Category: Diversity

By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Diversity, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Hands down, my favorite commercial of the Olympics so far–and in fact my favorite TV commercial of the last several years, in any context–is Nike’s “Find Your Greatness: Jogger” (The full transcript,and the one-minute video, are at that link.)

The entire video is an overweight kid running at the camera, starting quite some distance out. Working hard, but not being fazed.

When I saw it on TV, I thought it was an  60-something overweight man. Looking again, I see it’s a kid. But the message of empowerment is the same.

Especially when the voiceover says (in part),

Somehow we’ve come to believe that greatness is a gift reserved for a chosen few, for prodigies, for superstars, and the rest of us can only stand by watching.

You can forget that.

Greatness is not some rare DNA strand, not some precious thing. Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing.

As a somewhat overweight guy who will be 60 in five years–and who has lost 15 pounds since upping my daily exercise regime from 30 to 60 minutes, to 60 to 120 minutes. The ad resonates with me. And not a lot of ads do.

 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, Green Marketing, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

I’m a long-time fan of Van Jones, and one of the things I love is that he can frame things in ways that those on the other side of the political continuum can relate to.

Too often, the left frames things in its own language (often couched in liberal guilt)—and the right dismisses us as silly and naive. Listen to minutes 30 to 35 of this speech to see how Van Jones puts the argument for going green into an issue of individual economic liberty, and turns the don’t-subsidize-solar argument into a compelling Tea-Party-friendly argument for ending oil subsidies (why doesn’t he talk aobut nuclear, which would not exist as an industry without subsidies?)

Later in the talk, he discusses solar and wind as farmer power, cowboy power, etc. And demonstrates that organic farming is traditional, and that we should return to our roots after a century of “poison-based agriculture.” And calls not for subsidy for green initiatives, but for green as entrepreneurship, enterprise, and job creation—arguments that both liberals and conservatives should relate to.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Shel's Personal Life

Thought you’d like a follow-up to my last post, about the impending driving trip to a French-speaking world in Quebec Province. Here’s how the trip went.

My last post was about how lucky we are to be able to drive to another country and another culture–and then I left for five days in French-speaking Quebec Province.

In Drummondville, where we spent most of the trip, hardly anyone spoke more than minimal English, and even though we were attending a major music and dance festival an hour and a half from the US border–we did not encounter anyone else from the US.

I don’t speak French but can get little pieces, especially when there are cognates with English or Spanish. My wife can speak a bit but often doesn’t understand the responses. We found ourselves using a weird combination of Spanish, French, and English. It worked reasonably well in one-to-one conversation. We were completely lost when, for instance, the various festival MCs did their 10-minute introductions of each performer.

I actually think this is a very healthy thing: to be reminded that the US is not the only culture, and English not the only language. When we visit foreign countries, we shouldn’t expect others to understand English on our behalf. If I’m going to one country for a period of time, I’ll try to listen to an introductory language CD or tape set (libraries often have these). So for instance, when we went to the rural Czech republic several years ago, we were armed with two cassettes’ worth of phrases. And even with our very rudimentary knowledge, we were translating for many of the other people in the music camp we attended.

We’ve been around a lot of other places in Quebec where French was the dominant language, but plenty of people spoke English: Montreal, Quebec City, and our second destination on this trip–the lovely city of Sherbrooke and the charming nearby village of North Hatley.

Canada is theoretically bilingual. However, just as in many parts of English-speaking Canada, people have little or no French–here, many people in the smaller cities had little or no English, even though they’d supposedly studied it in school. Signage was pretty much entirely in French, though we did find one bilingual exhibit at a cheese factory.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, General Commentary, language, Shel's Personal Life

I’ve always loved new places. Tomorrow, I’m going to a place where the dominant language and culture are French, a place I’ve never been before—though close to two places I’ve been several times.

And I’m going by car.

Even though on the surface, English-speaking Canada seems like the United States, they’re actually very different. And Francophone Quebec Province, where we’re headed, is much more different. Past visits have felt more like visiting France than the U.S.

Europeans have very close borders, and I would consider that a blessing. Drive 200 miles or so and you’re in another land—different language, until recently and still in many cases different money, different customs, different food. It’s amazing how different, for instance, it was in Glucholatzi, Poland, compared to Zlate Hore, Czech Republic, just three miles away. The architecture, language, and food were all different (we ate better in Poland.)

Despite the clear demarcations, Europeans have a sense of world citizenship that many Americans lack. It’s rare to find a European under age 40 who only speaks one language, and common to find people who speak four or five. They understand that events a few hundred miles away in another country affect them, while US media provides an appallingly US-centric perspective that in my opinion is seriously flawed, and creates a skewed worldview.

For those of us who live in the northern or southwestern United States, another country is close enough to drive to. I’ve made at least 12 trips to Canada, And in our trips to Arizona, California, and Texas, we’ve crossed into Mexico several times.

Tomorrow, our destination is a small town east of Montreal and west of Quebec City. I expect it might be a good deal more French than its larger neighbors. I will have to rely on Spanish cognates—I can have a conversation in Spanish, as long as the other person isn’t too fussy about grammar—and my wife’s high school French. It’s good once in a while to have the experience of being the minority in a different culture, and it’s amazing how much communication can happen with sign language, drawing pictures, and a few phrases.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Politics, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , ,

I haven’t had as many chances as I’d hoped to be proud of President Barack Obama in his 3+ years in office. But yesterday was a day I could be very proud of him; as you certainly know by now, he is the first US president to acknowledge that same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, including the right to marry. Obama has been ambivalent on the issue (and quite a few others) for many years, so a clear, unequivocal, uncompromising position is rare. Perhaps is voice is stronger because of his own history; the union of his parents would have been illegal in many parts of the country for years after his birth.

This should not be rocket science. Same-sex marriage has been legal in several other parts of the world (and even a few US states, including my own home of Massachusetts) for several years, and the sky has not fallen.

Still, when I attended my first few same-sex weddings back in the late 1970s, I didn’t think I’d live to see such unions acknowledged by any government. In less than 30 years, it’s become an inevitability. I remember President Bush reluctantly endorsing civil unions, even as he condemned gay marriage, and thinking that this was enormous progress. But a full endorsement is much better. And while it still seems odd to read or hear phrases like “her wife” or “his husband,” it’s a good kind of strange.

And yet, just a day earlier, the Neanderthals soundly thrashed same-sex marriage in North Carolina.

Here’s the bit I don’t understand from the so-called “family values” crowd: how is the ability of two people to marry—and with it, to visit each other in the hospital, to file a joint tax return, to attend parent-teacher conferences—in any way an attack on the institutions of marriage and family? As far as I can determine, these rights make the idea of marriage and family stronger. Marriage, whether heterosexual or homosexual, should be a partnership of equals that strengthens the family unit and builds family values. Living just outside the town that the National Enquirer dubbed “Lesbianville, USA,” I’ve seen this strength in the many same-sex couples I know with children, who were parents alongside my wife and me as our kids went through day care and then school. I can’t wrap myself around the argument that it destroys families.

I’ve tried to understand the position, but I just can’t grasp it. When two people of the same sex declare their love and commitment, they build a family just as real as any straight couple. And when a heterosexual or same-sex marriage falls apart, it’s tough on both partners as well as on children and friends. I just can’t grasp how allowing two men or two women to mary has any impact on relationships between a man and a woman.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Diversity, Media Ethics, Publishing Tagged with , , , , , ,

Is this crazy? The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware’s Gannett-owned major newspaper, offered blogger Kristopher Brooks a reporter job. He blogged about it. And the paper withdrew the offer—before Brooks even started work.

The termination came just one day after Jim Romensko, whose blog is must-reading in the journalism world, posted a story about it.

As both a business ethics expert and as a journalist/blogger who has been writing news and features for more than 40 years, I heard the story and looked at the press release (linked above). It was a bit over the top and certainly at odds with the mainstream journalism pretense of objectivity.

But cause to withdraw the offer? Not even close. One presumes that they knew going in they were getting an outspoken, opinionated *blogger* who would be quite likely to do something like that. They didn’t hire a straightlaced just-the-facts reporter. So unless they told him upfront, don’t blog about this or run it by us before you post, from a business ethics viewpoint, they crossed the line by withdrawing the offer.

From the view of the suits who run the paper, I totally understand why they wouldn’t want a perceived “loose cannon” or someone with that big an ego running around and injecting himself into the stories he writes. For every Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe who injects himself into the narrative, thousands of mainstream reporters toil in near-anonymity, writing pieces that only a seasoned analyst would be able to recognize as theirs—that’s what journalists are trained to do.

But if that’s what the paper was looking for, the editorial team that hired him should have run both sides of Brooks—the anonymous mainstream reporter and the flamboyant blogger—by the suits before making the offer. Once the offer was made, it should have been honored, barring a much more outrageous violation of journalistic norms (like being discovered making up sources).

Also—I say this without any knowledge of the paper’s diversity and hiring practices, just wondering out loud—I do wonder if a white reporter would have received the same treatment.

The stated justification (I’d call it an excuse) was that Brooks used the paper’s logo and quoted his offer letter without permission. If you believe that, I’ve got a nice antique bridge to sell you across the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. All they would have had to do was call him and ask him to take down the logo and not quote the offer. The first would take about 20 seconds, the second, a few minutes of changing quotes into paraphrases.

Wearing my journalist hat, I went and had a look at the rest of Brooks’s blog. Not surprisingly, he frequently lifts logos and other materials, as he comments on them—so the paper does not have any plausible excuse about not knowing he would use the logo. This is very common occurrence in the blogosphere; many bloggers comment on other news stories, and using a graphic element from the original story happens constantly. As a blogger (‘scuse me while I switch hats), I’m commenting on a story right now. It’s not my style to borrow the masthead where the story appeared, but really, is there a qualitative difference? In the blogosphere, use of a logo does not imply endorsement by the owner of the logo, so what’s the big deal?

Brooks also blogs frequently on the stories he covers as a journalist, and his role in them. Gannett cannot use the excuse of ignorance. Any competent hiring committee would have looked at the blog during the evaluation process.

Want more on blogs vs. traditional journalism? In my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet, I discuss business ethics, out-of-the-box public relations, blogs, and the new journalism climate ion some detail.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

This is quite exciting: solar systems for remote, off-grid areas in developing countries, set up with near-zero upfront investment and a pay-as-you-go model, converting to full ownership when the system is paid for.

If you’ve read The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, this will make sense right away. If you haven’t read it, you might want to grab a copy. This is the future: bringing technology to the poorest of the poor, not as charity but as a profitable business model that maintains affordability even among customers who have almost nothing.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

…But I’m going to write it anyway.

As a young teenager protesting the Vietnam war, I had a huge poster in my room with a picture of a Vietnam-era peace demonstration and the quote,

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

—Abraham Lincoln

It is my duty to protest.

I am only one generation removed from the Holocaust, and I wonder how many millions of lives might have been saved if ordinary Germans and Italians had protested and organized in large numbers against the gradual encroachments on their liberty that provided the legal framework for Nazi and Fascist repression.

Earlier this week, while the rest of us were merrily celebrating the arrival of 2012, President Obama signed a truly wretched piece of legislation: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In the words of one commentator whose post is entitled “R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 – 2011,” this law

grants the U.S. military the “legal” right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

Signed into law by the same President Obama who, as a candidate, was the champion of liberty and “change” who would close the illegal prison at Guantanamo, rein in the torturers of Abu Ghraib, and quickly end the US presence in Iraq. The same Obama who had said he would veto this dreadful bill. (Yes, the soldiers have come home. But it took three years and we still have thousands of “advisors” there, along with a highly fortified embassy in Baghdad  that could easily be the nerve center for US command and control.) Guantanamo is still open, the climate of anti-Muslim racism persists, and the torturers at the highest levels (e.g., Cheney and Rumsfeld) have never been held to account.)

So I am protesting. Even though it puts my own liberty potentially at risk.

In his signing statement, Obama said he would…

interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that …upholds the values on which this country was founded.

Two problems with that. Number 1, he has not shown himself trustworthy in upholding those values in the past.

And second, there is no guarantee that the presidency won’t be delivered to a much more repressive figure with no such scruples. The contenders on the Republican side include several sworn enemies of freedom for those of us who don’t happen to be straight, conservative, and some repressive flavor of Christian: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum (in alphabetical order).

This is merely the latest in a gradual erosion of our civil liberties committed during both Democratic and Republican governments; two other examples (among many) are the shift over the last two decades of ballot counting to insecure, easily manipulated, and highly suspect electronic counting devices that in some cases don’t even HAVE a paper trail (and that led directly to the disastrous worst-in-history administration of George W. Bush) and the citizens United Supreme Court decision that nakedly grants corporations the power to buy elections.

Yes I protest.

I have never forgiven myself for not doing enough to stop the coup that let Bush seize power in 2000—in part because I didn’t see Gore as any great champion of my values, in part because I could not foresee just how bad that eight years was going to be—but mostly because I was feeling too shut down and disempowered to help organize a movement like we saw in Mexico, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere.

I still don’t feel like I can personally organize a movement. But I can at least protest, and send some money to a civil liberties group.  I hope you will too.

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By Posted on Posted in censorship, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, National Conference on Media Reform, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Publishing, Social and Economic Justice, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

An Oregon judge ruled that blogging is not protected as journalism under the state’s journalism shield law. If allowed to stand, this sets a truly terrible precedent.

Here’s what the law says:

No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by … a judicial officer … to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise … [t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public[.]

Notice—there is nothing here about working for a recognized mainstream media outlet. By my reading, a guy in a clown suit standing on a milk crate in the park and haranguing a crowd of random passers-by would not have to disclose sources.

Yet here’s what U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez wrote:

. . . although defendant is a self-proclaimed “investigative blogger” and defines herself as “media,” the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law

Hello! Since when does being a journalist require working for mainstream media? This country has a history of independent writers serving a journalistic role going back to those 18th-century “bloggers” Tom Paine and Ben Franklin—those guys didn’t write for the London Times, but started their own publications. Are you going to tell me that Daily Kos, Huffington Post, RedState, Drudge Report, Washington Spectator, and even the legendary I.F. Stone’s Weekly of the 1950s and 1960s have no place in the world of journalism? That the thousands of indy-media-istas who attend the National Conference for Media Reform are spitting in the wind?

And meanwhile, investigative blogger Crystal Cox is facing a $2.5 million judgment because she would not disclose her sources. Out-bloody-rageous!

Shame on you, Judge Hernandez!

Abraham Lincoln said, “It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.” I am protesting. And I hope voices with more clout than mine, such as FreePress.net, the National Writers Union, Authors Guild, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), People for the American Way, National Coalition Against Censorship, and opinion journalists working for mainstream media (like Rachel Maddow) jump in and protest as well—with amicus briefs filed for the appeal.

 

Kris Miller Law is a respected and trusted  criminal defense attorney ready to help you with your legal needs.

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