As shown in my previous post on fairness featuring video about Capuchin monkeys who were paid unequally, fairness is innate. But what is the evolutionary benefit of fairness? Brian Hayden, professor emeritus of archaeology at Simon Frazer University in British Columbia, Canada, has an interesting theory. It revolves around scarcity and the distribution of...
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I visited Estonia in the mid-1990s. Back then, I said it would be fascinating to return in 20 years and see what changed....
We have elections all over the place: within companies, nonprofits, homeowner’s associations, kid’s sports league. Civic elections are a social good. As with all social goods, marketing principles apply to elections....
Urbanization continues, but urban can’t mean completely paved and mechanized. For protection, sustainability, and happiness, we must align our cities with the natural systems where we build. We need to be consciously designing, funding, and distributing nature in our cities. Urban trees, and nature more broadly, need to be treated as critical infrastructure for...
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For social goods like health care, the buyer and the end consumer are often two different parties. In much of health care, an insurance company or a government agency is the buyer, while the individual patient is the end consumer. At least in the United States, for-profit medicine companies exploit this split. They charge...
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How do you deliver help to homeless people with no fixed address and little to no money? ...
When human communities subsisted as hunter-gatherers, we recognized the evolutionary benefit of fairness. As our social nature evolved to living in settled communities, some people started having more than others. We accepted a certain level of inequality–as long as everyone had enough. But that begs the question: what is the fair distribution of social...
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Government, along with public and social sector marketers, should serve citizens not customers....
If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you are looking for ways to increase your impact. Social return on investment, or social ROI, lets you objectively define and measure your impact. Once you can define and measure impact, use that ability to identify communities to serve. Decisions about who and where you choose to...
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Look for bright spots of success and hope among your market audience, and you may find your next big idea. Here are lessons from a story about how one underfunded aid worker used turning bright spots into products and services to change a nation....