However, if I want people to trust my words, I have to be as consistently honest as I know how. So let me practice right now with an honest endorsement. The Pachamama Alliance has launched a new program called the Game Changer Intensive, and they have asked me to promote it on my lists. I can say that I resonate with a lot of what Pachamama stands for in the areas of indigenous rights, mining, water, and other environmental issues; moreover, the people I know in the organization understand that a shift in perception and consciousness is a prerequisite for meaningful change in our economic and technological relationship to this planet. I believe the folks at Pachamama agree with me that it is not enough for us to get scared about climate change and realize that our self-interest is dependent on that of the planet. We have to love the planet as a sacred living being, and not merely fear for our survival on it.
That said, I have no idea whether this particular Intensive will be effective in inspiring such a shift. I’ve heard good things about other Pachamama programs. And this one uses a video called Charles Eisenstein on Movements and Activism from a wonderful interview filmed list fall at Canticle Farm in Oakland. I’m curious to see what practices they build around it.
Another reason occurs to me why I don’t like doing marketing. It is that it treats my audience as a collection of consumers, a bunch of marketing objects whose value lies in their numbers, in their response rate, their clickthrough rate, etc. The marketer doesn’t really care about you. He cares about your response. People didn’t sign up for my newsletter or Facebook page to be marketed at. To do so feels like a breach of trust.
Yeah, yeah, maybe I’m making too big a deal about it. I am aware that among people who do the kind of work I do, cross-promoting events is a kind of common courtesy, and I sometimes feel sheepish in violating it. At least I never ask anyone else to blast my events out either. I assume that if they resonate strongly with them or have had a good experience, they will spread the word without my asking. That’s the kind of energy I want in my field – enthusiastic, voluntary, unobligated, genuine.
good article