Why are computers so hard to learn?

Scroll to Book Video

The Story of Stuff

Great Economic Theory

Discussion with Jonathan, Economics Prof

Question:
Jonathan, I still have trouble accepting that everything has a study to prove or disprove it. On page 230 the text says,
"While economists universally agree with this proposition (that compensation is the only motivator), some social psychologists or organizational behaviorists argue that there are other reasons employees work. They suggest that offering explicit incentives such as compensation could actually reduce job performance and productivity by eliminating the intrinsic desire to carry out some activity. Their argument is based on the belief that individuals often have pride in their work and enjoy carrying out required tasks and that paying people to carry out some task reduces the intrinsic enjoyment of that task. Thus, they argue, firms should appeal to intrinsic motivation rather than compensation if they want workers to perform well."

First of all, this paragraph makes the concept sound ridiculous, and oversimplifies it grossly. Secondly, the test arrogently proclaims that "no evidance has been provided to show that it plays any kind of important role"

What is the assumption here? That every aspect of work and of society has had a study done about it and that if there is no "evidance" prooving something it has no merit? Studies and "proof" are very expensive and have to be paid for by someone and done by someone, and it seems to me that very few of our interactions have been formally studied such as this.
Our world is full of people who are motivated by much more than compensation. The use of Mother Teresa as an example doesn't match the rest of their thesis that compensation must come from an exterier thing that companies "give" their employees. Isn't the motivation to work for the intrinsic value of work also a kind of compensation? According to their argument about Mother Teresa it would be. So why ridicule the social scientists? Much compensation is internal and can't be controlled by a firm or company.

Answer:
Not everything does have a study, but it is amazing how many things do. Studies are never definitive either. Each study is just one more piece of evidence. E=MC^2 is just a theory with a bunch of studies that back it up (and it has a lot more evidence than any economic theory), but it is just a theory and it could be falsified by future studies.

I don’t think “economists universally agree with this proposition (that compensation is the only motivator)”. Economists nearly universally agree that increasing someone’s monetary compensation will increase their incentives to do something. That is what some psychologists disagree with. There are psychological studies that show cases where increasing someone’s compensation can decrease their incentive. Economists usually ignore these examples as mere anomalies, but I find them fascinating.

The idea that "no evidance has been provided to show that it plays any kind of important role" is just that nobody has been able to figure out how to pay people less (everything else constant including working conditions) while increasing their incentive to work. However, you CAN increase people’s incentive to work by making them feel like they are making a difference in the world (non-profits and gov’t often pay less money, but people still work for partly altruistic reasons – and the military relies as much on patriotism as on salaries) or by making employees feel like they are part of a community or team with social support.

-Jonathan

China

"China" by Joan Baez

The Positive Sum Game Plan

In this paper I intend to develop practical considerations for the International College of Integrative Medicine to employ which run parallel to my support of the positive sum theory of marketing. Jagdish, Sheth, David Gardner, and Dennis Garrett describe the idea of marketing as a positive sum game in their book Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation (1988, p.196). They assert that “the main purpose of marketing is to create and distribute values among the market parties through the process of market transactions and market relationships” (p. 196). For this to happen, both the buyers and the sellers must gain value, both “winning” in the game of business. This is a departure from the traditional stereotype of business being about winning profit over consumers. To buy into Sheth, Gardner and Garrett’s theory, one must also assume that marketing does and should have a positive relationship with society. In analyzing this relationship, it is essential to note that what is positive in the short run is not always positive in the long run, and that some business transactions and relationships can cause harm to society over time, creating a negative sum game.
Sheth, Gardner and Garrett describe several schools of theory, including one that they call “the most controversial school in the history of marketing” (1988, Marketing Theory, p. 28). This is the social exchange theory of marketing. In this way of thinking, everything we do is about marketing, not just economic transactions. We need to ask what provides long term values to society in all of our actions and interactions. Marketing becomes not just about customer satisfaction, but about societal transformation. This is the theory that would most readily be employed for a positive sum game plan. This idea could facilitate a better world for everyone.
Steven Vargo and Robert Lusch in their article “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” describe societal thinking as being service centered. They write, “the service centered view of marketing implies that marketing is a continuous series of social and economic processes that is largely focused on operant resources with which the firm is constantly striving to make better value propositions than its competitors” (2004, Journal of Marketing, p.5). Their use of the word “operant” implies that resources are not considered passive, but are meant to produce effects larger than themselves. Theodore Levitt reminds us in “Marketing Success Through Differentiation-of Anything” that a product is always both tangible and intangible (1991, Dolan ed. Strategic Marketing Management, p. 195). Value is created through the product itself, the effects a product or resource produce, and the intangibles of the experience that product or service elicits. Using the assumption of a positive sum game as the goal, that value should be something which transforms society in the long run.
Vargo and Lusch argue that the dominant logic of marketing is moving toward a service centered, or value based philosophy. They write
The dominant logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value and transactions. Over the past several decades, new perspectives have emerged that have a revised logic focused on intangible resources, the co-creation of value, relationships (2004, “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, p. 1)

For both the customer and the corporation to win, relationships need to be of ultimate importance. Value is created in the co-creation of products and services based around human needs and desires. The customer needs to be in relationship with the business and vise versa as they work together for a positive sum game. Vargo and Lusch ask us to “cultivate relationships that involve customers in developing customized, competitively compelling value propositions to meet specific needs” (p. 5). These authors agree that businesses who use a positive sum game will find that success and profit follows their commitment to the customer and society as a whole.
George Day introduces the term “market driven” in his book The Market Driven Organization; Understanding, Attracting, and Keeping Valuable Customers (1999). Being market driven involves holding on to a positive sum game. It encourages a holistic goal: our “dominant beliefs, values, and behaviors emphasizing superior customer value and the continual quest for new sources of advantage” (p. 6). This is a goal I have for the International College of Integrative Medicine (ICIM). I think that we currently strive to be market driven, and I hope to offer some practical ideas for how we can continue and improve this orientation. First, I will discuss the importance of finding and adjusting our marketing mix. Second I will talk about our need for strategic planning and fact based decision making. Finally, I will stress the importance of relating an experience of ICIM to our members in the context of a positive corporate culture.
In ICIM, our marketing mix involves a combination of forces, some of which are not in our control. Our business is constantly affected by governmental laws, by current consumer health fads, and by changing and evolving research in the field. We also deal with elements that we can control and create, in partnership with our member/consumers. Our branding, our quality, our outreach and our differentiation from our competitors are all essentials for our marketing mix to be successful. For us to be part of a positive sum game, our marketing mix needs to be carefully balanced in a strategic bid that will find profit while offering value. Neil Borden talks about this in his article “Concept of the Marketing Mix” (1991, Dolan ed. Strategic Marketing Management, p. 171).
In the same collection of articles, Theodore Levitt warns that “there is no guarantee against product obsolescence” (1991, Dolan ed. Strategic Marketing Management, “Marketing Myopia, p. 29). As we consider our marketing mix we need to strategically plan for a time when elements of wider culture could make our product of medical education dramatically morph. Either integrative medicine could become an accepted part of the medical realm and our group would need to join the ranks of mainstream academia, or the government and population could reject the ideas of integrative medicine, making our role into a lobbying force for change. The most important thing to balance as we analyze and adjust our marketing mix is that we constantly evaluate and listen to what our members really need.
To be market-driven means to have exterior focus on the wider marketplace and includes knowing who we serve and how. Our customers are our members, and we exist to support them and provide resources for them in their personal quest to build a practice of medicine consistent with their philosophies of natural healing. Others who share or could share the same philosophy are the wider market. Being market-driven also means that we must be flexible, quickly changing as the marketplace situation changes (1999, Day, The Market Driven Organization, pp. 12-13).
Being ready and able to change is one thing, but knowing what to change into involves a different skill: strategic planning. To have a positive sum game, both parties need to benefit. We may offer great value to our members, but if we can’t stay competitive, we will not be able to gain enough to survive. Day writes:
Being market-driven does not mean focusing on current markets. Managers know that their current served market is only a faction of the total market, and will be watching for the emergence of un-served segments with different requirements and growth rates that might be attractive to serve (1999, The Market Driven Organization, p.38)

One thing that is sorely missing in ICIM is the availability of measurable understandings of the true effectiveness of what we are doing. We need to streamline our activities and energy primarily into the projects that do us the most good, thereby maximizing profitability and creative growth (Day, The Market Driven Organization, 1999, pp. 112-122). There is statistic information that could help us improve our strategic thinking. We need to answer questions such as:
• How many doctors are there in each region who are interested in integrative medicine, but who are not affiliated with any educational group? What venues attract those physicians and bring them together where we could communicate with them?
• Why do people really join ICIM? What are they looking for?
• What are the most common reasons for a member not to renew?
• How many people on our data base are seriously potential members or conference attendees? How many don’t care?
• How do our membership and exhibitor prices and service compare to our competition?

We need an active strategic long-range planning committee who can make fact based decisions and plan for our future obsolescence and our response to changing circumstances.
Lastly, I recommend that ICIM continue to put relationships with our members as a top priority in everything we do. We are largely non-economic in our work. Our product is interaction based rather than depending on transactions of buying or selling. Just as each product is a combination of the tangible and the intangible, we need to acknowledge that our product goes “beyond the function and price to compete on the basis of providing an experience” (1999, Day, The Market Driven Organization, p.16). We want our members’ experience of us to be one of a positive corporate culture, positive long-term relationships, and the end result of a positive sum game.
In an article entitled “Customer Mind-Set of Employees Throughout the Organization,” Karen Norman Kennedy, Felicia Lassk, and Jerry Goolsby point out that achieving a market-driven organization must involve people on all levels of an organization. They write, “consistently, for ideal performance, all workers in this internal value chain must understand the expectations and requirements of both internal and external entities that receive the benefit of their work” (2002, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, p. 161).
In our goal of being a sincerely caring community of colleagues and friends, we are already taking steps to achieve a market-driven status. Building community means hearing the stories of the challenges in the lives of integrative doctors. As we care for our members’ needs, we will observe the role ICIM plays in their lives and practices. As we share and identify our own challenges as integrative doctors, we will constantly search for how ICIM can provide solutions to those problems (1999, Day, The Market Driven Organization, p. 89).
In Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation, Sheth, Gardner, and Garrett raise the question as to whether marketing should be considered to be a science or a standardized art (1988, p.13). I believe that marketing is both a science and an art. It takes logical theory and knowledge of social sciences to track the proper marketing mix of an organization or analyze a long-term prediction of the market for strategic thinking. Yet, strategic thinking also employs the non-scientific elements of intuition and sensitivity. True listening and bonding in relationships can never be a science, but must always be dependant on the human heart and the magic of energetic synergy.
Each of these recommended areas of study for ICIM will need a mix of skills that can engage scientific understanding and artistic creativity to succeed. By making value our business plan and keeping ourselves market-driven in orientation I am confident that our efforts will result in a positive sum game.

References

Day, George, The Market Driven Organization: Understanding, Attracting, and Keeping Valuable Customers, 1999, The Free Press: New York, NY.

Dolan, Robert, ed., Strategic Marketing Management, 1991, Harvard Business School Publications; Boston, Mass.

Kennedy, Karen Norman, Felicia Lassk, and Jerry Goolsby, “Customer Mind-Set of Employees Throughout the Organization,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 30, No. 2., 2002, Academy of Marketing Science.

Sheth, Jagdish, David Gardner, and Dennis Garrett, Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation, 1988, John Wiley & Sons; USA.

Vargo, Stephen, and Robert Lusch, “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68., 2004.

conversation with Hamid #2

intellect and intuition constantly work together, intuition like whispers, intellect like purpose, the body hold thousands of years of information.

we have a worldwide system of economics that relys on two components:

1)force and the extentions of force (the castle takes the resources of the peasants or kills them). we have invested in force beyond our means, and now we are in a cage that controls most of our lives, from what clothes we can wear to how we can make money to how we can imagine reality.

2)resource flows. we have concentrated force to take as many resources as we can, to maximize profit, maximize resources used and wasted. he buys a cup of coffee for one dollar and sells it for ten, or as much as he can get. our expected rate of return is immoral for the out of perportion resource flows.

one person opting out or several people doing small projects cannot change the world. Hamid believes the only way to stop it is complete transformation of the economy of force. the magic is the sermon on the mount, which goes beyond religion to be a basic moral template of the sharing of resources. the world does not have to grind to a hault, businesses do not have to stop, but with the guidance of the sermon on the mount can shift their thinking to and economy of sharing and the world will be changed.

we don't have the luxury of time. Hamid gives his own ideas three years and then he will just play tennis.

much of what we do for peace is a waste of time. we waste our energy obsessing about a scratch on the car, when the whole thing is broken and needs and overhaul. how will obsessing over a scratch matter?

the Hamids, the Wendys, the Peter Suters of the world are but drops of ink in the ocean.

immorality is judged by only one thing; its part in the standard economy, the system of force.

Hamid hopes to write a book that people will read. his ideas are his product. he has to get the product right before he can try to market it.

Marketing in Society; Illusion or Evolution

Marketing should be a partnership, a pledge between buyer and seller to fulfill the individual and collective needs of society in a way that adds value to both sides. Both customers and corporations have the responsibility in this covenant to defend ethical treatment of the earth, to safeguard against practices that could cause injury to workers or consumers, and to demand diversity in product choice (and price) as opposed to allowing monopolies to have manipulative power.
This partnership is founded on several assumptions:
1. Marketing incorporates all that an organization or corporation does and is.
2. Corporations are entities that work as one, and therefore should be treated as persons, both in court and in ethical accountability. Because of this, all workers who are not in agreement with company actions have the responsibility to remove themselves from the whole of that corporation to avoid being personally responsible for the collective proceedings. This also gives executives an extremely important role, as they are making decisions about how to interact and participate in society on behalf of their entire firm.
3. As a direct representation of all people in the United States, our government has the responsibility to share in this pledge of positive and ethical relationships between business and consumer. Passing laws to standardize protection against monopolies, environmental damage or safety for workers and consumers is the job and the role of our government, just as it is the job of individuals in society. This is part of the give-and-take of our corporate and economic landscape.
4. If the future of the business world continues to be one of global domination by the most powerful and wealthy, there is a problem with this model of partnership between corporations and consumers. This problem deals with the issue of power. My hypothesis on the relationship between marketing and society is based on the assumption that there is shared or equal power on both sides of the marketing process. In the case of international politics (and in some domestic politics) that is not the case. Without shared power, a co-creator relationship is impossible. Therefore, for marketing to be ethical and achieve a positive sum value in its relationship with society, business activities would need to have the aid of international human rights observation in all practices where power is imbalanced or oppression is in place. With careful decisions, organizations can change these situations for the better through enlightened marketing, however, they must be held accountable at all times in order not to succumb to the temptation to take advantage of an already oppressive situation.
This theory of partnership based around the goals of environmental protection, safety and diversity of product choice, engages several schools of marketing as outlined by Sheth, Gardner and Garrett in Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation (1988). Enlightened consumers who work against corporate irresponsibility need to be acknowledged as part of the activist school of marketing (p. 127). Evaluating marketing’s role in society brings us into the macromarketing school (138). As we hope for evolution toward the better in partnership with business and consumer, we employ the systems school of thought (p.162). And the belief that corporations and customers should be in relationship to one another comes from the social exchange school (p. 173). Each of these are noneconomic, yet are both interactive and noninteractive ways of thinking.
If Philip Kotler is correct in seeing knowledge and training as the solution for poor economic performance, marketing surely has the potential to be a force for education, learning, and the eventual evolution of our society to a better future (1991, Dolan, ed., Strategic Marketing Management , p.476). However, the source of this “knowledge” we rely on must be scrutinized to evaluate where it comes from. Not all knowledge is wisdom. With wisdom as our goal, and shared responsibility as our reality, conscious consumer and ethical marketers can be a force for great things in society and in the world.
In conclusion, I am left with more questions than answers. Is the corporate world capable of such a transformation that they would depend on wisdom rather than profits as a benchmark of success? Is any individual in our society capable of doing that in a sustained way? Even with the best of intentions in the non-profit as well as the for-profit world, unbalanced power relationships often cause our organizations to do more harm than good. Though we can formulate an ideal picture of what marketing can be and what enlightened economics could contribute to the world, much of that picture is an illusion that may be impossible to realize simply because of human nature.
For the time being, I hold on to an anarchistic hope that each of us as responsible consumers and executives can and should make a difference toward this end in our own ways. Those consumers who don’t see themselves as activists need to be encouraged to vote with their dollars. Those corporate bodies that hold no responsibility to society should be challenged by court and by campaigns that demand justice and educate about their wrongdoings. In the metaphysical world that has only recently entered our collective consciousness; every action produces a ripple that can have wide reaching effects. With enough synergy of intention, it may be possible to do the impossible, to come together as a society that takes care of its needs through the marketing of egalitarian, creative, sustainable production and service.

Memo to the ICIM BOD

Memo To: The ICIM Board of Directors
Re: Being a Market Driven Organization

In the course of my graduate studies, I am learning about the importance of being “market-driven” and I believe this term can be valuable to ICIM. I will give you a description of what it means to be a market-driven organization that will allow all of us to be on the same page as we work for success. This concept is not something to add to our Policies and Procedures document. Instead it involves a holistic goal: our “dominant beliefs, values, and behaviors emphasizing superior customer value and the continual quest for new sources of advantage” (Day, The Market Driven Organization, 1999, p. 6).

Before I begin, it is important to define what the business of ICIM entails. Our customers are our physician members and conference attendees, true co-creators of our product. We sell integrative medical education, an operant resource which our doctors then translate into excellent patient care. We educate, we try to give resources that protect our members from harassment and prosecution, and we work to be a community of support and friendship. Our marketplace is the spectrum of medical education and fraternity that is available, and the changing political conditions in which we operate.

To be market-driven means to have exterior focus on the wider marketplace and includes knowing who we serve and how. It demands that we have coherence within our organization, that our whole structure works together as one, bound by a common culture and able to share information freely and quickly with one another. Being market-driven also means that we must be flexible, quickly changing as the marketplace situation changes. This definition is outlined in The Market Driven Organization: Understanding, Attracting, and Keeping Valuable Customers by George S. Day (1999, pp. 12-13).

A large component that helps us to work together in this way is the capacity to find information that we need. Members of ICIM, employees, people serving on the board, potential exhibitors and patients, and physicians looking for integrative alternatives to their medical education need to be able to find the information quickly and easily. It has been my goal to make our website that place of shared information. Through our website, future leaders of ICIM will be able to know past decisions, and current leaders are able to work more effectively with easy access to documents and meeting minutes. Day describes the importance of this access to knowledge as “synergistic information distribution,” and I believe it is an essential part of working together toward a market-driven mindset (The Market Driven Organization, 1999, p. 104).

One thing that is sorely missing in ICIM is the availability of statistic understandings of the true effectiveness of what we are doing. We need to streamline our activities and energy primarily into the projects that do us the most good, thereby maximizing profitability and creative growth (Day, The Market Driven Organization, 1999, pp. 112-122). Here is a list of some of the knowledge that I think we need in order to get focused on effectiveness:
• How many of the people who call and E-mail ICIM looking for an integrative doctor actually make an appointment to see the doctor we recommend?
• How many doctors are there in each region who are interested in integrative medicine, but who are not affiliated with any educational group? What venues attract those physicians and bring them together where we could communicate with them?
• How many of our members are regular meeting attendees and why? How can we encourage conference attendance among our other members?
• Why do people really join ICIM? What are they looking for?
• What are the most common reasons for a member not to renew?
• How many people on our data base are seriously potential members or conference attendees? How many don’t care?
• How do our membership and exhibitor prices and service compare to our competition?


In a market-driven organization we must learn to take calculated risks, and let possible failure be an acceptable cost at times (Day, The Market Driven Organization, 1999, p. 93). As the economy and political situation swings, the only way we can stay competitive and relevant is by constant learning and creativity. Sometimes our ideas will not work, but the ones that do will make all the difference in helping us stand out. We can’t let ourselves become complacent and continue business as usual without questioning our assumptions and the changing needs of our members and the larger societal spectrum (p. 94).

As we strive toward our goal of being a sincerely caring community of colleagues and friends, we are already taking steps to achieve a market-driven status. Building community means hearing the stories of the challenges in the lives of integrative doctors. As we care for our members’ needs, we will observe the role ICIM plays in their lives and practices. As we share and identify our own challenges as integrative doctors, we will constantly search for how ICIM can provide solutions to those problems (Day, The Market Driven Organization, 1999, p. 89). Being a savvy business involves acting on the information we gather, making good decisions based on the marketplace, and striving to be the best choice there is in the field of integrative medical education.

References
The Market Driven Organization: Understanding, Attracting, and Keeping Valuable Customers,

Comments from "Foundational Theories in Marketing" Class

Marketing is considered applied economics

From the 1960s to Today theorists have concentrated on Interactive, Non-Economic theories of marketing such as:
Organizational dynamics school (value chain components working together, wholesale vs manufacturer)
Systems school(larger, changing systems, "Synergy")
Social Exchange school (social relationships of buyer and seller, marketing is everything about a business, applicable to all transactions)

and Non-interactive, Non-economic theories such as:
Buyer behavior school (why do people act the way they do?)
Activest school (Nader-consumer protection, long term effects)
Macromarketing school (role of business in society, not just the shareholders but also the stakeholders)

From Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation by Sheth, Gardner and Garrett

"Consumers will develop relationships with organizations that can provide them with an entire host of related services over and extended period"

Could a small town do this collectively?

From "Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing" from Journal of Marketing Jan 04 by Vargo and Lusch

We have to figure out how our products produce effects: operant.
When you are "faith based" that puts you on the goods side rather than the service side
When the customer base is Mennonite, faith becomes an operant product.


"Some of our best marketers are employees who know nothing about Marketing"
-Pete

Love, Energy, Culture, Climate

Maybe these changes are very slow. Slow, slow changes in culture have to lead the way.
But how can American businesses have time to create an evolved culture when free trade has eliminated job security. And why should they?

Is it all about money? Pete says it is about measurable results, one of which is money.
What are other measurable results?
Pete says profit validates a good business plan, but value is lives transformed.

"Your focus is taking care of your customers; the money will follow"
Something is wrong with this!
It reeks of the American Dream, that if we all work hard enough we'll make it in the world, and get everything we want (ie: wealth)

Conversation with Peter

Wendy: 1). In "A New Dominant Logic" V&L say " As humans have become more specialized as a species, use of the market and goods to achieve higher-order benefits such as satisfaction, self-fulfillment and esteem, has increased."
I just don't see this happening in our society. In fact, it seems like quite the opposite trends are reality these days. I'm not sure people have ever been so disinfranchised, depressed, spiritually deprived, unfulfilled, unsatisfied and self-hating as they are now. Part of that aweful state of humanity is how consumerism has replaced so many longings for real human connection and community, for spiritual and cultural identity and self-knowledge. What people know today is if you ain't feeling so good: shop!

Considering your feeling that this new paradigm hasn't hit yet, it is possible that society could still change for the better if consumers were more co-creators about what they really need. But, that would take some educated and enlightened consumers and could totally change the face of business. What I love about the business world, is that even if this doesn't change for everyone, we have the power to change it in our own lives, by encouraging the businesses that sustain us and ignoring those who don't.

Pete: I'm not sure that even when this new paradigm "hits," society will change for the better. I think that change might well come from something else (faith? an overwhelming need of societal responsibility? Economic depression? War? Flood?). I think part of the challenge comes from accurately defining self-actualization right? It's different for each of us. I think V & L are highlighting a shift from people being satisfied because they have "stuff" to being satisfied because of what the stuff they have "means" about them. So for example.... I think shopping centers like Easton in Columbus or Levis Commons in Toledo are effectively executing V & L's suggestion that operant resources are the name of the game. Consumers can get the products they find at these shopping centers almost anywhere....Wal Mart, on-line, Good Will, etc....so it's not really products that these shopping centers are selling...it's the experience (intangible operant resource) of shopping that these centers are selling...the sensory overload and overwhelming orgy of consumerism that many folks use to satisfy themselves.

Wendy:2) I'm not sure what customers really give back to corporations besides money. Also, the idea of customers being co-creators (something I love to thing about on a small scale) seems to be unrealistic. It is a great thought, but what if companies aren't really acting on customer's needs and wants, but exploiting the natural bad habit of human greed, and need to have status through stuff. I can't believe that the fashion industry is democratic, for example. Surely they are telling us what to wear (and that Hannah "needs" new clothes every season) rather than us telling them what we want. Where is the line between companies listening to their consumers, and companies controling consumers?

This was a good discussion in class, which I feel addressed the question. I really liked Dawn's point about the responsibilities that go along with being co-creators. Again, if I think about small businesses, the co-creator idea is realistic and beautiful.

Pete: Very good.

3) Also, the idea that knowledge is power is embraced without limitations in these theories. I think they are right, but there should be some moral limit to avoid the "Big Brother" approach that you talked about. I know they are not trying to make a moral tretice about marketing, just saying what is effective. But there is still an element of corruption and potential evil (OK, read unethical-ness) here that is not aknowledged. Also, what about the new trend of employers needing to know "everything" about employees, such as their health issues, their personal situations, their tendancy toward unionization, etc. Sounds like Big Brother to me.

Pete: Fair enough. I would argue that (most) of the current marketing literature purposely fails to acknowledge the presence of power. Realistically, many companies (inside closed doors) would suggest that they would aggressively pursue the new dominant logic of marketing in a specific effort to increase power and gain "control" of their customers (although this would ironically again be treating customers as operand resources instead of operant resources). Having said this however, the schools of thought focused on interactive models of marketing specifically recognize power and even go so far as to suggest (in some) a needed balance of power between market participants...AND, if we really follow V & L, then we must make the customer a co-creator and an operant resource...thus setting ourselves up to lose power and control.

Wow....an entirely new or extended argument for my "come to marketing" sermon...can we argue that by executing the new dominate logic we are actually stepping away from the big-brother mentality of marketing (which would really fall into the buyer behavior school of thought....)? The counter argument from the buyer behavior folks is that they can't meet customer needs if they don't know everything about customers.... we would need to be sure to address this concern.

Ok - I don't know that I provided many answers....and now it's time for me to go lecture in corporate strategy...interestingly enough, today's lecture is on social responsibility....! Thanks for the great questions!

Wendy: Thanks, Pete. Actually I have found this to be one of the most difficult classes we have had so far! That's a great thing, and could be why the students are so much more engaged in it.

New Dominant Logic of Marketing

Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch have made some exciting assertions in their article “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” (2004, Journal of Marketing). They claim transformation in the field of marketing from goods to services, putting more emphasis than ever on the relationship with the customer, even calling the customer a “co-creator” of the project (p. 10). Vargo and Lusch predict a shift in the dominant logic of marketing by identifying and pulling together the many threads of academic thought that have been evolving in the field.
The articles in this week’s assignment were variations on the themes of new ways of understanding the customer relationship and the importance of whole-company mindset of service, or marketing. The article I most related with Vargo and Lusch is “From Sales Obsession to Marketing Effectiveness” by Philip Kotler (1991, Dolan, ed., Strategic Marketing Management). Since Kotler’s article was written thirteen years before “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” one could see it as a foreshadowing of what was to emerge in the new dominant logic. For example, Kotler, Vargo and Lusch all put an extremely high responsibility on the role of the executive of a company to manage the complete company wide marketing system in what Kotler calls “systems management” (p. 474). Vargo and Lusch describe a management role that must “be performing the role of a network integrator that develops skills in research, forecasting, pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion” (2004, Journal of Marketing, p. 13). This marks a change in the role of the executive, demanding a more complete understanding and direct involvement with the details of organizational operations.
In “From Sales Obsession to Marketing Effectiveness” Kotler was predicting a shift in the role of customers. What he called “customer philosophy” (1991, Dolan, ed. Strategic Marketing Management , p. 474) put the customer first, not just to satisfy or please him or her, but to actually let the customer shape what the company produces and develops. Vargo and Lusch’s service-dominant logic demands that the knowledge of the consumer is essential in a partnership model of co-creating the future production of the company (2004, Journal of Marketing, p.10). This similarity is striking, despite the difference in the writers’ motivation, with Kotler’s goal being to maximize profits rather than sales (p. 471) and Vargo and Lusch insisting that the end product should be long term value rather than immediate profit (p. 2).
The role of knowledge as the key competitive edge is common to both articles. Kotler lists “adequate information” for executives as one of his audit measurements for effective management (1991, Dolan, ed., Strategic Marketing Management , p.476). He also sees knowledge and training as the solution for poor economic performance (p. 477). Vargo and Lusch insist that knowledge and skills are the fundamental unit of exchange in their new paradigm (2004, Journal of Marketing, p.6). These views differ from past assumptions that actions (work) and products (results of work) were the basic units of economic power. In the age of technology and quantum physics, our mindset has changed into an abstract system in which the realm of knowledge is more valuable than the physical world.
In their conclusion, Vargo and Lusch predict that “consumers will develop relationships with organizations that can provide them with an entire host of related services over an extended period” and they give examples in which that is already happening in the marketplace (2004, Journal of Marketing, p.13). Kotler did not have this vision, but he did forecast that companies need to think long term as they plant the seeds for future crops (1991, Dolan, ed., Strategic Marketing Management, p. 479). The managers who followed Kotler’s instructions to be customer led, knowledge based and long term oriented might well have been the leaders who inspired the Vargo and Lusch new dominant logic.


References
Dolan, Robert, ed., Strategic Marketing Management, 1991, McGraw-Hill Book Company: United States.

Vargo, Stephen, and Lusch, Robert, “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, 2004, Vol. 68)

The Dynamics of Differentiation, Cost-to-Serve, and Marketing Myopia

How does “Success Through Differentiation--Of Anything” resonate (or fail to resonate) with “Manage Customers for Profits (Not Just Sales)”?

Shapiro, Rangan, Moriarty and Ross point out an example early in their essay “Manage Customers for Profits (Not Just Sales)” of a plumbing fixtures manufacturer who raises prices on their custom orders in order to get rid of these accounts. This business thought of the small custom orders as worthless, yet later learned that those very orders were their most profitable (1991, Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management, p. 307.) This is a perfect example of differentiation as described by Levitt in his article “Success Through Differentiation—Of Anything.” The plumbing customers were willing to pay a higher price and be loyal to the company because that business offered something that no other did—a unique product.
Levitt writes that “the more a seller expands the market by teaching and helping customers to use his or her product, the more vulnerable the seller becomes to losing them” (1991, Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management, p. 200.) He explains that the customer has then had all questions answered and so goes on to base his or her decision on price. This reminds me of Shapiro’s description of aggressive customers which aren’t worth serving because of their expensive demands yet fickleness on price (p. 312).
There are also ways that these two articles don’t resonate at all. Most obviously, Levitt is focused on the customer, Shapiro on the producer. Shapiro develops a plan where to win requires pinpointing costs, knowing profitability dispersion, doing and repeating analysis and providing support systems (1991, Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management, p. 314-318.) Levitt’s formula for winning is simply to make sure that you stand out from your competitors and continue to innovate your product to please your customers (p. 194). Finally, Levitt asserts that “intangibles” make the difference (p. 194) but doesn’t take into account Shapiro’s warning to measure the “cost to serve” that intangibles could increase (p. 311).

How is this discussion tied into Levitt’s article “Marketing Myopia”?

In “Success Through Differentiation—Of Anything” Levitt offers the differentiation by product development as an antidote to marketing myopia, the apathy some companies fall into when they believe they are at the pinnacle of success. Levitt writes on p. 199 that an augmented product “goes beyond what was required or expected by the buyer” while in a state of marketing myopia the company assumes the product or service does not need to be improved (1991, Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management.)
Shapiro’s article enhances the overview of marketing myopia by pointing out the difference between sales and profit (1991, Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management, p. 307.) Levitt makes a corresponding analogy between selling and marketing on p. 38. Shapiro’s notion of what is profitable compares to Levitt’s description of true managerial marketing, a holistic look at the entire lifespan of the creation of a product.

Is it possible for a manager to successfully differentiate her products, segment her customer base and avoid the pitfalls of marketing myopia?

Surely this goal must be possible to achieve. However, it would require constant complex effort and understanding. All three of these objectives are leaning toward a business model that focuses the long term, insists on detailed managerial analysis, and refuses to be complacent in the midst of success. Customer satisfaction, profit margins, and innovation need to be balanced into that magic formula for long-term success.



References
Dolan, Robert, ed., Strategic Marketing Management, 1991, McGraw-Hill Book Company: United States.

The Marketing Theories of my Organization and Consumer Choice

It is not surprising that the marketing theories I choose as my preference, both personal and in the workplace are those of the Interactive-Noneconomic school of thought, as Jagdish Sheth, David Gardner, and Dennis Garrett discuss in their book Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation (1988, p.20). Since I have no experience in the field of economics, and as my personal impetus in business is driven by social relationships, the Systems School of thought and the Social Exchange School of Thought seem very natural to me.
In my organization The International College of Integrative Medicine our marketing strategy is based on a complex web of systems. We maneuver our outreach as part of the constantly changing systems of political change, public perception of heath care, and personal networks of colleagues and companies who support the learning of integrative medicine as a legitimate alternative to conventional medical practice.
To measure the accuracy of the school of thought I identified, I used Sheth Gardner and Garrett’s quote of Kazt and Kahn’s characteristics of Systems from their book The Social Psychology of Organizations (Marketing Theory, 1988, p.163). In ICIM we depend on the importation of energy from the wider environment, which comes in the form of ideological passion and commitment from both the public and doctors whom we serve. We transform that energy into conferences it can be organized into formal learning and scientific information, conferences which are our product. We experience cycles of events, both in terms of our conference planning and advertising, as well as cycles of our industry emphasis and interest. We fight constantly against negative entropy, and depend on feedback and new information, using extensive coding. Our organization works for stability as it endures attacks and disruptions from forces outside our system. We have a great need for differentiation between our work and other similar institutions, and we spend time and energy discussing our unique specialization. Finally we do take a variety of paths to achieve our ends, both in external marketing and in internal management.
In my personal life as a consumer, I am most easily influenced by the Social Exchange School of Thought, also categorized by Sheth, Gardner and Garrett as an Interactive-Noneconomic school (Marketing Theory, 1988, p.20). Though this way of thinking is controversial (p. 28), I hope it is the way of the future of business, as our culture evolves to a more local, small scale mode of economic exchange, responding to world-wide crisis of energy sources and political chaos.
As I choose what products to buy, I have a strong regional perspective, but the focus on the distance between the maker and the buyer is not based on marketing ease, but on that social contract in the relationship in the context of culture and society. I would consistently prefer to buy products from people I know than from any other source.
Interestingly, I had to admit after reading about the Social Exchange School of Thought, that this preference extends not just to makers that I know, but also to companies that I perceive that I know or have a social relationship with. For example, I have a brand loyalty to Celestial Seasonings Tea. I can trace this to the fact that I have toured the factory, read about the history of the founder, and consider myself socially invested in the company. As the authors point out, I exhibit several of the determinants of exchange relationships with Celestial Seasonings (Sheth, Gardner and Garrett, Marketing Theory 1988, p.175). I have the social actor variable of being attracted and identifying with the art in the packaging, my visit to the factory provides a social influence variable, and I enjoy a situational variable of having the tea readily available, unique and psychologically comforting.
Though I certainly perceive threads of influence from the Regional, Managerial, Activist and Macromarketing Schools of Thought, Systems and Social Exchange are the key concepts for me to understand the role of marketing in my work and personal life. I am glad to have stayed awake long enough to learn about them!

Team Player

Part A:
In the International College of Integrative Medicine, our teams are our board committees, which sometimes include members at large. We have around ten committees that handle our meeting planning, website, corporate culture, long range planning, financial matters, political concerns, etc. Each team has a chairperson who is supposed to set agendas, follow through, and give reports back to the board. One of our challenges is that as committees we are geographically spread out so that we can never meet face to face. Most of our communication is by email, which makes it easy for members of the team not to participate. Members and chairpersons of the teams are unpaid volunteers and do not hold their committee work as a high priority in their lives, therefore progress is often slow. As executive director I end up taking on most of the initiative of each team in order for something to happen. Sometimes I wonder if I am stepping in too much and not delegating enough. It is true that with active, vibrant committees that come from a working board, our organization could achieve results at a pace far exceeding our current activity. However, we need to be realistic about our limited paid staff resources and our need for volunteer labor, which slows down our potential growth.
Recently, I met with the president of the board about ways to motivate our teams and to encourage our chairpersons to take a more active role as leaders. He came up with a job description to let our team leaders know what responsibilities the organization expects from them. If passed, this document will be added to our policies and procedures, as a way of reminding team leaders (or warning them) what the job entails. The paragraph is as follows:
Congratulations on taking the responsibility of a committee chair. Your initial responsibilities should be accomplished as soon as possible. Determine if you need more help. Please recruit additional committee members or ask the President for more help if needed. Set goals for your committee to accomplish for one year. Set up a schedule of meetings in person and/or by conference call to accomplish your goals. Make those meetings happen. Set benchmarks to assess whether your goals have been met. Take initiative for projects, be creative. Keep the President and Executive Director appraised of your work. Get approval when needed.
Three weeks prior to in-person Board of Director meetings, you should prepare a written report for the Board, which will also be included in the minutes for that meeting.

To pass the test of Hackman’s conditions I would analyze ICIM’s teams as follows:
1) I believe that our teams are “real” in that they do have the authority to make real decisions, and sometimes take important action. Their recommendations are almost always approved by the rest of the board.
2) Each of our committees has a compelling direction in that they deal with a specific topic. Obviously some of the committee themes are not as compelling to their volunteers as they need to be for true motivation. Perhaps the long-range planning committee could provide a more compelling direction as they give us a vision for the future.
3) As for an enabling team structure, I think the lack of face-to-face contact really impinges upon this. It is hard to gel long distance, or even to bounce ideas off each other for maximum use of our collective experience.
4) Committees have full organizational support.
5) I would like to play more of a role of team coach than as team initiator in the future. It is my job to follow through and see that the ideas generated by the committees are realized, but also my job to monitor and inspire the committees to act in the most effective manner possible, while having some distance, since I am not a board member. Our board president can also serve this function if he puts more conscious effort into it, which I think he is starting to do.

Part B:
During my college years I had the benefit of being part of an incredible team effort. This experience molded my entire understanding and ideal of what a team can be, and unfortunately no work situations have ever lived up to it. The team was the University of Waterloo Peace Club. Our task was to protest the university-sanctioned recruitment of workers for military contractors on campus.
For an entire year, members of the small peace club had been meeting trying with all our hearts to come up with a mission statement, a vision for our purpose. In the past, the group had not been active so we were starting from scratch. We had long discussions and arguments about issues with structure and priorities, outreach and interfaith dialogue. Despite all of this, the group achieved almost no action, sponsored no events and just became more frustrated and cynical.
One meeting a young man came to the group. He had not been part of the peace club before, but he was clearly a leader on campus and a very charismatic guy. He had a vision, a vision to shut down the cozy relationship that our university had with the military industrial complex, and stop the recruitment for military workers through the co-op employment program, which was part of many students’ schooling. It was a connection we had never discussed. It was clearly a strong peace issue, and it affected an institution we were part of. It was something we could call our own.
I don’t remember how everything happened, but in a matter of only about two weeks, part of the group who was not in favor of radical action quietly left the peace club and started its own Christian mission group. Others from campus started flocking to the peace club, including a more diverse collection of new faces we had never seen before. It was like the word was getting out and magic was starting to happen.
In a very short time, we had planned a major protest in front of the administrative building during the recruitment sessions, leafleted all the co-op students with brochures we designed making the connection between war and their jobs, and illegally hung a huge banner about our cause across a busy intersection. The feeling in the group was absolutely exhilarating. Relationships blossomed. Our vision which we had argued about for a year now seemed crystal clear. We were all focused on what was important to us. Each of us was fully engaged and using our various talents toward our common cause. Though the young man who had planted the seed of the idea stayed with the group, he did not take on a leader role, but allowed collaboration to truly fill out the body of his plan.
In the next year, we planned and implemented other actions and campaigns, but we never lost the energy that that original clear direction had fueled us with. We were truly autonomous; we had organizational support from many faculty members and were allowed freedom of expression from the administration; our team structure fell into place spontaneously and effortlessly; and we had inspiration in the person of one guy who just wanted to make a difference.

The ROI of Human Resources in ICIM

At first look, the human resources department of the International College of Integrative Medicine seems quite neglected indeed. All of our employees are part time, with no benefits, and one person’s salary is paid outside the budget by private donation. We have no structure for employee complaint or conflict resolution, no evaluation process, and the bare minimum of contracts. Organizational culture is based on the moods and personality quirks of the employees rather than an overall effort or plan. None of our employees were hired as a result of a job search, and there is no plan of retention, training, or orientation. Our organization has a policies and procedures document that was written over the course of 2006-7. Though our P&P includes job descriptions, it has very little about how human effort and coordination should flow. Clearly, if we are to even begin to evaluate or enjoy return on investment of our human resources we have our work cut out for us! Our long term strategic planning team needs to think ahead in order to continue and develop the financial and administrative security we have at this time.
This is a group that has survived from crisis to crisis over the years. Until now they have not been able to attract a long-term relationship with a staff member who was anything less than overworked, such as someone who had time to ponder human resources. Board members had little training in corporate matters, all of them being physicians. Survival has been the theme over time rather than readiness and planning for the future. I intend to see it change as soon as possible.
On the other hand, it is possible to evaluate ICIM as a group where our human resources lie far beyond our paid employees. As a community of friends, colleagues, and co-creators, our membership and board should be the body from which human resources are drawn. Over the years, ICIM has seen incredible commitment from long-term members who have given countless hours to board work, scientific research, common defense and support when colleagues are attacked by mainstream medicine, and stewardship of time and money to see ICIM develop. All of these sacrifices and shared experiences, even through various crises, make the organizational culture of ICIM extremely strong. The loyalty of our membership is passionate. As workers and activists to the cause ICIM represents, I can’t imagine a better workforce.
Members are regularly surveyed, many take part in task forces or board services where they develop leadership and feel their voices heard. We do not have a process to evaluate each other as colleagues, however, board members are voted on every year, giving a blanket of approval of good work.
Most importantly, as a group, we exist to offer training and development to each of our members, encouraging and giving their practice the resources to grow and develop professionally, both for themselves and for their staff members. Each member is known personally by the staff office, and we are familiar with each member’s special needs and concerns as we go. Informal mentoring is strong among us, and new members and students are encouraged by being introduced to future mentor relationships. Our members are satisfied and positive.
In conclusion, although ICIM fails dismally in an obvious structural human resource plan, the effect of its community of members provides a magnified ROI that is enviable.

A Factory of Profit and Compassion

It has never occurred to me that I would have the opportunity to create a manufacturing start-up. This is a position I never even considered wanting to try. Yet, the assignment fills me with a kind of excitement that surprises me and overcomes limitations of my own making. As I stand on the brink of this adventure, two things inspire me: my old friend Jack Purves, who used to tell me stories of how he found himself (a leftist music major) in a management position of his father’s factory where he tirelessly advocated for the rights of the workers, and Charles Greer, author of Strategic Human Resource Management, who, along with others, is convincing me that an excellent workforce is the most powerful competitive tool a business requires.
Before I begin, I must clarify that there are two conditions that I require before I participate in this project. First, I need to be convinced that the manufacturing plant we are building is producing a product that is helpful to the human race and will not cause landfill overcrowding or toxicity to the earth. On the same token, I must be assured that the processing of the factory is not causing pollution to the surrounding area. Secondly, I must know that the workers we are hiring will have clean, safe working conditions at all times.
Now, the fun begins. My goal is to design a team of workers and managers in which excellence is the standard, regardless of job status or position.
I begin with the office administrative employees. This is a key role, and requires very specific qualities. I would be looking for people who have experience as parents and can double or triple task easily, doing multiple tasks at the same time. Job sharing (hiring several people to fill one job) would be an option. These workers would undergo personality tests to screen for qualities of organization, punctuality and flexible learning. I would ask all applications to be hand written to check for neatness and consistency. During the interview process I would reject anyone with a hint of dourness or cynicism, looking primarily for a good first impression, pleasant phone voice, and willingness to be helpful.
Next, I would engage an agency to hire twenty to thirty temporary workers, including several that would fill in as practical managers on the floor. These people would allow production to begin, while giving me more time to hire the ongoing work force. It would also allow me to observe the workers and anticipate some of their work challenges. This information would be useful as I continue to strategically hire employees with the qualities needed to avoid or overcome pitfalls. Any temporary worker that proves him or herself to be the kind of employee we are wanting would be hired long-term.
Considering that the information received from a resume, references and an interview is a tiny portion of the overall data about a human being, I would ask that applicants for all positions be personality tested in-house. Not only does this screen for specific good qualities such as flexibility, ability to get along with others and willingness to problem-solve, it lets workers know immediately that we take them and their work extremely seriously. All applicants would be required to do standard drug testing and to go through an orientation prior to being hired.
At this orientation, clear expectations would be communicated. There are behaviors that this plant will not tolerate such as any kind of sexual harassment or racism. All workers will be rigorously cross-trained and will be expected to do any job description that is needed at any particular time. Workers will be expected to excel at their jobs, and any kind of “slacking off” or bad attitude will not be acceptable. Evaluations that include the ability of the worker to contribute to a positive work culture will guide the renewal of contracts.
In return, our workplace will offer unprecedented respect for all employees. We will embrace a no-layoff policy. Each worker will have personal work goals that the managers will assign, according to what is needed to make our plant produce competitively. If that goal is accomplished before the day is over, the worker is welcome to go home early, with unpaid time off. If that goal is exceeded, the worker will be rewarded with a profit-sharing system that is proportional to the excess of the production goal. All workers can expect on-the-job training with a mentoring system for newcomers. Workers will be trusted with an open book policy because it is my belief that people need to know why our standards are set to a certain level and to know as a group what we are all striving to achieve. Employees will have fair pay, health benefits, and access to a grievance procedure that does not include their direct supervisor. Regular staff gatherings and holiday observances will be emphasized to inspire, rather than to reward.
Once the person is fully aware of the rewards and limitations of the job, they will have an option of discontinuing the interview. If they agree to proceed, and if they meet the qualifications required and if I have a good “gut feeling” about them, they will be hired.
Recruiting motivated employees will be a challenge. I would start first with recently released prisoners. In my experience, ex-cons have an almost impossible challenge in finding a job, and yet are some of the hardest workers available. It would be great to have an arrangement with a prison to do some pre-training for workers not yet released. Secondly, I would recruit through unions and secretly through other plants in the area with word of mouth rumors of our factory’s progressive stance on respect for workers. I would not hesitate to hire the very old or the very young (ages 18-70) into the workforce, if the proper personality qualities of open mindedness and willingness to learn are met. All other standard job advertising would be done as well; job fairs, TV ads, posters, newspaper classifieds, and recommendations from current workers.
Once the workforce is established, the next step is to find a management team that is able to mold this group into excellence and to maintain a positive organizational culture of dedication and exceptional work standards. Trying to incorporate other managers into this paradigm will be the most difficult task yet. Since I was hired to set up the project, I have set the stage for success. But to realize that success will take a management team that is on the same page. I would ask the parent company to choose carefully which managers are transferred to our plant, and ask that the managers are aware of the specific, unique goals of our site. As for the manager I hire, I would look for a person with experience to complement my inexperience, and with an enthusiasm and vision that matches my own.
Once the management team is established, I would make sure that we each have our own areas to supervise, with as little cross-over as possible. The team would meet at least once a day, to share information and support each other in decision making for the greater benefit of the whole. As a group, I would recommend that we get regular off site training in all areas of expertise, from human resource management to technical training in the field. We will also do intentional sensitivity training and team building exercises on a regular basis to help us work together.
Why can’t our manufacturing sector really be like this in the real world? Why can’t we decide and demand that respect for humans and the earth be part of our business standards in all fields? Perhaps it is because the field of business is often left to the greedy and the corrupt instead of those who want to make a difference. Perhaps it is because the business world is trained in profit rather than in compassion. I hope to yet see a world where those two things come together as one and the same.

Notes from "Human Resources"

There is such a thing as a "no lay-off" policy

There is no "right way" to do it; the key is that you PLAN for human resources, which people rarely do

How to get the workforce you need:
1. hire
2. develop
3. pray

Have a labor attorney as a friend

document, document, document

Even done in good faith, you can always screw up testing

SMART performance measurement
Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely

Before you try to solve the problem, figure out what the problem is!

Turbulent Human Resource Environment

Assignment A

“Inarguably, the human resource environment is currently more turbulent than in any other period since World War II” –Charles Greer

I agree with Greer in his assertion of the turbulence of the modern human resource environment. As he points out, technology is probably the single most important change that affects all aspects of human resources. Technology certainly makes my role possible as the Executive Director of a geographically diverse group of integrative doctors who attempt to communicate regularly through email discussions and teleconferences (a “virtual team” in Greer’s term on page 49 of Strategic Human Management, 2001). In this job as well as the work I’ve had for the last ten years, computer skills have been essential as a workplace tool, including graphic design, Excel, word processing, PowerPoint, email and social networking functions. Though I had no computer training in undergraduate school, I have had to get on-the-job experience that propelled me into basic computer competence. This rapid change in technology has caused a kind of turbulence as employees and employers scramble to keep up with technological advancement and appropriate use.
Greer describes several new organizational units that have emerged to challenge traditional forms of corporations. One structure that I was quite unfamiliar with is “unbundled corporations”, a loose network of autonomous companies with a lot of outsourced services taking up bureaucratic duties. The reason this set-up is turbulent is that companies can easily be dropped and added with minimal sacrifice on the head corporate unit. “Networking organizations” is another form new to me. This is also a structure that depends on elaborate outsourcing, with a small permanent core. This is also a turbulent change compared to the past, though more long-term than the unbundled corporation paradigm. Technologically-based cellular organizations, which are modeled after guilds, and respondent organizations that fill niches left by other new forms of corporate structure, are two more dramatic changes in the organizational landscape. Although my organization could not be said to fit into any of these models, I realize that in the past a group like mine would have had a much larger, more permanent staff. Instead, these days we outsource regularly for graphic design, printing, marketing, law, and accounting services, following the trends described above.
As a relatively young person in the job market, I find myself positively identifying with many of the other developments Green describes that add to change and turbulence in human resources. I have worked mostly for small businesses in my career, and prefer that modality, as is reflected in the growing movement toward small business employment. It is important to me that I enjoy my jobs and I place a great value on my belief that the work I do is relevant and important to me and others. Though I have a high level of commitment to doing a good job I have a low level of loyalty for loyalty’s sake toward my employer, and I do not expect long term job security in my lifetime. Committee task forces, desire for open flow of information about the company, and the assumption of gender, race and cultural sensitivity and balance are regular components of my work, all of which are part of the changing paradigm described by Greer.
In conclusion, I do support Charles Greer’s hypothesis that a turbulent human resource environment has defined the workplace in the last sixty years, and will continue to impact a future that is bound to be filled with further tumult.

Assignment B
Human Resource practices as mandated by law outline a much improved social contract with the American workforce, however many of them are under-enforced and largely ignored until challenged at court. Ending discrimination of all kinds is an admirable task, whether it benefits women, minorities, differently-abled, aged, or homosexual people. This kind of respect for equality is what America should be all about. Unfortunately, the attitudes beyond the letter of the law still affect thousands of workers who are treated dreadfully, both in society and in the workplace.
Although I can’t think of direct ways that these anti-discrimination rules have affected my career, I have a friend who recently went through an unfortunate series of events involving sexual harassment at her employment with no resolution.
Liz was approached in a sexually inappropriate manner by a supervisor. She told a co-worker about her distress at this, and the co-worker reported her complaint to the supervisor in question. The next day Liz was told she was no longer welcome at her job and was sent back to the temp agency that she officially worked for. In the next weeks, Liz, a low income single mother, was given only a fraction of the hours of work that she relied on to make ends meet, an unusual situation for her at the agency that she felt sure was treating her with retribution against her claim of sexual harassment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidelines on sexual harassment were of no help to Liz, who had limited education and understanding of her rights, and who had been employed in a complex arrangement with a temp agency.
The existence of laws protecting women from such treatment is a hopeful thing. It is a worthy goal of all of us in the business world to see that all anti-discrimination laws are followed and that attitudes are adjusted to also reflect the spirit of the law in our workplace.

Adversarial Learning

Adversarial Learning
“Adversarialism as a professional ideal reflects an adversarial animus already at work in society at large.”
-William May in his book Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional, p.53


William May captured something in Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional that, as an American, I was aware of experiencing but had never heard articulated so clearly. I do sense, along with May, that combativeness “answers to something deep in the American spirit” (p.53). As a person who is naturally combative, I have been accused of being “very American” in international experiences, and like it or not, this combativeness betrays my strong acculturation to my homeland. As I study at a graduate level, I am becoming increasingly aware that this attitude has affected my style of learning throughout my life in ways that may not have served me well.

May uses the political vision, or “political myth,” of John Locke (p. 55-56) to explain where this American animus of competitiveness and combativeness came from. Locke asserted five principals to explain the human relationship with society: 1) the original condition of humankind is individual autonomy, and it is marred by threats to that autonomy; 2) society is there to serve the individual, and not for moral goodness; 3) we are held together by a fear of supreme evil rather than a hope of supreme good; 4) people have a passive understanding of citizenship; and 5) leaders are not here to be catalysts of transformation, but to maintain the status quo.

When I was in fifth grade I experienced the format of debate in the classroom for the first time. I remember it to the day; I felt alive and academically stimulated for the first time. This began my career as a public school student, a career in which I defined myself as a fighter, as an arguer, and as a defender of the right way. I discovered the rush of individualism and the pleasure of defending beliefs I held strongly. All of this combativeness did make me a strong person, but it also reinforced an assumption of rejection, alienating me from my classmates and peers. I also began rejecting any information that did not fit into my world view, or any position that threatened my autonomy, another effect John Locke discusses.

My entire educational experience was very Lockean. The school system was there to prepare us for complacent employment, not for a wider vision of moral goodness. Threats as serious as communism and nuclear annihilation, or as frivolous as the down-the-road sports rival were supposed to hold us together. As students, we were meant to be passive, just taking in the data until the test was over. Teachers and administrators definitely “managed” the students, and there was no pretense of transformation.

In contrast to this atmosphere, my combativeness did come in handy. I was able to question each of these situations and come up with my own expectations about what learning is and how I wanted to act in alternative ways to what I saw around me. May defends combativeness by pointing out how this kind of fight can promote justice and lead to positive improvement in the system (p. 54).

So, while I felt I was doing some good by providing a voice in opposition to the moral passivity around me, I was at the same time stunting my learning ability through my heavily dogmatic beliefs and the fear of having to give in to new ideas. I was also lonely, in self-inflicted exile from a community I considered mainstream.

In college, I continued “wrestling” with every academic concept into which I came in contact. Some of my beliefs were challenged by people I respected, people who were not falling into the defense of the status quo of society as defined by Locke. Each time this happened, my first reaction was a fierce fight against what I was hearing, and only after months of engaging this fight was I able to give in to a new paradigm. Those were exciting days, but they were also exhausting and I was quickly burned out and ready to stop studying and “start living” what I saw as real life.

Since that time I have lived fifteen years without formal education of any kind. Burned out this time by the boredom of babies and limitations of my resume, I came back to school ready for something fresh and new. At first I joined in the fray the only way I knew how and started arguing every point with vigor. Thanks to some gentle guidance from professors I have recently come to a new realization that it is possible to learn without combativeness.

I am trying to bring this new learning paradigm to fruition in my thoughts and practice. My mantra in class is “be open.” I imagine the information and ideas flowing through me as I read rather than stopping every few sentences to jot down an opposition. My rejection of Locke’s ideas as I relate them to education is now complete.

I still wish to speak out for the voiceless and defend the oppressed. However, I like to think that I am discovering not only new ways to learn, but new ways to transform society without losing energy in the fight. Instead I hope to channel that energy into the solutions.




References

May, William E. (2001), Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press

On Happiness

This week’s reading was fascinating. One thing that really caught my attention is the contemporary relevance of these classical writings. With a good translation it is easy to stop picturing Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in togas and start imagining them in business suits. For the sake of time and space, I will limit my response to the selections from Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” presented by authors Oliver Johnson and Andrews Reath in Ethics; Selections from Classical and Contemporary Writers (2007).

Happiness seems to be an ever more elusive ideal in our society of empty materialism, violence and spiritual crisis. Yet, the United States Constitution is dedicated to the pursuit of it. Happiness is supposed to be what we are all here to achieve. Aristotle wrote on happiness, and I will summarize his main points briefly:

· The purpose of all activity is to try and do good, to obtain happiness, or “human flourishing” (p.61).
· Nobody agrees what happiness actually is (and therefore what good actions are), but for the sake of argument, Aristotle uses “what is obvious or moral” as a measuring stick. He considers three sources of happiness, including pleasurable, contemplative or political actions (p.63).
· Aristotle deals with the tricky matter of whether happiness is an end in itself or a means to good. He asserts that“we must always choose happiness as an end in itself and never for the sake of something else” (p.66) An hour spent with a lover undoubtedly is a happy hour, but if that love is immoral or ill-fated, unhappiness of matched or greater intensity will follow. Happiness must be the end point we aim for.
· The good can only be obtained by actions. Virtues mean nothing in a non-active vegetative state (p.68-69). Simply being good is not enough; one must act out that goodness to flourish.
· Moral virtue is a result of habit (p.72) and we must be taught to feel pleasure and pain at appropriate circumstances (p. 74).
· Aristotle says, “the nature of moral qualities is such that they are destroyed by defect and excess,” and he introduces the idea of the mean, the perfect balance between extremes in emotion or action (p. 73). He claims that being average is virtuous and being extreme is a vice (p. 78-80), although he does admit one has to lean a bit to find the average (p. 82).
· From page 82-83, he reiterates that happiness is not passive, but intrinsically linked to action and engagement, and, assuming that it is a well-trained morally good person, that action would be virtuous.
· Finally, our reading concludes that the contemplative life is the ultimate happiness (p.86).

Aristotle’s argument is so beautifully written and so logically laid out, that it is possible to get swept away in its conclusions without questioning some of his basic assumptions. I will choose to respond to five of these assumptions: 1) goodness is nurture, not nature; 2) it is better to be virtuous by society’s standards; 3) there is a hierarchy of happiness; 4) extremes are vices and the mean is virtue and 5) happiness should be our ultimate goal.

The essence of human nature has been studied by scientists for centuries, and still there is no agreement about the nature of human goodness. Are we born good, or do we become good (or bad), as Aristotle says, through training and habit (p. 72)? Unlike one who sees our natural state as neutral, I sense that the natural state of human beings lies in mixed extremes of feeling and action, good and bad, and that our training counters or reinforces our leanings.

I am uncomfortable with Aristotle’s assumption that it is better to be virtuous when his definition is what society praises or blames (p. 63). In this society, I object to what many would consider virtuous, and my personal value system would not be considered virtuous by some. I don’t use societal norms to define virtue, because as a Christian, my allegiance is not to this society, but to a vision of the Kingdom of God through Christ. In the same vein, I do not believe that virtue always brings happiness and vise versa. Would not our happiness seem sugary sweet without the natural bitterness and sorrow involved in being human? If suffering is necessary (such as Christ’s atonement) for happiness to shine, then according to Aristotle, suffering could also been understood as good.

Aristotle has an unhealthy notion of the hierarchy of happiness when he writes on page 64, “the common run of people and the most vulgar identify [happiness] with pleasure,” while the noble class identify happiness with contemplation and political action. I disagree with making this divide. I think pleasure, including bodily pleasure (associated with women as well as lower classes), should be considered part of the whole of happiness and not a lower subset. We need to learn to overcome the divide that has kept us from a holistic understanding of happiness based on centuries of sexist and classist assumptions.

Finally, I would like to say a word for ecstasy and extremes. What is a life, if it knows nothing but average, nothing but the mean? Are we not created to experience the full range of human emotions and to explore the full range of human experiences? When Aristotle labels the extremes a vice and the average a virtue, he limits human potential (p. 80). Adventures on the edge of the spectrum cause personal growth and can bring a state of ecstasy. In fact, those experiences on the extremes of emotional life are similar to Plato’s description of the Sun outside the cave (p.57).

I don’t know of a case of edge dancing bringing happiness. But here I ask: is happiness indeed the ultimate goal? What about spiritual enlightenment, wisdom, karmic reckoning, or compassionate or heroic actions? Jesus Christ’s suffering on the cross (and that of the Green Man before him) changes the paradigm of happiness as goodness forever. Happiness, apparently, was not a high priority for Jesus, yet he is considered the example of ultimate good by hundreds of millions of people. He could have been in a state of spiritual ecstasy that sustained him through his passion and death, and the reunification with God in the afterlife may be the ultimate experience of human bliss. But the experience of Jesus’s crucifixion can not be considered a “mean” or average of anything!

Examining each of these assumptions helps me question Aristotle’s outlook. Yet, his writing is persuasive. In conclusion, I look forward to a further examination of ethics from different paradigms, and I appreciate a deeper understanding of how the classic Greek and Roman thinkers, especially Aristotle, have formed Western society.


References

Johnson, Oliver, and Reath, Andrews (2007), Ethics; Selections from Classical and Contemporary Writers, Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth

Thoughts on the Bluffton Farmers Market

I was trained in politics, and my husband and I set out after college to do our professional peace movement internships with all the best intentions in the world. Unfortunately we had a very difficult lessons to learn in the adult professional scene and we wound up hurt, disillusioned and bitter, knowing there must be a better way to work and live than what we had witnesses. This experience, as well as the work of Wendell Berry and others led us to a kind of “micro-politics,” our only hope in the ever more overwhelming political struggle that now seemed intimately personal.

We didn’t know anymore how to stop global warming, but we knew what we had to do to cut down our own energy consumption. We stopped using a car and started the process of going off the grid in our home.

We didn’t know how to make peace happen, but we knew what we needed to do to build community. We started getting involved in local projects and our church, planning neighborhood potlucks and started working on building a wide friendship network with everyone from Republicans to those society rejected.

We didn’t know how to stop the sweatshops and unfair labor practices and industrial environmental hazards around the world, but we knew that we wanted to buy things that were made by people we knew. My husband started an all-hand-powered woodworking business, and we tried our best to trade with friends for goods and to minimize the products that we bought.

We didn’t know how to stop the strip mall culture, but we knew that if we couldn’t buy it in Bluffton, we didn’t need it.

We couldn’t stop the TV numbness, but we could promote and organize live, meaningful entertainment for all ages.

This is the mindset that the Bluffton Farmers’ Market was born from and into. A farmers market brought together everything we believed in: local production, environmental stewardship, community sharing and spirit, live entertainment and space for dialogue across boundaries. It even promoted our small town business district and helped to keep Saturday mornings lively at the stores on Main Street.

Here are some things I’ve learned from being part of the farmers market
1) I think it is a very important fact to remember that we failed in the first year that we tried to open the market. Not all good things succeed right away.

2) It seems clear that people want to have their own small businesses, and thrive, given the appropriate venue for creative entrepreneurship.

3) Diverse people are the key to strong networks

4) Non-organization can work very well, depending on your expectations and the energy of the group

Being Integrated

Being Integrated

Describe one of the eight value systems you use most in your work today.
In my life right now I wear many hats. I am the Executive Director of the International College of Integrative Medicine, a Patient Advocate at the Celebration of Health Center, organizer of Mennofolk, a national folk festival network, a Reiki Master and teacher, a wife, mother, musician and friend. Because of these many roles, I will describe my value system as a person and individual, knowing that I bring the same values to each of my vocations.
In my late twenties when I started experiencing Reiki, a form of energy healing, my practitioners would often tell me that they saw a yellow light around my body, sometimes with orange overtones. One explanation for this was that my third chakra (or “Yellow”) was dominant in my thinking and emotional state, and therefore in my energy system. I believe that the Yellow value system fits my current mindset most, and this was confirmed by the instrument Profiling Value Systems which we completed for class this week. I do try to express myself to the best of my ability, which avoiding harm to others. I have strong internal principals which lead me in a quest for knowledge about any situation life gives me. I am adaptable and change easily according to information that I receive, and I value freedom highly, especially the freedom to feel and to do as I feel best.
Did you have a different value system at earlier points in your life? If so, which one?
During my important years of development, through most of my twenties, my primary value system’s color was Green. I had strong, dogmatic beliefs in the power of love to heal, and in the importance of collectivism and cooperation to save the world. In fact, these values were so important to me that I was uninterested in either a career or a job that didn’t promote this beautiful vision of peace and human one-ness. This was a set of values that matched the culture of my birth family and church.
What prompted you to change to a new value system?
Like many young people I ran into a lot of contradictions in what the world is really like. Collectivism became something with frustrating and disappointing results, and I found more energy in developing and acting on my individual inner guidance. Perhaps I became more goal oriented than process oriented. There is not a lot of freedom in a strong social management system, and a longing for freedom awakened in me. In fact, during my earlier thirties I identified with freedom as one of my highest values.
There were some exterior situations involved with my changes. I became a small business activist, associating entrepreneurial freedom with the better world I wanted. Also, I was living in a small town and participating in a close-knit church, where social collectivism was strong. Inner balance required some more individualistic thinking, as well as the necessity to accept co-existing contradictions.
Which of the six conditions for change did you experience?
Of the six conditions (potential, solutions, dissonance, insight, barriers and consolidation) needed for change, I most identify with potential, dissonance and insight in my own transition from Green to Yellow. I believe I was open to change at the time, giving me the potential for change. In fact, I desired change and development within myself. I intuited that dissonance was a condition for change, and I repetitively left my comfort zone during this time of transition, moving with my family for short term jobs in Japan, New York, and Wales, and surrounded myself with complex relationships and projects. All these things were effective growth-producing turbulence. The third condition for change that I experienced was insight. During this transition, I was practicing inner disciplines such as meditation and hypnotherapy. There were times I experienced visions, both guided and spontaneous which gave me insight to my life. These visions helped me to understand why the changes in me were happening and gave me clarity of purpose.
Describe the value systems on either side of your value system. Do you ever draw on these value systems when facing leadership or organizational challenges?
I do draw on of the colors on either side of me during challenges. In the Profiling Values System test, my highest score was Yellow, with Green as a close second, followed by Turquoise and fourthly, Orange. Green is on one side of my Yellow value system, and the Turquoise value system flanks me on the other side of the scale. I find myself drawing from Turquoise when I am influenced by the new age movement, such as in my Reiki work. As a Christian, I sometimes have strong reactions against the relativism of these values and I long for the Green influence of what I see as Christ’s message. However, I feel a stong attraction to the Turquoise way of thinking, and I can reconcile my ideas of Christ’s atonement in Turquoise.
Curiously, it was Orange impulses that helped me to transition from Green to Yellow, and still affect me as I reach toward Turquoise. I also identify with Purple, especially in religious or Reiki contexts when I am dealing with the spirit world. I recognize the layers within me, just as different chakras shine clearly in different contacts, yet the Yellow remains dominant, and I act out of it most comfortably.
Do you see yourself as open, closed or arrested? Provide evidence.
This wide use of different value systems points to an open mindset that is ready for evolution. I hope that I do have openness to change and development in my value systems. I think that I consider change inevitable. Certainly I have recently gone through a lot of turbulence in my life and come out changed by the disruptions. Due to the beta/gamma conditions of my life right now, I am also experiencing some symptoms of a closed state of transition. I have blocked off some of my openness to close friends and my spouse, and I sometimes feel the shell of fear/protection around me. Slowly, as I strive for more security and balance in my life, these conditions are subsiding. I am trying to be open-minded to new hope and meaning in my life, even as I mourn some losses of innocence.
Discuss how your value system gives you guidance when facing a difficult leadership or organizational challenge.
My Yellow value system gives me guidance during this time by allowing me to continue the flow of self-expression, which also allows continued growth and self-knowledge. My Yellow self exudes self-confidence and empowerment while allowing complexity and contradictions in myself and others. This is the key to forgiveness of the past, and a release of fear about the future. I have let go of some ideas about the nature of love, yet I have glimpses of a larger picture in which love may be greater that my original ideal.
If you were to function as a Spiral Wizard in your organization, what would you pay attention to?
I believe that it is no accident that all of the organizations I am involved with seem to match me in a Yellow set of values. I will use ICIM as a case study in being a Spiral Wizard. To transform ICIM into Turquoise would require more focus on a higher consciousness, more spirituality, less materialism and more care for the earth. Unfortunately, ICIM is dealing with a situation of political threat that is keeping us closed to change. Many of our doctors have been persecuted for their alternative medical practices; much of our energy becomes focused on defense and justification. As a Spiral Wizard, my challenge would be to help the organization transcend their political reality and focus inward.
How do you assess the health of the spiral in your organization?
Ultimately, all positions on the spiral are healthy, as long as they are open and moving in growth. Healing from experiences that close us off is a high priority. Being open to using all value systems that fit the situation is also a healthy sign that the spiral is helping us integrate our responses, our development and our current reality.

References
Taken from writings on the ideas of Clare W. Graves.

A Web Networking Proposal for ICIM

Fully Engaging Technology; A Web Networking Proposal for ICIM

As I answer the phone for the International College of Integrative Medicine, I am often asked if we are a college where people come to study. We do not have a physical campus, a consistent student body, or a degree-granting academic program. However, I reply that we are indeed a kind of “college;” we are an association of medical practitioners who come together to learn, teach, and share knowledge in a supportive community. Without bricks and mortar to contain and locate this college, our main portal and hub is our website. This is where the public finds us; this is where our members come to participate. Though we meet in person twice yearly, our email and telecommunications provide the bulk of our interactions. Already we rely on technology to help us associate closely with each other. How can we develop by fully engaged the smorgasbord of technological potential available to us?

To guide my answer, I will use the model of a college campus, echoing Adam Greenfield’s assertion that in the next few years, computers’ “processing power [will be] so distributed throughout the environment that computers per se effectively disappear (p.1). As we envision ICIM’s website home, we need to assume that it will be able to exude the atmosphere and emotional resonance of a college campus, with the logistics of technological information secondary to the natural thought process of a college community.

We have made great strides in building an engaging website over the last two years. To continue that growth, I would like to think about web networking using four themes: Finding, Staying, Participating, and Reaching Out.

Finding

Currently, a Google search for “integrative” medicine does not even bring up our website http://www.icimed.com/. We have been offered the use of a portal to help us register on search engines by Empowered Doctor, an essential first step if we are to take the resource of the web network seriously. As a smaller, but also important step, we are beginning a campaign of asking likeminded groups, our members, and our corporate sponsors and friends to link to our site, consciously building the web of links that will draw search engines our way.

Staying
Once the public finds our site, we can see by our web stats that many spend very little time on it. Currently, the sidebar choices we offer are: Home, Find a Practitioner, Doctor of the Month, Conferences, Corporate Sponsors, Marketplace, Classified Ads, ICIM Forum, ICIM E-Journal, Specialty List, Library, Links, Board, Members Only, and Member Application. Some of these can be developed to be more engaging, interactive, or useful, and more can be added to make our site a memorable destination. In the next year, we intend to add or re-design the homepage, a multi-media page, Politician of the Month,, Library, and Marketplace.

Our campus commons, or homepage could be made beautiful and intriguing, rather than utilitarian in style. Friendly images of doctors taking care of patients could fade from one to another with original music that we sell our our Marketplace page. This kind of welcome is necessary to prepare the way and open the heart for the learning and interaction that is to follow.

We have a wealth of video lectures and radio shows recorded by our members that we must display prominently on our website, making us multi-media. This provides our “campus” with those winding pathways that help us encounter people we might have otherwise missed. Internally, our links to each other will be enhanced, but we can also use this raw material as YouTube data and Empowered Doctor’s medical news story releases, for the benefit of raising the profile of integrative medicine.

A new page of the site is in the works; “Politician of the Month,” where we will encourage and post comments on these profiles of professional politicians who make integrative medicine part of their platform.

Of course, every college needs a library at its center, and our “library” page needs to be expanded to include the full texts of donated books written by members. We need to develop a FAQ page with an automatic range of answers, reflecting the fact that we have diverse opinions on some issues, and giving the basic information about ICIM. As part of our library, we must make our collection of articles, power points and newsletters available to the public in a searchable way.

Some of our members have written books that are for sale on our Marketplace page, and we can quickly expand this section by making automatic links to Amazon.com for these resources rather than typing and scanning all the information ourselves. By becoming an affiliate for Amazon, our organization can get a cut from every book sold that we recommended. We can also include links to movie trailers like Lorenzo’s Oil and The Tomato Effect that portray issues struggle for integrative medicine on an emotional level (don’t forget the fine tradition of a college campus bonding over an art or international film series).

Participating

Making our website a place where people want to linger and stay is an important goal. Allowing the people to participate in the creation of the site can save hours of administrative time as well as add even more valuable data with a prosumer flavor.

Our professor’s “offices” will exist in the form of email and website links to board members and guest speakers we hire for conferences, making them thoroughly accessible for questions from member-students before and after their lectures with us. The word college implies knowledge, that we are an organization that exists to share knowledge about the latest scientific findings in integrative medicine. If our website is a static data base, it will hold much information, but The Social Life of Information reminds us on p. 119 that “first, knowledge (as opposed to information) usually entails a knower.” There are people, teachers behind all that information on the website, and we need to make the human connection tangible to our member/students. It is this engagement that causes learning and breeds knowledge. On a very practical level, it is also this kind of engagement that will keep our members and public coming back to our site and in the long run, keep our group alive.

There are interesting features our webmaster has already built in our campus landscape that are special and hard to find elsewhere. “Find a practitioner” search by zip code is one. Another is a list where members have each defined one of the integrative medical specialties they do. To fully make use of modern technology, members should be able to add or change these definitions at will.

Every campus needs a stadium full of students, and our membership could be more engaged and more easily sustained with an automatic PayPal payment for all yearly fees and conference registrations. I’d like to see an email go out yearly to the physicians, letting them review their membership listing, email me revisions, and pay with the click of a button. We need to find a way to take credit cards or PayPal over the web to make these processes realistic. We need to create templates for online registration for conferences, as well as exhibitor registrations online that are self-serve. Once someone registers, they should be sent a packet of information automatically. This feature could save hours of individual calls and emails asking for clarification of conference information.

Reaching Out

One of the main reasons we have a website is to do outreach. It is time for us to think of outreach as something beyond just our site. It is time for ICIM to become a member of the worldwide web community and begin to participate in the wider forums of web discussion and discovery. College campuses have the same challenge.

Now that we have the ICIM Forum for discussion on our website, we need to make sure we use it! Our board president is the moderator and will be first in line to answer questions that arise. As the Executive Director, I will be monitoring the forum to insure only legitimate sounding students and doctors are posting. Most importantly, we need to recruit medical students to make sure discussions get started and so that others know that the venue is available. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure our forum is linked from the American Medical Student Association, one of the organizations with which we have a good working relationship.

Our webmaster has built the forum so that when someone signs in to leave a comment, they are automatically added to an email list. We use the mass email feature of our website to send out a monthly E-Journal with reminders and links to articles that have commentaries from some of the medical students involved with ICIM. We can now add the extra emails from our forum visitors and have a way to keep in touch with them. Our E-Journals will be listed on the public side of the website, so that they can be browsed by anyone who visits our “campus.” These E-Journals are also meant to be messages to the outside world from ICIM. We need to find ways to widen our audience.

Another important and easy way ICIM could reach out is by putting any videos of our members out on YouTube. We have already started participating in Wikipeadia, with a definition of ourselves. The next step is to appoint several Web Network Research Ambassadors from our website committee to continue expanding our Wikipeadia submissions, purposeful blog sites about our organization, and searching for ideagoras where our research could be put to use and more widely seen.

Conclusion

This vision for the ICIM website may take a while to come to fruition. Most certainly, it is a vision that will constantly change and be adapted as new technology and resources quickly become available. Our current budget for website maintenance is not adequate to include website development, and we need to look at a major expansion of that budget item in later years if the board agrees that our web presence is indeed the essence of where ICIM lives in society. We are expecting approximately $10,000 in corporate sponsor revenue in the next few months, and I propose that we use some of these monies to invest in website development before the year’s end. Our priority is learning, and we can take our cues from institutions of learning, and become a college in more than name only. Beyond bricks and mortar, we have the building blocks of knowledge, dedicated “knoweres” to communicate it, and our website is the best way to make these available to the world.