m-cause

I am sure most of you have heard about Tim Ferriss, but if not, you need to pick up his best selling semi-autobiographical lifestyle design book the 4-Hour Work Week.   You might find the title a bit cheesy, but Tim is the real deal.   He wrote the book to provide people with interesting alternatives to the classic model of postponing life for 20-30 years in order to achieve a “retirement” objective.  Indeed, by standing up against the outdated deferred life plan model, where you go to university, get a job, work like a maniac for 30+ years & then put on white tennis shoes to go on a cruise & buy overpriced souvenirs, Tim becomes the unofficial spokesman for the 25-40 year olds out there who want to see change.  Tim’s tips on the mobile lifestyle and outsourcing easily connect to the young professional audience.  He smartly talks to this group by combining informal and extremely transparent “blog style” language with a very deep and mature level of thinking on the modern pursuit of happiness and meaning.  He also has a blog (on my blogroll) called Tim Ferriss, Experiments in Lifestyle design which is also amazingly transparent. I wonder if Tim took a page from Gandhi’s book when he created the title of his blog…Gandhi’s autobiography is called The Story of my Experiments with Truth.  Don’t worry guys, I am not comparing Tim’s accomplishments to those of Gandhi, I am just wondering if Gandhi provided inspiration for Tim…Gandhi frequently challenged himself with experiments.  Tim also reports about his experiments in unusual detail and transparency.  The main difference being that Gandhi’s experiments were religious in nature, while Tim’s experiments revolve around his lifestyle design pursuit philosophy.  Indeed, Tim does not discuss religion very much in the book.  Perhaps he will undertake an experiment of this nature at a later date…one of his friends (A.J. Jacobs from Esquire) has already taken the plunge in his book called the Year of Living Biblically.  I will pick this book up soon. 

Tim is also a big advocate of pursuing causes (m-cause applauds).  Recently Tim released an amazing blog post on low cost, high reward mini-retirements involving volunteer work.  Note:  Post was written by Darius Monsef IV.  Below I have attached some recommended organizations for this type of activity directly from Tim’s blog. 

Burners Without Borders

Following the 2005 Burning Man event, several participants headed south into the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to help people rebuild their devastated communities. After several months of working along the Gulf Coast, BWB has set up a project in Pisco, Peru to assist with earthquake relief work.

Project HOPE

Nearly 50 years ago, Project HOPE was founded on the willingness of doctors, nurses and other medical volunteers to travel the globe on a floating hospital ship, the SS HOPE, to provide medical care, health education and humanitarian assistance to people in need. While we now operate land-based programs in more than 35 countries, Project HOPE has again returned to sending medical volunteers on board ships around the world to provide medical assistance, long reaching health education programs, vaccinations and humanitarian assistance.

International Relief Teams

International Relief Teams mobilizes volunteers and distributes medical supplies to support the organization’s four missions: 1) domestic and international disaster relief, 2) medical education and training, 3) surgical and clinical outreach, and 4) public health. Since 1988, IRT has provided more than $5.6 million in volunteer services, and more than $112 million in medicines and supplies to families in desperate need in 42 countries worldwide.

Relief International

Relief International is a humanitarian non-profit agency that provides emergency relief, rehabilitation, development assistance, and program services to vulnerable communities worldwide. RI is solely dedicated to reducing human suffering and is non-political and non-sectarian in its mission.

I really want to start digging into a couple of companies on the FC social capitalist award list (as I posted back in Feb.) but I am procrastinating.  I admit it.  So I will ponder another question today instead…how do European companies shape up against US/Canadian companies when it comes to corporate volunteer programs?  Has anyone out there read a study about this?  I am asking this because I am a marketer with a fortune 50 company based in Geneva, Switzerland…realize I have not revealed too much about myself on m-cause yet, but honestly I have not had time to work on my about me page.  And anyway, this blog is not really about me, it is about exploring the world of causes, marketing, sustainability and generally all things good. 

I did find a site called worldvolunteerweb  which is a pretty good site & has a lot of info on global volunteering, but it does not touch what is happening with volunteering corporately

I will be looking for more info here and will keep you posted if I find anything.

In their environmental business strategy book Green to Gold, Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston highlight their top 10 environmental issues to take up cause against:

1. Climate Change (obvious) 2. Energy 3.  Water 4. Biodiversity and Land use 5. Chemicals, Toxins, and Heavy Metals 6. Air pollution 7. Waste Management 8. Ozone Layer depletion 9. Oceans & Fisheries 10. Deforestation. 

 What happened to the ozone layer discussion?  Why has it dropped so far down the list (number 8)?  Now that I think about it, I rarely ever hear anything on this topic in the news anymore.  Maybe its because we have made some real progress globally in this area.  Esty and Winston mention that the Montreal protocol and other international amendments seem to have led to great progress and now the ozone hole has stopped growing.  It may even close by 2065.  The issue is still on their top 10 list and they do remind us that one EPA study has predicted 150 million cases of skin cancer & 3 million deaths during the course of the 21st century (oh by the way, at an economic cost of 6 Trillion USD). 

The ozone layer story gives some hope that we can beat global warming, but unfortunately tough govt.  regulations will be needed.  I am all for less govt. intervention, but I do not think that even the inspiring sustainability movement under way in many Fortune 500 companies & other big global titans will do the trick. 

Regulations will at first feel like a big business burden, but as companies develop innovative substitutes (like DuPont did for CFCs) then the regulations also help these smart companies develop new competitive advantages.

So, I am going to stay positive about the fight against global warming this weekend.  With a change of government coming in the US, 2008 should be an exciting year for progress.