Month: November 2008

By Posted on Posted in Ethics-International, Ethics: General, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

Apparently, a lot of players in the international adoption world have been a little too glib about where these babies are coming from, and some children have been stolen from their parents to be adopted by people in the Northern hemisphere.

Even though it delayed and may have prevented her adoption, one adoptive mom, Jennifer Hemsley, got too suspicious. Her courageous battle with the system and great personal/family/financial hardship in order to do the right thing are a model of how to behave in an ethically cloudy situation, even if the outcome is the opposite of what you’re striving for.

Medical reports seemed obvious forgeries, without letterhead or doctor’s signature. And during a critical hearing, Hemsley said, her Guatemalan advisers tried to pay a stranger to pose as Hazel’s foster mother.

“Todd and I felt a lot like, ‘Gee, is this really happening?’ Maybe we should just look the other way and keep plodding along, because every time I tried to tell someone, nobody cared,” Hemsley said. “I couldn’t look the other way. I just couldn’t turn my head.”

Ricardo Ordonez, the Hemsleys’ adoption attorney, denied any fraud and vowed to clear his name by producing the birth mother for new DNA tests. Another court hearing is pending.

If the Hemsleys had walked away, as hundreds of other Americans did after problems surfaced, Hazel would likely have been abandoned or reoffered for adoption under another false identity, Tecu said. Instead, Jennifer Hemsley stayed with Hazel for months, draining more than $70,000 from a second mortgage on their home and paying for a trusted nanny.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, People Helping People, Politics

Nelson Mandela was the first black president of South Africa, who came to power after decades of an oppressive apartheid regime that enforced a horrible climate on its people of color–the vast majority of its population. Mandela himself was imprisoned for 27 years.

When Mandela and the African National Congress came to power, it would have been easy to conduct Nuremberg-style trials and punish the transgressors. But instead, South Africa established an official Truth and Reconciliation Commission; he handled the need to change with love. The Commission thoroughly investigated many of the old regime’s criminals, but did not punish them–instead using the trials to create healing rather than division.

While it’s easy to imagine taking a good deal of satisfaction from seeing the rogues of our rogue state–Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales…and especially Rove and Cheney–on trial and facing long prison terms, from the point of view of healing the country and actually accomplishing a progressive agenda in these already-difficult times, it may make sense to have the trials but have them under the banner of truth and reconciliation, and let their consciences (such as they are) or the Higher Power they call claim to believe in, be the ones to punish them.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

I just made up the word “jrip” and the phrase “jargon jrip.” It’s like drip (as in seriously uncool person, common in the late 1950s/early 1960s)–except it begins with a j to go with jargon.

And I made it in response to these couple of lines that showed up in my e-mail (name withheld to protect the guilty):

an Internet-wide shared-user system for user-centric demographic/privacy control, personalization, advertising and content payment aggregation.

Now, I’m a professional writer; I work with words every day. I know what every one of those words means individually, but they make absolutely no sense when strung together. I have no idea from that phrase what this person is talking about. Other parts of the press release and announcement tell me that he wants to establish a new social network that includes an e-commerce component. But the difficult phrase was in the first sentence! I don’t think most people will get far enough to figure it out.

It’s technobabble like this that gives corporate communications in general, and corporate-speak press releases in particular, a bad name. As a copywriter, I make it my business to try to eliminate that kind of press release from the business toolkit, and replace it with press releases that actually communicate both facts and emotion, yet stay out of the hype zone. When I see this sort of crap, it reminds me that we have a loooong way to go.

Clear writing communicates; jargon blocks communication. Down with jargon! Don’t be a jargon jrip!

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By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

Twitter is the latest evolution of many-to-many online networking, something that started with Usenet newsgroups, for-pay proprietary services like Compuserve and AOL, and online BBSs more than 20 years ago.

I was an early adopter of many-to-many discussion platforms online; I experimented with them when I briefly went online with a Compuserve account in 1987 (though between the command-line interface that I had to relearn each time and the noisy 300 bps phone lines that kept throwing me off, I didn’t stick around very long). I wrote about them back in 1991, and began using them actively in 1995. At that time, I mostly used e-mail discussion lists.

Thirteen months ago, I began migrating to social media platforms by signing up first for Facebook and then Plaxo, CollectiveX, Ning, and, this summer, Twitter. I’d made a stab at it earlier; I’ve had accounts on LinkedIn and Ryze for several years, and put up a MySpace page a couple of years ago. But I hadn’t really used them, and other than LinkedIn, I’m still not using those networks.

Facebook was the first one that (excuse the pun) clicked for me. The interface was intuitive, it was easy to find both old friends and people with common interests, and it conveniently notified me by e-mail when someone shared anything with me. Plaxo and CollectiveX are similar. I was drawn to CollectiveX in particular, because it seems to be where a lot of discussions about environmentally sustainable and social-venture triple-bottom-line business take place, and it has a wonderfully international scope that I find refreshing.

And then in August, I finally signed on to Twitter. It’s hard to believe that such a simple idea can be so powerful. Or how much can be said in 140-character installments!

I’m shocked, amazed, and delighted by how much I like it, and what treasures I find there:

* Tons of resources: useful articles and blogs, audios, upcoming teleseminars
* Access to movers and shakers (I’ve exchanged messages with luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Mark Joyner; I’ve sent messages to Obama’s Twitter account, but am not convinced that anyone actually reads it. He has over 120,000 followers and follows nearly all of them back.)
* Powerful ways to grow my own community and get connected with people I ought to know about
* Media leads of reporters looking for sources, by following @skydiver and @Profnet
* Ability to flag useful articles, including some that I write, or events I put on
* And yes, a number of new friendships

All this with only a few hundred that I’m following. I have cut drastically down on the number of e-mail discussions I participate in, so that I have time for a few visits a day to Twitter. I don’t quite understand how so many people manage to follow thousands of people, but I see myself reaching that point.

Twitter is at the Model T stage. I don’t think anyone could predict the full impact in, say, ten years, any more than in 1995, people would have predicted that by 2008, a lot of people would be not only shopping but paying bills, managing databases, running surveys, doing full-scale audio and video, and actually cataloging the world’s knowledge over the Web.

I may not know where we’re going, but I’m sure excited to be on the journey. And it’s FUN!

Want to follow me on Twitter? https://twitter.com/shelhorowitz

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, Web 2.0/Social Media

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst for Forrester Research, found some pretty important stats about the uses of various Web 2.0 portals by the two major presidential campaigns. The study looked at Twitter followers, Facebook supporters, number of videos uploaded and watched, and more. And Obama wildly outperformed McCain on every single metric–from 380% more supporters on both MySpace and Facebook to an astonishing 240 times (that’s 24,000 percent!) more followers on Twitter.

Of course, McCain’s cluelessness around the Internet was the butt of many jokes–but Obama really gets it, and that may be a contribution to the landslide victory.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Ethics-International Tagged with , ,

From liberal Democrat State Senator Dianne Wilkerson of Massachusetts to Chen Shui-bian, the former President of Taiwan, there’s been another spate of politicians caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Some of these people, like Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, have had positions of public trust for decades.

Isn’t it time we looked at this as a society? Not just in the U.S., but around the world. There’s got to be a way to govern that doesn’t put so much temptation in front of our politicians to abuse their trust and their power.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Customer Service as Marketing, Publishing, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

Back in March, I got the kind of call that every writer dreams about. An editor at a major publisher telling me she loved the proposal, and could we talk? The last time I got a call like that from a major publisher was back in 1991.

Of course we could talk! We talked and talked and talked. The first contract they sent me arrived in June, and was unacceptable. I flagged over a dozen areas that I wanted changed. And we kept talking, although there were periods of several weeks when they seemed to disappear and didn’t return my calls. But then, just when I would start to think they’d changed their minds, they’d be back in my inbox and on my voicemail, ready to move forward. And usually, right about when they showed up again was when my co-author’s literary agent would go incommunicado for another few weeks.

In mid-September, another draft of the contract arrived. It didn’t give me anywhere near everything that I’d asked for, but it was a huge improvement. I was almost ready to sign, but two “deal-breaker” clauses had to be changed. One of them was the original due date of October 1, 2008, to submit the manuscript, and the other had to do with my existing intellectual property. And the co-author also had one clause to change.

Just this week, the third draft arrived. And this time, it’s something that we can all sign. Yippee!

It’s been a long process, but I’m not sorry.

As you can imagine, the temptation was strong to go flying off the handle, accuse people, or otherwise engage in behavior that might have felt good at the moment but would have done nothing except to dig myself into a deep hole. I resisted the temptation. I stayed positive and confident, even while pressing my demands in a friendly but firm way.

No matter how many times I called and got voicemail, I never left a negative message. No matter how many weeks went by with no communication, I always approached each new call without recrimination. I listened politely to the editor complain about the agent, and on other calls, the agent complain about the editor. But when I needed to complain I vented to someone who had no involvement in the deal.

And now, finally, we have a deal that all four parties–I, my co-author, his agent, and the editor at the publishing house–are all happy with.

This has been a long, drawn-out exercise in the principles I discuss in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First: of being truly people-centered, of getting what you want by being nice, and of thinking long-term.

In fact, those principles got me the contract in the first place. There’s a well-known author who originally came to me as a customer; he ordered my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit through my website. We began a relationship, I sent him an essay (unpaid) for one of his books, he did an appearance on my radio show…and he asked me, out of the blue, after over a year of corresponding, if I’d like the contact information for his editor at this publishing house.

In other words, this stuff works.

And I started work on the new book yesterday. I think it’s gong to be the best and most important book I’ve done, and I’m fully expecting that it’ll be a best-seller.

It’s an exciting journey. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, Uncategorized

While we congratulate Barack Obama for his historic landslide victory, let’s remember that we marketers can take many lessons from this campaign. A few examples:

A transformative, emotion-based, positive campaign will trump a narrow,negative, issues-based campaign. Obama inspired hope, and gave millions of people a voice and interest in presidential politics that they hadn’t had before. The last two party nominees to try this were also successful: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (remember “It’s morning in America”?)

Take away your opponent’s advantages by neutralizing the rhetoric. McCain’s campaign claimed to put “country first”–but Obama was the one who walked the talk. His speeches were you-focused, his message was of unity and solidarity.

Stay on message. Obama was so good at this that even when he shifted the message (for example, embracing offshore drilling after opposing it), he wasn’t called on the flip-flop. Of course, this may be because McCain flip-flopped on all sorts of issues, and was pretty vulnerable.

Don’t apologize for your beliefs. Three out of the four most recent prior Democratic nominees–Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry–all crawled on their bellies with messages that basically said, “umm, I’m not really a liberal, I didn’t mean it, I’m soooo sorry!” And all three lost because doing that took the wind right out of their sails. Bill Clinton, who is not a liberal, didn’t play that game. Not surprisingly, he won. Obama never apologized, ignored the L-word, and didn’t even flinch when in the closing days, McCain revved it up and actually called him a socialist (traditionally, the kiss of death in US politics).

When you attack, don’t sling mud at your opponent’s character, but at the specific actions or positions: “You…sung a song about bombing Iran.” “That endorsement didn’t come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it.”

Stay clean, tell the truth, and don’t do the things you attack your opponent for. After 21 months of intense scrutiny, neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain could find much negativity of substance. The man apparently has no scandals. He’s in a strong relationship with his wonderful family, hasn’t been caught with his fingers in the till or with his pants down, and hasn’t shaken anyone down for money or votes. So the attcks were based on ridiculous stuff that didn’t stick:

  • He’s an elitist (and McCain, the son of an admiral who owns numerous houses and thinks $5 million income is middle class, isn’t?)
  • He goes (or went) to the wrong church (and we just won’t talk about the right-wing extremist demagogues like John Hagee that McCain was so cozy with
  • He’s a Muslim (and even if it were true, what’s so horrible about that?)
  • He’s not really a US citizen
  • He “pals around with terrorists”
  • He’s a socialist

    • All these vicious lies came back to bite McCain, and to draw huge turnout among Obama’s base.

    The one accusation that stuck was about his lack of experience. Hillary’s “3 a.m.” ad was extremely effective, and swung Ohio and Texas into her camp. But McCain absolutely threw that argument away when he selected the even-less-experienced, ethically challenged, and totally clueless Sarah Palin.

    Perhaps the most important lesson of all: When you really want something, work your butt off for it, be the kind of ieader that inspires others to help, and take nothing for granted. Obama’s on-the-ground organiation has been awesome since the get-go, and that was a decisive factor.

    Finally, when the universe hands you a blessing, accept it. The economic meltdown was perfectly timed to provide enormous advantage to Obama, and he was wiling and able to run with it.

    In fairness to McCain, I think a lot of the errors in judgment he showed were the result of his handlers. They apparently let him write his own concession speech, and this gracious, conciliatory, and beautiful message was not only his best speech of the campaign, it may have been the best of his career.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice

    Greg Palast is one of my favorite investigative journalists, especially when it comes to theft-of-vote issues. But as a political thinker, he can be muddy. Yesterday, he released a column essentially saying he was voting for Obama despite his political reservations in order to make up for years of racial injustice. He called the article “Vote for him – because he’s Black,” and talked movingly about a favorite teacher who was hounded out of the system because he was black.

    So, I’m going to do something that Dr. Bruce would think little of. I’m going to vote for the Black man.

    Because he’s Black.

    The truth is, I’m wary of Barack Obama. His cozy relations with the sub-prime loan sharks who funded his early campaign; his vote, at the behest of his big donor ADM corporation, for the horrific Bush energy bill.

    But there’s one thing that overshadows policy positions, one thing he cannot change once in office: the color of his skin. The same as Mr. Bruce’s.

    By Palast’s logic, the black dictator Robert Mugabe is a better choice than a visionary like Mikhael Gorbachev or Lech Walesa (both white males). should we vote for Sarah Palin because she’s a woman? While if all other things were equal, I might vote for the candidate who came from the more disenfranchised background, that’s not even a factor for me in this race. Because the candidates are far from equal. I vote for the candidate who I feel will do the most good–and sometimes, like today, that is not the one I most agree with.

    True, I share Palast’s reservations about Barack Obama, and could add a few of my own. I wish he were as liberal as McCain and Palin paint him out to be. And if all I wanted to do with my vote was overcome historic injustice, I could vote for the Green Party. Not only Cynthia McKinney but also her running mate are both black and female, and her politics–or Ralph Nader’s, for that matter–are a lot closer to mine than Obama’s are.

    I spent a lot of time thinking about whether to vote for McKinney, Nader, or Obama. I’ve often voted 3rd party and I still regret voting for Kerry instead of the Green Party’s David Cobb in 2004 (a decision I didn’t make until I was actually in the voting booth, by the way). And though I don’t have any illusions about how much change an Obama presidency will mean, this year, I’m not only voting Dem but I’m actually went up to my neighboring swing state (New Hampshire) and volunteered.

    And I feel good about it.

    If the candidate had been Hillary or some of the others, I would have voted 3rd party this year. So…why am I voting for Obama anyhow?

    I really do see the country needing a unifying force right now, and a complete and total repudiation in the largest possible numbers of the last eight years And to me that means Obama this time, even with my significant reservations. And I do think that Obama is seriously motivated by a desire for social change, and is far more ethical and smart than the typical candidate. I want to support the Democrats moving for once in a good direction, after a series of centrist, bland, uninspiring and cowardly candidates who gave me no reason to vote for them, starting in 1988 with Michael Dukakis. The only exception was Bill Clinton, who was centrist but far from bland, at times inspiring, and willing to be controversial. Not surprisingly, he’s been the only Democrat to win in the past 20 years.

    I think we are presented with a rare window, and if there’s an overwhelming majority plus veto-proof Congress, Obama may move left in the crisis, much as FDR did. After all, even LBJ and (on certain issues) Nixon moved way to the left once they were in office. I also think that while his vision is limited and his thinking somewhat too conventional, he is sincere about social justice. He’s also amazingly smart, charismatic, ethical, compassionate, and quick on his feet. He understands the need to do something about energy policy and climate change. He understands, form personal experience, the peculiar cultural and philosophical stew that is the United States electorate. He understands the power of good marketing and will be an effective salesman for his policies on Capitol Hill and in the public squares of American opinion. And he is by disposition well to the left of the Clintons, though nowhere near as far as I’d like.

    And Obama is the only figure on the national scene who could actually be, as George W. Bush so famously claimed to be and then did the opposite, “a uniter, not a divider.”

    He may actually be in a position to accomplish more change than we expect. He may actually be that transformative leader. Dare I call this the audacity of my hope?

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    Fascinating article in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Sex Doesn’t Sell.”

    This is, of course, complete heresy to marketers.

    Two things I want to comment on there: first, this quote:

    According to some studies, the “sex sells” adage in misleading if not wrong. Several studies have found ads laced with sexual imagery of women targeted to women actually turn women off to the product. And it’s not a new conclusion about sex and advertising, either.

    But the obvious response would be, if you’re marketing to heterosexual women, should you perhaps be using sexy men? And certainly there are plenty of companies that do just that.

    Also, remember the old AIDA formula: Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action. In other words, it isn’t enough to attract their attention–which sex does, for sure. They have to move through tthe ladder and take action. I remember one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen. It actually used the headline “Sex. Now That I have Your Attention…” and proceeded to promote a car dealership without even referring to the headline again. It was an all-text ad, no graphics, in our local newspaper. And I made a resolve right there that if this company was going to so insult my intelligence, I wasn’t going to even give them a shot at my business. I’ve bought three or four cars since then, at least, and not once have I ever bothered to visit that dealer.

    Yet Madison Avenue, going back decades, seems to do quite well using sex to sell everything from household cleansers to cars to alcohol–but the ads are constructed in such a way that the prospect almost feels like he or she is in bed with someone gorgeous.

    The other part I found umm, revealing was this wonderfully snide reader comment:

    Two words that prove sex doesn’t sell: Sarah Palin. Other than being a GMILF and former beauty queen who has mastered the art of the saucy wink, she brings nothing substantial to the GOP ticket and has done more to undermine McCain’s credibility with independents and undecideds.

    .

    Generally, in marketing, we learn to harness both the prospect’s emotion and intellect. Perhaps the problem with using misplaced sex in advertising is that it only hooks the emotions and leaves intellect out of it entirely. In my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I walk through some of the ways to build the necessary long-term trust to not only follow AIDA all the way down to the second A, but to add more steps: repeating and referring others.

    (Thanks to Chris McDonald, who pointed me to this article).

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