Better versus Perfect, a pattern of change.

I’ve observed a pattern that I want to share with you. It seems important because it is common, and it affects how we view the world around us. Whether we are opposed to change or embrace it. Whether we feel that a change is “enough” or “over the top”.

Now I’m only interested in addressing change that moves us from an undesirable state to a better state. And I’m only interested in addressing change that is intentional, requiring the will of people to accept it and successfully make a change. There is this principle at work, that people tend to look to a perfect state, and if they can’t achieve that perfect state, then they won’t even attempt to improve things at all.

I’ll apologize, this article has been delayed because I’ve been bogged down with examples and keep missing the essence of what I’m trying to capture for you. I see the process like a bell curve. At first we are blithely continuing on doing something harmful. Then there is information introduced that leads us to believe that what we are doing may not be all good and perfect. We resist the idea, we like the status quo, some early adopters start shifting away from harmful activity. Following this there is a less harmful activity offered, and it becomes more popular/accessible to do things the new way, but the new way is still causing harm. Eventually the information, the education and the innovation continue, and people are moved from doing lots of harm, to doing less harm, to doing no harm, to actually reversing the process and undoing harm (repairing cumulative damage from prior activity).

We saw this with the hole in the ozone layer. We were using CFCs and other chemicals that actually caused a depletion of high altitude ozone, which showed up most obviously at the South Pole. Through education about what was going on, we as a global community were able to see harm, see the cause of the harm, make changes to reduce the harm, eliminate the harm and even remedy the harm.

Or take smoking. 50 years ago in North America it was passed off as “sophisticated”, healthy, normal, fashionable, and social. Education about the effects of smoking has been difficult to absorb. People didn’t want to give up their sophistication, their habit, the social aspects of smoking, or their FREEDOM!!! Please someone get me a flag. Even the cigarette companies started “reducing harm” they added filters, bigger filters, reduced tar etc in an attempt to make their products less harmful or decrease the perception of their harm. (How could breathing a carcinogen be bad for me? I breathed it through a paper filter.) Now we have people quitting, and their lungs by wonderful design are actually recovering with the risk of nasty diseases cut by as much as half 1 year after quitting. (We aren’t out of the woods with smoking yet are we?)

Education, publication, and dissemination of information come first. These make qualitative judgements on our actions “smoking may cause cancer” -> “smoking causes cancer” -> “Second hand smoke hurts your children you horrible person”. Now Judgement is a loaded word so lets use the relatively neutral word “evaluation”. An evaluation of a course of action is that it is not beneficial. This is judgement or discernment, or discrimination in the classic sense, but in our North American culture where discriminating shoppers sound horrible and where judging someone’s actions sounds intolerant, we are better off with retaining the idea of evaluating something sans baggage. Nobody likes to have their actions evaluated, and find that the evaluation requires them to change how they are living. But Education and evaluation create an opportunity for change. They show us the door, walking through it is up to us. This education and evaluation is not enough to continue on this pattern of change for the better. There needs to be will as well.

By this point in your life, you are familiar with the resistance of people to change how they do things. Big industry didn’t develop a conscience, they were forced to pollute less by legislation. Very few smokers successfully quit the first time they hear about health risks. There are always explanations for why we don’t change including. It can’t be done, it is hard, it is costly, it is inconvenient, it would hurt the economy, the alternatives aren’t much better, I was born this way, this is my right, and I don’t want to.

Will is essential in making a change. Without will the opportunity to change is merely academic. An interesting theory to be tossed around at the dinner table and then forgotten. The will to improve must stand strong in the face of an entrenched status quo, and in the face of active resistance and even counter-information.

e.g. “The link between human activity and global warming has not been proven” says the senator from the United States who received the majority of his campaign contributions from oil companies… 

Where there is a will, there is a way.  This way can be made easier through innovation (legislation, technology breakthroughs, new mindsets).

Now wanting to do no harm, or receive no harm is worthy, but it takes something more to pull people beyond the point where they stop hurting themselves or their children.  There needs to be a real self-lessness, or a real love that takes place in order to move into the healing phase.  The accountants won’t push us there because they are terrified of the costs of doing more than is required.  The lawyers were satisfied the moment we stopped harming, and are terrified that our attempts to heal could go wrong and cost us dearly. Its the lovers who need to lead this charge.  The idealistic dreamers turned world changers who move beyond “hurting others less” to “not hurting others” to “healing others”.

Lets test out this pattern with a real life example that is bound to have some people plugging their ears and singing “lalala I can’t hear you”.

Our cars consume gasoline that is refined from non-renewable fossil fuels. They produce exhaust that is deadly poison. (If you were to fill a room with exhaust and breath it for a short period of time you would die.) It is a scientific fact that there are a finite number of years of fossil fuels left on earth (http://www.energybulletin.net/659.html), and only a fraction of those fuels can be extracted at reasonable expense. So essentially by driving a gasoline powered car, I’m ensuring that humans consume what little fossil fuels the earth has left. Now the ideal state would be that my vehicle is powered by something plentiful (water) and produces no pollution (clean air). Then I could drive my car with impunity knowing I’m doing no harm (in terms of fuel consumption and air pollution). However, GM, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chrysler, Mazda and others have not started selling cars that don’t consume fossil fuels or pollute the air. So today at reasonable cost I can’t have the perfect car.

My desire to leap to “perfect” is what makes this change impossible. Were I willing to purchase a car that gets gas mileage / kilometerage? that was twice as good, I could effectively cut my pollution in half, and effectively cut in half my consumption of fossil fuels. Were I able to commute to work with 2 other people, I would effectively cut the pollution from my driving by 2/3 for the days we carpooled. Were I to do both, I could cut my pollution to 1/6 of previous levels. That is a hugely significant change.

Sometimes what blinds us to the possibility of improvement is our insistence on having our cake and eating it too. People think of the 2 weeks a year they spend on summer vacation and insist on purchasing an SUV with lots of “cargo capacity”, which they proceed to drive to work the other 50 weeks a year. (effectively a big empty metal balloon). There is an un-willingness to “sacrifice” (drive an efficient subcompact car), so the improvement in gas mileage becomes negative. I don’t want to carpool with people as that would put constraints on my “lifestyle”, versus I can carpool 1 day per week.  We tell ourselves stories, that are eerily similar to the stories the marketeers tell us, to justify our reluctance to improve and change.

I see incremental change as the best hope of reaching an ideal state. It is slower in terms of total change, but it is easier in terms of disruption, it is easier in terms of economics (consumer and producer).  It is easier in terms of social change and behavioural improvement.  It is far easier to plan a trip to the neighbours than it is to plan a trip to Grandma’s house, but if the neighbour’s house is on the way to Grandma’s house, then the journey in the right direction has already begun.

Do you see places where this pattern of better versus perfect emerges?

Are Banks and Credit Card companies acting in "Bad Faith"?

In business, the people you work with are expected to act in "good faith". To watch your back so to speak. If you sign a deal with another company, they are expected to treat you fairly and vice versa. Contracts are there to keep things clear and defined. However... As human nature seems prone to do, these good intentions get twisted, and in the end we have contracts designed to baffle, deceive and ensnare. And we have conscienceless corporations who care nothing for you or your family, but simply want your money. (for the shareholders of course).

In my experience, most banking and credit card contracts are difficult to read, understand and evaluate. Terms are decidedly one-sided favouring the banks, and in many cases the banks represent their products (debt) as bringing freedom when really the debt in so many cases serves to ensnare and really enslave their customers to pouring their money back into these corporations.

I received a notice from a local bank that they had selected me (I had a mailing address and was not deceased) to be approved for a $5000 line of credit. The bank was nearby and I believe in giving my business to local companies (all things being equal) so I phone the number to learn more. It sounded good, until Iasked what the annual rate of interest was. 18.5% (prime was about 5%). So everything was fineas long as you didn't notice that the $5000debt would cost you $925 per year to service. I chastised the lady (who seemed to think this was a great deal) for trying to promote a really really bad deal that would hurt people financially. This same institution would give a loan to you at a much lower rate if you simply walked in the door, but here they were "fishing" (not phishing) for suckers who would take advantage of their "special offer" and expose themselves to debt.

Another example of this, is the almost monthly letters I receive from credit card companies offering me a low rate of interest for 3-6 months (4% etc) in BIG BOLD LETTERS after which the rate jumps up to 18.5% in tiny little *starred comments or something similar. So they try to reel someone in with the bait and then they switch what the person is eager to buy with something that will not work int he customers best interests. Take my advice, shred these when they arrive. (they contain your name, address, and may disclose that you have a relationship with the credit card company, worse, they may contain an account number or other such information the credit card company isn't concerned about protecting for you.)

Another example is on of my existing credit card companies from the Americas... Every couple months they send me some "credit card cheques" that I can "use like CASH". What they don't say very loudly is that the interest on these cheques starts accumulating the day they are used, not 30 days later when your statement is due, so if you were to purchase a $1000 piece of furniture on July 1, and you get your statement on July 30 and you see your statement isn't due until Aug 15, and you pay it on time, approximately 1.5 months have passed since you used your "credit card cheque" so $1000 * the annual interest rate, divided by the fraction of the year that has gone by... If you had an 18.5% card (since that number has already been made popular in this article). You would be paying (18.5%/8)*1000 = $23.1. I want to point out that this is $23.1 dollars for paying your credit card bill ON TIME. All because you used the stupid cheques that they sent you. Take my advice, shred them when they arrive. (they contain your name, address, they disclose that you have a relationship with the credit card company, and much worse, they contain an account number which means youwill be charged is someone picks them out of the garbage and uses them

(Did I mention that the credit card company isn't concerned about protecting for you or your privacy despite the glossy brochures?)

The credit card companies and banks are NOT your friends, they AREN'T doing you any favours, if they can't make money from you they aren't interested in you, and will dump you (Bizsmart offered free business chequing, and was recently discontinued.  Many suspect it was a customer fishing expedition that did not end up with a significant portion of its customer base using their "lines of credit", so the profits were lower than expected.)

Know your vocabulary. DEBT is money you owe. INTEREST is debt you incur on money you owe. Credit is when you are offered debt. ALINE OF CREDIT is an ongoing offer of debt.

How to survive.

• Pay your credit cards off (the full amount owing not the minimum) before the due date.


• Don't use credit card cheques.


• Be suspicious of any offer, confirm the terms, rates of interest, length of offer, penalties etc etc.


• Ask yourself... "How are they making money from this?"


• Ask yourself... "Where else could I find a similar offer?"


• Think of debt as days working for the bank or credit card company... If you owe them $150, then you are spending 2 days working for them. (yes 2 not 1. You pay your debts out of after tax dollars...)

What are your experiences with how banks and credit card companies treate you?  

< re-posted from my older blog at www.greentreesoftware.ca/environmental >

Free long distance telephone calls

I don’t like being taken advantage of. When I pay $0.10 cents a minute for a long distance call and my friends tell me that they only pay $0.035 per minute I recognize that their phone company still makes a profit and that my phone company is extracting a $0.065 stupidity tax from me for sticking with their dumb prices. For years there have been programs to let you talk from computer to computer, but it required 2 people being at their computers at the same time, running special software… well that doesn’t sound as convenient as the phone, and who wants to leave their computer running all the time?

Skype and Jajah let you make long distance calls for free or low cost.

My friend Dan King introduced me to SKYPE. He had friends in the UK and wanted to call them from Canada but without the ridiculous long distance charges the local phone company would charge. The critical difference with Skype was a service they offer which allows you to make calls to conventional phones. It is called SkypeOut, and it costs about $0.03 cents CAD per minute. Definately a better price than the one offered by local phone companies.

The Skype website says:

“Skype is a little piece of software that lets you talk over the Internet to anyone in the world for free.”

SkypeIn is a phone number your friends can call. You answer in Skype.

Use SkypeOut to call from Skype to traditional landlines or mobiles.

Clearcut Housing Development

Here in British Columbia’s lower mainland, many people take the greenery for granted.  The trees seem to grow faster here than they do in other parts of the country (like Manitoba where the growing season is much shorter).

Here there are a number of constraints on the development of new houses, so new houses often displace mature stands of trees.  …we can infer that the lots for which there was a higher demand fetched a higher price for both developer and builder.  …There are plenty of reasons why a property with trees is prefereable over a lot with no trees. …

Here in British Columbia’s lower mainland, many people take the greenery for granted.  The trees seem to grow faster here than they do in other parts of the country (like Manitoba where the growing season is much shorter).

Here there are a number of constraints on the development of new houses.  We have an international border with the United States (which we can’t move to make more room for houses), We have the ocean (which isn’t moving any time soon), we have the Coastal mountains, which are quite steep and difficult places to build houses, and we have something called the Agricultural Land Reserve ALR which is a set of laws designed to protect farmland and stop ‘urban sprawl’ (Otherwise we would have a city 120 KM long and 25 km wide).

Forest land is almost guaranteed to not be a part of the ALR, so new houses often displace mature stands of trees.  For the developer it is a way to quickly regain some of the money he has spent on the land by selling the logs.  It also clears the land so there are few restrictions on where the house can stand.  Since today’s developers seem intent on subdividing land as greedily as possible (to fit as many dwellings as possible on the smallest possible piece of land, they don’t want to leave 20ft here for a row of trees, since they could squeeze another property in that space.  It would seem that the developers can’t be self-policing since they are guided by greed in squeezing the most profit out of a piece of land.  So it would fall to the cities and municipalities to ensure that the land being developed is “livable” and protected.  Despite the fact that taxes revenues rarely exceed development and maintenance costs within a city, many beureaucrats are still drawn by the allure of tax dollars.  Trees don’t pay tax dollars, but the small dwelling squeezed onto a property does pay taxes, so the trees are at a significant disadvantage.  For example Surrey British Columbia calls itself the “City of parks”, I think it should be called the “City of clearcuts”

On my way to work over the last few months, there was some land developed offering 8 lots, 3 of which were treed.  I noticed that  the treed lots sold first, I also noticed that the builders who then built houses on the treed lots, sold their houses first, it would appear that there was a higher demand for those lots which were treed, and according to common economic theory we can infer that the lots for which there was a higher demand fetched a higher price for both developer and builder.  If the value of the land was higher we would also expect that the City could realize higher taxes for the treed properties.  So we would expect that with a financial incentive to have a treed lot, that developers and cities would be pushing for more treed lots, but they aren’t.  If financial incentive isn’t enough to convince builders and developers to be self-regulating, then the incentive to preserve trees must lie in legislation and regulation that will force developers and builders to do what they would otherwise neglect.  The case for such regulation is compelling albeit mostly non-financial.

There are plenty of reasons why a property with trees is prefereable over a lot with no trees. Here are some:
1. Beauty.  The first reason is beauty.  Instead of seeing the neighbour’s oversized shed, or that freeway onramp, you see a beautiful tree that glows with the light of the sun, changes colours in the fall, fills with blossoms in the spring and displays icicles and horfrost in the winter.  Green leaves waving in the breeze help make your property a peaceful sanctuary from the rush of everyday life, while effectively hiding eyesores on ajoining properties.
2.Soil retention.  The roots of trees grip the soil and in hilly terrain can make the difference between a useable backyard, and having your house slide down the hill into your neighbour’s backyard.  Considering the cost of retaining walls, labour and proper drainage, retaining trees is a bargain.
3. Summer cooling.  A canopy of leaves can provide the indoor and outdoor space on your property with protection from the sun.  This translates to a roof that lasts longer (less thermal abuse), a yard and deck that are more enjoyable in summer, and reduced cooling costs in your house.  Conveniently enough,for deciduous trees, in the winter, those leaves disappear allowing in more sun during the darker dreary days of winter, which helps with heating your home.
4. Air quality.  Trees do a fantastic job of absorbing CO2 from the air and replacing it with Oxygen, which makes for cleaner more healthy air.  They even act as natural deodorizers making the air smell fresher, all of which is important in urban areas where there is a disproportionately high amount of CO2 and pollution.
5. Wildlife Habitat.  With very little use of space on the ground, trees provide a significant amount of habitat for birds and other small wildlife.   At our house (where we are privileged to back on a small forested park) we are constantly serenaded by pretty songbirds, something which happened much less in houses that were developed in areas without such concentrations of trees.

So this is my pitch to encourage you to buy a property with trees, to plant trees if you don’t already have them on your property.  To prefer buying a treed property if you are a builder, to not clearcut a development if you are a developer, and to not allow clearcut development in your city or municipality if you are in such a  position of civic oversight.  Thanks for reading, I welcome your comments.

Beetle Plague in British Columbia

3 000 square kilometers of forest in British Columbia have been infested with the pine beetle since 1997.

there is little discussion about why this is happening, only an accelerated logging program for the dead trees.  No emphasis on prevention, and the strange media announcement that the beetle infested wood is desirable.  Weird.  Sounds like ostriches with their heads in the sand if you ask me.  300,000 hectares of trees killed, and we aren’t asking why?

corporate denial? Government obliviousness (new word?)  sounds like a plague, and if I know my history, plagues were always sent as warnings, and people experiencing plagues stopped what they were doing and tried to figure out how they could mend their ways.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/

Fair Trade: The Bane of Slavery

Guest writers: Robert and Kim Daisley

Chocolate: the new nectar of the gods; the perfect pleasure; the sweet seductress. Oh, and it supports a multinational trade in slaves. Of course, I didn’t know this when I was gulping down Mars bars to stay awake on night shifts. Well, I mean, I knew that chocolate tasted good even though I may not yet at that point have made up the lame metaphors regarding that great taste and the hold that chocolate has on our society, but I didn’t know about the slaves. I was listening to CBC’s As It Happens and heard Carol Off promoting her new book Bitter Chocolate. She described the atrocious working conditions of many of the people who were involved in the production of the cocoa beans that are used in (and crucial to) the production of chocolate. She told how the beans can only be grown in certain parts of the world near the equator and how Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is one of the main cocoa-producing countries. Off also described how the conditions in the cocoa industry (spearheaded by multi-national conglomerates such as Nestle) result in slavery.

When I called my wife and asked her to tune in to the program, she did, and found it very interesting. It also prompted a frenzy of research on the internet, covering websites from environmental, social justice, and capitalist (read “Nestle”) organisations. Of course, the information available conflicts in many ways, but after some analysis and discussion, we decided that the evidence weighed firmly in favour of supporting fair trade chocolate. Without rehashing all of the arguments for and against (google if you want to read them), the main reason that we decided to support fair trade was that we don’t agree with the concept of a multinational corporation dictating the “market forces” because of their near-monopoly power, the result being that the people who actually produce the goods live in poverty.

[caption id="attachment_359" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="When you eat Fair Trade Chocolate you are saving the world"][/caption]

So we decided that we’d try to purchase only fair trade chocolate. It’s not always easy, it’s not always fun, and it’s not always possible. But we try and I guess in some small ways, we’re making a difference. For the most part, we get our fair trade products in Brandon. But since we learned about fair trade chocolate, we also learned about other fair trade products including coffee which can be purchased at our local grocery stores. Kicking Horse coffee (including the “Kick Ass” blend) tastes good and feels great.

It’s not all roses. Sure, we feel better about our purchasing decisions, but it can be hard on the pocket book. The coffee costs $12 on sale and last two weeks. But you can buy coffee for half the price in a quantity that will last four times as long. So when you look just at the economic cost at the checkout counter, it’s a big difference. And when we bought the fair trade chocolate bars, Kim noticed that they don’t taste the same and wasn’t actually too impressed with the difference in flavour.

Our bottom line, however, is that we remain firmly committed to fair trade products, as long as it doesn’t cost us too much (for the moment, we’ve drawn the line at those fancy fair trade, organic cotton shirts that sell for $30 instead of $5).

Why the government shouldn’t gamble.

I don't believe that gambling is harmless entertainment. I continue to hear stories of how it hurts people with addictive personalities. How it hurts the companies they embezel from.  How it hurts the families that are neglected while they gamble, both emotionally and financially.

Gambling  hurts the businesses that otherwise would have created value by creating something. If a tourist spends money on gambling, that money is not available for souveniers / hotel / dinner etc. We are a debt ridden society and need to encourage financial responsibility and self control not irresponsibility. Gambling is a tax on those who can’t do math well. The poor and the uneducated are its most common prey. The government has a fiduciary duty to protect those most at risk. Gambling is an unproductive activity, which entices many to throw away the money they have to chase an unlikely dream rather than working or investing what they have.

Despite the promises of economic growth, it is my understanding that increased gambling in an area typically results only in low end jobs increased crime and reduced property value.  All of  this is at a huge economic cost of government subsidies. People work hard for their taxes, their taxes should not support such an industry. Many of the arguments used to justify the gambling industry are also used to justify the pornography industry. Those are my immediate thoughts and I hope to study the issue in more detail so I can speak less from my feelings and more from my head (I do trust my gut on this one...). 

 

Here is a letter that appeared in the Abbotsford News.

“this is in regards to the article “Langley’s new caasino coming up aces” (The News, Aug. 1) Economics 101: taking $90 million out of a community and handing back $4 million is not sustainable in the long run. This means people in the langley area contributed $90 million to a single business with a percentage going to municpal, provincial and federal coffers. The amount given back to individuals as “winnings” are other people’s “losings” and are nominal, usually spent back to the house. Research confirms that the first three or four years of a casino will be a honeymoon period. National and international studies show decreases in crime, improvement in local economies, and upgrading of unattractive areas to be short-term as addictions take time to take hold and personal / family resources take time to deplete. It is the long-term effects which are so sobering. A study by Laval University on Quebec’s Hull Casino showed that after on year of the casino opening, the proportion of local residents who gambled increased from 13.8 per cent to 60.4 per cent. The at-risk gamblers more than doubled, from 3.3 per cent to 7.8 percent, like many other studies showing availability and marketing increases addiction levels. The very purpose of marketing is to attract clientele and reveals the slogan of “people would gamble anyway” as the ruse of a profit hungry gambling industry. Like smoking, decreasing availability and advertising while increasing education on the dangers decreases addiction. The gambling industry is only profitable because it does not cover its true costs of operation. It produces addicts and smillingly hands back a minute amount of the local money, leaving communities to pay for the estimated $10,500 to $19,000 costs per year, per addict. While the province earned a net $818.0 million in 2004-2005 from gambling revenues, social costs are estimated (at their lowest) at almost $1.3 billion. So family and children ministries suffer, while the government robs Peter to pay Paul and spins the numbers to look good. As for organized-crime involvement in legalized gambling, I suggest the reporter do some research on RCMP studies on the subject. It only takes a moment to search and I grieve over the lack of investigative reporting that results in gambling industry advertising being presented as facts. I challenge “Black Press” to say “This approach is far better” a few years from now to the families of those who watched their loved ones slip away.

Since the letter was written, we've had a similar push for a casino here in Abbotsford; or uh, sorry its not called that by enlightened people, its called a "community gaming centre".  There is more thoughtful commentary to share on this topic, but that will have to wait.  let me be absolutely clear.  I'm saying government shouldn't be actively profiting from it gambling. 

How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You’re Looking At It.

Over at FastCompany.com Charles Fishman wrote an insightful article about Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs and their growing acceptance. 

"For years, compact fluorescent bulbs have promised dramatic energy savings–yet they remain a mere curiosity. That’s about to change... For two decades, CFLs lacked precisely what we expect from lightbulbs: strong, unwavering light; quiet; not to mention shapes that actually fit in the places we use bulbs. Now every one of those problems has been conquered. The bulbs come on quickly; their light is bright, white, steady, and silent; and the old U-shaped tubes–they looked like bulbs from a World War II submarine–have mostly been replaced by the swirl. Since 1985, CFLs have changed as much as cell phones and portable music players."

Personally we have put CFLs in our house in all the places where they make sense, and it feels good to be getting decent light for less money.  It even makes us feel better about leaving the lights on for safety or comfort without feeling like we're being (as) wasteful.  So head on over and read about Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs .

Change the world 1 letter at a time

how to write letters that will influence people for improving the world.

On my computer’s file system and in my email program I’ve got a folder labeled “change the world” it reflects my attempts over the years to write letters to literally change the world for the better. My letters are not canned, they aren’t cut and pasted from some form on the Internet, they are “hand crafted” At times I’ve written them quite regularly at the pace of 1 per week, at other times I’ve forgotten this for months and years at a time. But I keep coming back to this because I’m convinced of a few things: I have a moral or ethical obligation to speak out when I see something that is wrong. That those who will recieve my letters actually care and will do their best to address my concerns. If everybody did this, the companies and governments receiving our mail would be overwhelmed, but folks tend not to exert effort they don’t have to, so my letters will by the nature of that fact, stand out and be noticed. I have no illusions about people “having to listen” to me, but I believe that people want to do the right thing and that when they are presented with an attainable way to improve things they will. I also know that many organizations operate reactively, and that by simply requesting something, the chances of receiving it increase dramatically.

I’ve written to city and provincial governments like Surrey and British Columbia to request improvements to the dangerous 160th and 104th street freeway interchange. Quite happily I see that every recommendation I made has been implemented and improved the traffic flow for the thousands of people who use that interchange each day.

I’ve written to the SOLO cup company to encourage them to “print” the appropriate recycling symbols on the bottom of their cups so that customers can recycle these plastic cups rather than throwing them in the garbage.

My tips:

Greet Well

Don’t use “to whom it may concern” how impersonal. Be cautions with “Dear ….” If it is a stranger, would you call them “Dear” if you met them on the street. If you have the suspicion that your correspondence will simply get a “standard” reply “Dear you, thanks for your letter, we have noted your concern. Keep using our products..The company” from a person who is powerless to provide a real response., then ask for more. Ask them to forward your letter to someone who has the authority to make changes, appologize for wasting their time if you have sent it to the wrong department etc. Let them be the expert in routing your letter.

Be Nice

The person reading your letter wasn’t the one who spilled oil in the ocean, or who designed a poor road. Recognize that and express yourself without beating up the reader. Avoid “YOU” and other more colourful words that would cause the reader to be defensive or resistant to your message.

ASK

Ask and you will recieve works when you are talking to God. The government and companies fall short, so Ask and you “might” receive fits here. Bear in mind the action you want them to take. Ask for a reassurance that they will discontinue using child labour in India. Ask for the name of the most appropriate person to talk to regarding unsafe driving in their corporate fleet. Ask what their plans are to improve fuel efficiency in support of the Kyoto accord. If you ask for nothing, you are likely to get that.

Provide and sell Solutions

Complaining is easy and almost everyone is willing to go that far. What stands out is the simple suggestion, and even more a suggestion that is simple, cost effective, which brings a benefit to the organization you are addressing. For a government to hear that your idea will reduce their exposure to legal liability this provides motivation. Put yourself in their shoes and sweeten the deal. Perhaps the improvment will allow them to make a marketting claim, or will improve their corporate image.

Apply Gentle Pressure

For a company to hear that you are uncomfortable continuing to buy their products if an idea isn’t implemented but that if it is, you will continue to recommend their products provides them with free marketting and the prospect of alienating not only you, but all the other people who didn’t write in who feel the same way. Don’t set ultimatums, but provide a clear concept of what the impact of their decision will be. “If you are unable to support the reduction of Canada’s emission of greenhouse gasses, I and my family will need to find a political candidate who has an environmentally responsible platform”

Have Hope

If you take an action, you set things in motion, in your life and in the lives of those who intercept your communication. Your letter will be read by someone, you caused the mail system or email system to carry your message hundreds of miles, you forced someone’s mind to come to a decision about the issue at hand. Your goal is to motivate, and sometimes it will take the collective weight of many individuals writing letters to communicate what is important to you and to assist those you address in coming to a better position. Your time spent in this way has the potential to benefit countless thousands of others. (consider my freeway example earlier).

Enjoy! And please write back to share what you are writing about, and any successes you can report.

Greg.