Anil Dash - I'm saddened that someone that I worked with and respect wrote something so out of touch with the situation that's going on here in the Bay Area. You seem to believe the media hype that the "techies" are elitist and out of touch and that better "marketing" will help win hearts and minds.
The reality is that tech companies and employees are already doing much of what you advocate for, and doing more of it, or marketing it, won't change the situation. Avatars, Logos, and signs won't help. Helping people afford housing will.
Specifically:
Using Voices
Employees and company leaders already advocate for better housing and infrastructure. Google has succeeded[1] and failed[2] to build housing in Mountain View near it's campus. Facebook too[3].
Volunteering and Civic Initiatives
Google (and other companies) match donations 1:1 and encourage their employees to give. There's also the following
- Google.org
- Google for Nonprofits
- Supporting local communities via GoogleServe[5]
- Google sponsored a huge push to fund Kiva loans last year via their own and employees giving.
I am very proud of what's been done here and how Google has made me a better donator and volunteer.
Community Involvement
Extending benefits like food and day care to people in the community is an interesting idea. There are problems however -- employee services are at the work places, not in the neighborhood where people's rent are going up.
Plus there are often better ways for employees to engage with the community. I've met and talked to plenty of people while picking up trash in West Oakland. Plenty of other people are already very active in their churches, schools and communities.
In Closing...
If every shuttle was banned the problem would still remain. In the past 10 years San Francisco has built 17k new units of housing while adding 75k residents[6]. This is a complex issue that's not going away soon. Marketing isn't going to change it. Getting more housing and helping people worried about paying rent will, even while many are directly benefitting[7].
I'll leave you with the conclusions from Elias Levy's in-depth data based analysis[8] of the situation:
In the end, tech workers are simply a convenient straw man for folks to direct their anger at high rents, which are simply the result of a strong economy, the anti-development history of San Francisco, the city’s limited geography, and market forces. In a slightly different scenario, the vilified workers could have been in biotech, aerospace, or finance. So long as the local economy is strong, San Francisco is a desirable place to live in, and the population increases, rents, like real estate, will go up in San Francisco. At best, we can slow down these market forces and provide a helping hand to those less fortunate to ensure they have some support dealing with these changes.
Full disclosure: I work at Google. I wrote part of this on a Shuttle from the East Bay, and would still be driving if it wasn't available.
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/google-invests-sparkly-housing-development-mountain-view-calif/story?...
[2] http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=8731879
[3] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/the-houses-that-facebook-built-are-coming-to-san-francisco/
[5] http://www.google.com/giving/community/
[6] http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Francisco-creates-its-own-housing-crisis-513...
[7] http://www.npr.org/2014/01/22/264528139/long-a-dirty-word-gentrification-may-be-losing-its-stigma
[8] http://elias-levy.tumblr.com/post/74103701680/san-francisco-eviction-protests
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