GooderGoods

Choosing to make or purchase products who's impact is greater than it's function.

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Gooder Defined

Gooder:/goŏd er|noun - purposeful decision-making practice to do what one knows to be right; verb - the iterative process of making something better than what exists  

Gooder Greetings

Pep Talk from the edge.

 

If I told you that - in the future, life would be gooder – would you leap from what is to what if?  In my experience as a seasoned trend watcher, the response is almost always resistant.  And yet even though many know collectively we have to make the future ‘gooder’, we don’t.  Why not?   But more to the point, what will motivate us to create a better life?  For me, it starts with this  - a Pep Talk from the edge.

And with this simple published statement, I’ve leapt onto the other side - still on the edge but across the divide towards the future I want to become. You’ve probably already ascertained that I’m an optimist, and it’s true I believe you can always seek out the bright side.  But that doesn’t make me a naive idealist that thinks that passionate words alone can change the world.  I know that I cannot solely change the world, and this space allows me to make a persuasive argument for actionable change for what we know is no longer acceptable. Maybe the pep talk will be just for me, but ideally I hope it will encourage others to take affirmative steps to making a better world for future generations.

Change is not easy, and frankly often it’s tough work. As a change agent for nearly two decades, I know how difficult it can be to motivate for change even when the benefits are evident.  Yet it is because the resistance to change is so challenging that I’m renewing a commitment to making positive change possible via a social platform. I intend to share my experience and disseminate information gathered from my quest.  Although some postings will be personal tales, more importantly I want to impart the thoughts, actions and outcomes of others who are actively engaged in pushing for positive change. And I welcome your input, even skeptical cynicism into what I hope will become a lively place for dialogue.

I want to start by why I am insistent on using ‘gooder’ in making the world better. I hope you will read on - encouraging me to be gooder, and be open-minded to why you can be gooder too.

Gooder:/goŏd er|noun - purposeful decision-making practice to do what one knows to be right; verb - the iterative process of making something better than what exists  

 

Good, Bad or Whatever...

Even young children have some understanding of what’s good or bad.  And when we act, then we do so knowing morally what’s is right or wrong. Yet life is so complex that often the default is ‘whatever’, and we make decisions because we need to move onward in a fast lane life.   I find myself saying that word when I don’t act in a conscious way.   It’s dismissive of the outcome, and relinquishing all responsibility. Yet regularly we hear the blaming and the bemoaning of our collective consequence.

 

As an avid learner, one thing I’ve learned is the gap that exists between knowledge and purposeful action.  Why is it that increasingly people recognize that we as a human race are living in an unsustainable way in a contained system. We know that we are depleting resources and creating unhappiness that may lead to our world’s demise. This is a real consequence of our collective whatever.      

 

In my full and busy life, I’m often running late. So I take the car over public transit.  As a charter member of the Toronto Bixi bike program, I believe in community bike programs. I’ll expand on bikes another time but my point is that even when I know I should, and intend to take transit, I regularly take the car.  Which is part of the reason I need to be gooder.  I like driving my car, and I have so much stuff to do.

 

There are so many justifications and reasons I do this and I even thank those who take up an offer for a ride to assuage my guilt. But something in the oil pipeline is going to remind me truly do the right thing and get over the whatever choice of taking the car.  I recently went to a Centre for Social Innovation Salon featuring Our Horizons.  Robert Shirkey made a powerful pitch for municipalities to putting compelling message stickers on gas nozzles to make us aware that each time we pull the trigger on the pump, we are knowingly contributing to the environmental problem.  My heartfelt applause and support for his group’s efforts could not negate my sheepish admittance that I drove there.  

 

While I can’t undo what I knew to be bad, I can make amends, and why I am committed to being gooder.  I can support Our Horizon’s efforts by adding my support through my municipal councillor. And I can encourage all you dear reader to make the effort to attend an Our Horizon presentation, or check out their launch article http://bit.ly/UDgwEg . And if you can’t be bothered, soon you may be spending time staring at the warning message as you pump gas.

 

Driving less will be a challenge for me but I know the extra effort I make will make me feel better, and I value my wellbeing and that of others. It takes and effort that is worthwhile to closing the gap between knowing what is right, and acting in a purposeful manner.

 

Make within your control

Janet Morton - Canadian Monument #2, 1994 @ FAT - Fashion Art Toronto,  April 2013

 

Local production allows for greater accountability

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Conscious Consumption

What if we could buy our way into making the world a better place?  That’s the focus of gooderGoodsGooder is a word I use to describe the iterative – ongoing – design process that addresses the goodness that exists in most people.  And goods are stuff.

If you concede that we live on a finite planet, our consumption is a problem.  We live in the mess of our own creation. And the age that we live in has answers to change the way we live for the betterment of all.

So why don’t we do the right thing?  Because doing the right thing is not always easy, or even immediately rewarded, or viewed as a desired outcome.

I’ve had the great privilege of working with top global trend forecasters for more than twenty years.  And a core value that forecasters offer is naming the changes, and proposing a tangible way to address the shift in a response of colour, form and feel.

It’s not easy to shift from what we know to commit to actionable decisions made on new information that challenges the status quo.  My insight with change resistance is both professional as well as personal and what I know is that change happens, and I can’t stop it but I can respond.  

 

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

                                                                        Aldous Huxley

As noted, the global forecasters I work with provide tactical solutions focused on a specific point in time and area of interest.  But what their insight also provided was observations of the shift in values as we move from the ‘me to we’ mindset.  This identified change does not involve everyone at the same time so there is a range of reactions that includes holding onto old values. I’ve watched and explored this paradigm shift for many years.  And I can better appreciate the complexity of what I now see is a value shift within a system that includes makers, sellers and consumers. 

My core focus is on the consumption of goods.  Some of us make and sell, but we all consume. And if our consumption decisions are based on old mindsets, I hope to share my insights to make better conscious decisions on what we chose to buy – or not buy.  I know there are solutions but they are not easy to animate to effectiveness as a ‘me’.  Therefore I hope you will tune in for future gooderGoods posting from the edge.  I don’t have all the answers so I’m open to listen and have a conversation so collectively ‘we’ can create a desired life on our finite planet.

   

 

And check out the podcast interview that I did with www.openkwongdore.com

http://www.openkwongdore.com/2014/09/22/episode-92-kelly-okamura/

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