Being the Right People in the System

The topic of the “Right People” has come up recently within some of the spiritual/personal development type blogs. I first saw it mentioned in Havi’s rant and then Goddess Leonie brings it up in a more cheerful way . ROFL at:

What if people think my emails are slimy salesity-salesville and unsubscribe when I’m trying to be “hellloooooooooo-just-wanted-to-let-you-know-possum” instead?

Both of them are launching exclusive online self-development programs and both have come up with issues related to pricing and marketing. The price is too high, the conditions too strict, etc etc etc.

In response to those criticisms, they state that if you don’t feel their program is for you, then you’re not the Right Person for it. They are after the Right People, and – judging from the comments – they’re not in any desperation for them.

Pricing is a tricky thing when it comes to things that take place online. The Internet has made a lot of options more accessible, and what used to be behind a barrier of dollars is now available for free (legally or otherwise). The idea, then, of paying about $100 or more for what is essentially an online forum may seem at first to be odd – there are so many free forums! Blogs with the same information! Cheap e-books! Affordable real books! What justifies their price?

Now I am a major proponent of asking for what you’re worth. Nobody should have to compromise themselves for an opportunity, or be exploited just because the option’s there. I’ve been in quite a number of toss-ups with spec-work sites who use patronising justifications such as “a designer in the third-world would be lucky to be paid the [extremely low] rates!” (or the more common “It’s such great exposure!” Which has launched a thousand celebrities, I’m sure. )

However, at the same time, it can’t be denied that money works very differently between cultures and regions. Costs of living are different everywhere, and this also reflects a shift in priorities. Here in Brisbane one really basic unimpressive meal (think college food) would cost you about $7 – which translates to about RM21-RM24, the price of a few pretty good dishes in Malaysia. Heck, I don’t know whether to be amused or horrified by the people peddling kaftans at roundabout $100 – you could get similar quality for a lot less! (This has also led to people from our general area being pretty good hagglers. Except for me, because I suck with negotiating money unless it’s massively unfair.)

So do the conversions: Goddess Leonie’s $67 Creative E-Course (which I’m a part of, incidentally) calculates to about RM162, which is a lot for an online-only unaccredited course. Even highly popular “How To Score As” workshops don’t go for that much. Similarly, Havi’s Kitchen Table , which goes to $396 for a year’s access, equals nearly RM1000 – about a semester of tuition! For what is essentially an online forum and an occasional phonecall. I could argue that I get very similar (if not better) value from a one-time $5 Ask Metafilter account, with expertise from everywhere – and that’s just because I wanted to post; lurking’s free.

This isn’t meant to slam on Goddess Leonie or Havi. I do find value in their blogs and I feel they’re generally good people who’re making a living for themselves the best way to know how.

But see how, to someone who doesn’t hail from the typical American/European/Australian (a.k.a. proto-Western) financial society, those figures don’t make sense? The idea of charging for personal advice is controversial; some say it should be given freely, some note the personal costs of the advice-giver, some feel that the pricetags often give a “Salesity-salesville” vibe and that donations would have been better. Who knows.

Someone who comes from a country with lower costs of living won’t necessarily be able to afford something like Goddess Leonie’s or Havi’s projects. Even if they really wanted to. Even if they could afford it, the cost doesn’t seem justified. And yet, programs like the above don’t quite exist yet in our country. The urban areas are growing quickly, but they’re still growing; creative circles and self-development groups aren’t quite yet commonplace.

So is it really our fault that we’re not the “Right People”?

Current pricing systems for great opportunities like these are inherently skewed away from about 3/4 of the population. So-called ‘world-changing’ conferences and programs are priced way beyond what most of the world can afford.

It’s not just monetary price, either: my biggest bone to pick with Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA was its lack of support for anyone who didn’t already have a year’s worth of expenses saved up and who came from outside the US. No visa help, no accommodation, no stipend, nothing. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Seth hadn’t pumped the program up as being for “world-changers”. People were offering to sleep in their cars to sacrifice for entry into the Alternative MBA; I can’t fathom how anyone can ever give up food, shelter, and/or health for anything.

The only people who could realistically afford something like the above are usually the same old nearly-affluent middle-class usually Caucasian people who come from relatively well-off society (so not so stuck in poverty that they have to worry about their next paycheck – like I did when I realised mine wasn’t coming for another month and I was broke. Thanks Mum & Dad!). Yet the people who would most benefit from those opportunities, and the people who would bring the most benefit to others, are the very same people shut out due to factors outside their control.

Due to their country’s economy, they aren’t able to gain knowledge to develop themselves.
Due to this lack of knowledge, they may not be able to help their country effectively – including in their economy.

The groups above suffer too. Their perspective isn’t as diverse as it could be; even those from “different” cultures would have pretty similar class leanings. Or they may have to work harder to gain more side opportunities, only to miss them because of work – this was very common with foreign KaosPilots (to afford being a KP, they had to work multiple jobs, but working kept them from special opps which drew them to KP in the first place!).

And then the System gets perpetuated. The relatively-rich get all the opportunities. The relatively-poorer, who would get the most benefit out of the opportunities, gets left behind.

In a young social entrepreneur’s panel I went to, one fundraiser advocated for collecting donations from their own local communities to further their work. An African delegate working on poverty stood up and said that his people lived on less than a dollar a day – how was he supposed to get donations from them?

This is the main reason the term “Right People” makes me really, really twitchy. Havi, Goddess Leonie, Seth Godin et al have a point when they say that their programs aren’t suited for everyone. But they make the assumption that if you acknowledge the logistical and practical costs, and you’re not necessarily willing to forgo your basic needs, you’re not “right”. It puts a separation, places people into different classes. When what’s needed are classes dissolving and people integrating. It rewards privilege and blames people for not being “privileged” enough – even though you usually don’t get a choice with your privileges.

Just because I come from Asia doesn’t mean I don’t want to know how to be more creative or how to find my soul purpose. But just because I’m the sort of person who is urban enough to be thinking about “soul purposes” doesn’t mean I’ll consider every price fair, or take up every opportunity as the Holy Grail.

Stop playing into the System. Stop perpetuating the System.

Think about what you want to achieve with your project. Think about how you can make your project accessible. What is your ultimate aim? How else can you get that aim fulfilled while acknowledging privilege? Are you willing to admit that you intentionally won’t let certain people in? (That’s not a bad thing. Just be honest and say “yeah, ok, I’m going to get a lot of middle-aged wealthy people because they’re the only ones that can afford it usually”. Just be clear of your limitations.)

If you want to change the world, you have to let the world in. Don’t claim “world-changing” and then price people out. If you want people to make sacrifices for you, you better be prepared to make sacrifices for them. Or else be clearer about what you really want.

But don’t blame the People for not being the “Right People”, when it’s the System – that you are a part of – that makes them so.

Comments

1. The question here for me is… if these opportunities don’t exist effectively for 3/4 of the world, what can we do to provide them? What would need to happen? How can we build a small system that has a big impact?

   There are great things like TED, that (even though it’s costly to participate in person) provide huge swaths of content to the masses for free. We have a pretty unbelievable resource in the internet — it does require that people have internet access, but that’s a more reasonable obstacle than requiring that they have plenty of cash on hand. And there are lots of people already taking advantage of that. You have a GREAT set of sites to represent you, and there are tons of people that wouldn’t know how to move in that direction, or don’t know that they’re capable of it, or don’t realize how useful it is. I think the hurdles are smaller than we think.

   I don’t have a problem with anyone who prices services the way they need to in order to make the living they want. But I DO like that conversations like this open us up to a ton of ideas about what we can do for the people who get left out.

   Makes me itch to start sompfin…!

   — Megan M. · Jan 18, 07:26 AM · #

2. Megan: The Internet is a great help, and it’s become even more useful now that there are strong efforts to get people online.

   And certainly people have the right to price whatever they need to. I’m just saying, be realistic about your reach. It was more the “Right People” angle that kinda peeved me. Maybe just “sorry, this may not have worked out for us, but how about XYZ?”
   scratches itch

   — Tiara · Jan 19, 08:21 AM · #