Or perhaps the 4th world? Hard to say what world it was after 14 days in Bodhgaya, India. At night it reminded me of the dark, wet, noisy, dirty world of the director`s cut of Blade Runner. Though I had been to India before, I did not remember it to be this harsh, dirty, polluted, and difficult for the people who live there...totally in your face. And this is the international epicenter and pilgrimage site of Buddhism, which is in some ways absolutely perfect, but that`s a longer discussion.

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Where to start? Well, the title I chose is marketing so for those of you who have no experience of this type of place, the method there is largely one of harrassment. For those of you who have visited any place where the mindset is one of scarcity, you know of what I speak. We in the West are, despite our current financial reversal or speedbump or whatever you wish to call it, the "haves" and the people we saw there who are living under the tables where they sell their wares are "have nots"...so on one level what should we expect? They must feel perfectly comfortable and justified in getting whatever they can from us, by whatever means. Even though, as many of you know, we at Blue Poppy donate to various causes regularly (as do most Americans for that matter), this was different. This was not one step removed, not a photograph of suffering, not a transaction with a clean pre-addressed return envelope or a click of the mouse. This involved looking people in the face and saying no, or saying yes to one and getting mobbed by scores of others. It involved always being worried that you are being ripped off in any transaction that you did pursue, or deciding that you deserved to be ripped off, all things considered, and then not worrying about it further. I admit to some of both.

Anyway, sitting here in the Zurich airport in a comfortable transit lounge on our way home, I am processing my culture shock and sorrow out loud. Hope it does not offend anyone. The only thing I can say about this particular trip to India in relationship to business and marketing is that everywhere with few exceptions it was an example of what does not work in our situation in the West.

I still believe that building a good business done with right motivation involves connecting with a community of people, having a useful service or product for that community, charging a fair price, giving away as much for free to your community as you can reasonably do, giving good jobs to people as your business grows, and sharing a portion of our profit with those anywhere in the world who need help.

How to save the beggars and mange-ridden dogs in India and all the rest of the suffering world is a much more long-term project.