In the digital world, most everyone keeps their eye out for what will be the “next big thing.” Usually it’s a technology, either hardware or software. Lately Google’s been hitting it hard and heavy on the forecasted next big thing stage, Google Wave and Droid.
But I’ve been thinking lately that the next big thing in the online world might be a movement, rather than a technology. And that movement I have in mind is “slacktivism.”
What’s slacktivism? The word itself is a portmanteau of “slacker” and “activism.” Thus, the meaning becomes clear. For further edification, let’s take a definition from the UrbanDictionary.com. They define slacktivism as:
One of those feel-good internet campaigns that doesn’t actually help anybody or has political impact. It’s your way of pretending to care while sitting on your butt in front of a computer playing WoW. Also used for people who want to get a million people on their page by before bettering themselves (sic) or the world instead of just doing it.
Other than the grammar or typo error there in the last sentence, the UrbanDictionary.com is clearly saying that slacktivism is something like what we could call “armchair activism.” It’s being an “activist” without actually being one, although you could still wear the black tee shirt and/or beret while sitting at your computer.
Slacktivism is a way for people to make themselves feel like they are advocating for a social cause, while actually committing little or no time or money to the effort. It’s, for the most part, a feel-good activity. Not only does slacktivism make individuals feel good about themselves when they sign up to be a friend, fan, or follower on the page of a cause’s website or social network or Twitter page, but the act of slacktivism impresses others with the individual’s “social awareness.” That impression, of which the individual is aware, further adds to the individual’s ego gratification.
I don’t think we need any social psychology references to support these assertions. It’s all pretty much backed by common sense acquired from our years of experience with the human condition. So, given the ease of slacktivism as measured against its psychological benefits, it would follow that many people would sign-up online for an activist’s cause, and not really add much to the activist effort in the process. To test my theory, let’s have an example.
On Tuesday, January 19, 2010 which is the day on which I wrote this post (Yes, I know it’s dated January 28th, but thanks to the magic of the Word Press scheduling function such miracles are possible.), I went to the Greenpeace.org/usa site and clicked on the link to their Facebook fan page. When I went to their Facebook fan page, I noticed that, on that date, Greenpeace USA had 41,728 fans. I wanted to see how “active” these individuals might be, so to test my slacktivism theory, I scrolled down to the Greenpeace USA “Causes” box and clicked on “See Greenpeace USA’s Total Impact.”
For
Continue reading Could Slacktivism Be the Next Big Thing?
This is the first post in my newly created Ideas category.
This category will contain very brief posts addressing random insights that occur to me, well, randomly. I’m jotting them down here because this is a web log, after all. And I’d like to keep track of them for possible incorporation into a future book or article. I’m also posting them here to invite feedback, which would also assist me in putting together future books and articles.
Today’s idea is job programs.
Finally, there is a major jobs program being created in Washington, DC.
After last Tuesday’s (1/19/2010) Massachusetts special election, which changed the political dynamic in the nation’s capital and effectively derailed the health care reform initiative that polls had been telling Washington for months they were ramming through despite the electorate’s wishes, the Democrats finally realized that they were at odds with the people’s desires.
The majority party is now turning, in a deliberately obvious fashion, toward other “issues of concern,” such as the economy and jobs. Yesterday, Mr. Obama announced new, proposed banking regulations and frightened the financial markets. This strategic turn, which is more politically-based than economically-based and (this next clause was added after the market close on Friday, 1/22/10) looks to be nothing more than a temper tantrum from a guy who never even ran a lemonade stand, was made at this point in time in an effort to take the public’s attention off the health care reform failure. Today, he doubles down on this new “hissy-fit” strategy and goes to Ohio to give a speech about jobs. All done, I believe, in an effort to convince the electorate that the majority party is addressing the people’s main concerns, jobs and the economy. Duh. It took them this long to figure this out? (For now, let’s put aside the fact that Mr. Obama’s proposed banking changes would actually do more to hurt the economy than help it.)
Yes, these strategic shifts are the leading elements of a new government jobs program.
But this program’s primary intent is not necessarily to generate jobs for the general public. The primary intent of this new program, this strategic shift, is to allow the majority party members to keep their jobs after the November 2010 mid-term election.
After last Tuesday’s election, the majority party knew that if they continued on the course of ramming health care reform through, against the trend revealed by just about every poll taken on the subject and definitely against the results of the Massachusetts special election, then most of them would be packing their desks come November and hitting the unemployment lines with their constituents.
So, yes. They are now turning to a jobs program. It’s just not the kind that you think it is.
The question is, will people see his proposals as an effort to help the economy? And if they misguidedly do, will that save the jobs of the dweebs in Washington? Or will the people recognize it for what it is? A poorly conceived notion. A notion which will actually damage
Continue reading There Is Only One Jobs Program Going On Now
Does the Greenpeace CEO make more than the Exxon Mobil CEO?
Well, yes and no. In terms of absolute dollars, no. Not even close. But, in terms of a percentage of their respective organization’s revenue, yes. More. Very much more.
In terms of compensation as a percentage of revenue, the Greenpeace CEO pulls in considerably more than does his counterpart at Exxon Mobil.
Recently I performed research addressing this issue. The reason I performed this research was due to activist’s and NGO’s frequent claims that CEOs of multinational corporations (MNCs) take as compensation an unfair proportion of their companies’ overall revenue. After recently hearing this claim again, perhaps for about the 500th time, I wondered, “Who actually makes more in terms of percentage of revenue? Huge multinationals? Or NGOs?” I decided to do some digging, create a comparison, and take a look.
Methodology
Now, to address this question, what I decided to do was just take a “quick and dirty” look. I just wanted to test my theory with some trial research. Therefore, at the outset my intention was not to do an exhaustive study by including a large number of NGOs and MNCs in a representative and statistically controlled sample. When I began this research I decided that I would save that exhaustive study for another occasion should my theory be supported by the results of this “thumbnail” research project.
To commence my pilot research project, I simply selected, very much at random, one NGO and one multinational. The first two of each that came to mind were Greenpeace and Exxon Mobil. These two organizations are often at odds with each other and both are frequently in the news, making them top of mind.
To identify the revenues of Greenpeace I went to Guidestar.org. Guidestar is an organization which aggregates information about non-profit corporations. At their site, you may search for your non-profit of interest and find information you desire, much of it a no charge. One of the pieces of information stored by Guidestar is a non-profit’s US IRS Form 990.
The IRS Form 990 is a document that must be filed by all tax-exempt non-profit organizations operating within the United States. This document is much like a tax return and contains some information similar to what you would find in a for-profit corporation’s annual report or 10K filing. Among the information shown in a Form 990 is annual revenues and executive compensation. On the Guidestar site, I located Greenpeace’s Forms 990.
To obtain the revenue and executive compensation information for Exxon Mobil, I journeyed to SEC.gov, the site of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the United States. At that site, I accessed Exxon Mobil’s Schedule 14A Proxy Statement which contained summary compensation figures for Exxon Mobil executives for the years 2006 – 2008. Also available on that site was the Exxon Mobil 10K, containing the annual revenue figures that I sought. Additional information on Exxon Mobil’s revenue was obtained from their 2008 Annual Report available at Continue reading Greenpeace CEO Makes "More" Than Exxon CEO?
From much of my reading, I can see that the power of the NGO (non-governmental organization) is increasing. With regard to how that power affects business, my research shows that over the past decade NGO-influenced corporations are now becoming the norm rather than the exception. And from the projections I’ve read, it appears that that influence will only become greater over the next decade.
To go along to get along with this trend, multi-national corporations (MNCs) are moving, seemingly together as if in lock step, to establish corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs in order to meet the demands and expectations of NGOs, whether it be on environmental, social, labor, or cultural issues. And to help them craft their CSRs, MNCs now regularly collaborate with NGOs, bringing NGOs to the table as trusted advisors and de facto consultants. And when MNCs do this, which is increasingly often, they seem to do it with a “mea culpa” attitude.
Mea culpa attitudes belong only on the truly guilty. MNCs don’t give themselves enough credit. They suffer from a poor self-image. Paraphrasing Jessica Rabbit, “MNCs aren’t ‘bad.’ They’re just drawn that way.” Their “We’re so guilty” attitude is unjustified. MNCs should not sit themselves in a corner.
Yes, it’s true that MNCs are guilty of doing some “bad” things. Aren’t you? MNCs are operated by humans. Imperfect humans who make mistakes. But I fear their mea culpa is overdone because most, if not all, MNCs indeed do more “good” than “bad.” One doesn’t need to perform extensive quantitative analysis to realize this.
If the MNCs were not doing more good than bad, then such behavior would be obvious to the marketplace, which is not stupid contrary to the belief of many activists. The marketplace is not stupid. We can use the activist’s own thought process to address this issue. Ask any activist how “stupid” the marketplace was in electing Barack Obama to the White House and the majority response will prove this point. So, if the “bad acts” of any MNC outweighed the “good acts” performed to support the economy and society, then the marketplace would know that; the people would “vote” with their dollars, numbering the days of any wayward MNC.
Given this automatic economic voting mechanism, where “election day” for the MNC is every day, is the current and projected level of NGO influence upon MNCs really justified? Which party receives more legitimization?
Yes, MNCs make mistakes. I accentuated the obvious above. MNCs are operated by humans. But so are NGOs. NGOs are run by humans, imperfect humans. NGOs, as well-intentioned as most probably are, are not exempt from making mistakes, and performing “bad acts,” whether by accident, or by intention, or by just plain ignorance. But how is the influence of these imperfect organizations counter-balanced? Unlike MNCs, NGOs are not subject to the same automatic regulatory mechanism of the “vote.” NGOs are not subject to the same daily “election day” as are the MNCs. The motivations and the acts of the NGO are not examined and
Continue reading The Marketplace Is Not Stupid
Today I came across an interesting idea in World Out of Balance by Paul Laudicina. Yes, I’ve mentioned this book before. It’s been a while since last mentioned and that’s because I’m reading it slowly. This one I read while I Nordic Track in the morning, so I might do only about ten pages at a time, and some days I listen to the radio while working out. So progress in this book is slower than normal. But my reading strategy on this book is not because it is not interesting. Quite the contrary. Here’s one intriguing thought that came from my reading of this book.
From pages 148 to 149 Paul presents an interesting concept: that there will be an increase in activism because of the Baby Boom. He doesn’t say it in quite this way, but he does say that because of the aging of the U.S. population that there will be a decrease in the number of employees working for the American government. Paul hypothesizes, from the perspective of the publication year of 2005, that these retiring employees would likely not be replaced at a rate that would equal the attrition. The reason he gives is that government employment is not as attractive as that in the private sector, and that because of this handicap the attrition rate may exceed the replacement rate.
Of course, that viewpoint was from 2005, before the stuff hit the fan in Fall 2008. Currently, with government being one of the few employment sectors that is expanding its hiring, Paul’s theory may not be entirely sound. Yet, analyzing from a current perspective, there are valid take-aways that may be had from this line of reasoning. Paul’s theory relates to the quantity of government workers, but he says little to nothing about the quality. Having worked for the federal government at one time, I could say something about the quality of federal workers. But that’s material for a different post. For now, let’s extend Paul’s thinking into present circumstances.
Because the aging U.S. population will cause more and more employees to retire from the ranks of federal employment, there will be progressively fewer experienced workers to carry out the regulatory mandates set down by the feds. Right now, because of government’s mania to hire more workers, the issue isn’t so much about the quantity as it is about the quality, i.e., the experience factor.
So, my point is that due to the Baby Boom the quality of federal regulatory enforcement may likely decrease because less experienced employees would need to takeover for those with decades of experience in regulatory matters. And if there are fewer experienced regulators, then businesses might be less likely to adhere to federal regulations than if the feds were fully staffed with experienced regulators.
How does this problem create more activism? Well, when activists see this situation, and believe me they won’t miss this, there would likely be an increase in their efforts. Activists and NGOs would increase their efforts to
Continue reading Will the Baby Boom Create More Activism?
WARNING: This is a tongue-in-cheek post. Please enjoy it in the facetious spirit in which is was intended.
While relaxing the other day, I was thinking about general activist and NGO strategies. Yes, sorry. Sometimes I think about business even when I’m relaxing. Here’s the thought that came to mind after two shiraz.
Often activist or NGOs act at cross-purposes. For example:
A general objective of anti-consumerism groups is that they want people to consume less material goods so that reduced consumption has more positive effects on the environment. Less consumption, less production, less pollution, etc. Let’s not talk about the decreased economic development and a reduction in the standard of living. That’s a theme for a more serious post. Let’s just contrast this anti-consumerism objective against another popular advocacy group, consumerists.
Consumerist groups want, among other things, for credit card companies to cease “abusive” practices in terms of eliminating excessive interest rates and hidden fees. On this one, you don’t get a substantial argument from me, but again further discussion on this issue is better saved for a more serious post.
What I want to point out here today is if these two advocacy movements worked together they could reach mutually satisfactory goals. How?
Let’s say that consumerist groups left the credit card companies alone, leaving those companies to charge whatever the heck they liked, with excessive fees and hidden charges running rampant. What would happen then, if you follow basic economic theory, is that consumers would curtail their usage of credit cards. With less credit card usage, in the United States at least, there would likely be less consumption, giving the anti-consumerism folks a check mark in their victory column. QED.
But what would the consumerist folks get out of this? After all, if the consumerist folks dropped the credit card company haranguing, a major item on their overall activist agenda, then what would they do each day from 9 to 5? Would there suddenly be massive unemployment in the consumerist activist sector of the economy?
I don’t think so.
Such a strategic alliance between anti-consumerism advocates and consumerist advocates would also benefit the overall consumerist agenda. Consumerists aren’t solely about nailing credit card companies. Consumerists also seek to achieve better deals for consumers in all product and service areas. And the magic here, in this joint venture proposed, would be that consumers would get those better deals.
Now, of course those better deals wouldn’t be from the credit card companies. The consumerists are letting the credit card companies run around like lunatics just busted out of the asylum. Remember? No, those better deals for consumers would be offered from other companies where those credit cards would be used. Like retail stores.
Those better deals in stores, and other credit card accepting businesses, would be because of the decreased consumerism. Business would be flatlining. In the hope of covering costs and just breaking even, stores and other credit card accepting companies would offer out-of-this-world deals just to get customers in door.
Is this a crazy strategy?
Well, its success, of course,
Continue reading Activist Teamwork Scenario
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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