The Courage to Speak Up | Smarter Shift Home About Adapting the Journalism Tradition Content and Communication Social Media Strategy Climate Change and Energy What Does a Low-Carbon Future Look Like? Reusing and Curating Content The Energy Mix Testimonials Getting Started Contact 1 Social Media & Content Marketing The Courage to Speak Up by Mitchell Beer June 5, 2012 Our blog and website went dark yesterday to support Black Out Speak Out, a Canada-wide day of action against efforts to gut our country’s environmental laws and shut down public dialogue on what it takes to build a sustainable economy. It’s always a bit scary for a professional services firm to take a political stand, and that much scarier in meetings and events—where we’re sometimes so relentlessly nice that we have trouble standing up against threats to our own livelihood. The risk of environmental disaster may not top the list of perils that drive most meeting professionals to black out their websites. But our friend and colleague Shawna McKinley, Vancouver-based sustainability director with MeetGreen, connected the dots in a detailed blog post earlier this week. Shawna works for one of the world’s leading sustainable meetings firms, and she lives in a city whose tagline is Spectacular by Nature. Vancouver has also set itself the audacious goal of becoming the world’s greenest city by 2020. So for the local tourism industry, the equation is simple: if they lose their connection to nature, they lose what makes them spectacular. If they’re no longer spectacular, jobs will be lost, along with so much of what defines Vancouver as a special place to be. In her blog, Shawna gave a full account of the jobs and economic activity that depend on British Columbia’s tourist industry—much of which could be threatened by the unrestricted pipeline development and tanker traffic that will be enabled by the budget bill that gave rise to Black Out Speak Out. “The travel and tourism industry in Canada (and that includes meetings and events) is dependent on the perception that this country is home to unparalleled natural beauty,” she wrote. And “I benefit personally and professionally from the work of dozens of environmental charities whose ability to access funding and actively participate in public consultations is essential.” This is a moment when courage begets courage—because I have to admit that we might not have joined Black Out Speak Out if Shawna hadn’t. I was strongly considering it, I’d like to think I would have made the right choice on my own…but the decision point was when I saw that she had added the campaign tagline to her Twitter avatar. And I know that several more industry colleagues in Canada and the U.S. found out about the campaign as a result. Shawna’s factual, fully referenced blog post brought the conversation back to the essential inputs on which meetings and destinations depend, whether or not we think of them when we’re organizing events, responding to RFPs, or talking to clients or vendors. I’m proud that we were a part of the campaign, and grateful to the colleague who gave us the push we needed to get there. Tags: Tourism Vancouver Are you a ContentChat Subscriber? Click Here to receive the latest news and posts as they are published! Previous story Google Hangouts & Hybrid Events: Next #Eventtable Chat Next story Next #eventtable Chat: Knowing When to Speak Out 1 Comment Shawna McKinley says: June 5, 2012 at 10:32 pm I think it was Anna Lappe who said every time you spend a dollar you’re casting your vote for the world you want. If that’s true, my hope is that more and more business professionals can be encouraged to take a risk and speak their values on issues important to them so we have more insight into where to spend our money. No doubt it will lead to discomfort and criticism. Ironically I think it’s hard for Canadian tourism professionals on this specific matter because in addition to our brand depending on natural beauty it’s also wrapped up in ideas about how nice we are. So while we are rattling pots and pans advocating to maintain the natural brand you risk the peace-keeping nature Canada is known for – a double edged sword! Either way, I’m relieved to know there are businesses brave enough to put their cards on the table about issues that matter to them. Ever a fan of The Conference Publishers for having courage! Twitter Chatter Tweets about from:mitchellbeer OR from:smartershft OR from:theenergymix Recent News Recent Comments Tags What Do You Want to Know About Marketing Events Online?March 24, 2016 Smarter Shift Hands #ContentChat Over to Lucy Rendler-KaplanJanuary 19, 2016 Brian Honigman on Choosing Topics For Your Content MarketingJanuary 12, 2016 Building Community via PodcastingJanuary 7, 2016 Monetizing Content: Is The Energy Mix the Next Big Thing in News? on:Broadcast or Narrowcast? Why Search Engine Rank May Not Be Your Goal Journalist or Marketer? 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