We changed channels : )
You can now find the new idUnited blog by simply going to idUnited.com 

Thanks!

I’ll be back shortly with a new blog site. I’ll update you once it’s ready.

In the meantime enjoy the old posts.

Best.

One of my favorite blog sites is back up and running! Formerly known as Houtlust,.. it is now called Osocio. Read a quick excerpt below >

“Osocio is dedicated to social advertising and non-profit campaigns. It’s the place where marketing and activism collide. Formerly known as the Houtlust Blog, Osocio is the central online hub for advertisers, ad agencies, grassroots, activists, social entrepreneurs, and good Samaritans from around the globe.”

Check out Osocio for a ton of great content from all over the world. Marc Van Gurp the man behind Osocio was and continues to be a huge inspiration to me. Keep up the great work Marc!

Visit > Osocio

Here is a great post I read awhile back on PSFK entitled > Why Build Sustainability Into Your Business? Written by Piers Fawkes >

The only reason to really motivate a business to go green is for competitive advantage. Sustainability must be part of your core business strategy. We have to remember that businesses are designed to make profit not save the planet. We have to appeal to their greed. Greed got us in this mess and greed will fix it. Being green means making more profit.

Why create a sustainable business?

• Your competitors aren’t doing it
• Your customers want it
• It improves your product, your efficiencies and your bottom line

Realize that sustainability is part of the mainstream. You, as businesses, are playing catch up even though you as consumers are already in the mindset. Be careful about making a statement about being green though – it comes across as cliché. Build it into your story so that it enhances your brand.

To read the entire post go here.

And read the great follow up by Clownfish Marketing > discussing how hopefully greed isn’t and shouldn’t be our last hope >

What this all points to is that, although an understanding of how going green can benefit companies economically is undoubtedly a catalyst for improvement, they’ll enjoy it more and have a much greater chance of success if their efforts are not driven by greed, but by a genuine and holistic desire to change, stemming from a shift in corporate values in response to global social and environmental agendas. This requires companies to look beyond cost structures and profit margins, and like Ray Anderson (who Piers credits for pointing out that sustainability is not the holy grail), to really think about how to profoundly re-engineer their operations into formats that are more compatible with nature, building on their ability to make a positive impact on individuals, communities and the environment.

Via >  PSFK

I want to watch this documentary > 

King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis,  best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat — and how we farm.

Visit > King Corn < for release dates, more info, etc.

Ever wonder what music Natalie Portman likes and listens to?…

“Natalie has put together Big Change: Songs for FINCA, a $7.99 charity album available through iTunes, mixing together 16 songs from artists like Norah Jones and Antony & the Johnsons, and including exclusive tracks from the likes of M. Ward and Devendra Banhart — even a shiny new Shins remix. Net proceeds from the album — due Oct. 30 — will benefit FINCA (villagebanking.org), an organization that helps alleviate poverty in developing countries; she’s worked with the group since 2003.”

Go to iTunes today to check out the complete set and download it.

Damn she’s fine.

While other music labels are whining about the music industry. Hopeless records is giving money away to causes!

“Sub City record label was created 8 years ago by the newly-prolific punk label Hopeless Records when they reached a point of selling more albums than they needed to support the label itself. Louis Posen - founder and president of Hopeless Records - thought it would be a good idea to start a second label that would be devoted to helping out less-fortunate people through donations and raising awareness. The name Sub City in part describes the subsidies it would provide to non-profit organizations, as well as declaring the underground roots of the music and people who are involved. Today Sub City and Hopeless Records are celebrating their million-dollar-milestone. Between Sub City’s sales proceeds and Hopeless Records’ Take Action Tour, the group have donated more than $1 million USD to more than 50 nonprofit organizations.”

Posen describes the charity structure as such:

“We wanted it to be clear to the fans that when they buy a release, 5 percent of the suggested retail list price is going the charity they see on the back of the record and in the literature in the insert and they know that’s coming from the label and the artist and it’s based on gross, not on profits. So they can be very clear what the donation is, where it’s going and who’s giving it.”

Whining and complaining about your industry doesn’t help anyone. So for all the other labels out there. Take some notes from Hopeless Records.

Via > Music News Culture

At least that’s what Chris Jordan thinks. Watch how Chris uses his creative digital imaging techniques to explore global consumption.

Watch the video here,.. courtesy of Current.

Via > PSFK

Spotted over at JoshSpear >

“To commemorate its 60-year anniversary of fighting for children’s rights, UNICEF used its exceptional talent in organizing people for a worthy cause to gather the work of 60 renowned artists for a just-released anthology called 60, Unite for Children. Illustrators and graphic designers like Joshua Davis, Tokidoki, The Ronin and Tara McPherson contributed interpretations of their world views to the 180-page tome, some of which the book’s website material warns are “abstract, others more explicit; some will be radiant, others dark and pessimistic.”  60, Unite for Children kicks off a worldwide traveling exhibit for a year that will begin in November. There are only 2,000 copies of this book around, and all profits from the sale of book will go back to UNICEF.”

Get one before they’re all gone.

Via > JoshSpear

FreeRice.com just may be the coolest time wasting thing you can do on-line. Except like most other time wasting activities on-line (insert how you waste time here_) FreeRice actually accomplishes two goals. 

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.

2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Here’s how it works >

FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty.  It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. Every time you get a word right you donate 10grains of rice that is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program. How cool is that. The site raises money for the rice through it’s advertisers.

Instead of (insert how you waste time here_) go to www.FreeRice.com today and do something truly productive. I got to level 23 and raised 44o grams of rice. See if you can do better,.. I hope you can.

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

Via > PSFK