No Excuses Say and Be Who You Say You Are by Consent Initiative

If you can think of a valid excuse as to why anyone who says who they are and lives and works by it to not do at least the key things suggested here, which requires no payment, no signup, no technology, nothing other than being who you say you are, please get in touch to let me know what it is?

For those who take to heart the advice so many hear that applies to every age and phase of life from childhood through every stage of life and career: "Just be yourself."

It's also often said that being oneself should be one of the easiest things for anyone to do, or be.

Unfortunately, even despite best efforts to align oneself with those who do so, as learned the hard way by those of us who've experienced it, there is no limit to the amount of disappointment or damage you can be on the receiving end of when finding out an individual, organization, product or service wasn't or isn't being the way they say they are.

And contrastingly, being on the receiving end of the positive benefits that accrue from interactions with individuals who have no reason to be hesitant about saying who they are, how they go through the World and interact with and treat others is seldom something one would say isn't preferable.

People who are willing to say and be who they are often add joy and richness to life, while those who do otherwise can easily have the opposite effect.

They can also, as illustrated by the post titled "The "Once in a Lifetime" 1,152 To 1 Scenario Negatively Impacting People Everywhere, Everyday!" easily infer upon you among the most negative consequences of any type of interaction you are likely to ever have.

The idea for this initiative and this post was prompted for some of the following reasons:

1. Individuals and organizations (and the products and/or services they offer) who have no qualms with not living up to the standards mentioned here have become the norm rather than the exception.
2. Counterintuitively, people on both sides have likewise become quite apathetic and comfortable accepting that "this is just the way things are", even though in so many cases it can be argued if not proven that things are so bad they qualify as being dysfunctional or broken.
3. The cost in time, money, and resources of being on the receiving end of bad apples essentially has no limit.
4. Existing efforts to-date, including companies or organizations, both for- and non-profit, who claim to help people avoid the bad apples themselves are often engaging in the very same behaviors and approaches.

Also, while not listed above, the degree to which it has, at least to-date, been the case that invitations I've received to join this network or the other, end up falling somewhere along the lines of what's described in #4 above.

One of the most recent invitations wasn't to join a network whose primary goal is the avoidance of bad apples, as is the case with most. In fact, it's among those that try to be alternatives to the larger, often publicly traded ones that tend to put profits over people, not respect users' privacy very much, and have a habit of inspiring people to think of negative acronyms to describe or group them. So to its credit it has that going for it. And its primary purpose, like most such networks, is to help people, and businesses and businesspeople, connect, network, and hopefully realize benefits from doing so.

However, as I spent time going through the website and related content, reading testimonials, etc., it became apparent that while it's trying to be different, as in better, it still doesn't address the concerns being raised here in this post.

Additionally while that network offers a free tier, in order to really benefit one needs to sign up for their paid plan costing $30-$50/month or more. While the monthly cost doesn't represent a burden for most the greater concern was/is that even with a paid membership it still doesn't address the concerns raised within this post here.

The steps you'll find here can be implemented simply by virtue of you doing them, independently if you wish, on your own terms in your own way, and can reap enormous positive benefits and rewards, should you choose to

Just one aspect of the "No Excuses" is that one has to ask themselves: If there are no barriers that should be preventing someone from doing these things, why aren't they?

Communication is "Supposed To Be" key, but people's acceptance of technologies and protocols that are far worse, not better, than those before means "Communication" is dysfunctional at best and often simply broken

Even when today's technologies work, tried, true, and proven steps to assure clear, consistent communication are routinely ignored

How much thought have you given to how often key opportunities for something good, better, or positive are missed, or a bad or even catastrophic situation occurs simply because one party didn't repeat back or confirm what they thought they heard or read?

Easy, Quick, Simple Things any and every individual or business can AND SHOULD do to be better than those who don't, and that cost essentially nothing to implement

Communicate, State, "Say"

Set expectations

It's not uncommon for some individuals and organizations to simply state that they cannot respond to every inquiry. While others are at the complete opposite of the spectrum and promise they read (and/or respond) to all communications, and yet others fall someone in between.

However, you communicate, or not, you should be honest enough to let people know.

How many individuals and organizations say "they care" when they really don't?

Society has become very accepting of individuals and organizations saying one thing even as they do another. For example, not too long ago someone I know wanted to attend the funeral of a friend who had passed away. Unable to book a flight online (due to the all too common technical difficulties with that company's website) a phone call was made to the airline. The caller was greeted with an on hold recording that went something like this:

Thank you for calling [Company Name]. We truly appreciate your business and value you as a customer. Due to unusually high call volume your estimated wait time is 112 minutes.

That is just shy of a TWO HOUR (2 hour) hold time!

So what's said in the first seconds, that they truly appreciate your business and value you as a customer, is utterly contradicted by what's said immediately after, which is that you're going to be on hold for an estimated two (2) hours!

Understandably unwilling to sit on the phone for two (2) hours, and even if someone answered there was no guarantee the experience wouldn't continue to be as bad, the caller just gave up, did not book a flight, and sent a card and flowers instead.

And in case you're wondering, no, this was not during a storm or systems outage, etc. For that company it was, and still is, just "business as usual."

Here, we practice what we teach

While this site might not be the best example since it is still in its formative stages, and the parent company hasn't been actively seeking or accepting new customers for some time, our communications protocols are not as robust or staffed as they might be otherwise. Nonetheless, contact information provided on this site gives anyone interested in making contact or communicating an expectation that that they can expect a response within a reasonable period of time, and provides alternative means of contact should someone need to get in touch in a more timely manner. Even under these circumstances (no full time staff responding to incoming communications) the communications protocols and options exceed those of the vast majority of individuals and (even quite large) organizations.

At minimum, let people know how you communicate, or not

And provide people with some form of alternative in case your preferred method of contact isn't working for them.

And, as a part of the adoption of new technologies that put up roadblocks that didn't exist in the past, many don't give a second thought to providing means of contact that not everyone wants to use, not because they aren't technically capable but by choice.

Email and the telephone were, and still are, advantageous because however much they are or are not "open" standards and systems, almost everyone already uses them and it does not require someone to sign up for or have an account with a company for no other reason than to simply get in touch with you. It may absolutely be true that many of the people you care about hearing from use your preferred channels, but what about those who don't?

Most individuals and organizations fail to meet even the very low bar set in what's been said here already. Hopefully if you're reading this you're among those who prefer something better

To be continued...

This post is a work in progress and will be continued.

In the meantime there's nothing stopping you from adopting any of the above mentioned best practices if you haven't already.

And there is also nothing stopping you from lending your thoughts to what's been said here. If you'd like to sign up to be able to post, great. Your feedback and input especially if constructive is sure to be appreciated. But then again as pointed out within this very same post, the steps outlined here don't require you to sign up for anything. It's your choice.

But it is worth mentioning that what's been mentioned here so far is just the tip of a very big iceberg of a mountain of information that's already been accumulated, tested, and proven over time. The more people who express interest the more that is good and beneficial (that is already available for the asking) can be made available for those who recognize the benefits, and, quite frankly, just because it's the right thing to do.

Why are people so willing to sign up and pay for things they have little to no control over, or that don't have their privacy or best interests at heart, as opposed to something like what you're reading about here, offered in good faith, candidly, openly, transparently, and where you can have a meaningful say in almost everything?

And remember, as the saying goes, if you're signing up for those things and aren't paying, it probably means YOU are the product!