Roadside stand
Stayin’ Alive MEDA staff who travel overseas take a security course that includes a first aid component. When Helen Loftin, vice president of economic opportunities for youth and women, took the training she had no idea how useful it would be. Returning from Pakistan with a stopover in the Abu Dhabi airport, she was heading for her gate when a man called frantically for help. His mother had collapsed and was lying on the tile floor, bloody froth seeping from her mouth. She was not breathing and had no pulse. “No one was jumping in to help,” says Loftin. “So I did.” Her mind raced as she summoned her first-aid lessons to mind. “Can I do this? Where are the medical practitioners?” She locked her hands and began performing chest compressions on the woman. As she counted aloud she sang Stayin’ Alive in her head — “1,2,3,4 stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.” “I didn’t do things perfectly right, I know,” says Loftin. “I’m pretty sure my form was off a bit.” Nonetheless, the woman soon revived. Her chest heaved, a weak pulse returned, and she began to breathe. Paramedics finally showed up after 20 minutes. As they loaded the woman onto a gurney to transport her to hospital Loftin spoke with the man and his wife and offered to contact family members when she reached Toronto. “I could hear their hearts
Cover photo: Jason Dudek in a field of rice in Sierra Leone
The Marketplace July August 2014
good deed as “giving back”? That’s not necessary for companies that make a practice of being socially responsible, says marketing consultant Lee Yohn in her book What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest. Great brands don’t have to give back because “giving back suggests that you’ve taken something that needs to be paid back to balance out your karma,” she says. A brand that is great, however, is already in balance with the world around it. (Globe and Mail)
Helen Loftin breaking at the height of their crisis,” says Loftin, “and I understood how much they would suffer with her death at this time. And I received the gift of witnessing their relief and love almost palpably flow around me when her vital signals reassured them she was still here.” Much later, the woman’s ever-grateful son contacted Loftin and reported they were back in Ontario and the woman was receiving continued medical care. Loftin is grateful, too — for the first aid training she received and for the presence of mind to put it to work.
Robo ethics. A doctoral student at the University of British Columbia is trying to teach robots the difference between right and wrong. Ajung Moon is developing robots that employ logic to make ethical decisions and then act on them. So far she has worked on issues of simple politeness, such as how to behave when entering an elevator. Bigger moral dilemmas will come later. Moon observes that ethics can be tricky because not everyone agrees on what constitutes a moral principle. When she gets it all worked out, she can move on to greater things, like teaching ethics to humans.
Adgravation. Robocalls are the most annoying advertising tactic according to a survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Others running close are: false claims that you’ve won a prize or sweepstakes; bills that look real but aren’t; pop-up online ads; and exaggerated ads touting medical cures. These all garnered “most annoying” votes of 70 percent or more. Least annoying were billboard ads. The survey also found that “adgravation” increases with age. People over the age of 60 were much more annoyed than those aged 18 to 29. Just wait. (Consumer Reports)
Business on the rez. Osoyoos Indian Band in southern British Columbia may be Canada’s most prosperous aboriginal reserve. Last year the 520-member band made a profit of $2.5 million from its various business enterprises. Unemployment is zero. Credit is given to Chief Clarence Louie, who is known (and sometimes criticized) as a tough-talking promoter of business solutions to aboriginal poverty. As he studied his people’s history
Give back? How often have you heard companies explain a 2
Louie became convinced that “the economic horse pulls the social cart” and the most effective remedy to First Nations problems was economic development. “It’s all about having a purpose in life,” he says. “I think people have it backwards when they emphasize social development over economic development. If you get people working, most of the social problems in a community fade away.” (Report on Business magazine) Internet fishing. You’ve heard the old saying, “Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day.” An updated version we heard recently: “Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.” Business writing. The conceptual links between running a business and writing a novel are not often explored. Maybe they should be. Writer Eva Stachniak was asked by the Globe and Mail to share the best professional advice she’d ever received. Her answer: “Write books you would love to read. And no other.” Hmm. How would that apply to business? It might make an apt mission statement: “Make products I would love to use.” “Grow food I would love to eat.” “Sell cars I would love to drive.” Many business owners, especially the kind who read this magazine, already do that but don’t talk about it. If so, they are tapping into a fundamental spiritual insight taught by Jesus, namely the Golden Rule. — WK
