Same-sex marriage: it’s only a matter of time

Jill Sobule: Same-Sex Triumph.

In this video, folk rock singer Jill Sobule speaks about her experiences during the Prop 8 rallies in California. I can tell that Jill has a true Unite and Conquer spirit. She mentions that so many of the people that were against the very thing she stands for are, in fact, very nice people.

And since same-sex marriage is often met with opposition due to religious reasons, most of the opposition isn’t looking to start a fight. When someone is against something you are incredibly passionate about and something that deeply affects your life it is really hard not to get upset and angry.

At times like that, it is critical to keep your anger in check and instead of fighting with these people, start talking to them in a friendly way. Start talking to them about the values behind the issue, such as equality and compassion.

Olympia Snowe knows how to get past silos and how to Unite and Conquer

Esquire recently named Olympia Snowe one of the best members of Congress, and for good reason.

Instead of focusing on her party and their agenda, Snowe focuses on making things happen and solving problems. She has always been adamant against partisan bickering, she believes, “People don’t live by ideology alone. They live by solutions.” Snow has very centrist views and isn’t keeping track of partisan point scoring, and as TIME Magazine points out, this often leads her to the center of many policy debates in Washington.

Proving that it’s more about finding solutions than staying true to certain ideals, she’s very committed to her job. She didn’t miss a single one of the 657 votes during the 110^th Congress. She was only one of eight senators who did not miss any votes. Want more proof that Snowe is truly committed to doing her job? She goes back to Maine almost every weekend to check in with her constituents and find out what concerns them and what they want to see happen. Keeping what these people say in mind, she returns to Washington looking for solutions to their problems. In 2006, she passed a bill that provided millions to pay the heating bills of low-income citizens—which was a huge concern of her constituents during the freezing Maine winters.

Through looking for solutions everyone can agree on and taking her job very seriously, Snowe has learned to Unite and Conquer. In fact, in March 2006 a poll done by Survey USA showed that Snowe had a 71 percent approval rating – which is pretty rare for any politician to ever achieve.

The importance behind health insurance reform

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In this video, on MSNBC Live with Carlos Watson, Wendell Potter talks about the dirty tricks that the insurance companies use to keep profits up and costs down, in order to meet their shareholders expectations. As he states, many of these insurance companies will purge people, and even small businesses, if they are filing too many big claims and costing the insurance companies too much money. He says that these companies are more focused on “looking after the bottom line, more than they are looking after the people.”

Many people are arguing that the healthcare industry needs to be left alone because profits are what drives quality care. Unfortunately, as Potter points out profits often drive a focus on the bottom line, which doesn’t always lead to quality care. Making health insurance more accessible to everyone is incredibly important. Providing a lower cost option will force these insurance companies to start focusing less on their profits and more on their consumers.

There are a lot of people who oppose health insurance reform, most of whom are assuming the worst (that the government is trying to control the healthcare industry in it’s entirety). When talking to these people, aside from assuring them that's not the goal, it’s important to use communication that emphasizes values such as equality, quality and opportunity.

Report card for the National Recycling Coalition: B

The National Recycling Coalition helps consumers help mother earth, but they could do a better job of appealing to a wider audience. In today’s day and age, I think it would be hard to find a single person who’s never recycled – but still, I think it’s safe to assume there are many people out there who don’t recycle as well, or as much, as they could.

The National Recycling Coalition could do a better job of convincing people they need to do better if they focused more on values. They hint at the values of recycling, such as sustainability, innovation, opportunity and a thriving economy, but in order to really stress the importance of recycling, they would appeal to a larger audience if they focused their communication on values more frequently.

Kid Sister knows how to Unite and Conquer: Learn from people that are different than you

Kid Sister: Multi-Culti.

Often times, we run from the unknown. And if we’re not taking off in a full-on sprint, we’ll turn our cheek and ignore it. It’s disheartening that throughout our daily lives the moments that we truly embrace others differences are a rare commodity.

Kid Sister, an African American, Native American, and Caucasian rap artist from Obama’s last hometown, is enlightened enough at age 29 to understand that we gain a vast amount of knowledge and insight when we explore others' views. When working in a coalition or trying to work a law through the legislature, it’s important to seek out people that don’t always fit into the cookie cutter mold of what you would expect of people who are passionate about that issue. These people will not only open your eyes to new ideas, but they also can be a tremendous help with strategic communication. They say keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer for a reason. Working with someone who agrees with you on environmental issues, but doesn’t agree with you on abortion, LGBT rights and immigration can help craft a better message that will appeal to similar, like-minded people.

So they next time you’re working on legislation or putting a coalition together, run, don’t walk, towards those people with different views.