User-interface for MyPacis.com ( http://www.mypacis.com/ ) has been quite stable during the current week. We are testing a brand new release for our social network, evaluating version 6 of Boonex Dolphin. Boonex developers have been providing, as open source, their excellent online dating platform; instead of going for the “quick buck”, they decided to satisfy consumer (they have their own dating site) and organizations/businesses for free, building their business model on additional services (installation, configuration, etc.).

This reminds me that society should reward individuals for doing good. For too long, being good has been seen as something you do in compliance to your own ethics and giving up opportunities that others, will different ethic standards, are taking anyway. Society should have a set of “hard” regulations and soft “peer-pressure” to make easy and convenient to do good, and difficult/expensive to harm.

One very practical example of people doing good: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/08/no-business-mod.html

The link takes you to Seth Godin´s blog, in this case a post about a community devoted to connecting professionals in Portland. Too many times (in too many movies? we have been shown the lonely hero, standing in the way of the “bad guys”. In reality, people who make the difference are the ones doing the best with what they have, on a daily basis, contributing to projects which make the world, or their local communities, a bit better and more inclusive.

BTW, Seth Godin is another of these daily heroes, or at least a leading role model for people who want to contribute to a better society. In his case, he works hard to bring marketers closer to their customers; 99% of marketing books written explains you how to grab your share of customers, while Seth shows you how to be successful by making your customers´ life (or their perception of it) better. I had a practical example that he does what he preaches a few days ago: he really replies to emails sent to him. The same applies to a very important and busy businessman and philanthropist, who has his staff replying to email  and who will be soon featured in this blog. Any guess?

Homework for the weekend: have you tried the same with your MP/congressperson? If not, give it a try and let me know if you got anything more than the automatic acknowledgment note.