Michael Janzen

I got into a little bit of a row recently with the guy that runs Holy Cow Products. We had a little back and forth in the comments section of a greenwash of the week post on The Good Human.

The interaction itself and the little bit of product research I did on green cleaning products started me noodling over the real problem with greenwashing; which is that most people make product decisions based on product packaging and marketers know it. It’s a marketers job to do everything they can to sell products and build positive brand reputations. So it is a natural step for some folks to skirt the edge of what is legal and ethical especially during hard economic times.

I realize that most folks are just trying to realize their own dreams. In many ways I respect this kind of entrepreneurial spirit. The problem is that unsubstantiated product claims and product design mislead people and will eventually cause the business failure as the truth emerges. Failure is not inevitable because guys like me and David (The Good Human) that point out the truth. Failure is inevitable the moment the decision is made to market the product as something it is not.

Choosing to put people and the planet before profit is a more sustainable business model. As the internet and social media become more popular business ventures that don’t adopt a high level of ethics will fail faster simply because the truth will always surface.

I hope more business folks realize that by taking the high road they are choosing to make more money over a longer period of time. If you make a product or are working to build a brand put a focus on ethics, people, and the planet, and your profits will be longer lasting. Social media is here to stay… well at least until the power goes out permanently.

I just canceled my Facebook account. I’ve been finding that I Twitter really works better for connecting with people that share similar interests and issues. I’ve also found that I had to spend an awful amount of time on Facebook to make it work, which kept me off it most of the time. Twitter on the other hand is super simple and desktop tools like Seesmic make it super easy to keep track of the Tweeps I follow regularly.

For all my family, friends, readers, co-workers, and contacts staying in touch with me is really easy… just Google my name and you’ll find at least one of my dozen blogs, all of which have contact forms on them. You can also follow me on Twitter of course and get the play by play crazy world of Michael Janzen’s brain… now back to designing my nine square foot tiny house.

I’m not the first person to have this realization; and I’m sure it will be a few years before this becomes a glaring reality. The internet is doing a much better job of keeping us informed, entertained, and connected than the mainstream media. People are shifting their attention from the big media channels and refocusing on other people.

Shifting Behavior

I stopped watching TV a while back. I’ve also found that everything I want to know is quickly found online from an even wider range of sources. I also have a very strong opinion of the TV News. It’s like a terrible microscope for all that’s disturbing in the world. Watching the TV News now feels like subjecting myself to a slow torture.

Entertainment is also shifting to the internet. You’ve probably noticed that many television networks, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers are trying to compete for attention by publishing their content online. The trouble is that these giants have a faster growing new competitor that can’t be beat. We are beginning to entertain each other with videos, writings, photos, audio recordings, live chat, micro blogging, etc.

Every day more people are discovering and connecting with other people through the internet. We’re beginning to entertain and inform each other and our attention is being drawn away from the mainstream media.

The giants are quickly trying to modify their business models to account for this new competitor. They will always retain a market share but their size will inevitably shrink as advertising dollars move with the shifting audience and companies like Google are perfectly positioned to absorb this new audience.

The Near Future

The future trend is that more and more people will begin to migrate from mainstream media and focus their attention on their growing social networks. This will happen for several reasons:

• People will prefer to spend more of their time connecting with other people.
• People will loose their craving for news and commercial interrupted entertainment because they will already be getting the information they want from their social networks.
• People will become increasingly frustrated with the biased and diluted coverage of the television news media and prefer the flexibility of quickly checking multiple sources for facts.
• People will continue to reject paper as a communication medium.
• People will enjoy how they feel when they are disconnected from the one-way communication channels. The interactivity of the internet will be preferred.

I also think current media channels will be abandoned in this order… IMHO

• Print News (Newspapers & Magazines: already on a fast decline.)
• Television News (Beginning to face competition with free online news and social network websites like Twitter.)
• Print Entertainment (Newspapers & Magazines)
• Television Entertainment (More television entertainment will continue to be moved to the internet but advertising revenue will drop over time.)
• Radio (Radio can be easily ported to the internet without much disruption in advertising revenue.)
• Print Books (Books will last the longest because people make a personal connection to paper books.)

The Future Now

I’m personally looking forward to this peer focused future… in fact I actually think some of us are there now. All you have to do is turn off the big guys and start to listening to each other. It’s a bit ironic that making this simple choice and breaking old habits can instantly transport us to the future. I wonder what Einstein would say about that? Who knows… maybe time is just in our heads.

More and more large corporations seem to be getting concerned with the power of social media. It seems that the days are over of harmless commenting, tweeting, facebooking (can I say that?). Off-the-clock corporate employees should consider biting their tounges or at least be sure to make it clear that they are not speaking as an official company representative. I guess all the cyber-squawking has reached a decibel level to be hear in the board room.

To commemorate this time in history I came up with this stupid t-shirt for those of you brave enough to shout at the top of your lungs that you have a mind of your own and that the press should not quote you as an official representative of the company you work for by day.

I’m cerain that at some point the press will figure out that to quote all of us cyber-squawkers is simply silly, at least if they are looking to publish an article with any basis in the truth. A blog is not a credible source! Uh… what am I saying!? Nevemind… just buy the t-shirt.