I am a senior executive at this so called cruel corporation you speak of. I attended the workshop and met Robert Scoble. It was his presentation that has urged me to reach out to the bloggers of the world. Let me say that working at a senior level for 22 years with Nestle gives me a pretty good first hand view of this so called “evil corporation”. Maybe it is you that is naive and not Robert. Do you think that the 270,000 employees are all droids that carry out the evil doings of the CEO. We are raising our children, taking care of our pets and contributing to society like every other human being. We are people just like you that have strong personal values and care about others. We are extremely sensitive to local laws and any employee that knowingly breaks those laws will be terminated. This is the message that comes down from the top. I have been privy to many meetings with the CEO and never witnessed any sign of covert plans or actions that you may find in an “evil corporation”. Why would we do this, our Consumers make a purchase decision every second and they vote with there choice of our brands. Social responsibility is not just good practise but it is critical for good business.

When Countries are in crisis with Hurricanes, floods, etc. it is Nestle employees (not evil corporations) that are taking decisions to send food and aid. Then because of badpress and easy target we are then accused of trying to sway the poor for profits. There are many situations when we choose not to publically announce our donations because we know that some group will try to twist the gesture in to a corporate profit scheme.

But why try and change your mind, you seem to be fixated on the non profit NGO articles that exist(3rd party accounts). I am actually writing this blog to support my new friend Robert Scoble who shared 2 hours of his valuable time and is passionate about what he does.

George Vezza
Senior Leader
Nestle

Instantiation of an example, where the example meets opportunity ?

No doubnt it’s not THE worst corporation on the planet, but it ain’t pretty. Robert’s talking to them about where things may be going, “human webs” etc. and those Nestle execs aren’t likely high on the “how humanistic is our buisness strategy” index. His phrase ‘nice folks” probably means their teetha re more or less white, hair combed, deodorant, appropriate dress, pleasant manners, one or two more-or-less on-point questions, etc. Robert probably wasn’t busy thinking about the corpocratic hijacking of planet Earth.

My $0.02 ? Frank chose an useful example to elaborate on his perspective and values.

Dispassionately, I think it’s fair to say that not being part of the solution means you’re a part of the problem… but I it’s also fair to consider that most of us walk silently and ignorantly past problems every day.

Activism and fighting for human rights take a dedication and vision that few possess.

Scoble’s heart seems to be in the right place based upon some of his stances. He’s a player in the corporate PR world and sees a lot of benefits for people having good jobs with solid benefits and that’s a pretty widely held view of the world in the US. Capitalism fits well with the Horatio Algier world view of infinite opportunities based upon hard work.

I just wish we could see some political leadership emerge that makes the case for more balance in public policy regarding public welfare vs the advantages of applying free enterprise dynamics in every sphere of endeavor.

De-regulating health care leads to a society that will eventually make hard decision about the relative value of humans based solely upon the ability to pay. This leads to applying market forces to humans as a commodity and is at the heart of the issues Frank is attempting to spotlight with Nestle.

Dispassionately, I think it’s fair to say that not being part of the solution means you’re a part of the problem… upon learning about the problem it’s wrong to shoot the messenger because “problems” are simply every where. It’s totally anti-conservative to ignore the issue of accountability for business decisions that cause suffering simply because nature and war and ignorance do as well. When nature, war and ignorance have that next “stockholders meeting” it would be easy to get people there to protest their actions too.

Nice color choice for your blog crayon kit Frank… It’s in the color that is different for each reader: “flesh”.

As for Scoble…. my guess is that he knows little or nothing of Nestle’s nefarious activities, and was, to quote a famous phrase, “just doing his job.”