Share something that makes you excited. Talk about your passions, a story, your life, anything that you can call a part of you. I found out today how an honest conversation can quickly change the mood, especially when it means something to the person telling it. When people can see your passion, they’ll be a mirror to your happiness.
Photo Doow
Sorry about the lack of updates. Currently, I am studying and relaxing in Beijing, China. I will be taking a break from the online world until the end of August, where I’ll resume posting in September. Keep on doing good 
I could live without a TV, but I have one sitting in the same room that I am typing this blog. The $1000 I spent on that slick LCD TV could have immunized about 58 children from 6 major childhood diseases according to UNICEF. Is it wrong that I bought the TV? Peter Singer, a philosophy professor at Princeton, probably would say yes. He formulated that it was immoral to consume beyond a comfortable level when the same money could be used to save lives.
While it may be unrealistic to merely live at a comfortable level and to donate the rest to charity, in my opinion, it is insightful to contemplate the extremes of “being good.” It is complicated though since where does the extreme line start anyway? Does Warren Buffett qualify as being extreme? I could not imagine giving up $30 billion, even if that was “only” 60% of my net worth. He is still rich, but how much does that discount what he donated?
The internet has been criticized as killing person to person contact and making people out of touch with the world. However the internet is also an amazing way to connect people in different ways. Stories don’t stop at the local neighborhood meet up, an article in the newspaper, a radio show or even on national TV. Big or small, a story can be read by nearly anyone, anywhere. In addition, art, knowledge and passion can all be passed through the wires of the world wide web. Although people of power and prestige still create much of the culture of our world, the internet has allowed each person to pass something onto a stranger or even a million strangers. This mass exposure, this unraveling of distance is commonly called the democratization of media and it has touched me so greatly that I wish to contribute as I am doing here at SGB. With this in mind, I want to feature a few of my favorite sources of inspiration, interest, and awe that I have found online. I hope to have a few separate posts, focusing on different aspects of online media with this one starting the series by touching on a few favorite online videos. Below you will find videos I have collected over the years from all over the internet. Each touches on different things, but taught me something new.
See the videos after the jump:
The documentary The Corporation, with its discussions of ways corporations end up hurting society, aided in my move towards becoming more socially and environmentally aware. In it was a man I remember fondly and came across in the New York Times recently, Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, a carpet tile company. He spoke from the heart about discovering how destructive his company was to the environment and how he has steered his company to sustainability with a pledge to be completely sustainable by 2020. With $1.1 billion in annual sales or 38% of global market share, this is no small feat and is almost an experiment in our time of if the green of the environment and the green of profits can coexist. There have been a lot of gains by big business moving towards being more socially and environmentally friendly, however being completely sustainable, meaning having no net impact on the environment in every aspect, is far from what they are trying to achieve. So far Interface has been successful with their green approach, so much so that it spawned a consulting branch to help other companies switch to sustainable practices.To this end, Ray Anderson is onto something much bigger than growing the profits of his own company, he is showing corporate America what is possible with sustainability. Being green is quickly becoming the popular method to help a company, not just be good but also, do better business. Over time there has many methods that has changed business, everything from the Henry Ford’s assembly line to Japan’s quality philosophy. I see sustainable business as the next marker in history for business. A trend that makes sense economically and just so happens does the world some good.
Bringing this down a level, how can you make your office a little more green? Although the focus is usually on making your home green, it makes just as much sense to carry that into the workplace. If you can save your boss some money through making a green choice, then not only did you save the business some cash, but you just made yourself look better too. So follow Ray’s lead by going green at home and at the office and encourage companies you interact with, either professionally or as a consumer, to follow the (green) leader too. Even if someone does not care about the environment, they usually do care about the bottom line and so use that to your advantage… in a good way.
In the blogosphere there is a lot of content exchange; text, video and images, all are usually willingly shared, but not always. The new internet culture, filled with peer-to-peer sharing, viral videos and the general ease of passing (and changing) information has allowed increased awareness but also new concerns over the rights over digital products and information. So how do you manage being a part of the information age? What are the ways that you can contribute without stepping on anyone’s toes? In addition, how else can I add value to the online community other than by blogging? Here are the list of ways that I try to be a good blogger. Read the rest of this entry »
Nudge is such a complex word. An oxymoron almost by my definition. Officially though, what is a nudge?
nudge1
[nuhj] -nudged, nudg·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to push slightly or gently, esp. with the elbow, to get someone’s attention, prod someone into action, etc.
“Push slightly” but get “attention” and “action.” Nudging a heavy rock on a cliff is all it takes to get it to topple. I nudge a friend in the side and they will jerk, and maybe hit back! In essence, a nudge is a little action that makes a lot happen and that is the point of this great New York Times article(if it asks for login go here). It tells the story of a San Francisco hospital that instituted a rule that all beds must be propped up no matter what, unless under different doctors orders.
For more than a decade, it turns out, medical researchers have known that people on ventilators should generally have their heads elevated. When the patients are lying down, bacteria can easily travel from the stomach, up to the mouth and breathing tube, and ultimately into the lungs, causing pneumonia. When people are propped up, gravity becomes their ally.
But hospitals have had a hard time translating this scientific knowledge into better medical care. Patients frequently need to be put on their backs, to be bathed or to receive treatment, and once they are lying down, doctors and nurses — busy worrying about dozens of other things — don’t always remember to move the bed back up.
“When you have to rely on someone to do it, it’s not going to happen every time,” said Dr. Michael Gropper, the director of critical care medicine at UCSF Medical Center, the hospital I was visiting.
So Dr. Gropper made a new rule. Unless there was a written order from a doctor saying that a patient should be lying down, every patient on a ventilator had to be sitting up.
How much of an impact did this simple rule have?
[T]he incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia has fallen more than 40 percent since 2005. There are people walking around Northern California this morning who otherwise would not be alive.
Many times people know the right thing to do, but continue to do the wrong thing since that is the status quo. Although changing behavior may seem like a lot of work, many times just inputting a small rule, a “nudge”, is enough, making the default action always or mostly right. The article mentions another example, buying smaller portions, as a way to counter act our extra-large culture and applies the “nudge rule” to various other problems.
A small decision can make a huge difference, in the case of the hospital it saved lives. Are there any areas of your life where you can add a nudge and get big results?
Source LifeHacker
Photo Ypsilanti
Definition Dictionary.com
Gas Works Park became a comforting home to me while attending the University of Washington. Named for the former occupant, the real draw is the waterfront view, willingly shared to anyone who steps onto its grassy grounds. With each visit, I seem to gleam a new insight. Some way or another, the park taps into my heart and mind, giving me wisdom through inexplicable and intangible osmosis. Through this, one sunny day at that park turned me onto a journey to become more aware of our world and to want to create change. I saw the gorgeous city of Seattle surrounded by nature`s hills and water, a beautiful amalgamation, brought together seamlessly as if the land had willingly allowed the city inside its doors. The more I looked over the site, the more I realized that people, human beings, with their two fragile hands, created the great city. The power we have to build great towers, expansive streets, shops and residences, not only amazed me but also frightened me. The metropolis, intertwining with the land and water, spoke encouragingly and cautiously: I could do something great with my life, but I could also do nothing and, at worst, I could create much harm. My two hands, no different than others, could build anything. In my case, I wanted not a city but a better world.
That day my heart became compassionately consumed with the thought that we all have a real responsibility to our planet and who we share it with. The choices and actions of one does not build a city alone, neither does it destroy the land one hopes to build it on. However, each person who chooses to lay a brick sets a foundation for the next man, woman or child to stand on. I asked myself if I wanted to build something great, to allow others to reach higher than myself or if I was going to hope for someone else to do it. I made a choice that day and I am trying to live up to it.
I love that park, it has comforted me each time I have gone and helped me clear my thoughts and opened up new roads in my mind. Although Gasworks Park may not be the impetus to anyone else`s actions, many have a place, person or thing that inspires them most and I encourage you to find what inspires you. In the end I hope each person can inspire one another, even if the influence is small, inspiration is not a zero-sum game. Add a drop of inspiration to someone’s life and it will build along with each moment that makes them think a little harder and appreciate life a little more. Luckily, inspiration is contagious. Inspire one and they will inspire many.
I don’t believe that one person can change the world by themselves, but I believe it only takes one person to start.
Photo Credit: Kris
People have all kinds of excuses for living an unhealthy life style, but those excuses do not hold up as well when you put them in perspective of doing harm not only to yourself, but to others. Being good to others is a good way to be good to yourself simultaneously. Although being good to others is often thought of as a charitable, totally altruistic thing, it reaps benefits for the actor as much as the receiver. Ever give someone a gift unexpectedly? Open a door for someone who had their hands full? Even small actions get you a heartfelt thanks and brings a smile to your own face. If that is not enough, there are some things anyone can do in their everyday actions that give more tangible and larger rewards to you and others.
The accession of social and environmental awareness brings along a host of controversy with its popularity. People question the honesty and intentions of big business going the CSR route and people are even skeptical of certain remedies like microfinancing and carbon offsetting. However, I find celebrity endorsement to be the strangest of all these monsters. Movies, TV and music all have had their place in pushing culture towards social movements, whether it be Bob Dylan or An Inconvenient Truth, these mediums often become the impetus that compels society to take action. But now many celebrities not inherently associated with activism, unlike Bob Dylan, are on the forefront, speaking for various causes. An odd contrast to their causes is the fact that society tends to look down upon celebrity culture despite its popularity, even many that love and call celebrity gossip a part of their lives know it as “trash.” Like it or not, the more people that start thinking about social and environmental issues, the more likely that celebrities (who are people also!) will speak out about their own beliefs.
So why write about this? Because they are starting good. Celebrities are an example of how people can have an influence on the world at large. We each have our own strengths, which we can use to leverage and create change. Read the rest of this entry »
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