Looking Good Naked, Episode #12, "Blood Cells" and the Congo

Welcome to Episode #12 of Looking Good Naked – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Sunday, July 13, 2008. This week: Looking Good Naked takes a closer look at blood cells – and doesn’t like what it finds.

 

·        Welcome to show #12…9 more to go to 21 and it’s a habit!

·        Phone Number:  206-202-6340

·        Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

·        iTunes!!

 

·        I was focused on one thing this week and that’s what this show is all about: the connection between cell phones and the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

·        Blood cells is reference to blood diamonds…

·        Interview with Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Washington-based Friends of the Congo.

So how does this relate to social economy marketers?

·        Not doing what Douglas Rushkoff says in interview with Mitch Joel in Six Pixels of Separation #107.  Good products with a dirty secret already using conversational marketing. So use those channels

·        Learn from this example. Study why this is not getting any coverage and why other issued like Darfur are.

·        What can people do?

o       Contact companies. Motorola and Nokia do in fact have statements on their websites dealing with coltan.

§         Motorola: statement on website saying they get their material from companies that buy from HC Stark and Cabot and say those companies say they control purchase to minimize possibility of coltan from congo. Doubtful since reports say they get their coltan from Sons of Gwalia which gets it from the DRC.

§         Nokia: statement on website saying it has sent a notification of the Congo situation to its suppliers using Tantalum asking them to follow the situation, and to avoid purchasing tantalum from Congo.  Ask if their suppliers include Cabot and Stark and, if so, ask the same question.

§         Apple:  get on them.

o       Divest your funds, or pressure your pension fund to divest from companies that are doing business in the Congo – First Quantum Minerals

o       Recycle - Value Village, Rogers (Phones for Food), Bell (gives phones to women’s shelters)

 

Things made me go “Mmmm..”” this week…

1.      How I found out about this issue. Lesson: listen, read broadly and carefully.

2.      How an issue of this magnitude can be ignored – despite some great, well researched pieces in big alternative and mainstream media confirming the facts. (6 million people, in almost every consumer electronics product, Rwandan genocide perpetrators involved)

3.      The power of the internet for going around gatekeepers –rabble.ca, my podcast, CHUO, email

4.      Including the power of the net as a research tool.

5.      Will see how good the net is at making 6 for 6 happen…