I think I owe it to them and say how lucky we were to have people like these to update it so much for our "KNOWLEDGE". This is the letter they sent to me for ending it.......
In a note to subscribers this week, Editor Doug Ausbury mentioned that
the
Community Voice and Daily Quote would be ceasing publication as of July
1st.
We received numerous responses to this comment requesting
clarification and
thanking the team for the service.
With a few short days left at hand, I wanted to take a minute to
explain what
we had wanted to accomplish, why we will be closing and who has been
behind
what has become a monumental effort.
Five years ago, a small team of three people set out to do something of
significance...simply, to change mankind as we know it. No small feat,
the
goal was not as lofty as it sounds. We had no intention of conquering
the
moon, solving the economic and ecological paradoxes nor finding the
cure for
cancer.
All we wanted was for people, yourselves, to recognize that options
exist and
that life, therefore, is a matter of making choices: choices to move
or to
stay put, to punish or forgive, to grow or regress, to rest, to play,
to work
or even, at times, to wallow. With acceptance of choice comes the
power of
responsibility and, hopefully, more conscious actions.
So, we created a vehicle whereby we could source as many different
views on
eating, drinking, playing, loving, hating, living and dying...and
presented
them as ideas, stories, histories, theories and CHOICES. Some we've
agreed
with and some we questioned, but we published them nonetheless.
Over time, that group grew until it took more than 12 people worldwide
to
source new materials, develop programs for learning, produce exclusive
interviews and keep feeding the machine with quarters. You haven't met
most of
them but they've come to you from NZ, Italy, France, Florida, Indiana,
Canada,
Missouri and Colorado...and they've all done it for the same
reason...to get
paid (oh wait, that's not right?)...to learn themselves.
In doing so, we accomplished another important goal: to prove that a
dynamic
group of people can work effectively in a unified task despite
disparate
locations and diverse cultures with a little help from the Internet,
email and
instant-messaging. They created something of meaning and substance
which could
not have been possible without computers and the Internet.
Now, unfortunately, the quarters have run out. Refusing to run ads for
ingestibles or jumping on the dietary supplements bandwagon, we were
unable to
secure the gravy-train ad business. The choice was mine and I take
responsibility for the result. I am sorry it will mean closing but not
that we
stuck to our principals.
As of July 1st, we will cease publication of these newsletters. The
content on
VOW.COM and Aboutliving.com will remain online as we continue to seek a
venture
capital partner or a purchaser. I will be providing what I can to keep
healthyworkplace alive since that is a subject which I feel is most in
need on
the net.
The team, David, Geoff, Doug, Cassie, John, Sandy, Steve, Rex, Gaelle,
and I,
will go on to other projects hoping to pick up the thread of this work
in other
places. We leave with the comfort that over the past 5 years, we have
reached
a community of 250,000 readers per month who have digested more than 20
million
pages; that we caught the attention of the press (NYTimes, PC Week,
even
Microsoft); and we reached people where they needed it most (over
14,000
AboutLiving guided relaxations circulate offices throughout the world).
So, we may have moved the destiny of man, even if by only one micron.
The
point is we have grown in pursuing this goal and we hope you have grown
by
being a part of this. Thank you and good luck.
Mark Abouzeid
President, Collective Wisdom Inc.
.
