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FLOW Vision News: AUGUST 2007

Dear FLOW Members,

In response to last month’s newsletter announcing a gathering in which we would work together to market products made by microentrepreneurs, we discovered several substantial, existing businesses already well established in this field.  Insofar as I believe that the number of niches in any field is only limited by human creativity, the fact that existing businesses are already working here does not imply that new ones cannot enter as well. 

Several people here in Austin are thus working on developing their own approaches to selling products made by microentrepreneurs in developing communities around the world, and we expect that these initiatives will flourish.  See ConnectHer at Ning for a specific project being led by Lila Igram, who has been employed by FLOW for the past year.  There is also a yahoo group devoted to these projects. But it is interesting to look at some of the different existing approaches to selling craft products made, mostly, by low-income women in the developing world (we don’t know in all cases if these products were made by microentrepreneurs).  Let’s tour a few of our discoveries, examining the different marketing approaches being taken.

To start with, Economic Development Imports, offers “Socially and Environmentally Responsible Products Handmade in Africa.”  They have a “Fair Trade Federation” logo prominently displayed on their site.  They say, “Our product assortment of home goods, holiday gifts, and fashion accessories are made from local resources and reflect African traditions but are designed to easily incorporate into western homes and lifestyles.”  On their home page they highlight “Physically disabled artisans in West Africa craft cute bobble head animals.”  They are consistent in their positioning that buying products from them helps people.

If we then move to World of Good, we find that they describe themselves as offering “Ethically sourced gifts, housewares, & Accessories.”  They have a photo of their products with the title “stylish, worldly & fair trade?  Genius!”  The term “fair trade” is cited in several places on their home page, and one sees the term “recycled” as well.  With respect to their positioning that buying products benefits people, they are similar to Economic Development Imports (EDI).  Unlike EDI, however, they are appealing to “stylish” and “worldly” in addition to fair trade.  They are explicitly appealing to more mainstream customers.

If we then move to SuRevolution we start with a stylish splash page with discrete, undulating fluid images moving in the background, a text paragraph, and a series of words flashing slowly at us, “sea,” significance,” “sanity,” “sensuality,”  “spice,” “soul,” “sand,” “sigh,” “sex,” “sophisticated,” “synergy,” “satisfy,” “space,” “solitude,” “silence,” “siesta,” “safety,” “summer.”  The text paragraph announces:

“The arts and crafts movement is here to stay.   Today, we live in a new society where crafts and the industrial merge.  We live between cities and countryside, where we are faced with doing business in a proper way and embracing minority groups.  Two centuries ago, crafts were valuable because of societies’ fear of industrialization; today, the response is against virtualization.”

After clicking through the splash page, we learn that “SuRevolution is a brand that takes the spirit of the artisanal world to the luxury market.  Our lifestyle products embrace cultural, ecological, and social meanings.  We believe the world is one.”  And “The world does not need more things but it does need meaning.”  Clearly, SurRevolution is appealing to a different audience with a different motivation than that of Economic Development Imports.

I have no idea which of the three does the most good, which of the three provides the best products at the best price, nor which of the three is most likely to experience the most growth in the future.  I believe that all three, as well as the small projects started here in Austin, have the potential to flourish and grow and benefit many thousands, and possibly millions, of people around the world. 

But the contrast among the three is a useful illustration of the diverse ways in which entrepreneurs are marketing meaning.  Some purchasers may be motivated more by the desire to help people than by the products per se, though no doubt they are interested in the products as well.  Others may find the symbolic meaning of the product at the level of style and spirituality to be a more compelling motivation than the direct impulse to do good.

FLOW is committed to promoting a world of voluntary activity rather than a world based on force.  The economist Mark Skousen has a written a thought-provoking essay on our web page this month, on “Persuasion vs. Force,” in which he cites A.N. Whitehead’s thought that “The creation of the world – said Plato – is the victory of persuasion over force . . . “ that expands on one interpretation of the move towards voluntarism rather than force.  Skousen suggests “a new political creed:  The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.”  I agree. 

An important aspect of moving towards a world of voluntary activity is the realization that we each have an opportunity to discover a means through which others find what we do to be valuable, so that they will engage in voluntary exchange with us.

Last month I discussed the entrepreneurial characteristic of being alert to opportunity, but to be entrepreneurial, one also must be a judge of quality.  In order to be effective at being alert to entrepreneurial opportunity, one needs to be able to make accurate determinations regarding what products and services people are apt to find valuable, and how best to market those products and services so that those who find them valuable will pay for them.

Most of us have beliefs about what other people ought to want.  We idealists, in particular, are prone to being moralistic about how other people ought to be.  But unless we are willing to initiate force to coerce people into behaving how we believe they ought to behave, we must come to terms with the fact that other people are the way they are, and if we are committed to voluntarism instead of force, we must provide value or the perception of value.  In order to provide value, we need to understand what it is that people actually want, rather than what we believe they ought to want.  Thus the process of voluntary exchange has inherent within it a deep commitment to reality and to considering the perspectives and needs of others.

That said, marketing and advertising can influence people’s actual wants.  I celebrate each of the companies above, Economic Development Imports, World of Good, and SuRevolution, as entrepreneurial initiatives that are exploring ways of marketing the good.  For a long time, many people have regarded marketing as manipulating people to buy things they don’t need or that aren’t good for them.  One of the most exciting innovations in our time is the fact that those people who are most motivated to do good are now beginning to come to terms with the need to use the techniques of marketing to make doing good more appealing, enjoyable, and even delightful.

Ultimately, I envision a world in which better education and health care, better community formation, and better legal systems all benefit on a large scale from similar entrepreneurial initiatives.  And in the meantime I appreciate of these entrepreneurial pioneers who are devoting their lives to marketing the good, in these cases products made by impoverished women in the developing world.

I encourage you to visit each site, and discover this growing world of entrepreneurial empowerment of women around the world.

Peace,

Michael Strong
CEO & Chief Visionary Officer
FLOW, Inc.

Please contact us at contact@flowidealism.org with ideas, insights, and inspiration. And remember that FLOW is a non-profit organization that promotes economic freedom and broadly distributed prosperity. You can support FLOW through your financial contributions among other means.