ChangeThis: Issue 60

We've published the 60th issue of ChangeThis for your reading pleasure, featuring local favorite Will Allen of Growing Power. Excerpts and links below. Enjoy!

:::::

A Good Food Manifesto for America by Will Allen

"It is time and past time for this nation, this government, to react to the dangers inherent in its flawed farm and food policies and to reverse course from subsidizing wealth to subsidizing health.

We have to stop paying the largest farm subsidies to large growers of unsustainable and inedible crops like cotton. We have to stop paying huge subsidies to Big Corn, Big Soy and Big Chem to use prime farmland to grow fuel, plastics and fructose. We have to stop using federal and state agencies and institutions as taxpayer-funded research arms for the very practices that got us into this mess.

We have to start subsidizing health and well-being by rewarding sustainable practices in agriculture and assuring a safe, adequate and wholesome food supply to all our citizens. And we need to start this reform process now, as part of the national stimulus toward economic recovery."

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.

The Hub Mentality: Shifting From Business Transactions To Community Interaction by Stephen Palmer & Carl Woolston

"It's becoming increasingly difficult to catch the eyes of the consumer. Once you have them you have to keep them. Technology has transformed relationships between businesses and customers. Now, your job isn't just to transact sales. Your job is to cultivate trust, build community, and interact with your customers on an ongoing basis.

Your job is to become a hub, a center of influence that creates value for your customers on their terms. Sales and profit are the result of fulfilling customer desires through educational, valuable content and remarkable products and services. Do this and your loyal community members become your advocates and evangelists."

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.

10 Lessons Learned in Igniting Word of Mouth Movements by Brains on Fire

"It's official: the word 'campaign' is becoming more and more scarce as it relates to the new world of marketing. And rightly so. People want to be engaged with a company, organization or cause beyond a short-term gimmick. So we're starting to see the emergence of the term 'movement,' which makes a lot more sense.

Let's compare the two.

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.

Cracking the Genetic Code: A New Way Forward For Corporations by Anne McCrossan

"Synapses are natural, visceral, reactions connecting the soft organs of the body to the central nervous system. They can be trusted to be "on the money," and most corporate bodies—human or otherwise—are lost without them. Not being in tune with one's own ecosystem leads to unrewarded, misplaced effort and operational dysfunction.

Enabled by technology, we now have knowledge of how to make human connections work best in corporations connected by a common purpose.

This is a document that'll show you how to make that happen."

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.

Flow, Flee or Fight: Declare Yourself For Change In Your Organization by Nevin Danielson

"It's time for a shake-up. This one won't happen because your boss decides it's time. It will happen because you and your peers decide it's time. Rather than relying on organizations to see what's in their long-term best interest, individuals are in a better position to instigate change. It will feel uncomfortable. You'll be labeled a heretic. As solace, you'll have the knowledge that you're right."

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.

Deliver the "Wow!" to Make More Money by Glory Borgeson

"In this day and age, it is not enough to have a system in place for dealing with customers' issues promptly and smoothly. Now, you need a strategy with built-in extras, benefits that are above and beyond what the public expects from you and your business. These extras have to be planned into your regular, day-to-day commerce because you can be sure that your competitors are hanging out their own honeycomb trying to attract the same bees as you.

I call these built-in extras the 'Wow!'

These are the actions you (and anyone representing your business) do for customers and, as a result, your customers actually say 'Wow!'"

Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.