Topics
10 Comments
-
Re: Researching Questions
2008-05-27 07:22:03 UTC
How does one (or more) create large scale epistemological change? historical examples or current perspectives In a sense, the classic text on this is Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It's not a how-to book but it lays out how large-scale epistemological change occurs in the sciences and much of what he describes is relevant to your issues.
Herb Koplowitz
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada -
Re: Interesting NY Times Article
2008-03-26 15:10:33 UTC
The point I was trying to make is that when managers do their jobs (however often or rarely that might be), employees do not have to be persuaded; they are held to account for following policy. Unlike the neighbourhood or community, the workplace is not a democracy. If a company's CEO or owner is serious about sustainable behaviour, they will enable employees to act in more environmentally friendly ways, explicitly lay out required behaviour and hold employees accountable for following policy. The good news from what you're saying, Mel, is that the resulting behaviour in the workplace will be taken home and practiced there as well.
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D. -
Re: Interesting NY Times Article
2008-03-25 12:33:10 UTC
My experience as a management consultant is that corporations approach these issues culturally, through bulletins and emails and posters and on the company's intranet. This kind of social marketing is entirely appropriate in the community, but most workplaces are naturally managerial hierarchies. There is no issue of persuading or of shaming because employees agree to follow the rules and to do their jobs. (That's what they've agreed to give in exchange for receiving a salary. If a company is serious about an issue like energy conservation or recycling, it builds it into role descriptions and policy and managers hold subordinates accountable for doing their jobs (e.g. "Part of your job is to turn the lights out in your area when you leave") and for following policy ("All used paper will be put in appropriate recycling bins").
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
-
Re: Recycling in rural Canadian town
2008-01-13 16:39:01 UTC
Jackie -
I just received this response from Hector Macmillan, mayor of Trent Hills Please contact The County Of Northumberland in Ontario. All contacts can be obtained from their website at www.northumberland.ca The County government is now responsible for all waste management and recycling in Northumberland County and had one of the first material recycling facilities in Canada so I understand. Even today, it may be refitted for efficiencies and expansion in the near future.
H. Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
-
Recycling in rural Canadian town
2008-01-13 15:14:17 UTC
You might try checking with Trent Hills. I believe there was recycling in Campbellford , then about 3,000 people, before it was amalgamated into Trent Hills.
H. Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
-
Recycling in Rural Canadian Town
2008-01-13 14:57:48 UTC
Earthling Enterprises wrote: Please might anyone have information on establishing a blue box recycling programme in a small, remote Canadian town - especially information re. available grants would be of great use. The politicians of this town have the archaic mentality that anything green will challenge resource use. What recycling we had was all by volunteer effort and it appears that this may now collapse. Any help at all would be very valuable so that I might be able to better present to the politicians.
Jackie Hildering
Biologist / Marine Educator
Earthling Enterprises
-
Re: Garbage Collection
2008-01-10 14:47:43 UTC
Toronto collects:
- garbage every other week
- recycling (glass, plastic, paper) on the alternate weeks
- compostables (kitchen waste) every week.
The city's Solid Waste Management division may have studies on it.
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
-
Shopping Bags
2007-11-27 07:17:26 UTC
Does anyone have experience in how a municipality can encourage retailers to use cotton bags instead of plastic ones?
Thanks
- H.
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
-
Re: Question on surveying
2005-12-01 18:42:39 UTC
Self selection to participate in the survey is a problem to the extent that there is a relationship between A) an individual's likelihood of choosing to participate in the survey and B) the likely effect your intervention has had on the individual. If you get questionnaires back primarily from early adopters, this group may also be more affected by your marketing than are others; if you assume that your respondents are representative of the whole population, you will overestimate the effect you've had. On the other hand, the early adopters may already be doing what you recommend; they may respond to your survey saying they have not increased their use of public transportation because it's already all that they use. So, if your survey shows that people who saw your marketing increased their use of public transportation by 5%, you do not know if, on average, everyone who saw it increased usage by 2% or 10%. If you agree with the premise that there are folks who are early adopters, some folks on the fence and those who are not at all interested in changing any behaviour during your campaign, then your target audience and your biggest opportunity for success is to target those on the fence - correct? If this is the case, then is not your selected target audience already 'self selecting'? Yes, your selected target audience is self-selecting. Further, if when you initially survey you also ask folks what type of information they would like to have on using various forms of transportation, is this not a form of survey in itself? And also self-selecting? Yes, people select to respond (or not to respond) to tell you what types of information they want. This is not a problem if you are giving that information to them directly. But if you are using those survey responses to design a public information campaign, you do not know whether the public in general wants the information that your survey respondents say they want. If we want to measure the success of our programs it makes sense that we would survey the participants of those programs. When all households in the targeted area receive the survey, they answer yes or no to receiving materials or participating in any programs. Those with yes answers are directed to answer questions on the materials received and programs they participated in. By far most respondents to the survey received information and or participated in programs. (25% of the households in our target area participated). Seems pretty much self-selecting. If you get responses from all participants in your program, then you have a good measure of the program's impact on its participants and self-selection is not an issue. But you cannot generalize from those results to reach any conclusion about how your program would impact people who did not self-select. If you made a general offer for people to participate in your program, and only early adopters chose to participate, a survey of participants would tell you the effectiveness of the program on self-selectors but it doesn't tell you how it would affect fence sitters. Even if we conducted a random survey calling people in the targeted neighbourhoods would it still not be self selecting? I get those survey calls and only twice have I ever agreed to answer questions. Both were topics near and dear to my heart - transportation and healthcare. The healthcare one was arduous! Very long, required a lot of thinking and went on so long I was very late leaving home, did not answer a knock at my door and was highly annoyed and frustrated yet I felt it was important to give my 2 cents on this issue. Isn't my agreeing to respond to those two surveys and saying no to all the others a form of self selection? This is a serious, and increasing, issue in marketing research. To the extent that people who choose to respond to a survey will also tend to answer the survey questions in a particular way, it is inappropriate to generalize from the survey results. We should not assume that the entire population feels the same way you do about transportation and health care.
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street Toronto,
Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada -
Re: Uncompensated values that farmers provide community
2005-11-03 15:48:15 UTC
Christine -
At the risk of being too lectury and for what it's worth, here's a perspective from mathematics and in philosophy of science. You asked about measuring the values that farmland provides e.g. open space, scenic landscapes, wild life habitats, potential carbon sequestration, reduce run-offs, provide opportunities for outdoor recreation etc. Strictly speaking, "measuring" refers to putting a numerical value on an objective property of something. By "objective" I mean something that all adult humans would agree on. If I use a tape measure in a particular way and determine that its length is two metres and I show you how to use the tape measure, you'll come up with two metres as its length too. Length is an objective property. Attributes are ways in which I value something, treating that value as though it were a property. I speak of the "beauty of the landscape", but the beauty is not in the landscape but in my experience of it. The landscape that I find beautiful may be ugly to someone who prefers cityscapes. Value, in dollar figures, is what I (or you or he or she) would be willing to pay for something, and we all may come up with a different figure. There's no way to measure the value of a landscape. As you said, it is impossible to put a value on something that is priceless. The best treatment I've seen of these issues in a practical way is Marilyn Waring's video "Who's Counting?" and her book If Women Counted (also under the title Counting for Nothing). At 22, she was elected as a Member of Parliament in New Zealand. She's written about as a feminist, but much of her concern in parliament had to do with the environment and land use issues such as you're raising. Her use of numbers is impeccable, both mathematically and humanly.
Herb Koplowitz, Ph.D.
Terra Firma Management Consulting
Tel: 416-324-9240
Fax: 416-972-1354
email: [email protected]
307 Ontario Street Toronto, Ontario M5A 2V8 Canada
0 Recommends
You haven't saved any recommendations.
Messaging 0 colleagues