[DDN] I make no profit, therefore I suck

[Joe Beckmann]

That's a fine idea about metrics, but for a culture that can't even develop
comparable internet services bills, cable bills, phone bills, or, god knows,
medical procedures bills, the distance from real to ideal is really, really,
really far. Consumers don't collectively decide much, incidentally, least of
all in the realm of real moral decision making. Most of THAT kind of
consumption is guided by metrics I would strongly advise avoiding as, at the
very least, subjective.

j

On 7/11/07, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>
> Taran Rampersad <cnd at knowprose.com> wrote:
>
> > Non-profits require funding at market prices and spend WAY too much
> > time doing so.
>
> Well said.
>
> Totally-profit-oriented businesses and totally-non-business-oriented
> non-profits both have a strong tendency to generate unacceptably
> high social costs in whatever domain is neglected by the metric
> that the particular organization is using for measuring its success.
>
> In my view the only solution to this dilemma is to push for the
> adoption of metrics of success that involve honestly measuring all
> significant costs and benefits of an organization's business and
> philanthropic activities.
>
> The first step towards this is to research what the significant costs
> and benefits of various types of business and philanthropic activities
> are, and to develop ways in which these costs and benefits can be
> measured in a reasonbly reliably manner without too much additonal
> cost from the introduction of the measurements.
>
> Then precise units and methods of measurement for these costs and
> benefits need to be standardized.  Without standardization, accurate
> communication about the numeric quantities representing these costs
> and benefits is impossible except among experts who understand the
> details of the various measurement processes.
>
> When all that is done, consumers of goods and services of all kinds
> can vote with their vallets by preferring those commercial offerings
> that have strong positive side effects and which effectively manage
> to avoid significant negative side effects.
>
> To the extent that consumers don't collectively decide just for moral
> reasons to provide sufficient incentives for businesses to truly
> work for the common good as well as for their profits, governments
> can provide additional e.g. tax-based incentives (in addition to of
> course being significant consumers of goods and services themselves,
> so they have a lot of influence on the market already with their
> buying decisions, which I hope that at least some governments will
> learn to make in morally responsible ways.)
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert.
>
>
> --
> Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                    http://Norbert.ch
> President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG  http://SIUG.ch
> _______________________________________________
> DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list
> DIGITALDIVIDE at digitaldivide.net
> http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide
> To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-request at mailman.edc.orgwith the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
>



-- 
Joe Beckmann
22 Stone Avenue
Somerville, MA 02143
617-625-9369