Comments on: The importance of criticism http://loveallbeings.org/blog/the-importance-of-criticism/ Living Opposed to Violence and Exploitation Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:25:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: victor http://loveallbeings.org/blog/the-importance-of-criticism/comment-page-1/#comment-168 victor Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:07:37 +0000 http://loveallbeings.org/?p=214#comment-168 The L.O.V.E. collective is about encouraging and supporting individuals and grass-roots efforts, not about reforming corporations. This post focuses on how we as individuals can evaluate results and ask questions that can help us improve our advocacy, and not about the published (and recently rescinded) figure, whose inaccuracy is not in dispute given the long term data. This post is not about who is effective and who is not; it's about honestly assessing our own advocacy so we can be the most effective advocates we can be. I think it's great that you are thinking about ways the corporation can better gauge the effectiveness of their advocacy in promoting dietary change. My experience is that such efforts are quixotic. In the past, I did offer this particular corporation two basic, easy to implement suggestions to improve their tracking. Neither suggestion was ever considered. I now understand this to be a structural problem of non-profit corporations that exists no matter how well-meaning the staff may be, as is well detailed in <em>The Revolution Will Not Be Funded</em> by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. The L.O.V.E. collective is about encouraging and supporting individuals and grass-roots efforts, not about reforming corporations. This post focuses on how we as individuals can evaluate results and ask questions that can help us improve our advocacy, and not about the published (and recently rescinded) figure, whose inaccuracy is not in dispute given the long term data. This post is not about who is effective and who is not; it’s about honestly assessing our own advocacy so we can be the most effective advocates we can be.

I think it’s great that you are thinking about ways the corporation can better gauge the effectiveness of their advocacy in promoting dietary change. My experience is that such efforts are quixotic. In the past, I did offer this particular corporation two basic, easy to implement suggestions to improve their tracking. Neither suggestion was ever considered. I now understand this to be a structural problem of non-profit corporations that exists no matter how well-meaning the staff may be, as is well detailed in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.

]]> By: elainevigneault http://loveallbeings.org/blog/the-importance-of-criticism/comment-page-1/#comment-162 elainevigneault Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:22:45 +0000 http://loveallbeings.org/?p=214#comment-162 I agree that we ought to "critically examine our actions," however, I do not agree with your assertion that "out of 6,000 people who received booklets at one concert, only one wrote in requesting a vegetarian starter guide" makes VO's claim of 2.5% conversion rate "obviously incorrect." Why? Because requesting a "vegetarian starter guide" is not the only way to go vegan. Let's be even more critical: instead of complaining about VO's claims (which they admit are simply estimates based on verbal responses), why not suggest SPECIFIC actions they/we could take to determine the pamphlet's effectiveness? For example: - Conduct marketing surveys asking pamphlet recipients how persuasive the pamphlets are. - Perform studies that analyze the behavior of groups of people in response to vegan education. I agree that we ought to “critically examine our actions,” however, I do not agree with your assertion that “out of 6,000 people who received booklets at one concert, only one wrote in requesting a vegetarian starter guide” makes VO’s claim of 2.5% conversion rate “obviously incorrect.”

Why? Because requesting a “vegetarian starter guide” is not the only way to go vegan.

Let’s be even more critical: instead of complaining about VO’s claims (which they admit are simply estimates based on verbal responses), why not suggest SPECIFIC actions they/we could take to determine the pamphlet’s effectiveness? For example:

- Conduct marketing surveys asking pamphlet recipients how persuasive the pamphlets are.
- Perform studies that analyze the behavior of groups of people in response to vegan education.

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