It's Not Easy Being Green.

Aw, Kermit. If only we had known how right you were.

I've always been an advocate for the idea that small changes can make a big difference. I do not, however, appreciate it when the responsibility for a huge political and economic problem is passed along to the 'little guy'.

The influx of green products, and now the looming carbon tax, focus responsibility on the consumer to make better choices. That's all well and good, but Big Business needs to take their responsibility to make better, sustainable products more seriously- what need would we have for a carbon tax if there were more viable fuel alternatives, for example?

There certainly are viable alternatives to the way products are made and organizations operate - it's just easier for them to stick with the status quo. Change means work and, in my humble opinion, corporations are often much better at managing work than actually doing any.

Case in point, firms are able to sustain themselves quite well solely by doing it for them. IDEO, a design and innovation firm, published a joint report with Business for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit business association, entitled Aligned for Sustainable Design: An A-B-C-D Approach to Making Better Products this last week. The A-B-C-D framework serves as a guide for companies to Assess, Bridge, Create and Diffuse sustainable capabilities in their organizations. Perhaps breaking things down in Sesame simplicity such as this may make it obvious enough for Big Business to finally get the point.

The success of the Green category shows that people are more than happy to buy better. It's not their fault that things aren't made better, though time and again they are made to pay for it, literally and figuratively. Green would be a lot easier if the powers that be would stop selling it to us and actually buy into it themselves.

Dismissed again! Smart marketers missing the female vote in family travel.

One step forward and five steps back. Sometimes it seems that we aren't quite as far ahead as we thought in understanding and addressing women as serious players when it comes to the household finances. I recently returned from a family vacation in Dominican Republic at my favourite resort in Punta Cana. We had a lovely time barring one major technicality--- we made the mistake of agreeing to be introduced to the resorts new exclusive members program that involved premier service for its best clients. Well, we all know how these things go.

We were taken upstairs to a room that we didn't even know existed and entered what look and felt like the Toronto Stock Exchange floor-- hustle, bustle and hard core sales tactics. Now, I would consider my husband and I to be two quite savvy sales and marketing people, so we certainly knew how to navigate this territory. However, what became immediately apparent is that the sales person did not consider me to be key in this decision making process. Now, you know that these sales people have been trained in North American sales techniques. They also knew that I was a working professional. And still, my concerns and objections were glossed over while the salesperson became more and more focused on my husband -- particularly as my questions became more challenging and he appeared the more friendly ear.

Women are the primary decision maker when it comes to family travel-- whether they work in the home or out of the home. This classic error on the part of the sales person cost him a significant sale and left me with a bad taste in my mouth which unfortunately translated into bad feelings about the resort and brand in general. When I arrived back to Toronto I promptly sent a note to the Senior Executive in charge of Marketing, based out of Spain, to share my experience and offer them support in figuring out the female species.

Sun CTO said "Engineering needs diversity"

A must-read: Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos talked about the need for diversity in the engineering field from a variety of angles: Consumer-focused design, social justice, organizational enrichment and, last but not least, profit motive.

Raison D'Etre

Hello world! Welcome to ongoing, intelligent discussion on how women can have more impact on the products and services that companies market to them: how they are developed, refined and marketed. SWING is dedicated to closing the distance between female consumers and employees and the organizations they interact with by engaging both sides in meaningful, impactful conversation. So whether it's better washrooms on trains or more usable gadgets or why on earth skinny jeans are back, you'll find it here!

And we're off.