November 20th, 2008
by Lorrie Thomas
- Learning from my not-so-elders
Everything I learned this week I learned from high school students.
I have the immense privilege of teaching high school students until December 2008 and everything they think, write and DO (OMG they do a lot!!) inspires me. My students attend Santa Barbara High School and run Don’s Net Cafe, a Virtual Enterprise (VE) program that offers tax filing services for low income families, does HUGE community service, sells healthy snacks on campus, runs cell phone recycling programs and like 500 other things I can’t name in a short blog post! In addition to running a virtual company, they are currently raising funds to produce 3,000 reusable bags to help sponsor a Santa Barbara “No Bag Day” event to help promote environmental responsibility (I am holding the bag)
Maria Vallejo, the CEO of the socially responsible, environmentally committed VE program said something so marketing-wise today:
“We are not remembered for what we SAY we will do, we are remembered for what we ACTUALLY do”
I am always soapboxing it with marketingtherapist-isms like “own it” and “great ideas are great IF they are executed brilliantly” but I thought Maria’s statement was perfect. Marketing ideas are nothing if they are just talked about, it is only when they are actually done (and done well!) that they count.
And while I am in my “my high school students rock” brag-mode, I also wanted to share that these young entrepreneurs (who make more annually then my agency does!!!) are noted in Wikipedia as stewards of ethonomics, “the philosophy that all transactions and efforts should be such that all parties involved benefit from said transactions” (Source, wikipedia – ethonomics) by being plugged as “Ethonomics is used by the Dons Net Cafe as the mix between ethics and Economics, a way to make money by engaging in ethical activities 2005 (Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethonomics)”
Have you heard the saying that there is always someone out there smarter than you who can take your job? Well, those somebodies ARE out there (I am humbled by teaching them!) They are not only smarter, they are ambitious, driven, passionate and going to take the world by storm….
Watch out!
