Category: General Commentary

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Ethics: General, General Commentary, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life

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Very refreshing article in the New York Times about foundations not only not burying their mistakes, but actually looking at how they happened, what went wrong, and what to do better the next time around.

Just a few years ago, it would have been astonishing for a foundation, particularly one as traditional as Carnegie, to publicize a failure. Today, though, many of the nation’s largest foundations regard disclosing and analyzing their failures as bordering on a moral obligation.

“There’s an increasing recognition among foundation leaders that not to be public about failures is essentially indefensible,” said Phil Buchanan, the executive director of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which advises foundations. “If something didn’t work, it is incumbent upon you to make sure others don’t make the same mistake.

I see this as a welcome trend, and one that businesses can learn from. Failure is not something to be ashamed of. I had a number of failures in business before I started the one I’m in now, back in 1981–and even then, it had to change with the times. It has reinvented itself several times, and I feel another reinvention percolating (don’t know how it will shape up yet).

Entrepreneurs almost always have failures to “brag” about. otherwise, we wouldn’t be entrepreneurs, because in order of succeed, you have to take risks.

When asked about has many failed attempts to develop a light bulb, Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have
successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” (Quoted in The
World Bank. 1994. World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for
Development. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press and cited here.)

I’ll tell you about a few of my failures over the years, within my current, successful business:

  • Around 20 years ago, I tried to start a state trade association for resume writers, without having any idea of how much work would be involved or how much direct mail I’d have to do to get a viable membership. I actually got a phenomenal response to my first mailing (somewhere around 8 percent, I think), but that left me with something like seven members.
  • I’ve been unable to find a publisher for a research-intensive book I’d like to do that requires a big publisher who can pay a big advance. Even though I’ve done one book with Simon & Schuster and two others with respected smaller commercial publishers, and even though I speak and write and am very visible on the Internet, agents think I don’t have enough of a platform to take on this project. Since coming up with this idea, though, I’ve done two more self-published books, to critical acclaim.
  • A few years back, I stepped into a catfight on one of the discussion lists I participate in–and watched the client referrals from that list shrivel up to a tiny fraction of what they’d been.
  • I set a goal some time back of doing a certain number of speeches at a certain rate of compensation, by a certain date. Years later, I still haven’t reached that goal.

    • I won’t bore you with the whole long list. But I do think it’s important to take stock, to reflect on the mistakes/failures as well as the brilliant successes. I’ve learned, I’ve channeled my energy into becoming not only more successful financially, but a better person. And it’s showing results.

    I urge you to admit and discuss your setbacks as well as your successes.

    Maybe I should add admitting setbacks to the Business Ethics Pledge.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    Hidden Tech was founded by Amy Zuckerman five years ago, to provide both virtual and physical networking for those of us who work at home or other nontraditional settings and use technology to get our work done.

    Originally it was focused on the hidden economy of the four westernmost counties of Massachusetts, including my home base of Hampshire County–but now there are members in all sorts of places, like Arizona.

    Wile Amy has left the H-T board, she’s still very committed to the concept. She’s recently begun to profile some of the members, and I’m honored that she chose me as the second person to profile.

    Here’s a bit from her article that not a lot of people know about me:

    He has also been living the virtual American dream by operating a successful virtual business owner for the last 13 years — Accurate Writing & More — from a bucolic farm-house setting in Hadley, Mass. He and his wife, Dina Friedman, a children’s book author and academic, came to this lifestyle region in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts (also known as the “Five Colleges” region) “as a compromise between Brooklyn and the Ozarks.” They wanted “fresh air, clean water and an easy pace. Dina wanted job possibilities, friends, others of her ethnicity in the area, so we looked at the intersection of our needs and came to the Valley,” said Horowitz.

    I’ve donated a fair amount of time to Hidden-Tech over the years, mostly as a speaker on various aspects of frugal and ethical marketing–and Amy and I have had some preliminary conversations about a book project. It’s nice to get some recognition. Thanks, Amy, and good luck with the new blog!

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    By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    OK, so in December, I turned 50–and since I love discounts, of course I sent in my $7.50 to join the AARP (used to stand for American Association of Retired persons, I believe).

    Well, I was looking at the organization’s magazine today and I was astonished by the lineup for the fall conference in Boston, just two hours drive from me: Headlined by Rod Stewart in concert, and featuring such Boomer luminaries as Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Maya Angelou, and Bill Russell.

    I’ve got a wedding in Maryland that weekend, but I just might drive in for Friday’s program. Cheap, too–member price is $15 for the speakers and $25 extra for each concert.

    Wow! Not at all what I expected, with my memories of AARP (from my days as an organizer with the Gray Panthers, back in 1979-80) as a very stodgy organization.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    Can’t tell you how many times I wanted to post in the last two weeks–but a server switch left me locked out of my own blog! And I’m still discovering pieces of code that don’t work anymore on my various sites. Last week my contact form wasn’t working and I was appalled today to discover that the link to sign the Business Ethics Pledge isn’t working!

    I’ve told my web wizard assistant, and I’m sure it’ll be up in a day or so.

    Please bear with us.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, General Commentary, People Helping People, Uncategorized

    Marketing legend Joe Vitale is one of the big boosters of the “think it and manifest it” school (often called “The law of Attraction”), much-publicized in the movie “The Secret,” among other places. Joe is, in fact, one of the people interviewed in that movie.

    Today, Joe announced that for the past several months, he’s been dealing with several tumors that were thought to be cancerous.

    While I am not without my skepticism about the Law of Attraction as a cure-all, I certainly believe it is an important tool in the toolbag–and reading how Joe approached this illness is simply astonishing.

    Whether you’re a complete skeptic or a total convert, this post is worth reading.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

    Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity, was kicked out in a power struggle, and started another organization to continue the work.

    In this powerful interview conducted by Cynthia Kersey, the best selling author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women, Fuller discusses his accomplishments and challenges and faith. He comes across as remarkably humble and extremely effective.

    I’ve always believed that one person can always make a difference, but that difference is greatly magnified if that person finds others to work with. If you’re not convinced, you need to read this entire interview. If you are convinced, read it for inspiration.

    Couple of excerpts:

    We thought that the work of Habitat for Humanity would be exclusively in third world countries and in the rural south. And Habitat has grown in third world countries, it’s all over Africa, it’s all over Asia, it’s all over Central and South America. It’s all over the rural south, but Habitat today is in every province in Canada. It’s in a number of European countries. It’s in New Zealand, it’s in Australia.

    It is in all of the places we expected it to be, plus a whole lot more. Incidentally, that goal that we wrote about in our minutes of our first meeting was achieved in August of 2005. We dedicated the 200,000th house for the 1,000,000th person in Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2005.

    CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many years is that? Twenty seven years?

    MILLARD FULLER: We started in 1976, so just shy of 30 years. Currently, Habitat is building about 30,000 houses a year.

    * * *

    CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many communities took your challenge to eliminate poverty housing in that particular area? As a city wide, not so much just the affiliate, but the city said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

    MILLARD FULLER: You mean accept the goal of trying to eliminate poverty housing?

    CYNTHIA KERSEY: Yes, exactly.

    MILLARD FULLER: That was done here in Americus, Georgia, where we live, with Habitat for Humanities headquarter and where now The Fuller Center for Housing is located. In 1992, I called together a community meeting in Americus; we have a community college here called Georgia Southwestern State University. I called together all of the leaders of this community and I said, “Let’s eliminate poverty housing in this town and in this county, because that’s what we advocate for the whole world, let’s just model it here locally.”

    We created an organization called The Sumter County Initiative. We set a goal to end poverty housing by the year 2000. We got organized, we gridded the county. We knew what families lived in each little grid and we wrote all of that down and got a plan in place and systematically, grid by grid, we built every family a house that needed one in each grid, or in some cases renovated houses, or in other cases houses were too bad to be fixed up so they’d just be torn down.

    On September 15th of the year 2000, I stood in front of the Thomas family house and we had a big sign out front that said, “Victory House.” I led 400 people singing an old southern gospel song, Victory in Jesus because that house symbolized our victory over substandard housing. We got rid of all of the slums, we got rid of all substandard housing, and we built 35 houses that week. In the last week, we put up the last 35 houses in five days.

    CYNTHIA KERSEY: How did that impact the community?

    MILLARD FULLER: It had a very, very positive impact, a huge impact. We saw crimes go down, children doing better in school, all of the indicators of what makes for a better community, improved. I might do a fast forward, Cynthia, and I think the people who are on this call would find this very interesting. In December of this past year, I went to the little town that I was raised up in, over in Alabama. It’s the little town of Lanett and Valley, Alabama, two small towns right on the Georgia border and in West Point, Georgia.

    Those three towns, West Point, Georgia; Lanett and Valley, Alabama make up what is called the Chattahoochee Valley. Population wise, it’s about the same as here in Americus, Georgia. I was invited over there to meet with a group in December and I challenged them to do there what we did here. They accepted that challenge and they have now created the Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project. On March 16, we will kick off a 500 house build in my little hometown area.

    Again, the article is at https://www.healthywealthynwise.com/article.asp?Article=5211.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Events, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    Out of the blue this morning, I received a fascinating e-mail:

    Hi Shel,

    I’m Joel Falconer, lead singer and songwriter of the Gold Coast,
    Australia-based Grok Rock band Midnight.Haulkerton. I don’t want to
    bother you, but I thought you might be interested in this.

    Earlier this year we came up with the idea of the Tuneback. A
    Tuneback is a song recorded under the self-imposed time limit of one
    hour from conception to publication (making it more of a concept or a
    ‘sketch’ than a complete song) and a new one must be posted once a
    week, every Tuesday.

    Given that most songs take weeks to go through the recording process
    alone, not to mention conception and publication, it’s no mean feat,
    but it’s quite a fun way to interact with an audience online and keep
    us thinking.

    I guess it’s a frugal, grassroots way of not only publishing music,
    but creating it too!

    This week I wrote the Tuneback with my good friend and colleague, NDK
    Creative Artist, who said you’d know who he is and sends his regards.
    He first introduced me to your work a couple of years ago, and I must
    thank you for your article on frugal weddings, which helped to shave
    a few pennies from my own last year.

    This Tuneback was inspired by the idea of Principled Profit,
    something NDK is a strong advocate of, and so am I. We are all
    interested in solutions to the poor state of culture and
    civilization rather than the continual whining of most mass media
    (who I think cause many of the problems in the first place) and self-
    pitying artists.

    The fact that there is someone actively doing something about the
    problem of unethical marketing is inspirational and we want to honor
    you with the dedication of this song.

    To which I say–go right ahead and bother me, Joel. Any time you write a song about my ideas, I’m delighted to be interrupted. I had never heard of Joel before this e-mail (although I have corresponded with NDK–we used to be on the same discussion group), and I’m impressed that I made an impact all the way to Australia–without even discussing the Business Ethics Pledge (which does have a number of Australian signers).

    The song is kind of a synth/metal thing, not the sort of thing I usually listen to. But I really like the lyrics (used with his permission, of course):

    Principles of Profit

    The principles of profit
    Say make your money in the honest way
    Good work, hard work
    Quality all the way
    It pays
    Shortcuts to profit, don’t really exist
    You gotta be alive just ask Ken Lay

    There’s nothing wrong with making money
    There’s nothing wrong with making hay
    It’s all in the way you make it
    The principles of profit say
    Make it the honest way

    The cheating culture, full of vultures
    Picking over scraps
    Pluck the vultures, cook their goose
    Change the cheating culture
    You want to be loose, you want to be free
    Live the life you want to live
    We gotta keep on changing, re-arranging
    So we can make profit in a principled way
    There ain’t no shortcuts to profit
    That’s just cutting corners to hell

    There’s nothing wrong with making money
    There’s nothing wrong with making hay
    It’s all in the way you make it
    The principles of profit say
    Make it the honest way

    Make honesty pay,
    Make honesty pay,
    Make honesty pay
    Profit the principled way

    I also really like the way Joel manages to refer obliquely to several of my websites and book titles in his message, subtly cueing me that he has taken the time to study my stuff a bit.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, Publishing, Uncategorized

    I kid you not–here’s the NY Times article.

    Much as the cat may have been darling, and much as its authors ight do a great job, I find this absurd. And yet another indicator of the dumbing down of the American public via the media that controls what we see and read (except for those adventurous enough to seek their own sources).

    Where are the big advances for books that shape how we actually think and act? that give us a lens to understand some of the craziness in the world.

    OK, I like sweet stories about cats and might actually read this book (in a library copy) at some point. It’s not a book I expect I’ll need to own. But good heavens, most books that could change the culture receive paltry advances and paltry publicity, if they sell at all.

    If this were now instead of then, would books like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “Silent Spring”, or “Unsafe at Any Speed”–three among dozens of books that actually changed the world–have even been published, or found any significant audience if they had?

    I hope one day to see my own Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First in someone’s list of books that changed the world. I didn’t even try for a mainstream publisher, figuring I’d go create an audience and then sell rights to a second edition.

    But seriously, isn’t a book about how we got into the Iraq mess and are heading for trouble in Iran (not the subject of my book but of several recent ones) worth more attention than a book abut a cat? Or for that matter, the sordid and tawdry life of Anna Nicole Smith?

    Priorities! As a society–we need to look at ours..

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    Found in email in my spamfilter this morning that said, in part,

    You are part of a select group of blog owner/publishers that we are inviting
    to take an early “sneak peek” at lyro. We see your blog as a major
    delivery vehicle for news and information and hope you’ll have a
    willingness to cover our launch (good or bad).

    Well…that’s certainly flattering! I think that’s the first time I’ve received a press release because I’m a blogger. I receive plenty as a newsletter publisher, book reviewer, etc. It would be nice to think that people are actually reading what I write here.

    Lyro turns out to be a database of business cards. It presents a rather rigid format, but by putting one URL in the company field and another in the URL field, and by using the address2 line to talk about what I do, I made it marginally more useful. Still, there’s a lot more I’d like to say. And I find it absurd that there’s no way yet to upload a photo so everyone will have the same blank silhouette in the photo field.

    No line for e-address, but on a searchable Web-based database, that’s a good thing–spambots would otherwise make this site a nightmare instantly. And there *is* a message system (hope it’s better than the awful one at MySpace).

    I figure, what the hey–it’s links to two of my sites, it’ll probably get some viral traffic, and it took about three minutes to fill out. As long as they’re not charging, I’ll give it a whirl.

    You can see mine at https://shelhorowitz.lyro.com/

    Oh, and what else would I have put on the card?

    My two or three most recent book titles (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishersand Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World) as well as more of my nine URLs.

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