Changing the Game

This post appeared in Truck News August, 2014

Jason Jannetta, aka @speedywellness on twitter, uses the #changethegame hashtag in his posts to promote the adoption of a healthy trucking lifestyle. Hashtags are search terms used on the micro blogging site, when you search a hashtag on twitter it will bring up all the tweets that have been made with that term in the text of the post. “Change the game” is a great way to express in a few words that we don’t have to continue to live the status quo, a lifestyle of fast food, lethargy, and bad habits that have a negative effect on our health. We can choose to live differently.

Is there any reason to limit an attitude of changing the game to our own personal health? It seems to me that the trucking industry in general is ripe for a host of driver driven game changing initiatives that will benefit the whole industry. The ways in which we interact with one another and with our employers and business partners is changing across our society. We are starting to see ideas, information, and intellectual property shared freely across the internet. Social media programs such as Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, and a host of others are available to us at no cost to share that information. The game has definitely changed and continues to change in the information world. The terms “open source” and “crowd sourcing” are becoming commonplace. How would you rate the trucking industry in terms of attitudes towards crowd sourcing and open source sharing of information? Would your give them a passing or failing grade?  Are these ideas even on the radar for you as a driver or front line employee within the trucking industry?

In my home town of London, Ontario over 15,000 citizens have come together to develop a plan, The London Plan, that looks forward over the next 20 years. Tired of the stale ideas and lack of movement by city councils of the past and present they have put together a platform that is changing the game of how local politics are practiced, how ideas are shared and developed, and moving the focus of local politics back on to the private citizen over the corporate citizen. This movement is fueled by making ideas and information openly available to all and by adopting a system that encourages participation by the individual. All are welcome.

Where would we be today if this approach had been taken towards the adoption of the hours of service regulations we all must abide by? My belief is that the universal goal of the hours of service regulations is one of public safety. Would we be in the situation we are in now that sees all the different parties butting heads to reach the same goal if we had applied the concepts of crowd sourcing and the open sourcing of information? I don’t think we would be. The first comprehensive studies that were made regarding driver fatigue and on which much of the initial rules were based have been lost in all the noise. It seems to me that we have devolved to the point that each special interest only makes available information that supports their own narrow cause, belief, or ideology. The benefit of a comprehensive set of guidelines to manage the root issue of driver fatigue, an enhanced quality of life for the front line worker, and raising the bar of public safety is completely lost.

Hours of service is but one issue. What if OEM’s had come together to share information openly and freely in regard to meeting the EPA07 and EPA10 standards for emissions? Would we have suffered the same amount of downtime, fuel mileage losses, and the many other related costs? We’ll never know the answer to that. But what of the future in regard to meeting fuel mileage standards and carbon emissions? That is still an open question.

As individuals the ability to influence change is at our fingertips. All that is required is an attitude that is open to new ideas and a willingness to share your thoughts and opinions honestly, openly, and with integrity. Believe it or not the majority of people that run for public office actually want to serve the public good. Your city councillors, members of provincial and federal parliaments should be in your address book along with your boss, leaders of industry, business associations and media. You can easily share your thoughts, ideas, and aspirations with them. Put aside your partisanship and share what you believe for all to see, comment on, and build on. Allow your personal & family values to shine through and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results over time. To me this is where crowd sourcing starts. You need to make that leap of faith. You may possess the next big idea and not even know it.

Can we change the game? You bet we can.