New Years Resolutions

1- Get my blog up and running and start using it regularly. This one speaks for itself (getting other people to read it regularly may take longer but you have to start somewhere)

2 - Only watch pre-recorded TV - Whenever I read about people who have found great success in a particular field, one thing that they seem to have in common is that they watch very little television. If I'm honest TV ends up being a pretty unrewarding thing to do in the evening. If you only watch stuff from the hard drive of a digibox then you are effectively saying the only things you will watch are the ones that you are bothered about enough to tape in advance. This is relevant to the context of this blog because it means that the TV ad has ceased to exist as a way of marketing to me when you factor in the FF button. I know a news presenter who does not have a TV. I'm not sure if there are any contradictions in this but for a comm's planner it just adds a personal example of the belief that brand communications are going to have to work harder than taking advantage of people's evening laziness to get through to them.

3- Do an audit of my carbon footprint and come up with a plan to reduce it over time. This is a personal and a professional one. Personally it makes sense that if you acknowledge that there is an issue to address and that you are part of the problem, then not doing anything about it is not really a comfortable option. But one of the main triggers of 'why now,' is that I want to become more involved in defining and growing sustainability products and services for my company. The first step of doing this has to be a personal one. One of the themes that will emerge through-out this blog is the idea of blurred lines; between brands and everyday life, between companies and brands, between brands and consumers etc... This is an early example of this as showing the blurred lines between personal and professional life. The natural question that springs to my mind here is this:

Why if for green marketing you have to look to your personal behavior and conduct first before you go and make recommendations to other people and companies, does the same truth not exist for any other type of marketing?

For example as per resolution number 2, can I really make a recommendation about an interuptive advertising solution when I myself choose to avoid advertising whenever I can. And if I don't want advertising from a brand what do I want? I think if we asked more of these kind of questions then everything would seem a lot simpler. Anyhow I will post the results of the green audit just to show how bad my starting point is I expect! Hopefully this will make me feel able to post sustainability examples and ideas and feel like part of the solution. While at the same time take part in what many people are saying is going to be bigger than the internet in its impact on business.