(Now I bet you’re wondering why I chose this picture when clearly the title hints at two)

What is “Joie De Vivre” (Joy of living) to you? What bubbles up to the top? And lights your eyes? Writing has always been one of my very solitary joys, yet I struggle to find time for it.  This blog and you, my readers, have been caught up in this thusfar not-so-eternal eternal struggle of 25 years. I’ve been fairly spotty in the recent months with my blog.  This time I blame it on losing my favorite pen under my desk of thoughts and distractions.  Oddly enough, I think about this blog every day and even add new drafts every several days (I’ve got over 60 drafts to finish), but my mind has been off of writing due to the expectedly unexpected twists in my life.  This picture depicts how I feel when I write, way before the conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

I am a Hunger Pledge Champion.  Besides having the privilege of displaying a neat badge (on the right), I also get to help promote and spread the PledgeToEndHunger.com campaign.

This campaign is a joint effort of Tyson Foods, Share Our Strength, Hum. Minds at Work., Kompolt, and MediaSauce.  This campaign, at its core, is cause marketing pure and simple.

Go ahead, go there and sign the pledge, it will take about 15 seconds.  For every person who signs this pledge, Tyson will donate 35 lbs of food, which will feed 140 amazing children.  If you’re busy right now, bookmark it and get back to it ASAP.

Childhood Hunger in America is Real
More than 12.4 million children are going hungry right here in the US. That’s 1 out of 6. Chances are you know at least one of them. With an economy that threatens to force those numbers upward, significant steps must be made to stem the tide. We hope you join us! Read the rest of this entry »

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Technology has helped shape popular conceptions of social responsibility and how we as individuals, communities, and brands should act.  Here are three examples of how technology is driving new notions of social responsibility.

Google’ Earth’s CO2 Emissions Layer

Google Earth just received a new layer, which shows the US’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.  I can now see how San Francisco stacks up against other major cities in emissions per capita, and how California stacks up to the other 49 states.  Consequentially, this technology now helps shape my brand perception of cities and states.  How can it not?

The next time I get into an argument over whose state is superior, I can pull out the social responsibility card and claim California’s superiority based on being one of the nation’s cleanest in CO2 emissions per capita.

The simple existence of such a layer adds to the credence of CO2 emissions as an integral part of social responsibility.  The implications also have an impact on the individual level — social responsibility at the community level translates to social responsibility at the individual level.  Now there’s an expectation that, in order to be a socially responsible individual, one should be careful of one’s own carbon footprint. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t posted anything in over a week because of a vicious bug that has been keeping me bed-ridden.  I just acquired antibiotics and should be better and writing posts again soon.

This blog has been up for about one and a half months now and has already undergone several changes in both design and focus.  It started off as a blog solely for my personal cause marketing campaign to help me secure work.  The second iteration covered cause marketing exclusively.  The third iteration brought corporate social responsibility (CSR) into the fold.  And finally, last week I changed the title of the blog to, “Human Across,” and broadened the focus to include any topic within the social sector, management, and emerging media.

This blog is still young and finding its way, so please drop me a comment to introduce yourself, your blog, what brought you here, and what you would like to see more of!  I look forward to our conversation.  I am also quite active on twitter as @kynamdoan.  Thanks for reading.

Did you follow the World Economic Forum in Davos this year?  There are two recurring themes in one of the panels that inspired this post.  The first is on innovation as the key driver behind America’s economic dominance since the 1870’s.  The second is the value of sustained solutions over quick fixes.  Do these two themes sound familiar to you?  They are neither new nor groundbreaking, but they are tough to implement.  At the end of the day, P&L has more emotional pull than these abstract ideas for growth.

Recessionary strategies oftentimes revolve around cutting costs to improve the bottom line, which hobbles the top-line.  While cost-cutting and efficiency is essential, consider investing in innovation processes to improve the top-line.  It creates opportunities, opens up adjacent markets, and disrupts your competition.

Sustainable innovation can be achieved by approaching the innovation process like you would any other business process: with its own targets, powers, resources, and accountability.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I’ve been talking about innovation processes in the for-profit world, which brings me to straight to the point.  These same principles apply to nonprofits, but how many times have  you heard the two words, ‘innovation,’ and, ‘nonprofit,’ in one sentence?  I urge you to start thinking in such a framework. Read the rest of this entry »