A Not So Formal But Exhaustive Response to Some RetailWire Comments
This started out as a reply to some comments on an article that was written about GiftStarter on RetailWire.
Original Link: www.retailwire.com/discussion/18652/giftstarter-applies-crowdfunding-concept-to-group-gifting#CommentsContainer
“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.”
I think public intellectuals have a responsibility — to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence. However, I just don’t see that at play with the current comments on this thread. And so, therefore, it is with some liberty that I digress:
1Number one; we all know what happens when one liberally assumes what the underlying assumption is. Two ass-umptions for the price of one? Perhaps it was the loud music that overwhelmed the original thoughts that could of arisen out of a present-moment awareness assessment of the underlying form of what gift giving most truly is, and how GiftStarter is centered upon it, and poised to move right passed those far too asleep to understand that giving is about bringing joy to people and not about models or angles or industries or size — such as seems the case to those that are relegated to such monotony as thinking for a machine instead of for oneself or even other human beings — as is the case in such endeavors as enterprising everything. What is that line now?…Those who can, do; those who can’t, talk about it.
2Number two; The study of behavior is not a function of business, and so am readily able to dismiss any business orientated assessment that did not originate in human behavior to begin with. After all, to study what has has happened usually has no indication of what will happen, as anyone who understands that the true state of the universe is one based on randomness, and not predictable behavior. Perhaps many people have seen the actress play the black swan, but have never stopped to see an actual Black Swan. Furthermore, the sort of human dynamics at play when people give gifts are rarely capitalistic in nature, contrary to the capitalist’s desires, and so no retail focused company has ever been able to crack the nut of genuine human instinct, which is why they hire psychologists, not analysts, to help market to humans. Perhaps this is why social companies don’t market, they spread awareness. And, why they continue to grow why most of the retail sector scrambles to keep up with consumers.
3And, finally; So many old corporations filled with old thinking are trying their best just to understand why Facebook, and companies like it, got so big, so fast. If an executive at a big 3 letter B2B company were to say to me that they knew what “most” people or families wanted or what value it created, I would think they wouldn’t need to work at a company that most people or families have never heard of and are cutting employees left and right. Literally.
Since I may have digressed passed my point — I will bring it back to why I am here to begin with. Although I appreciate the time that the two individuals took to write anything at all, let me say something to those people who read this and do not work in a large corporation whose customers are other large corporations and are fighting hard just to fire good hard working people — some of whom will leave to finally create something of true value for humanity:
When people love something, they love it.
What I love about GiftStarter is the focus on people, on supporting emotional connection, on bringing joy to people, and on bringing humanity back to technology. The world is changing…evolve or die.
