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The best use to which I put my now-cancelled Netflix subscription was in ordering documentaries that are never in ample supply at my local video stores.Three recent docs have changed our world, if you’ve been too busy watching “Mission Impossible” for the twelfth time, to notice.“Super-Size Me,” about the filmmaker that decided to go on an all-McDonalds diet and chronicle his deteriorating health, actually sparked a national debate on obesity, and the Golden Arches took the rare step of dropping their up-selling campaign known by the questions, “Would you like fries?” and “Would you like to super-size that?”Former Vice President Al Gore’s now famous slide show, “An Inconvenient Truth,” about the unprecedented climate changes we’ve been experiencing, is making global warming doubters seem like the flat-worlders of Christopher Columbus’ time.And “Who Killed the Electric Car?” about GM’s decision to recall and then crush its EV-1 fleet of electric vehicles has created so much bad press for the once gigantic but now downsized car maker that it has just promised to issue the Volt, by the year 2010, an electric vehicle it showcased recently.The sudden respectability and even must-see character of these reality-based films is symbolized by the fact that “An Inconvenient Truth” won the Best Documentary Oscar, and it will undoubtedly launch other do-good exposes.Recently, I did a speaking tour in Brazil and I got a chance to see Rio, Sao Paulo, and some out of the way places of interest, too. What struck me about Brazil, and particularly Sao Paulo, is how rapidly some of the trends depicted in the documentaries are coalescing.The smell of noxious vapors, a deadly combination of gas emissions and roadside trash burning makes the air in Sao Paulo nearly impossible to breathe. Yet, at the same time this is one of the first countries to become energy independent, where it doesn’t import more fuel than it exports.Brazil, which possesses much of the rainforest and is host to amazing bio-diversity, is also seemingly helpless to stop the very destruction of its woodlands by poachers.Where better to explore these seeming contradictions than in documentary films?We’re fortunate that reality-based filmmakers are flourishing, and by that I don’t mean those that track the truly mindless lives of three Playboy Bunnies or what life looks like through Shaquille O’Neal’s eyes.If only their contributions could be turned into policy, then we’d really be into a new and exciting age.
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Dr. Gary S. Goodman is the best-selling author of 12 books and more than a thousand articles. His seminars and training programs are sponsored internationally and he is a top-rated faculty member at more than 40 universities, including UCLA Extension, where he has taught since 1999. Dynamic, experienced, and lots of fun, Gary brings more than two decades of solid management and consulting experience to the table, along with the best academic preparation and credentials in the speaking and training industry. Holder of five degrees, including a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School For Communication at USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a law degree from Loyola, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies along with successful family owned and operated firms across America. Much more than a “talking head,” Gary is a top mind that you?ll enjoy working with and putting to use. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com
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