Last year I was extremely moved by the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, where Al Gore delivered his now-Oscar-Winning presentation on climate control. Shortly thereafter, I was approached by a friend (thanks Jeffrey) to get involved with Les Amis of the David Suzuki Foundation. As many of you know, I am a staunch believer in helping out community as much as possible and although free time to donate towards another community organization was not available, I have moved things around and got myself involved in this very important organization.
Coming to Montreal on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 is a conference being put on by some Concordia University students where both Al Gore and David Suzuki will be speaking. The event is already very sold out, but Les Amie of the David Suzuki Foundation have arranged for a pre-event lunch as well as reserved seating for the Suzuki and Gore presentation. The luncheon will also feature some interesting content and this would be a great pre-amble to The Power Within Montreal event featuring Bill Clinton, Anthony Robbins, and more.
So why this Blog posting and how is this relevant to Marketers?
If you look at both the success of the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and the true issue of winning the battle against our current climate crisis, it’s all about word of mouth marketing and leveraging the digital channels (social networks in particular) to get the word out, get people to see the movie and then getting each and every one of us to do one or two things differently in our lives. These macro issues are broken down into micro-chunks where each one of us can leverage some component of social media to make a difference.
How does that work?
If I change one or two of the lightbulbs in my house from incandescent to fluorescent and write this one Blog post in hopes of inspiring you to make a similar change, everyone wins. This speaks volumes to the power of social media because the message no longer has to come from Al Gore (although, as we saw in the movie, it doesn’t hurt)… the real message comes (and is spread) by each one of us. We’re continually leveraging this newly-found real power that we’ve got through social media.
The brand power is mixed up in the value of the message with the power of the personal brand and matched with who is connected to this personal brand. It’s enabling newer forms of communications and much more marketing messages to get through just as we had hoped for. The right message at the right time to the right person (remember that promise?). The only addition to the equation is that the “right person” is also creating the content, adding to it and spreading it (by both word of mouth and through social media) with their own unique spin and delivery.
Welcome to the new confusion.
If you’re interested in attending the luncheon and then the event with Al Gore and David Suzuki, drop me a line and I would be happy to get you in touch with the right people. The climate issue is one each of us can change and make a difference in. If that’s not the most similar link to marketing and the power of social media as well, I don’t know what is.
Al Gore – David Suzuki And The Inconvenient Truth Of It All
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Never another podcast episode or article 
Mitch, the more I read about your thoughts on social media the more I believe that you could have been Community-online.com’s #1evangelist!
When I invested in the company back in 2002 (although I found it in late 1998), social media was mostly associated with chat rooms and message boards.
Although Community-online.com is still a few modules away from offering one of the most innovative and empowering social media platforms, people like you motivate me to further pursue my vission.
As for the Al Gore and David Suzuki luncheon and conference, please count me in.
Maki
P.S. Although Formula One still has lots to do vis-a-vis the environment, Honda recently announced something very interesting. More info and my thoughts on it here:
http://maki.papadopoulos.net/blog/index.php?itemid=46
I was reading in the Globe and Mail the other day that Al Gore’s mansion uses more electricity in one month than the average American home does in one year (20 times the monthly average in the US). It made me think that Gore might think that it’s okay since he buys carbon credits to offset his consumption, but that really just sends the message that the environment is only the responsibility of the rich.
Carbon credits or not, there are still x-amount of toxins being pumped into my children’s future environment, and there is still x-amount of destruction being done to that environment to extract and produce the fuels necessary to generate that energy.
I’m appalled. Maybe you should ask Al about if you get a chance.
Either way, I think that his example has dealt a blow to the cause.
“Either way, I think that his example has dealt a blow to the cause.”
why? while al gore might be a giant hypocrit (or might not be), the “cause” has nothing whatsoever to do with al gore. he is an effective messenger about a scientific issue that is of great enough importance that we all have to make moral choices about what we want to do about it. even if you think it’s a big stinking lie, that’s both a scientific and a moral decision.
but what al gore does, beyond bringing you the facts (mostly) about the science is irrelevant. I thought the movie was a bit hard to take – with all the sweet gore biopics thrown in. but that doesn’t change my opinions about climate change one iota, which are based on my understanding of the science and not my personal feelings about the people who talk about the sicence.
I would like to know if MM Gore and Suzuki are doing something or a research on water in the world, espacially with China and it’s pollution problems?
Thank you
Sorry Mitch, but all I can say is:
pity that you have not done your own research.
Read books, surf the web. In about 4 clicks you will find a mountain of facts that tell you that Gore’s movie is nothing more than a bunch of fabricated facts that do not hold up against any scientific scrutiny.
It is riddled with fantasies and simply very bad science.
And trhis man is nominated for a Nobel Prize? What a joke.
Unless of course you are one of the many enviro nuts that loves the fact that this is now being sold by the media as “truth”.
We will all feel the pain very soon, right in our collective wallets.
However, nothing, absolutely nothing humans will do, will change our climate
That is a myth. And an extremely expensive one at that.
To Fred Velden.
All I can say is;
Are you joking?
I’m no “eco-nut”, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not healthy for a person to breathe-in car exhaust, so why would it be good for the environment/planet? To blatantly deny the effects of global warming is nothing short of completely ridiculous. Its inevitability is obvious; people have been aware of the planet’s state for years. The reason for its denial in the past is because specific powers that be found it uneconomic to support an idea that ultimately anihilated their business. They are right in having made that assumption. To say that we today can do nothing to stop the planet from warming up, is, perhaps true, but only because of negligence on the part of our predecessors. They used the excuse “there’s no such thing”, and it certainly hasn’t got us anywhere.
Now, you state that should a person merely do a search, they will find an array of websites that completely deny the effects of global warming and its existence; to that I ask: Do you honestly believe everything you read on the internet?
Find me a credible scientist who will tell me global warming is a figment and then I will consider your opinion. Until then,
“Are you joking?”
Isn’t it odd that George W. Bush’s primary residence is more “environmentally friendly” than Al Gore’s?