Max Gladwell

Editor’s note: This is the first guest post from Paul “GreenSmith” Smith, a sustainability consultant and prolific green business blogger. Paul is a longtime friend of Max Gladwell and writes frequently for Triple Pundit and Ecopreneurist, two of our favorite blogs. But the easiest way to reach the legendary GreenSmith is to follow him on Twitter.

Being positive in today’s world can take a lot of strength. The media is no great help with that, going by an “if it bleeds it leads” mentality or fixating on useless minutiae. Fortunately, magazines like Ode exist. Billing itself as “for intelligent optimists,” it seeks out what’s working and what’s possible while challenging the conventional wisdom about long thought intractable problems.

It’s clear that Ode understands that in order to thrive in today’s world, it is not about hoarding all the cookies to yourself or trying to be everything to everybody. They open the gates to readers being the creators of their own content, and sharing content they’ve found elsewhere. Every month, one story from among those submitted gets published in the magazine. All of them can be seen and commented on the site.

Additionally, their blog brings in a featured author, typically someone who was written about in the magazine, making for a richer experience for those wanting to delve deeper. Currently it’s Chris Kilham, a medicine hunter, seeking out beneficial plants and herbs that serve a dual purpose: increasing people’s health, and the health of the communities where these medicines are discovered.

Knowing that they don’t have the market cornered on good news, Ode scans the world media for stories elsewhere sending them out five days a week. The stories frequently come from the most mainstream of publications, unlikely sources of such stories. It’s in doing this that they generate real hope in people – that there are many possibilities despite the mess our world would seems to be in right now, and that they are not alone in seeing a brighter future…and present.

Building on that, their readers are highly engaged, interested, and interesting people. Last year they launched their People section, where readers can gather and interact. If Ode has its way this year, it will offer a means for taking action on what one is reading about and experiencing in the world, together.

Ode has always featured sustainability, together with social entrepreneurs, health, culture, and technology, and it walks the green talk. The magazine is printed on recycled paper and offers a digital edition, which replicates the experience of thumbing through the magazine on your computer without the paper. A sample of that can be found here.

This quote from Paul Hawken sums up Ode’s value pretty well:

We need to address sustainability in a wider sense.  It is not only about humans and their environment.  It is also about the social fabric of our world and the painful divide between the rich and the  poor.  That is why Ode’s international approach is so vital.

I could go on for hours about Ode, having been a huge fan of the magazine for some time, it having played a pivotal role in shifting my life in an entirely different direction, deeply immersed in the sustainable business realm.

Instead, I invite you to explore it for yourself, contribute an article, and, thanks to Ode’s generosity, they’ve authorized us to offer Max Gladwell readers an online exclusive, allowing you to try an issue free. If you wish to continue, you can subscribe for $19.95, $10 less then is found anywhere else, with a tree planted in your name and a meditation CD to boot.

We all have a part to play in making the world a better, more connected place. What’s your role?

Disclosure: Smith is currently consulting for Ode, and happy to have you know that. A long time fan of the magazine, he desired to see more people knowing about what’s inspired him so much, so he asked them if he could do that.

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