SustainabilityCamp 08 - Tom Williams - Keynote

On Sunday, November 16, I had the pleasure to attend and participate in the first ever Sustainability Camp. It was hosted inside the offices of the Centre for Social Innovation, a beautiful brick and beam building right in the heart of Chinatown. Inside an intimate board room, a small group of socially minded individuals gathered around to listen to Tom Williams (CEO of Givemeaning.com) deliver an engaging and thought provoking keynote.

The primary theme of his keynote was the idea of the power of plenty. As individuals, we have difficulty feeling the impact of our generosity. Businesses are able to measure their Return on investment (ROI) but for individuals, what’s the return on generosity? It’s only when we mobilize to work as a group, does the power of plenty become evident.

Elaborating further on this point, he mentions the importance of new media and it’s impact on the industry in bringing knowledge and awareness to everyone. He cites The Meatrix and the PETA campaigns targetting KFC which have been successful because of their emotional impact. We need to get out of the mindset that dollars and cents trump the importance of our earth. As a society we need to start caring get out of the I know it’s important, but it’s not important enough for me to get out of bed mindset.

So what needs to change? He proposes that the movement needs to distance itself from the perception that it is elitist and just a culturally refined taste. Specifically, it needs to move away from the unnecessary environmental arrogance in which everyone thinks that their cause is more important than others.

Furthermore, he believes that the next level of informatics, led by the Internet, will allow the movement to be more granular about the way food is sourced. As an example, he believes that eventually menus at restaurants will read like 30 page wine menus. This will empower and educate the consumer to make correct choices. While he praises the Internet for casting a wide net, he’s also quick to point out that the Internet is not without it’s limitations. The need to effect change in our local communities involves connecting with people. We need to look at our blocks and make changes at the ground level. Afterall, as Tom said, information without ability to act is dead.

For more coverage of SustainabilityCamp 08, please be sure to check out the event coverage page on the wiki.

This entry was posted on November 18th, 2008 and is filed under Environment, Social Media, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.