Detroit Tiger fans and Corporate Citizenship
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
What do these two things have in common? Well, yesterday it was Boston. I went to Boston to attend the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship conference and came home surrounded by a bunch of fun-loving Tiger fans who were mourning the Tiger's seventh loss in a row. Red Socks 5. Tigers 0. It was shut out at the game but not at the conference.
I'd say that all who attended the conference would be winners. Corporate citizenship as a field of study and a career field is relatively new. The conference brought together those who study the topic with those who are out in the field practicing and developing corporate citizenship. I found the conference to be quite interesting. There are a whole lot of companies out there doing a lot of wonderful things for their communities and there is a whole lot to learn from each.
My focus was on gaining tips and tools to increase engagement with our One by One Campaign for Children as well as to get a general sense of how the public perceives corporate involvement in world and societal issues.
I know we spend a lot of time talking about our corporate reputation - much of which surrounds Google search term results. I envision a day when any of us says we're affiliated with Amway the person with whom we're speaking responds with "Wow, that's cool. You guys do so much for our community." And that when you Google Amway the results pull up all the stories of what good we're doing each and every day.
As far as those Tiger fans are concerned, even though this game didn't turn out the way they had hoped, their conversations clearly demonstrated their pride in their team.
They were funny guys. They flew out to the game to celerbate one of their 40th birthdays. I sure learned alot about gentlemen while sitting behind them on this flight. The conversation segued from Tiger's history to grooming concerns of middle-aged men. I had no idea that eyebrow waxing was so popular among men! I think there may have been some potential Tolsom customers in this crowd!