Less stuff, more happiness

 

Founder of "TreeHugger.com" and owner of sustainable prototypes producing company "ExceptionLab"

Graham Hill (2011) presents an idea of "more is equal less", according to which less stuff leads to more happiness.

   So what is the point? In topic he considers cases regarding the joy of less: college room, hotel rooms during the traveling, also camping, when we basically have nothing besides bag and few means needed. But here arises a question, are we getting happy in these cases directly because of having less stuff? We could fell the same or maybe more happiness in those cases by having more things. He does not consider this point of view, and does not face the complexities of the question. He says that now in America people use 3 times more space than 50 years ago, because they need more space for keeping their stuff, but perhaps gives no data, source for checking. Also he presents some 2,2 billion square foot industry of personal storage, again with no additional information about it. And he raises a question regarding the above mentioned data, "where does this lead?", and brings consequences - more credit card dept, huge environmental damage, and less and less happiness. In my opinion sense of happiness in this assumption is relative, as lot of people are getting pretty happy by buying this or that stuff, otherwise they would not. What I will say about credit card dept? It is logical consequence that I can not disagree with. The same is environmental damage, but I would require to give more details about it, as the audience he is targeting is humanity all the people, with different professions, intellectual and educational levels etc. and according to this some part of us might not understand the issue, how does all this stuff generate CO2, accordingly environmental damage. Graham Hill suggests solution of these issues in form of outwork called "Life edited", which states that less stuff we have, less space we will be needing for it, accordingly less CO2 will be generated, more money saved, and more happy we will be. But does this solution answer complexities of issue? What about the economy? If less will be demanded, accordingly less will be produced, or in such low demand producers may even stop production, and what will happen to the world economy? It will get service industry based?
    One thing that I really liked in this presentation, is architectural and interior solutions for apartments, with help of which we can keep the stuff, presenting primary and secondary necessity, having much less space, than needed in standard way of keeping them. And solutions look pretty nice and user-friendly. 
     So what is the purpose of this presentation? To make people more happy or to save the environment, not paying much attention to people happiness? Because lot of things that really make us happy do damage environment, like driving good, fast car (which needs to be produced, which in it's turn damages environment), entertainments connected with it, lot of new dresses, technologies etc. requiring more space and generating CO2. 

   The topic is also presented in unfair way. Bases of such assumption are first of all points of view, arrangements and field of activity of  Graham Hill (2011), he is more disturbed by environmental issue, than to make people happy, accordingly he pays more attention to first one trough people happiness. Also there is no opponent  information or points of view considered in order to compare advantages and disadvantages relative to data, supporting this presentation. And connected to this issue he says that he does not force us to us this "Editing", but asks to consider this concept before buying or obtaining something, to move from large to small quantities.

Selling condoms in Congo

Amy Lockwood is reformed marketer working in international development. She spent some time in October in Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest country in Africa, and collected some data, information concerning the marketing of condoms there. Before touching the main point, there is also some information she presents about Congo: during the past 10 years almost 5 million people were died due to war in east, but unfortunately that is not the only reason of difficult life in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). One of those is the HIV, a problem which is faced by almost 1.3% adults in DRC, which states that 930,000 people from 76,000,000 are suffering of that, and according to report infrastructures, only 25% of them are receiving drugs for saving their lives. That became a reason for donor agencies to provide low or no cost condoms to DRC. She surveyed some people, who run hotel, pharmacy, etc. related to condom marketing there, and came to conclusion, that there is almost no demand for condoms, as people in DRC generally do not use condoms (only 3% of population does). Related marketers said that those 3% prefer generic condoms to branded ones, provided by donor agencies, despite of fact that they are low or no cost. And being interested by the fact, she started to observe the reasons of such behavior. After figured out that it is because of wrong massages they give trough the advertisement, like naming condoms, and writing massages on them in such way, that has no relation with thoughts of consumer, before going to get condom.Messages like fear, financing and fidelity...etc. When local, private companies, producing condoms, do their marketing in significantly different way, by placing in condoms pictures and names, that are provocative for consumers, in order to sell. And Amy Lockwood raises a issue, that donor agencies have forgot the key approach, that by producing something they must understand who is the costumer, and what massages they must use in order to change costumer behavior, and in this case to save people from HIV.
     




To be honest, I did not figure out the main purpose of Amy Lockwood's presentation. What is the real issue? To find ways for saving more people from HIV in Congo, or to make branded condoms competitive with local ones? As in the topic she mentions that only 3% of 76,000,000 population uses condoms (by the way there were no sources mentioned, were we could check the data), taking in to account the fact the local ones are more attractive for them than branded ones. Here arises a question, if donor agencies make their condom as much attractive, would it increase the demand for them? I guess no, because with the same condition only 3% uses condoms according to her data. According to all above mentioned, we have got gaps, lot of them, in sense of accuracy, precision, relevance, as the issue in my opinion is to save them from HIV, not to make competitive condoms. She also settles a question about the approach of the agencies, that must understand their consumers. Right! But, how her answer to that question, or even raised question is facing the complexities of the issue. I would say weekly, as she considers all this stuff from the point of view of marketer. What about the political or social-cultural points of view, mentality, these are very strong factors influencing the consumer behavior. She clearly identifies her assumptions, from marketing point of view. According to this, can her approach to the issue be fair? No, as she looks to it only from marketing point of view. By analyzing the data given, and the results, presented by Amy Lockwood, we can assume, that those agencies do not really care about the wellbeing of Congo people, it is just a charity that can reduce taxes payed by the agencies, otherwise they would pay a little attention to such simple marketing and advertising factors, which is also not considered in the presentation.

Hidden lights of Afghanistan

Monika Bulaj is telling about her travel to Afghanistan, which began many years ago, and started from eastern borders of her homeland, Poland. She is telling about all painful impressions she had during the travel. She’s presenting all the awful conditions, in which afghan people have to live 10 years after the war. She was walking through the land full of hidden graves, were millions of people were deported or killed in 20^th century. Monika also tells about dozen of humble people she met during her travel to east for 20 years from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, trough Caucasus Mountain, Middle East, North Africa and Russia, about how she shared prayer and  bread with them. And on that way she found the “hidden lights” of Afghanistan – the prayer of “Sufi”, hated by Taliban, the Masque, were foreigner is welcomed with high respect, and met like a gift. She raises a question concerning the awareness of people, who pretend to protect this country, about the people living there, about their living conditions, about the underground girls’ school, full of scorpions, were study nearly 13,000 young girls, about villages, where the only way for people to stop their pain and hunger is the opium. Her purpose is to make this silent people to be heard by the world and mass media, which ignore all small wars and awful things happening there. Her aim is to show the world the “Hidden lights of Afghanistan”, reality, that is ignored by profits of global conflict.

Lets first consider advantages of presentation of the article. Concerning the clarity of the article, Monika presents the life conditions of Afghan people clearly, as she became some part of it, traveling and analyzing them along 20 years of her life. The article is strongly connected, relevant to the question she arises "What we know about...?”. She clearly stated the purpose of the article, which is to make people aware about all this stuff. She settles the above mentioned question and presents conditions as an answer to it. There's logic in article, as it really makes sense. But, there are some gaps in this presentation, as scarce of more detailed and precise information. She mentions about the opium in Afghanistan, but she tells nothing about the fact that according to statistical data in 2007, 92% of opium on the World market is originated in  Afghanistan, which export gives approximately $4 billion. Accordingly arises a question "Why, even having such condition, Afghan people still have life standards, presented to us?". And here we have a gap of depth and breadth, as she's not taking into account the other complex problems in the question, and considering other points of view. As we see, disadvantages here are much more then advantages.

Advertising Smarter to Hybrid Car Buyers (Podcast)

Summary

According to potential growth of level of interested people in hybrid cars, there's a forecast, that by 2016 at least 10% of  car sales will be from "green-car" market. The consumers are basically male between the age of 24-34 (56.1%).  Among the purchasing incentives of hybrid car consumers, the most considerable one is the need for better gas mileage (44.4%). The other ones say, that they are "technology lovers", modern people etc. Other consumers are moved by the personal goal of being "greener" (42%). More than 50% of these buyers spend 3 hours daily on-line, and more than 80% consider dealer websites more important source for making decision. In that matter dealership developed a mobile advertisement, as car buyers incentively use their mobiles in that purpose.  

Some Hybrid Cars Presented By German and Japan Famous Car Producers 

Audi A9_concept

Audi rr1

BMW efficiency design 

Toyota FT