What do you think about the idea of giving health insurance members a vote in whether they want some small percentage of their premiums to go to cosmetic surgery not resulting from birth defects, disease, trauma or injuries?
Of course it could become the proverbial slippery slope to other socialized exclusions. But it does open the door to new conversations about exercising more control over our personal investments in our collective health.
Working this week in North Texas with great folks from the University of North Texas.
This is an amazing place and narrative. These people, who aside from hosting the country's most prolific music program, are passionate about a dream to build a thriving community on campus.
Who else is doing that? Universities all over are struggling to compete and survive. And the leaders here believe that they will thrive by building community here. And that they will. People in the initial workshops are enthusiastic and get it. Very gratifying to see.
Is it a lack of leadership vision or courage that leaves other universities behind? This has profound implications on everything from student and faculty success, attraction and retention, not to mention future alumni loyalty.
Why should I be on Twitter?
It's become a fequently asked question about people who think they might be missing out on social media. People do not like to be missing out, especially if the rest of your life is fairly robust with relevance.
I suggest they just go and look around. Follow a few folks, search on things that matter, read articles that people linked. It's a cheap and easy way to peek into the vast and ever-expanding Twitterverse.
Nothing is for everybody and Twitter is certainly that way. It is an interesting way to get your world curated live by people who think like you and those who don't. My bias is that I've been part of the first 1% on Twitter and have gained an incredible amount of learning and connecting with it.
This morning it was helping new civic leaders in Cleveland learn what creates stuck and thriving communities. People loved the message for it’s freshness and vitality.
Interestingly, one young woman afterwards remarked that people in her social circles do not often have authentic and meaningful civic conversations. About anything. The talk is dominated by pride in recent escapades at Crate and Barrel, Ann Taylor and Eddie Bauer.
Not surprised. Many people cocoon themselves in a privileged world because it provides ample protection from the anxiety and guilt of living in a world less perfect. Civic conversations have for so long been framed as depressing debates about problems, blame, deficiencies, and permissions.
Perhaps when people learn conversations that are radically more supportive of thrivancy, they will be more willing to act like engaged citizens rather than anesthetized consumers.
Apparently, the price (and health costs) of a Happy Meal for four has now exceeded those of a healthy cooked meal.
This takes away the incredible mythology that those we label “poor” can only afford fast food. Consider this in context that fast food companies have two weapons of mass consumption that sustain the myths. They are experts at marketing seduction and they have the talent, resources, and incentives to continuously improve the secret chemical elixirs that make fast food literally addictive. Every day they walk the tight rope between converting more people into fast food loyalists or lose their jobs trying.
So we will probably see more policy advocacy to curb the insatiable profit appetites of fas food companies and their deep bench of suppliers. We will also see more lobbying of health insurance companies who have a bit of economic clout as well.
So Saudi women now can be driven to voting and running for public office. Their being driven is one of the remaining artifacts of their incredibly long history of rights violations and oppression by their men. It is a brave transition for both them and their countrymen.
What will we see emerging in this process? Will we see women seek further rights and what does this mean to the theologies and cultural mores that are challenged to change?
Teaching today at Kent State’s graduate business program on negotiations and specifically negotiating in influence networks, a carryover from my work in California this past week.
I am very happy with my bright and talented, not to mention irreverent and still respectful group who get that collaborators out-think adversaries. They get that dialogue leads to richer synergies of polarities. It is reassuring knowing this is the emergent generation poised to fill in the baby boomer retirement leadership gaps.
What is the fate of outdated leaders who on the other hand do not understand the value of relationships and social capital in a networked world?
Working this week with the fishing networks in Northeast California and Canada. It is amazing what kind of complexity and wicked problems these passionate and bright people have to deal with.
Not the least of which are the often fragile communities that have the least power in the influence networks dominated by big everything: big government, big lobbyists, big business and sometimes big science.
How do we give voice to the small communities most impacted by big? How they can leverage influence in the networks that influence the decision makers and players who hold power over the destinies of their economics and ecosystems? How can leaders be stewards to their engagement?
If we want to inspire the next generation, we have to tell them and expose them to the stories that have the power to create this kind of inspiration. They can be stories of anyone, stories of their grandparents and great grandparents, or our own stories. The more compelling the narratives the more they will be inspired.
So, how can we teach the young how to cultivate an appetite for the stories that will open their eyes to the possibilities of the future?
In his Op-Ed piece in The Nation, Michael Pollan, argues that the future of the food movement will continue to be at a grassroots effort, even as it continues to have little traction gaining allies in Washington.
He parallels the effort to the anti-tobacco movement that achieved clinical data in the ‘30’s and political mandate in the '60’s. It’s a story of how frontal strategies against bedmates government and big business are not effective. He suggests that health care can be the same powerful ally to the food movement as it was for the tobacco movement.
So it raises the question of how grassroots food movement efforts can connect with insurance companies to move the effort forward. Hopefully it will be a faster and more economically intelligent path forward.
