Author: Shel Horowitz—Green/Ethical Business Expert

A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Shel's Personal Life

Business lessons in adversity. Yesterday was a day that should have driven me up the wall:

  • I watched every photo I had taken from the fall of 2005 through the fall of 2007 permanently disappear in a computer failure, while I was trying to copy them to an external drive
  • A squabble on a discussion list turned ugly in a way that could have serious repercussions for the future of my business
  • I left yet another voicemail with the editor at a big NY publishing house who should have had a revised contract on my desk in June and has not been answering phone calls or e-mails
  • Oh yes, and I not only got to walk my dog in the pouring rain (it was only raining at the hiking trail, not at my house half a mile away) and get attacked by mosquitoes, but actually got stung by a bee–in my own kitchen–when I returned

    • And yet, somehow, I found the Zen of it all, and stayed remarkably calm while my life appeared to be falling apart. A few years ago, I don’t think I could have handled that so smoothly. The loss of the photos alone (including our whole trip to Mexico) would have made me insane.

    I thought about the time a few years ago when i was driving a rental car in San Francisco, didn’t have the mirror adjusted properly, and accidentally cut off another driver. With true California class, he leaned out his window and called out, “It’s all good!” I apologized and explained that because it was an unfamiliar car, I had misaligned the mirror, and he was cool with it.

    But I’ve often reflected on that. And on the way my friend and mentor Bob Burg is able to deflect conflict, defuse angry people, and accomplish his agenda. He has a newsletter and book called Winning Without Intimidation. I finally got to meet Bob last week when he came to this area for a speech; we’ve been friends online for maybe eight years, and I include a section on him in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

    Applying it to the day I had yesterday, I won’t try to analyze how I stayed so calm. But I will try to draw some business lessons from it.

    First of all, back up your files offsite. Duh! I’ll be exploring the best places to do this.

    Second, showing anger in public is always counterproductive, no matter how “right” you think you are. I have to go re-read that chapter I wrote about Bob Burg. I played a part in turning that list discussion ugly, and I regret it. And I’ll have to deal with the consequences. I will of course try to do better next time.

    And third, be patient because you don’t now what the world has in store for you. If I’m feeling frustrated because the editor isn’t returning my call, or because the Business Ethics Pledge is not getting signatures as quickly as I’d like, or because the six-legged critters are apparently out to get me, I just have to remember the guy in California. “It’s all good,” even if I don’t know exactly how, yet.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, media-general, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice

    We *have* made progress! A Utah newspaper, the Herald Journal, ran its first announcement of a same-sex marriage–and only four people canceled their subscriptions!

    The paper ran a very clear announcement of its rationale here    .

    Bravo to the paper–and its readers, who I guess have noticed that the world is changing.

    I live in Massachusetts. We’ve had gay marriage for I think three years now. And guess what–the sky hasn’t fallen! I think a lot of the people who supported some of the homophobic responses in the past have realized, now that they see openly gay married couples raising families, having jobs, and enjoying such taken-for-granted-by-heterosexuals privileges as visiting their partner in the hospital, that it is no threat to heterosexual marriage.

    I have never understood why they felt threatened in the first place. My wife and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary in October. We’ve been to several gay and lesbian weddings. I think it makes a family stronger when a couple can express their love and commitment and take on the responsibilities and benefits.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Media Ethics, Social and Economic Justice

    These people have no shame! The Central Intelligence Agency actually had a table on the exhibition floor of Unity ’08, the conference for journalists of color organized jointly by (in alphabetical order) the Asian-American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native-American Journalists Association!

    As the article points out, this is not an appropriate place for journalists to work. Here are two of the people interviewed on the segment:

    JOE DAVIDSON: I don’t think that the CIA should recruit at conventions for journalists. I think that CIA members have pretended to be journalists in years past. They might still be doing it, I don’t know, but they certainly have done it previously. And I think that the knowledge that CIA agents have used journalism as a cover puts legitimate journalists in danger.

    It’s certainly known that in other countries, journalists will report to their governments. That certainly is not the case, or certainly generally has not been the case, for American journalists. But we don’t want that perception. I think there really has to be a long distance between the role of a spy, even someone who does research in Langley, Virginia, and a journalist.

    and

    DENNIS MOYNIHAN: You know, in a climate where journalists are being laid of en masse by the media corporations, I think it’s unfortunate that an agency like the CIA can prey upon people. I mean, what are they going to be doing? Of course, they’re talking about open source intelligence gathering.

    Well, that’s exactly how they gather names of alleged socialists or labor sympathizers in Indonesia, by forming lists. They’re going to be reading other reporters’ work and identifying subjects of interest to the U.S. security apparatus. I don’t think it’s good work for a journalist. There’s just a massive abuse of data collection that’s happening by the United States, principally.

    The ACLU released a press report, a press release about waterboarding and CIA’s involvement in authorizing and coaching waterboarding. You know, why isn’t this guy being asked about it? I think some journalists here actually have confronted this recruiter, but this is one of the most controversial agencies functioning on the planet today, and it’s shocking that here, with between five and ten thousand journalists, and the guy isn’t getting grilled continually.

    Several other attenders also comment. Go read or listen to the whole segment.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

    Very interesting discussion about the ethics of disclosure over at Joan Stewart’s Publicity Hound blog.

    A reporter raised the question about whether doctors who endorse products in communication with the press should disclose that they get paid by the drug company.

    The general consensus, of course, is that they should absolutely disclose this relationship, and that PR people who don’t get this are not to be trusted in general.

    One person brought up the example of “Dustin Hoffman playing a crazed PR man who was sick of lying and sold “Boxy but Safe” Volvos.” And that sparked this comment by me, since I believe Volvo’s safety reputation is in serious danger at the moment:

    L.M. Steen’s example of the “boxy but safe Volvo” caught my attention–because I have wondered for several years why Volvo allowed itself to be purchased by Ford–a company that has given the public ample reasons *not* to trust it on safety (two examples: Pintos that explode, Explorers that roll over). Considering that safety was the main brand attribute that Volvo stressed for decades, I think the only reason there hasn’t been a huge backlash is that Ford is very quiet about its ownership.

    Of course, I’ve been saying for years that honest business actually works better. My award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, shows how honesty, integrity, and quality are the cornerstones of business success. And my Business Ethics Pledge encourages businesses to declare their values publicly–not only to create a climate where this kind of behavior is not tolerated, but also to improve the public’s perception of the signing company.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Politics

    Putting subtle pressure on its managers to get a Republican victory in November because they don’t like a particular bill Obama supports. Sheesh!

    Find a gazillion stories about this here, including MSNBC and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

    Particularly cogent analysis article by Ron Galloway on Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-galloway/wal-mart-never-saw-it-com_b_116402.html

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, media-general, Peace and War

    It’s all over the blogosphere–but not in the mainstream news: Cheney’s office considered sending in heavily armed Navy Seals on boats disguised as Iranian craft to create an artificial incident so the US could go to war against Iran, according to Seymour Hersh. The project was rejected, as Americans killing Americans didn’t sound appealing. But that they even considered it makes you wonder–this goes beyond even the deceptions used to get us into Iraq.

    And why is the msm so silent on this?

    Hersh is one of the most distinguished investigative journalists of our time–the person who broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam war, more than 30 years ago, and who has broken several stories about various nefarious deeds in the Bush administration.

    If this allegation is true (as I suspect it is), it is without question grounds for impeachment and probably criminal prosecution. But where’s the investigation?

    In the first five pages of Google results for hersh hormuz seals, there is exactly one bit of coverage of Hersh’s very serious allegation in the mainstream media, from WQXT, St. Augustine, Florida. There was a story on today’s Democracy Now, which is where I heard about it–but that’s not the mainstream media.

    Today, my local paper had an article about Britney Spears’ father continuing legal oversight over her finances. Why is this news, while a plot to take an illegal action and disguise it as the work of a hostile government in order to enter a war goes unmentioned?

    I don’t give a flying f about Brittney–but I sure do care about actions on the part of our government that lead to lives lost, decrease the effectiveness of our diplomacy, channel the resources of the US government into all the wrong places, etc.

    Video clip and transcript of Hersh’s interview at the Campus Progress journalism conference. Here’s a quick bit:

    HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

    Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government

    Philly.com (online edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News) reports that the mayor of Atlantic City was sentenced to three years probation for veterans-benefits fraud.

    What I find most interesting is that the city government as an overall entity seems to have a problem with ethics:

    Levy resigned in October from the mayoralty of the beachside resort city, concluding a year in which three City Council members were convicted on corruption charges, another was arrested for driving drunk in a city vehicle and a fifth was indicted for his part in an attempt to blackmail a sixth councilman.

    Hmmm…could it be that legalized gambling fosters a climate where money counts more than virtue? Gambling has been Atlantic City’s major industry for decades.

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Media Ethics

    Oy! This little squib from the Weekly Spin (as reprinted in the Las Vegas Sun) opens all sorts of ethics questions: product placement on newscasts = censorship of news? Maybe it would be better if we simply banned product placement on “objective” newscasts.

    And look, the broadcaster is that champion of “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox News. Why am I not surprised?

    “Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk” during Las Vegas station KVVU’s morning news show, writes Abigail Goldman. It’s a “punch-you-in-the-face product placement” that will last six months. KVVU’s news director says the “nontraditional revenue source” won’t impact his station’s reporting. But an executive with the marketing firm that negotiated the deal, Omnicom’s Karsh/Hagan, said “the coffee cups would most likely be whisked away if KVVU chooses to report a negative story about McDonald’s,” reports the New York Times. McDonald’s has similar product placement arrangements with “WFLD in Chicago, which is owned and operated by Fox; on KCPQ in Seattle, a Fox affiliate owned by the Tribune Company; and on Univision 41 in New York City.” Other stations owned by KVVU parent Meredith Corporation, “including WFSB, the CBS affiliate in Hartford, Conn., and WGCL, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta — are also accepting product placements on their morning shows.” The Writers Guild of America West recently urged the Federal Communications Commission to require “real-time disclosure” of product placements and to ban video news releases, calling VNRs “an attempt to trick the viewer to think that a paid advertisement is actually news.”

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics-International, Shel's Personal Life

    July 16, 2008, Guatemala City

    I am sitting three rows behind the President of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom,
    watching an interpretive performance of Mayan dance and music in a
    courtyard in the national palace.

    A few hours ago, I was in this same spot, getting a tour of the palace’s
    public areas. I saw the chairs and instruments and wondered when the concert was going to take place, and what it would be–never dreaming that
    I’d be sitting in one of those chairs, watching this wonderful spectacle
    that night.

    The president impresses me. He greets a few people, then sits in a reserved
    seat in the front row, but not on the dais. Following the performance, he speaks humbly and from the heart, without either a script or a TelePromTer–and he speaks as one human
    being to another, not as a polished speaker. He speaks of his personal
    experience in the woods 30 years ago, and how this gave him a strong
    appreciation of the need to conserve both nature and the Mayan culture, and
    he keeps his remarks brief.

    The event is a celebration (in Spanish) of land conservation and cultural tradition, and
    I´m there because we happen to be staying with the Superintendent of
    Guatemala’s 18 national parks. He and his family are new to Servas (the
    international homestay network we’ve participated delightedly in for 25 years), and this was arranged with the local
    coordinator without us knowing anything about him. We are this family’s
    very first Servas travelers.

    I like Luís immediately when he picks us up. He greets us warmly, cracks
    jokes the whole time we stay with him, and gets into discussions of deep
    political and environmental issues. And he’s totally patient with our
    less-than-perfect Spanish (he doesn’t speak English).

    The next day, we’ve come to have tea with him, his wife and daughter (both
    named Edith) in his office, and he says, “I’m going to a meeting tonight at
    the National Palace, and
    the President will be there. Would you like to attend?”

    “Yes, thank you. May I borrow a jacket from you?”

    “You won’t need one. It will be informal.”

    Of course, of the 400 or so people in attendance, the vast majority,
    including Luís, wear suits. But there are 30 or 40 others in more casual
    clothes, fortunately. By happenstance, I went out the door in the morning
    wearing a button-down shirt and long pants, while Dina wore a longish
    black skirt and a solid-color blouse–but it could just as easily been a
    t-shirt and shorts. Luís actually tried to take us back to his house in the
    afternoon to have dinner and change, but traffic was so bad he turned
    around and went directly to the palace.

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