Quitters Never Win...

We all heard this line growing up from our parents when we decided we no longer wanted to play the clarinet (or whatever geeky thing you decided you wanted to quit)... Well, there were a few things that I almost quit recently, but I decided to heed my Mom's advice and stick with them - this blog and Facebook.

As you might be able to tell, my last post to this blog was in March. Throughout my hiatus I had thoughts to share, but just didn't sit down and actually write them into posts... I always found something else to do instead, but I have decided that I really need to rethink that and get back to writing. So, get ready for more regular posts and thoughts about everything from blogs I have read to things I've seen that I can relate to associations somehow...

The other thing that I alomost quit was Facebook, and I almost decided to do it yesterday on Quit Facebook Day. I had friends who decided to quit for their own reasons, but I decided to stick with it... My reasoning - I think if you want to create change within a company (or even an association), quitting isn't the way to do it. I think that building your coalition from within and going to the leadership with sound reasoning is the better way to create the change you desire.

I understand that there are concerns about privacy. I understand that there are concerns about Facebook selling your information to advertisers who then use it... If you feel as though these are things you cannot deal with, then by all means, quit. Make your small statement that doesn't help fix the problem.

To me, the bigger statement that you can make is working with the company/association/organization to craft a more meaningful policy from within to create the change you desire. By quitting, you're giving up. By working to create the change you seek, you are making the culture better for everyone, thus creating a HUGE statement that is worthwhile to everyone.

Now, some people are probably going to say that those who quit Facebook were the ones who caused them to change their privacy settings last week. I don't think that's true. I think the ones who helped convince them were users who were not happy with what they saw, and decided to let Facebook know about it.

Now all of those who quit seem to have lost, while all of us who stuck it out seem to have won with the new privacy settings. Who says parents aren't right?