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I had a most interesting phone conversation today, but for the life of me, I can’t remember most of it. It’s not that the guy on the other end didn’t try; in fact, he tried too hard really. He went on for 20 minutes, almost straight through, making points for his cause. He was from a charitable organization, one that I used to send regular monthly contributions to. I won’t say what the organization is, because that’s not the point.

For a number of years I supported this organization until I gradually began to feel less comfortable with it; maybe I changed, maybe they did. For the last two years that I supported it, I was rather resentful of the money I was giving them every month. Now it’s not that I sent a whole lot; it was minimal, really. But I began to feel that I was wasting my money supporting something I was not 100% behind. Finally, when I had to close a bank account for another reason, I used that opportunity to stop sending them cheques. And of course, at first they did their utmost to convince me to continue.

And that became a problem.

I understand that charities and organizations who depend on the general public’s generosity struggle a great deal with the financial aspect. I recognize that it’s not an easy job finding ways to convince people to send more money, or to send money at all. A lot of them are proud of the fact when they have no government or corporate funding (as this fellow pronounced to me today), and do it all themselves. And it’s not easy.

But when they continue to call, or send emails or monthly newsletters as if I had a subscription…but ESPECIALLY when they continue to call…they are driving me even further away. Not only that, but they are spending an awful lot of time and paper, and therefore that money that is so precious to them, on somebody who really is not interested. Maybe there should be a “best before” date beside the names on their lists. If the person they’re calling doesn’t change their mind within, say, three or four calls, give it a rest. And stop sending newsletters that only get immediately thrown in the recycling box.

For the last 3 years, I have had continuous newsletters and phone calls from them. And what struck me interesting about this conversation today was that this fellow really knew his stuff. He could discuss issues here where I live (he was calling from across the country), and around the world in many areas of interest. He knew histories of all kinds of problems, and, according to his monologue, he had actually been to many of these countries himself and witnessed all that he was speaking about. He was a smart, intelligent man, well spoken and not the least bit provocative in a negative way. And when he finally took a breath, I had a chance to say that I was no longer interested and had not been interested since I had stopped my payments several years ago, and could he kindly take my name off his list?

He said of course that could be done, and then he did the obvious thing; he asked me why I had stopped my support in the first place. So I told him why. Whereupon he began again to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way. And the conversation (or should I say monologue) picked up fervor again as he began to list all of the accomplishments, behind the scenes virtues and triumphs of said organization. I felt myself “um-hmm”ing all over again for another ten minutes. At one point he was speaking so much and so quickly, that he choked and coughed.

Finally, I was able to get a question in. “How old are you?” I asked him. I knew I’d thrown him and that’s what I needed to do. “Um…I’m forty.” he said. “Oh, you sound younger.” I took my opportunity to continue.

“You’re obviously a very intelligent and well spoken person and (insert name of organization) is lucky to have you. But I’m finished listening, so I’m going to have to hang up now.” And with that, we ended the conversation. By this time I was actually feeling a bit of a headache coming on. I swear that as much as he told me in that 20-25 minutes, much of it I didn’t hear because I was spending a lot of the time trying to figure out how I was going to stop him without being rude. That’s something a lot of these callers depend on; your politeness. So everything he told me, was in fact, falling on deaf ears. Was it worth the effort?

I’d guess they’ll tell you that it is worth it, because if they can convince one person to part with their money…well, you know the rest. Sometimes these people treat their causes like religion; they believe in it so much that they spend all of their time and energy trying to convert everyone else around them, like religious fanatics. And I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to how they can solicit funds without turning people off.

But it’ll be interesting to see if they ever call again. And if they do, THEN what do I do??

Once upon a time many years ago, I worked at our local television station here in Victoria, CHEK TV. I worked in the traffic department and occasionally I would fill in at the reception desk, direct people as they came into the station and answer the phone, as receptionists do.

Now a TV station tends to be a bit of a magnet for, shall we say, borderline lunatics. Everybody’s got a beef or an idea. Beefs could be anything from an annoyed person complaining that their neighbour had knocked down a tree, to more serious complaints about local politicians or organizations. The people with beefs would be directed to or given a contact number for the news department. Other members of the public had ideas for television shows. Most of them were under the impression that you could just walk in and introduce your idea and BANG! The station would spend thousand of dollars to produce your amazing show. The people with ideas would be directed to someone in the production department.

And then there were those who you just couldn’t place. For instance, one day when I was filling in at reception, a rather scraggly fellow with a bit of a scary look in his eyes came in and wanted, or should I say demanded, to talk to someone in the news department. You see, he had a brilliant idea. He had it written down and everything and he handed me a dirty, crumpled piece of paper that described it to a tee. His idea was inspired by the fact that we needed to grow more food and feed more people in the poorest countries of the world. It was easily solved, he said, if we took everyone’s poop and shipped it to the Arabian desert where it could be cultivated into the sand to make the desert into arable land.

That was his idea. He was pretty excited about it, and while I quietly wondered whether I should call the cops, he stood with his crumpled diagram and explained it all to me quite thoroughly. I finally realized the only way I was going to please him was if I took his diagram and told him that I would immediately pass it on to the news department. That seemed to satisfy him.

I can’t remember what I did with the paper. I think I showed it to a couple of people and maybe I did, in fact, pass it on to the news department. But I’ll never forget it.

Lately I find myself enjoying the Canadian version of “The Dragon’s Den“, a show where inventors and small business dynamos present their ideas to a panel of investors in the hopes of getting a little financial help to bring their ideas or inventions to the next level. Of course, some of the inventions are bizarre, but many of them are very clever.

Since the devastating oil spill in the Gulf, literally thousands of people have come forward with lots of ideas as to how to clean up the 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil that continues to spew out from the pipe every day. Just go to YouTube and you’ll find lots of videos posted by companies who have ideas or products that they think can help. Here’s an example:

From what I understand, there have been thousands of potential solutions presented to BP, most of which have been at least considered. Out of those thousands, a couple of hundred have been deemed viable, including Kevin Costner‘s “dream machines” or V20s, which are said to be capable of separating 210,000 gallons of oily water a day. Costner has signed a contract with BP for 32 of the units. But before the spill, he had been trying to employ the technology for 17 years, spending $20 million of his own money, only to be pretty much mired in red tape.

And why is this? It seems like a brilliant idea, along with the one in the YouTube video above. But we don’t care about these kinds of inventions or technologies until we are in desperate need of them. Forward-thinking people are not respected the way they used to be back when Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity. Or maybe they weren’t respected then either, and it’s only in hindsight that we adorn inventive people with any admiration. Or maybe it’s more about the technology itself.

When it comes to cell phones and software programs or anything computer-related, we have hundreds of companies chomping at the bit to come up with something new that the public will eagerly line up around the block to buy. These companies spend millions and even billions of dollars on the next big thing. It’s too bad that they aren’t as anxious to put their money into inventions and ideas that could actually save lives.

Right now, we need the right “idea” people more than ever. Not just to tackle this oil spill, but to find alternatives to oil dependency in the first place, and to solve so many other problems we have on this planet. Governments need to put money into programs and schools to encourage younger people to become inventors, and come up with some great ideas to solve all kinds of problems. And big companies have to SMARTEN UP and realize there is a lot more good they could do with all that money.

We have to pay more attention to little guys who have big ideas. Come to think of it, maybe that strange fellow who wandered into CHEK years ago to show me his idea for creating arable land wasn’t so crazy after all.

Irene Jackson

From The Inside Out

Category Archives: Business

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