Surely the world's water companies would be interested in doing something about making clean water available to everyone? - What a legacy - 2009, met the millennium target and stopped half the people on the planet getting sick and dying from drinking dirty water.
It will cost $8bn according to Michael Pritchard.
Please pass this or the TED link on to a water company near you, maybe they'll decide to get together and do something about it, here's hoping, wouldn't it be great if they did?
Thank you Michael Pritchard for figuring this out, and thanks to TED, and you if you send this on, for sharing it with the world.
I'm delighted to say that this video is the sixth most viewed on Australia's YouTube today.
It features Thong Dee, an Asian Elephant, and her new baby elephant that was born a few days ago at Taronga Zoo, in Sydney. Please pass it on, spread the good word and help some important conservation work get done.
This is a first of its kind in Australia - the birth is a massive milestone in the Taronga Zoo Conservation Society's plans for conservation. There are only around 34,000 of these animals left in the wild.
Taronga Zoo wants people to get involved and help them in their conservation efforts in any way they can. I've had the immense privilege of working with some of the people at the Zoo. They're wonderfully inspiring folk who care about doing the right thing by their conservation goals. The atmosphere there must be incredible.
It can't be underestinated how a big moment this is in an enormous lot of effort by many very committed and passionate people over a long period of time. It's a magical thing too, being a time and a signpost to great possibilities.
If you want to help Taronga and its conservation efforts, go to the Taronga Zoo website and find out more, or if you can, go and visit the Zoo, take in the atmosphere yourself, and talk to someone there about what you can do. Thanks for passing it on if you do.
This is a talk about free film called 'Home' released last week on World Environment Day.
There are some stunning images and some poignant commentary in this talk by it's creator, Yann Arthus Bertrand. It's completely copyright free.
Plus see a fascinating study of people across the world at 6 billion others, another project by Bertrand as part of the goodplanet.org site, a non-profit environmental organisation he founded.
These are printed inside Maharishi clothes on the inside of pockets. A good point of view and a great way to let people know what you think and align with your views in a quiet way.
In this talk at TED, again from some time ago, Seth Godin adds weight to the argument that push marketing has had its day – he’s promoted the idea of tribes (the title of one of his books) as being the way to go for brands in the connected world we are in.
In the talk he suggests that social networking technology has helped tribes form easily around niche interests and galvanize themselves into creating change - sometimes on a world scale.
He gives examples of how change can happen from Al Gore to Tom Shoes (in the interesting places column on this blog).
Status quo challenging ideas from leadership thinking, that become stories or big ideas that a person or a brand stands for are necessary. Then it's harness tribes to create a movement and create change individuals couldn’t achieve by themselves.
But thanks to these times of internet connectivity, it seems like power to the fans of ideas that create a better way, is gaining on the power of the mass mindset.
Another good case in point showing the influence of the internet and the power of social networks, is in this two minute extract of a talk given by Scott Thomas, which I found on Coolhunting.com.
Scott designed Obama's digital campaign. Instead of just having people ordering campaign merchandise online, people were able to download Obama branded assets so they could create merchandise of their own.
Net result; Obama's vision of getting people more involved in the political process is achieved - and from involvement comes commitment, which leads to loyalty, and then advocacy, towards the nirvana of customers as brand fans - resonators and zealots and the best marketing machine a brand could wish for.
Good to see more corporate giving in these times of economic stress. Well done Starbucks. I'm not sure what the deal is exactly with the contributions to good causes, but at least they've signed up. Signposting good intentions is a positive thing that may inspire others to get involved, so that's a definite win.
Also good to see this once trailblazing brand, flying a flag of philanthropy. Cynics might accuse them of going for a soft CSR sympathy dollar bandwagon but, I'm more optimistic there's a Warren Buffett-esque acting on a socially aware desire to have change for the good, happening here. The battle of good America v. crap America is hotting up perhaps - the popular hope has got to be that good America gets stronger, early Obama signs suggest it might, and that from here on, we all get to help in whatever way we can, to make crap America history.
This picture is from the materials bit of the 'four Edun respects' from Edun website.
This is a link to an article on Treehugger.com about Bono and his wife Ali's socially and environmentally conscious fashion label.
15 percent of total sales from the four-week appearance in two different stores by their fashion label's new collection will go to charities ONEXONE and the H2O Africa Foundation.
In-store activities, including screenings of short documentaries produced by VBS.tv in Uganda for Edun's sister brand, Edun Live.
Edun was founded in 2005. Pop-up stores have been around for some time now, and in the current climate of there being many retail spaces being vacant, I'd expect to see more of this kind of retail and marketing experience. A nice example of caring commercialism and retail becoming a rich brand experience.
