The Goodness Goal

On Saturday I drove over 3.5 hours to a meeting with a group of farmers from the North Country Farm Fresh Cooperative to give them the results of a market feasibility study I had conducted for them. Along the drive I was blessed with the beautiful scenery that New Hampshire has; the mountains, lakes and forested areas. After the meeting my sister, who was up for the weekend and agreed (thanks) to travel to the North Country with me, and I tootled around Main St. in Lancaster visiting the shops along the way. We returned back to Nottingham, filled the woodstove and we headed to Epping to have dinner at the Holy Grail. I had a great day, but upon returning home and switching on the TV I learned about the devastating shooting in Arizona by a deranged person and the innocent people whose lives ended sooner than they should and of Gabrielle Giffords a young, dynamic and intelligent representative of the United States of America.

My Sunday was filled trying to hold back tears as I watched the various news channels reporting on the events. Why? This was senseless and likely driven by a despondent individual. This individual's target was Ms. Giffords and likely did he not agree with some of her views. Why have American's conversations and debates gone so awry? Language and conversation has gone from civil to sensational, from debating to arguing, from non-violent to violent. It needs to stop. The news media, politicians, performers, anonymous commentators, and, yes, businesses need to move towards the use of non-violent communication.

A few years ago my grandmother passed and during the service I suggested to friends, family and acquaintances to make a change in the spirit of my grandmother who never had a bad word to say. I called upon them to make a commitment to move away from any current violent language pattern to a non-violent one. I offered to start by removing swears from my vocabulary in my personal and business discussions. I found such positive results and I continue to strive to improve.

Over two years ago I wrote a blog post about the use of foul language in business. You can read it here. I received some flak from that post but stay committed to its use being non-professional and not the place in any work environment.

But, this post goes beyond just foul language and more into the use of suggested violence as a way to capture attention, gain voters, ratings, sales, etc. It does not matter whether the business is technology, food, leisure, fashion, communications, politics or religion you can find violence used in marketing. Using statements like Sarah Palin's "reload," Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe," Wrigley's Orbit gum "knock-out," ads, Nigel Barker's "death becomes you" in an America's Top Model episode about models posing in crime scenes. Images such as cross-fire points, bondage, women domination and a host of other demoralizing women images used especially in the fashion industry need to cease. There is much research on the effects on people of violence used in advertising, music and other modes of entertainment. Let's stop using this as a means of capturing attention.

Acts of goodness should be the goal.

Special Note: My condolences to the friends and family of those who lost their loved ones at the event Saturday. My prayers to those injured. And thank you to the people who had the courage to stop the gunman.