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 Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Talk about death panels! Physicians for a National Health Program is calling attention to a just releases–and very shocking–Harvard study that found…

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The new study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults,” appears in today’s online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

In an e-mail blast, the doctors group calls for President Obama to “start from scratch”: to ditch the unpopular, badly thought out, solves-nothing proposals floating through Congress and bring the US into alignment with the rest of the developed world: a single-payer health care plan.

And the group’s leader, Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. of Harvard University, gave a great interview on this on Democracy Now.

Retired Senator (and former presidential candidate) George McGovern notes in a recent op-ed that all it would take is a one sentence law, extending Medicare coverage to all Americans.

I think all these folks are correct. I’ve been saying for months that the time for single-payer (something I started supporting in 1979, when I was a community organizer for the Gray Panthers and this was their main plank) is NOW.

If you’re in the US, tell your Senators and Congressional representative. And tell your state government to push for it.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Politics, poverty

Not only did George W. Bush preside over the largest destruction of wealth in history, he also left the poor and middle class reeling, even before the Wall Street collapse. So says a new Census Bureau report that shows, according to the Atlantic Magazine article about it:

While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.

The article goes into substantial detail about all of these. It makes for vital, if sobering, reading. And adds up to yet another reason why I believe George W. Bush was the worst president in US history.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Ethics: General, Web 2.0/Social Media

Here’s an odd thought: Could viral videos actually change the culture? What are the implications, long-term, for our culture in the widespread visibility of cross-species animal friendship, animals figuring out difficulties and solving a way around them, animals responding to music—or even playing music—, etc.?

When you see “enemy” animals forming friendships, what does it say about humans who can’t figure out any better way to resolve differences than to go to war?

When a herd of buffalo join forces to chase off the large group of lions that attacked their calf, what does it say about the power of cooperation in humans?

When a bird is so familiar with a piece of music that its dance moves actually anticipate the song occasionally, what does that say about animal intelligence and memory?

Over time, these windows into animal capabilities may cause shifts in our global consciousness. It wouldn’t shock me if vegetarianism became much more common; could you really eat animals after seeing how smart and caring they can be? Perhaps cruelty toward animals will be reduced. And perhaps more of us will find ways to listen when the animals in our lives try to talk to us.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Shel's Personal Life

If you don’t count my toddler rebellion against smoking at about age three, I’ve been an environmental activist for 37 years. And yet the Green Work conference tomorrow in New Haven is only the second actual environmental conference I can remember speaking at (I did speak at a couple of anti-nuclear events in the 1970s, but the emphasis there was on protest, not learning).

Anyway, I’ll be speaking at 3 pm on marketing your environmental commitment, and exhibiting both at Green Work on Friday and at the folk festival/Green Expo on Saturday. Say hi if you’re in the neighborhood.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , ,

I may get smeared for this as Van Jones was, but let me say that I find it disgraceful that Van Jones was the target of a smear campaign and was forced out as Obama’s Green jobs person. He was one of the few genuine progressive voices in a sea of “moderate-centrists” who would have been considered quite far to the right a few decades back.

What were Jones’ “crimes”?

* He called for an investigation into possible government foreknowledge about 9/11. It’s pretty clear that elements within the U.S. government had advance knowledge that something was brewing (even George W. Bush was briefed on this the month before the attack, as Condoleezza Rice admitted in her May 19, 2004 testimony in front of the 9/11 investigation commission), and many respected scholars such as David Ray Griffin have widely circulated hypotheses of U.S. government involvement. My own view is that the U.S. saw the attack coming and decided for its own purposes to let the attack occur (our Reichstag fire, if you will)–but were not directly involved. Why is it unreasonable to ask for an investigation?

* He used an unfortunate metaphor to describe his radicalization in the aftermath of the acquittal verdict in the Rodney King beating case:

By August, I was a Communist,” he says in the article, describing his sense of radicalization at the time.

* He said that Republican strong-arm legislators who managed to force through legislation even when short of a super-majority in the Senate were “assholes.” How is this any worse than commentator Glenn Beck, who led the charge against Jones, calling Obama a racist, or
George W. Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, threatening a legislator with “I’m going to kick your butt if you don’t go along with me.”. And if you listen to it in context, the subtext was that Democrats are too gentlemanly to play this kind of hardball, and that’s why they can’t get their agenda enacted. This, unfortunately, is patently obvious to observers of the current political scene.

Glenn Beck, this is the latest in a long line of despicable things you’ve done. You may feel smug now, but you’re the one whose conscience will bother you–not Van Jones.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in language, Web 2.0/Social Media

One of my pet peeves is professional communicators who can’t communicate.

Today I followed a link to an interesting-sounding article about why businesses could benefit from managing multiple Twitter accounts for different purposes. As a social media strategist (among other hats I wear), I figured I could get some fresh perspective.

What I got instead was a load of jargon so thick that I could barely (and with great effort) figure out what they were talking about. An example:

Drivers are the perceived need for audience community segmentation strategies… message volume… and/or native language requirements, among others. What should be balanced is multiple account need v. management complexity, a particularly difficult line to walk given that Twitter tools remain very fluid with functionality still evolving.

I have 37 years in communications, journalism, and public relations and I barely have a clue what the writer is talking about. I think the average small business owner would be unable to extract any useful nugget at all from this. But if you want to see for yourself, here’s the link: https://scoopdog.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/1092/

Folks…if your job is to communicate, you should communicate so that other people can understand you. This stuff may as well be written in Martian. I can’t even tell if I agree with the central premise (I think I don’t, but I’m not sure).

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a citizen’s arrest or big fine for jargon–but I’d write the ticket if I could.

PS: If you’re interested in a much more accessible approach to maximizing social media, I recommend the free webinar I’m hosting with George Kao and Allison Nazarian on September 22: “Success with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook in 15 Minutes Per Day” – I’ve been on three calls with George this summer, and I love his clarity and focus.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

Remember all the election irregularities with paperless voting machines? Now the two largest players (both with strong conservative ties) are planning a merger. This could be a real disaster for free and fair elections in the U.S.

Black Box Voting has been leading the charge for fair elections since at least the 2000 debacle. I’m not in the habit of doing this, but I’m posting the entire announcement (including the call for financial support).

—– Forwarded Message —-
From: Bev Harris
Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2009 11:41:42 AM
Subject: BlackBoxVoting to file AntiTrust complaint re: ES&S/Diebold(Premier) merger

Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most U.S. voting under one privately held manufacturer. And it’s not just the concealed vote-counting; these companies now also produce polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.

You can discuss this here:
https://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/80622.html
(If not registered or need to re-register because forgot your old login info, you can do that here:
https://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-profile.cgi?action=register )

ES&S attempted to consolidate the electronic voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation (BRC), but the purchase was blocked by the US Security and Exchange Commission on antitrust grounds, and the acquisition of BRC was split between ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Here is a press release from Diebold/Premier confirming the acquisition:
https://www.premierelections.com/news_room/press_releases/ESS%20Premier%20Release%20FINAL%20CLEAN%209.02.09%204%20PM.PDF

We will post the Black Box Voting complaint to the SEC at https://www.blackboxvoting.org later today.

If you believe Black Box Voting is doing important work, please consider generous support. We are going into what promises to be a brutal 2010 battle for control of the U.S. Congress, and pieces are being put in play RIGHT NOW to attempt to tip the scales.

You can become a patron with monthly subscription support in any amount you choose, or do a one-time donation, here:
https://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or mail to:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Publishing

While going through the claiming process in the Google Books settlement (if you’re an author, you should do so too–by tomorrow!–so you get royalties if they sell your stuff, or can opt out), I discovered that my very first book, co-authored with a well-known NYC literary agent and a subject-matter expert, had been published as a paperback in the UK, by a different company, the same year the American hardback edition came out.

The book was published 29 years ago, and I never knew this. I wrote to my literary agent co-author, and he didn’t know about it either.

And a few years ago, I discovered that the publisher of my third book, published in 1993, had quietly put it back into print as an on-demand title, meaning they print one when someone orders it. Again, I was not told. In that case, I was pretty sure I’d gotten a reversion of rights, but the paperwork seems to have been lost when I moved in 1998. In that case, I was deeply opposed to putting the book back in print because I had actually written a much more comprehensive and more recent book. But since I couldn’t locate the note I’d received several years earlier, I couldn’t do much about it.

Don’t authors have rights in these situations? Shouldn’t a publisher be obligated to not only notify an author but actually obtain consent? Grrrr!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , ,

Normally, I stay far away from all the get-rich-quick stuff. But I remember when copywriter John Reese became the first Internet marketer to (at least publicly) break the million-dollar-in-one-day barrier.

In fact, I remember thinking at the time, oh, for goodness sake, you want us to buy into your product launch so you can set a sales record? Puh-lease! I didn’t buy it. Nevertheless, I watched what was going on, and was pleased for him when he surpassed the goal.

Well, I just stumbled on a short interview of John Reese by Tony Robbins on the psychology of this order-of-magnitude breakthrough ($100,000 in a day was considered fantastic back then). Both of them compare it to Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile, and they share lessons about achieving any BIG goal that I think transcend the (to me, not very interesting) specifics of making a big pile of money.

Two things struck me particularly:
1. The opening titles say Reese was $100,000 in debt. I have to wonder how such a world-renowned copywriter (I’d heard his name for years, long before this event) got into such a hole in the first place; the video, alas, doesn’t address this.

2. Reese’s thinking was much bigger than I realized. I hadn’t known that a million in a day was about ten times as much as had been done before. It reminds me of Amory Lovins’ thinking about energy use: that it’s just as easy or perhaps even easier to save 80 percent of your energy than to save 10 percent.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail