops — that link didn’t show up.

    Here’s the link again:

  5. J A Ginsburg says:
    October 27, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Hello Bill,

    I was at PopTech, too, and, like you, have been typing away, trying to figure out what just happened! As I began to reflect, several themes began to emerge. In terms of scalability, there were several ideas I think could be able to go the distance and really begin to move the dial re climate change. I know that’s only one of many issues, but it’s a pretty key one. Anyway, just in case you’re interested in my PopTech 2009 Take-Aways… http://tinyurl.com/yztuso2

  6. Bill Alberti says:
    October 27, 2009 at 11:59 am

    J A,

    Read your blog post. Great detail and distillation of it all. Still intellectually recovering from all that happened at PopTech and your post made the memories rush back over me.

    To your theme in your post, “The most effective way to trigger change is to provide a better alternative to the status quo.” In theory, I totally agree and there were great alternatives presented. I just worry that a better way won’t catch on unless people don’t just rationally process it as better, but emotionally experience why they need to change. Remember Chris Jordan’s photo diary of birds dying on Midway Atoll? http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11 It made me (and I think lots of others) FEEL the need to be less wasteful…to emotionally experience what has always been a rational argument (i.e., recycle, consume less, etc.) If we can’t figure out how to get people to emotionally experience the need, I worry that people won’t act en masse…

    -Bill

  7. J A Ginsburg says:
    November 1, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    Hi Bill,

    Sorry it’s taken a few days to respond – I caught a cold I’m fairly sure on the plane home…

    I think we’re actually in agreement. Part and parcel of “a better way” is to engage on an emotional as well as a rational level – to spark imagination and hope.

    The latter is in all too short supply. Not only are the issues braided and overwhelming, but getting more urgent by the day.

    It’s funny that you mention Chris Jordan’s photographs of the “dead-by-plastic” albatross chicks on Midway Atoll. That presentation really stuck with me as well. I just put together a grouping of about a dozen on the aggregator, http://www.TrackerNews,net, anchored by his slide show. (TrackerNews is a bit unusual – links are grouped for contextual relevance, so research papers next to news stories next to videos next to websites, etc. – The site changes regularly, so in a few days, that link will take you to a very different page! But everything goes into a searchable database. There is actually a lot more going on with the site, but the surface is fun…).

    I was really surprised to learn that in the first decade of the 21st century, as much plastic will have been produced as in the entire 20th century. Less wasteful won’t even get us back to square one.

    On the encouraging side, there are some very intrepid marine biologists working on schemes to clean up and recycle and mess. I am in awe…

    - Janet

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