Posted by Have you thought about changing the world today (just a little bit)?
We tend to get caught up in clickthrough rates, web analytics and great design. In the grand scheme of things, don’t kid yourself: we’re not saving lives here. Do you have an insane amount of passion for Marketing, Communications, Advertising, Public Relations, the Digital Marketing landscape? (I sure do). Would you want to be doing anything else with your career? (I would not). That being said, one of the better personal growth techniques I’ve applied is taking some time during the very busy day to think, reflect, do or give something that will make a difference in the lives of others.
As Marketers, don’t you think we can heal the world, make difference and still make our gross margins for the quarter?
All of us do some kind of philanthropy. Be it a pro bono campaign for local needs or setting up some kind of online venture where people can do good. It might even be something as simple as gathering a group and raising the money to build a library for Room To Read or helping another individual become more self-empowered through a micro-loan (Kiva).
We can do more.
Education – both in our industry and for the world at large – has a terrible time marketing itself. Education should be much sexier. Education should have much better marketing and communications tools. Education is the the fundamental way we can change the world. The more educated people are, the more likely they are to not be stricken with poverty. The more educated people are, the healthier they tend to be. The more educated people are, the less problems they have with clean water. The more educated people are, the more they care about things like their environment and their community. The more educated people are, the more success they experience in their lives.
Today is Blog Action Day.
Bloggers all over the world and from all different walks of life and areas of interest are all rallying together to make a difference. The theme for this year’s Blog Action Day is poverty. Poverty is not going to go away unless we, as Marketers, pull up our pants and help market education more effectively. This is not a Blog posting about poverty. This is a Blog posting about Marketing.
Can you think about a better time to start thinking about how you – as a Marketer – can help better market education?
How about a discussion in the comment section below about how we can make a difference in education?
It turns out, we can save lives (who knew?).
If you have a Blog, feel free to take part. All you have to do is head over to the Blog Action Day website, register your Blog and write your own post/thoughts about what you would do to stop this very preventable problem. We live in a world of abundance. Let’s do what we can to make poverty history.
Never another podcast episode or article 
Excellent speach today, Mitch, at the Tony Robbins seminar in Winnipeg. Your time on stage was fantastic. I appreciate your insight and your valuable information that I wrote eagerly down. Thanks for coming to town…
i can make a difference by offering 7200 monthly impressions per month on an LCD advertising screen for free until December 31, 2008
Thanks for the kind words Charlene. I had a great time in Winnipeg.
Randy – that is very kind of you. I think we need the strategy and message first before the media, but I think we’ll take what we can get 😉
It’s a constant struggle to try and make things better for our families, for those around us, and for our environment.
We spend days chained to desks.
We work tirelessly being the best marketers possible for companies that often don’t incorporate sound social and environmental business practices.
And then we dream about changing the world.
It’s a hard place to be in.
I don’t know how marketing solves poverty.
I do know that the United Way has done a fantastic job of marketing themselves.
I don’t think that the United Way will solve it either though.
And this has me banging my head off of my mock-wood desk.
Colour me frustrated.
My sister started teaching 2nd and 5th graders because she refused to teach in high schools due to poor parenting, poor work conditions, and due to the increasingly dispondent teenage attitude.
Things have changed folks. The education system is crumbling and things are worse yet in the United States. Learning will never be sexy to most students. (Except the nerds that want to rule the world, and eventually do.)
On the topic of how to better “market education”, I don’t think people really care. What happens after one finishes school? We all spend 10 to 20 years making some money and the next 20 or 30 trying to maintain our status. It’s in my opinion that the excess of greed in the last 10 years in particular (regardless of poor policy) has shown precisely that when the rich get richer, everyone else suffers. (The young and the impoverished even more so than usual.)
I suppose that my comments touch on 12 different points without solving much of anything, but I would like to tie this all together by saying that social media–for all its greatness–has done little to NOTHING to help the world become a better place. The system is crashing around us and it is clearly broken. (aka corrupt)
I’ll play the role of ye old marketeer here and unfairly dismiss distractions like “Blog Action Day” because these efforts aren’t helping real people. “Real” people who aren’t educated. “Real” people who are impoverished. Well those people might not even have access to a computer let alone the internet. But I digress.
You know what will make teaching sexy though? MONEY. Pay the teachers. Pay the people who want to get Masters and PhD’s. And pay smart people to run better school systems. It ain’t going to be solved by an “online holiday” of epic, boring proportions.
Who I am to talk? I’m not really. I was blessed with a supportive family that allowed me to find my path. Others, and increasingly more so now than ever, don’t have that opportunity anymore. Money rules the day again.