Global Warming: Right problem, wrong message

I read "How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions" by Robert Wright from the January 29 issue of Time Magazine. I enjoyed the article and thought that the same principles could be applied to why people do not take action when the outcome would be positive. When people cannot see a direct link between their individual behavior and an outcome, they are less likely to take action. I believe that this is especially the case when the issue seems impossibly large to solve like global warming or foreign oil consumption. It is difficult to comprehend the apocalyptic vision of An Inconvenient Truth and apply that vision to how to solve the world's problems in one's day-to-day life. As a result, it is hard to feel individually culpable or accountable for society's problems.

So, how do we solve the world's problems? Make it personal. Identify root causes of societal issues, but instead of brushing broad, sweeping strokes about how the masses can solve the problem, create individual solutions and individual outcomes. If people understood that every time they drive their car or truck that gets 15 to 20 miles per gallon, they are causing the same type of pain to their loved ones as second hand cigarette smoke except with chemical pollutants, they can begin to see how their individual behavior can directly lead to positive outcomes.

Perhaps, given people's likelihood to act when an outcome is a. directly controllable by them, and b. has a directly personal outcome, a better case may be made if the cause was simply pollution and the argument went something like, "pollution is killing you, your kids, your friends, and the environment but you can change that today by cutting your pollution in half by driving a car that gets at least 40 mpg." That makes is personal, action-oriented, and achievable by the individual.

Wouldn't a fresh approach be worthwhile?

The Office of the Future

A friend in Arizona sent me this BusinessWeek article about the new corporate culture that Best Buy is building. I thought the article was interesting and it sparked a goiod email exchange. The following are some notes from our exchange. My original note in response to Bryan sending me the article:

"I like the virtual office model conceptually, but do you think it will work? the hardest part, I think and have found in the past, will be establishing a measure for productivity for each individual (not for the business unit). The reason people are expected to show up to work during certain hours is that time management is easy to measure for every individual (although it seems Best Buy had gone overboard).

Sales people can easily work outside the office because they are measured on # of sales. Engineers can upload a code base and it either works or not. Call centers can be taken out of a central location and into the home due to call monitoring technology (Jet Blue does this). But, how do you measure the productivity of average admin? or marketing manager? or supervisor?"

Bryan's response:

"Pretty interesting stuff. In response to your previous email, I think you're right; there definitely needs to be a productivity measure for each person. In some positions and careers, however, finding that magic way to measure contribution could be difficult. But those difficult-to-measure positions beg the question, how is that person's contributions measured today? And can those same aspects of contributions be gathered through the virtual office? I think they probably can. Especially when the virtual office is combined with the occasional face-to-face time like the blog described.

Two things are clear. 1. The future office (think 20+ years) will look very different. 2. There will be a lot of money to be made by the enablers of that new office."

What do you think?