A Pair of Thoughts on Global Improvement

The following are the type of thoughts you gotta get out of your head somewhere. Thank you blog o' mine for being the convenient ventee that you are.

ACCESSIBILITY

This passage is the result of months of built-up frustration from one of the business world's most well-loved functions - Sales and (the art that is) Cold Calling. Brrr... makes me shiver just thinking about it.... or maybe that's the blust'ry -20F windchill from our ever-lovely MN winter.

In truth, I like cold calling. I've "met" many successful, interesting, high-powered, energetic individuals over the phone. It's a great way to connect with people you'd otherwise have no chance to. And I've actually met some of them - a few of which have evolved into business partners, career counselors, personal advisors, friends, and of course - advertisers (I call more media buyer types in a day than anyone should have to. Ever. They are great people, I just know that a good percentage of the time, they'd rather have a heart-to-heart with a hole in the ground than listen to my 30-second pitch of how I can guarantee them an ROI while helping them grow their business.)

I think the world would be a better place if more intelligent and well-connected people were more accessible.

I can't over-emphasize how many times I have just straight-up been snubbed after a polite and professional series of voicemails/emails, without a single notion of recognizing my existence. And I promise Mr./Mrs. media buyer... you really DO want to hear what I have to say! I wouldn't be wasting my time calling you if I didn't think there was a sincere chance that we might actually mutually benefit from the conversation, right?

Is the problem that today's current channels (telephone, email, IM) don't suffice? Or is the problem that today's Marketers and business leaders don't understand the value of being accessible and connecting with and learning from the people around them?

I guess I need to invent a way for busy people to easily respond to those reaching out to them, and to motivate those busy folks to want to respond.

WOMEN

My addiction to absorbing a few "TED talks" each night before I go to bed continues. I subscribe to their video podcast, so as they release videos from their archive, iTunes conveniently downloads the new ones for me (although some aren't "new," as opposed to "newly released." Whatever - they're new to me!)

Last night I was flipping through the 117 "talks" I have downloaded (no I don't progress through them systematically - how fun is that?), and I came across the following description

"In one of the most beloved talks from TED2007, novelist Isabel Allende talks about writing, women, passion, feminism. She tells the stories of..." and my screen doesn't show any more. Now, the typical, yesterday Kevin Carlow would have read that preview and almost instantaneously continued his perusal. Reason - something about feminists, generally speaking, doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps it's my naivete, but the few that I know are passionate but stubborn and thus (in my eyes) close-minded about a non-feminist point of view. Passion is always refreshing, just listen to the other side too!!

So I watched it, wanting to believe I possessed this "open mind" I was preaching about in my head. What a fantastic idea - I recommend it highly (Isabel Allende: Tales of Passion). She's not an award-winning speaker and her ideas aren't earth-shakingly profound - but Isabel exudes truth, feminine strength, imagination, and not surprisingly, passion. Plus her sense of humor was refreshing and real.

More and more often I find single thoughts, passages, ideas, philosophies, or quotes which strike a particularly strong chord with me. She delivered one such line in mere passing, but it resonated fully. As she was preaching about the benefits of empowering women and unfortunate truths of the poorest and most backward societies that consistently oppress women, she delivered this thoughtful line:

"Men run the world, and look at the mess we have."

Now, I could go for an hour debating all angles of this point. My broad takeaway on this statement is - she's right. Women have been oppressed and disenfranchised since history can remember. Men hold an absurd majority of seats of power: political power, commercial power, military power, religious power, terrorist power, high-technology power, judicial power, law enforcement power ---- all utterly dominated by men. Of course an increasing population of women excel in virtually all categories above, but globally speaking, this number's still a tiny fraction.

If we had true gender equality, with female instincts, intelligences, and intuitions influencing half of the stuff that goes on, the world would be a HUGELY different place. And I might just go as far as Ms. Allende does and say... a better one.