Category: Business Ethics

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People

Found both of these links in the How Online blog–found the juxtaposition quite telling:

First, an inspiring (and long-overdue) article on MarketWatch about how people are seeking MBAs not just to acquire personal wealth but to make a difference in the world. I could quote many parts of this terrific article, but I’ll pick just one:

“The New Green Focus for Future MBAs” headlines Greenbiz.com. And, it’s the most popular story on the site. At the same time, a new poll by Experience Inc. shows more students are hoping for a job with a green-minded company. The poll says 81% of students believe there is value in working for an environmentally aware company, while 79% would likely accept a job at an eco-friendly company over a conventional one.

“In a few short years, eco-friendly practices have gone from being new-fangled selling points to becoming essential requirements, with states vying with each other to offer incentives and legislation that promote green technology and business. While the corporate world is scrambling to devise strategies to address sustainability, business schools across the country have been incorporating it into their curriculum for the past several years, both in response to student demand and in line with industry trends,” Greenbiz says.

But the same page of the same blog links to another story (International Herald-Tribune) that shows, once again, the same-old-same-old of too many giant corporations just doesn’t work. and deceptive business practices have cost General Motors, and its auditor, Deloitte & Touche, over $300 million combined:

Under the settlement, GM would pay $277 million to investors, while its auditor, Deloitte & Touche LLP, would pay $26 million, pending approval from U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen in Detroit.

The two-year-old class-action lawsuit claimed that GM misstated and mischaracterized its revenue, earnings and cash flow, artificially inflating the company’s stock price and debt securities.

Let’s hope those green and ethical MBAs of tomorrow remember that they know better when they’re presented with opportunities for fraud.

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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 Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life

One of my favorite marketers, the brilliant and unconventional Sean D’Souza in far-away Aukland, New Zealand, claims he built his entire Psychotactics business on strategic alliances.

And I believe him.

Strategic alliances are that powerful. Two world-class examples:

Apple, IBM and Motorola joined forces in the 1990s to design the PowerPC computer chip–which dominated at least Apple’s product line (and I think was used in various IBM models as well) for the next several years.

And a person in the audience of one of my speeches reminded me that until it formed a strategic alliance to supply operating systems, Microsoft was just another two-bit hole-in-the-wall computer business.

The comments on Sean’s blog page got into a discussion of the typical Internet-marketer JV, but Sean correctly responded,

The downsides to strategic alliances? I know of few. One is, that because they’re not motivated by money, there’s less momentum–that is they’re less likely to be motivated to help. But this hasn’t been true for me. Our alliances have literally built our business, and continue to do so. And the entire relationship is built on trust. And respect.

The downsides to Joint Ventures, I can list by the dozen. The essential problem with joint ventures is money. When the money dries up, so does the motivation. But it’s also an upside. I don’t know. Call me crazy. I prefer alliances over joint ventures.

I agree with Sean. In fact, I posted my own comment, “Most people can’t see beyond the typical JV arrangements to see the much greater power of strategic alliances (and the friendships that can come out of them)” to grow a business.

Strategic alliances have been an essential tool in building my business, and I haven’t yet structured one like the typical Internet-marketer JV (though I may, down the road). At the moment, thanks to a strategic alliance with Sean’s Aukland neighbor Mark Joyner of Simpleology (another fantastic marketer–what’s in the water down there?), I’m about to participate in what could be the most powerful strategic alliance of my career, a partnership that involves one of the most famous names in marketing as well as a large publishing corporation. I’ll tell you all about it once the papers are signed. 🙂

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about strategic alliances, I cover them in some detail in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. Incidentally, my alliance and friendship with Mark came about because he ordered this book, and I was brave enough to seize that opportunity to begin a correspondence with him.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

Watch out for these snakes! Some people have no ethics at all.

I got an email this morning that purported to be from the IRS. The subject was “2008 Economic Stimulus Refund. [Scanned]”

And it started like this:

Over 130 million Americans will receive refunds as
part of The White House program to jumpstart the economy.

Our records indicate that you are qualified to receive the
2008 Economic Stimulus Refund.

The fastest and easiest way to receive your refund is by
direct deposit to your checking/savings account.

Please follow the link…

And ended with *a numeric URL*!

I don’t bother to report most phishing scams–I get a dozen or so every day) but this one, I forwarded to the IRS. Unfortunatley, it bounced.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Other, People Helping People, Politics

Fascinating and far-ranging interview with European philosopher Slavoj Zizek on Democracy Now this morning.

He covered war, energy, US presidential politics, and much more. But the statement that really got to me was:

A true act creates the conditions of its own possibility. That is to say, it appears impossible, you do it, and the whole field changes: it’s possible.

He went on to cite President Nixon’s opening US relations with Maoist China, and postulated that if Obama becomes president, he will seize a similar window with Cuba.

But this concept has reach far beyond international relations. In sports, the 4-minute mile was an unassailable barrier for decades; once Roger Bannister broke it, many people followed quickly. In science, it was unthinkable in 1955 that a human being would walk on the moon before 1970. In energy and the environment, the work of Amory Lovins and others show new ways of reinventing society as a more earth-friendly place (see my article here). And in business ethics, I like to hope that my Business Ethics Pledge campaign will make a similar difference in the consciousness that ethical business is actually more profitable.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Media Ethics, media-general, Shel's Personal Life

Just stumbled across a fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell, the brilliant and bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, on the ethical issues he faces as a journalist who also writes books and also gives speeches. Among other things, he notes the latitude he has as a staff writer for the New Yorker compared to the extremely narrow ability to express any opinion he faced at his former employer, the Washington Post.

As a PR writer/consultant, speaker, journalist, book author, and webzine editor with a specialty in the intersection of marketing and ethics, I grapple with these issues every day. and I found myself not only agreeing with almost everything Gladwell says here (amazing considering the piece is four years old), but wishing I had written it.

Gladwell turns out to be quite good at defining his bo8undaries. An example:

On behalf of the business side of the New Yorker, I have repeatedly given talks or presentations to representatives of companies that advertise with the magazine. For some of those presentations, I have been paid. And on a number of occasions, those groups have included people from the U.S. automobile industry. Has that biased me in favor of the Big Three? Well, no. As I’ve stated, last January I wrote an article bitterly attacking the SUV, which has been the cornerstone of the financial success of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler over the past ten years. Giving a speech does not buy my allegiance to the interests of my audience. Why? Because giving a paid speech to a group for an hour is simply not enough to create a bias in that group’s favor. It’s a very different sort of transaction. I’m not invited to speak to those medical groups because I promise to agree with their position on health care, and I’m not invited to speak to groups from Detroit because I promise to agree with their position on SUVs. In fact, my position on health insurance or SUVs never comes up. I’m invited because those audiences want to hear about my work.

I say Bravo, and I recommend the piece highly–with the caveat that (like many great articles in the New Yorker) the piece is quite long and you’d be better off hitting the print button.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice

Miscellaneous items in the news of late:
1] The Weekly Spin, an always-provocative newsletter from PR Watch/Center for Media

and Democracy, reports that corporados and their hired PR guns have stepped up campaigns against citizen activists. Not only are they infiltrating these groups, but also going through activists’ trash, using their spies to release deliberate disinformation campaigns, undermine citizen actions, and generally abuse the public trust. Yeech!

This is not new–here’s an example from six years ago:

“Inside information gives companies a strategic advantage,” wrote Amsterdam-based investigative reporter Eveline Lubbers in the 2002 book “Battling Big Business.” Lubbers helped uncover an eight year-long scam by a Dutch security firm, where one of its employees posed as an activist. He collected discarded paperwork from at least 30 different activist groups, saying he would sell it to recycling plants and give the proceeds to charity. Instead, the documents were carefully reviewed and often used against the groups.

But apparently it’s still very much going on, in both the US and UK, probably elsewhere too.

CIW began being “vilified online and in e-mails that can be traced to the Miami headquarters of Burger King,” reports the Fort Myers News-Press. The emails and comments were posted under the names “activist2008” and “stopcorporategreed.”

2]MarketingProfs.com offers six don’ts for effective e-mail marketing. Item #1–don’t e-mail too frequently; you don’t want people unsubbing because you bother them too much.

But the first reader comment points out that MarketingProfs itself mailed three times within a week about a particular conference.

3] But PR isn’t just for influence; it can also be fun. My friend Ken McArthur is on a campaign to popularize the coined word “zingwacker,” which is in his new book “The Impact Factor.” As of early April, the word brought zero results in Google. As of before I hit the post button, it’s up to 393. Not bad, Ken–even if the Squidoo page misspells your new word in its URL.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

If you see my pulse racing and my heart pounding, it’s not because I ran up a mountain.. It’s not because I took medication and this was a side effect.

It’s because the New York Times reports that drug companies routinely write their own research studies on new drugs, and then find prestigious doctors to sign them.

“It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” said Dr. Ross, whose article, written with colleagues, was published Wednesday in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. and posted Tuesday on the journal’s Web site.

Oh yes, and the red flag was a study on Merck’s now-discredited drug Vioxx.

Gasp. Cough. Splutter.

Now–some disclosure before anyone accuses me of being a hypocrite: I don’t object to ghostwriting in principle. As a commercial writer-for-hire, I have seen my stuff go out under other people’s names many times, even on the cover of a book. Ironically enough, one of those was a bylined article in the New York Times that cribbed heavily from a press release I had written several years earlier for a client. I don’t see that as much different from having an accountant prepare my tax return.

But I see a fundamental difference between helping a client be a more effective marketer by writing stuff for the client to use as if it were his or her own, and putting together the research material that the government and the public use to determine if a new drug is safe. And the latter strikes me, at least, as definitely over the line.

I poked around and located the original JAMA article, which you can click to read.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business Ethics, General Commentary

Patrick Byers over at the Responsible Marketing blog has a post today comparing TV ads from the Indoor Tanning Association and the American Association of Dermatology. You can view the ads and vote for which you find more believable.

Here’s what I wrote in his comment field:

What I find really disingenuous about the trade assn. ad is they say sunlight has these benefits (which it does), but then they say, go use a tanning bad–where’s the Vitamin D in that?

And the idea of a conspiracy with sunscreen manufacturers is just ludicrous.

My sister married a dermatologist, and her whole family is always well-armored when they go out. Me, I try to get out in the sun, but I live in New England. If I’m in a tropical clime or going to be out for many hours, I generally wear at least a hat and maybe a little sunscreen.

Tanning beds? I always assumed they’d have bad health consequences, and have never tried one–nor will I.

What do you think?

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