My friend and hairdresser Crissie  set me up with a cut and color last week.  Meantime we exchanged various cultural observations, some inspired by my recent trip to London and Paris.

Travel is always personally expansive. Yet leaving the U.S. to visit western Europe this time was like going to Mars to see the Earth clearly. For me, this trip crystallized things I've been pondering for a while now about American culture: our too-often thoughtless development of open and residential space; a general lack of innovative public transportation adoption; wastefulness; and relentless consumerism.

Case in point: Crissie mentioned a new product she had discovered that seemed emblematic of mindless consumption: charms for CROCS.

Suddenly, Crissie stepped back from me in her chair. Her scissors dropped to her side, and exclaimed, "My God! We're a country at war...and we're decorating our CROCS!"

There's nothing inherently wrong with CROC charms. They must make a lot of little kids really happy. And I'll bet you can collect a whole bunch, too, like the ingenious Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! or Webkins infinite franchises. (Our only out seems to be waiting until our kids graduate to the next age-appropropriate collectible scheme. I digress.)

Our conversation helped gel this overly simplistic equation. As pedantic as it may seem, we need some framework to help reinvent the long overdue American industrial-consumer complex.

Bottom up, this means helping each other make mindful consumer choices. (Do we really need Croc charms?)

Top down, this means coaching businesses and brands to think beyond primarily advancing their self-serving needs, toward better serving their constituents and, when possible, the greater good too. It's doable. As marketers, few of us have really challenged ourselves to think in this way. What if we did?

Business can bridge gaps -- never more efficiently and easier to do than now, thanks to the Internet. Business can fuel its own growth and simultaneously address social needs. As the old SNL skit goes, business today can be "a floor wax and an ice cream topping!"

It's beginning to happen. GE's introduction of a new credit card last week helps consumers offset greenhouse gas emissions via purchase of carbon offsets with reward points. This program understandably has been met with mixed reviews.

We've got public-private partnerships. Isn't it time to think about public-private-consumer partnerships for positive change?

Last year, Mentos reconfigured marketing plans when this video by two unknowns circled the globe online.  This June they even set a world record of Diet Coke / Mentos geysers.

Perhaps Starbucks has an opportunity to do something similar -- except with social gravitas -- with Sudan and frappucino lovers everywhere, now that this video is making the rounds:

In the early 1990's, you could wander into a Hear Music retail location and trust any sales associate to introduce you to your next favorite song. Acquired by Starbucks in 1999, Hear Music is all about creating "new and convenient ways for you to discover, experience and acquire great music." Music was a critical foothold in evolving Starbucks beyond coffee to a lifestyle brand. (Disclosure: I had the privilege of working with a Hear Music co-founder on a subsequent music enterprise)

"There’s the faintest whiff of discriminating good taste around everything Starbucks sells, a range of products designed, on some level, to flatter the buyer’s self-regard," reports The New York Times in The Starbucks Aesthetic.

One customer reports appreciating that Starbucks helps him "edit down his cultural choices." Looking over the selections the company makes, he said, he has the impression that 'some people of caring hearts and minds have looked at this and felt it was worthwhile and beneficial and would create a good vibe in the world.'”

Now that Starbucks, with 12,000 stores around the world (5,400 U.S.) has become ultra-mainstream, they are smartly counteracting that reality by offering out-of-the-mainstream cultural products: CDs plus DVDs and books. that "add to the emotional connection with the customer," says Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks.

Move over, Oprah.

The chain’s wireless Web-access network with 12,500 distribution points (stores worldwide) is a network with the capability to "to expose our customers digitally to unique content.” says Schultz.

What's the unifying brand promise of Starbucks and its cultural project? Discovery. No matter if it's a bold and smoky roast from Rwanda, or Lily Allen.