It all started with this question over lunch with my friend Jany one afternoon: Would I want to make a difference to individuals, at the grassroots level? Or at a much larger picture level where it impacts a lot more people? Examples are: Feeding the homeless every night vs improving public housing policy. Counselling individuals vs setting up an online counselling service. Coaching individual business owners vs developing courses for groups of business owners.
This tied in conveniently with this blog post which I drafted about a week before. The question at hand: Where do I want to make a difference?
The coalface consumption level
- Optimising the design and lifecycle of goods and services.
- Optimising resource and energy use during consumption.
- Changing how businesses sell and market.
- Reimgining brand and customer relationships.
The production systems level
- Designing and developing better products and services.
- Reimagining more sustainable, more humane business practices.
- Developing new manufacturing and distribution models.
- Helping to develop, educate and promote more sustainable materials and techniques.
- Helping to develop, educate and promote energy and resource efficiency.
The societal systems level
- Helping to develop and champion better public policies.
- Changing how brands are judged, perceived and valued.
- Changing how the media define business success.
- Supporting positive businesses and practices.
The ideology level
- Working to improve education in general.
- Working to enable self-awareness, EQ and self-actualisation.
- Working with think tanks to imagine new economic systems.
- Changing the way we think about business, success, and making money.
- Working to fight wilful and deliberate ignorance; the threats to scientific knowledge and modern civilisation.
