Darned if you do? Inexcusable if you don't

A few days ago, I clicked through to a link tweeted by Marc Stoiber (I knew that if Marc was saying he loved something, then it was worth checking out). The link took me to a wonderful article written by Park Howell on the Sustainable Brands site. The article was about a new mobile app called "FlashFood" which was designed to help divert restaurant food waste to feed those going hungry.

Click to read the entire article "FlashFood Mobile App Diverts Restaurant Food Waste to Feed the Hungry" 


A brilliant idea. I loved it as well.

The article went on to explain that adoption of the program was slowed by the fact that business owners were concerned about potential liability if someone were to get sick from the donated food and that not every business owner is aware of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act that provides protection to those donors participating in projects such as FlashFood. 

Liability......yes, that old chestnut.

I retweeted the article and then sent a message to those tagged in the post saying that it was:

 "A gr8t idea limited by misplaced fear of foodsafe liability. Aren't we liable if we DON'T do it? 

Yes.....aren't we liable if we DON'T do it? When we don't do something that will possibly save a life and most definitely improve a life

What about our moral and ethical obligations? 

What type of world do we live in that we would deliberately sidestep a starving human being? Because that is what we are doing when we allow ourselves to be limited by misplaced fear. 

I applaud those involved with this project and I look forward to hearing more about FlashFood. 

If you want to read more great stuff by Park Howell, you can find his blog here or at www.parkhowell.com

Judy

Feeling/looking like a jackass in 140 characters or less......

Sometimes 140 characters is not enough to get your point across. 

Sometimes 140 characters is 120 characters too much.

My point is........when you have a "conversation" on twitter, you are doing so by carefully parsing (right word?) your words to fit into a 140 character tweet adding #hashtags in order to give it impact, feeling and sometimes to help it to make sense.

Today, I had something unusual happen on twitter. Perhaps I am just being oversensitive. Perhaps I am suffering from the post Valentine Day sugar crash. But.....I kind of was made to feel, well......a little like a jackass and it didn't feel very good.

I am certain that the individual involved did so innocently and without knowledge of how she/he/it made me feel (this is what I choose to believe as I stick my fingers into my ears, and say la-la-la-la-la). I am also fairly certain that to the individual involved, I was simply 1 of 11,000 followers responding pleasantly to a tweet that (knowing what I know now), was crafted and cast out into the twittersphere like a fishing lure waiting and wishing for someone to respond.

I got a response moments later with the hashtag #sucker and you know what? It made me feel a little bad.

I know that it might seem silly.......to feel badly about a #hashtag. She could have chosen to use a different hashtag, one that was a little less mocking. #Sucker just made me feel silly.

Then a flashbulb went off and I realized that I had run into my first "twitter troll".  I don't think she meant to be a troll, but she became one as soon as she began the practice of baiting her followers into responding in a certain way....one that she could then retweet with the #sucker hashtag.

I realized that this was someone who could only feel larger, by making others feel smaller. 

So, I did the only thing I could do. I "unfollowed" her and then wrote this post.

You know what?

I feel better now.

Judy

Dear Tim Hortons.......

Disclaimer: I love Tim Hortons coffee. In fact, I brew it every morning at home in my Tim Hortons home brewer and drink it out of my Tim Hortons reusable mug. It is the beginning of my day….every day.

February 18^th, Tim Hortons will be launching its 2013 “Roll Up the Rim To Win” Contest (the link is to the 2012 contest - I will change it once the new one is launched). For my non-Canadian readers, the contest involves specially created disposable cups that have a “rollable” rim. After drinking your java you roll up the rim to reveal if you have won a freebie. Prizes include: coffee, food prizes, camping packages, televisions, gift cards, cameras and even a new vehicle.

Ya….it’s a big deal in Canada

As a result, Tim Hortons disposable cups with the rollable rim become a valued commodity (there have been court cases because of the cups). Why is this contest so popular? I think it is because the Roll up the Rim contest is the great Canadian equalizer. Anyone with enough money in their change purse to purchase a coffee has the chance to win a brand new vehicle or…..in most cases a free doughnut. It crosses all economic boundaries and demographics. We are being rewarded for being good customers.

There is a down side……..

The contest can only be played on disposable cups. Result? Contest = more people buying coffee = more cups in the garbage.

But….I have my own reusable cup…what happens then? During the contest, if you present your reusable cup at the coffee counter, they will graciously fill your cup, but will hand you a disposable cup as well, so that you can play the game.

Another scenario is sometimes near the end of the contest they run out of medium/large/extra large coffee cups with the game playing rollable rim. In this case, you are given your coffee in “normal” disposable cup AND given a game-playing cup in a different size.

It just seems wrong and there has to be a better way to run this contest…one that is less wasteful.

Is this a case where the marketed and branded “Roll up the Rim” contest is so recognizable that any deviation would frustrate and alienate the customer? I don’t think so. I think they could slowly introduce another option….another way for folks to play the game that creates less waste.

Are you listening Tim Hortons? Please don’t make me feel bad about drinking your coffee……I really like your coffee and I want to feel good about the choice I am making.

The contest is successful, the brand is established....now it is time to move forward - improve it by embracing a more sustainable strategy.

What do you think?

Update*** After posting a tweet about this blog post, I had a response from Brett Pickering (@BrettP65) who had this to say:

@judylaine this year you are able to play on the Tim hortons website. You can even play without purchasing anything online. They're trying.
— Brett Pickering (@BrettP65) February 12, 2013

Thank you for the information Brett. The link for the 2012 game can be found HERE

The will no doubt play a similar game for the 2013 campaign. They also have a few other cool social media links on their site HERE

Judy

Need a bit of VITAMIN GREEN in 2013?

I look forward to attending the GMIC Sustainable Meetings Conference every year! I hope to see you in Chicago where we will be Creating Sparks!

Pens In Space

We have all heard the “space pen” pseudo legend: a kind of/sort of/trueish story passed down for generations since the 1960’s when we began sending folks to the moon. A story that grew and changed over the years until it finally became an uber ridiculous example of some overachieving agency spending millions of dollars and countless hours developing a pen that writes in zero-gravity.

The question still remains: why not use a pencil?

Did the early astronauts need to sign legal documents while in space or was it simply a case of someone not seeing the forest for the trees? Was it an overwhelming urge to improve on something that didn’t really need improving?

Perhaps it was the “simple equals boring” theory.

Why do we insist on over-thinking? We spend a lot of time, resources and energy trying to determine whether or not the zebra has white stripes on a black background or black stripes on a white background. Why not just enjoy the zebra for the beauty that it is, and focus our energy somewhere more worthy?

In our zeal to constantly be improving, evolving and changing, we sometimes (often) miss the point.

Yup…..we could have used a pencil.

There is something strange happening in the green meeting industry, a pre-epidemic of sorts where reduce, reuse and recycle is being trumped by “redesign" (imagine rethink/repurpose injected with performance enhancing drugs).

Why?

The beauty of sustainability is that it needs little, if any, embellishment. It needs no bedazzling. It will always work in zero-gravity.

It requires commitment. It requires partnership. It requires communication. It requires education. It requires persistence. It doesn’t always require a label that says, “NEW and IMPROVED”.

How can we resist the urge to over-think?????......resist the urge to throw glue all over the project and glitter the crap out of it (metaphorically speaking of course….)

How can we resist the urge to “redesign” when “rethink” is the most appropriate R to use?

Here are some that I came up with – Keeping Sustainability Simple (KSS):

1. Communicate your skills and abilities early in the planning process – if you are aware of a strategy that is proven, if you have valuable knowledge to share that will help streamline a process – share it with your team. You can convince them that this time, the space pen is unnecessary.
2. Reduce – Ask yourself: Do you need it? Is it necessary? Can it be combined with something else? Can it be replaced with a product or service having less of an environmental footrprint?
3. Reuse – Can I use it again?
4. Recycle – What am I going to do with it when the event is over? Can it be recycled?
5. Repurpose – One example: Creating conference bags out of old vinyl signage
6. Every now and then….get back in the box – There has been so much emphasis on thinking outside of the box that honestly…..there is no one left in the box anymore. And do you know what? That is where we keep the pencils.......and they write just fine

Judy