Category: General Commentary

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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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

You might have missed this story in the mainstream news; on the first two pages of Google results for Wal-Mart spy, AOL, MSN, and CNN were the only U.S. mainstream sources listed; they picked up the story from the Reuters wire, which means it was accessible to every news outlet in the world.

You can read the original WSJ piece, as reproduced on MSN, here.

But most of the returns were from places like Huffington Post, Consumerist.com, and wakeupwalmart.com–the “usual suspects” on the Left.

Nothing wrong with those news sources; after all, I found the story by listening to Democracy Now yesterday. And DN’s interviewee was one of two Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the story, so this one actually started in the mainstream media.

Personally, I think that when the world’s largest retailer, a force considerably larger and more powerful than many national governments, illegally wiretaps phone calls with a New York Times reporter, intercepts employee e-mail sent over networks other than its own corporate system and records their correspondents’ addresses (e.g., Hotmail and Yahoo), infiltrates opposition grassroots groups, digs up a private unlinked archive of an activist’s vacation photos in order to identify him if he tries to go to a shareholder meeting–the list of shockingly inappropriate activities goes on and on–it should be a huge story in every print and electronic medium that calls itself a news organization–and government agencies should be investigating NOW.

I even searched the New York Times site to see if that august paper had deemed that such a story–its own reporter’s telephone was tapped when he called the company–was worth a line or two in print. But a search for wal-mart spy and another for wal-mart spying brought up nothing relevant or recent (this story began to reveal itself within the last few weeks, with the most important revelations coming just this week).

Oh yes, and Wal-Mart’s wimpy statement about future behavior:

This group [the spy unit] is no longer operating in the same manner that it did prior to the discovery of the unauthorized recording of telephone conversations.

Not “we have disbanded this group.” Not “we shouldn’t have spied on people.” Just a statement that the group is reorganized (the whole letter is included in the DN article). For shame!

But don’t you think when a story like this breaks across a major newswire and originates from one of the most respected media in the world, that other media would sit up and take notice? Papers in Taiwan and Belfast thought so, but not most of the US press.

Shame on Wal-Mart, yes–but shame as well on the major media outlets who ignored this story.

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

In which Shel gets to laugh at himself. I’ve written five books on marketing, and I make my living as a marketing copywriter and consultant. So of course I posted to my blog in advance of my book signing last week for the launch of my just-released Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers.

Except that I never realized I clicked on “save” instead of post. So the event came and went, and there was my nice little announcement still waiting for me to release it to the world. I just noticed it today under saved drafts.

Duh! (Sound of hand slapping forehead).

Oh well–there’s always New York in May. I’m trying to work out an event at Book Expo America, and hopefully I’ll hit the correct button when I have the details.

PS–Am I really a marketing guru? See what other gurus think about my services and about my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

The always-thought-provoking Washington Spectator has a very good article in the January 15 issue, explaining exactly why it’s not enough to provide paper-based audit trails to electronic voting machines–that instead we need actual paper ballots.

Among the reasons:

  • If the ballot is initially generated electronically, it is still hackable. If the ballot is generated by the voter marking a durable paper and then electronically counted (the system that has been used in my own town of Hadley MA for years), it is not.
  • Electronic machines that generate a paper receipt have various problems with paper jams, difficulty of data retrieval from a huge spool, etc.
  • Many of the receipt systems use thermal printing–that same icky unstable technology that becomes unreadable after a week in your wallet!
  • Electronic ballot systems with paper backup have caused numerous problems in actual elections, where voters reported that their choice didn’t show up on the screen, where tens of thousands of ballots didn’t register a vote (as in Sarasota County, Florida, or simply where the system is not well designed to enable voters to easily check their wishes against the receipt (and what happens when a voter wants to report problems anyway?). None of these issues even occur if we start with a marked paper ballot.
  • Most importantly, the physical paper ballots can always be recounted by hand if there is suspicion of problems. If they were generated electronically, however, and there’s fraud or error in the set-up, we have much less of a guarantee that the ballots represent actual voter intent.

    • Of course, scanners and tabulators can be hacked as well. Thus, I would hope for nationwide legislation not only specifying paper ballots on durable stock with durable ink, but also mandating a hand-count before certification; electronic scanners, counters, and tabulators should be considered nothing more than a preliminary, unverified, indication of the results–good for generating news reports but not to be relied on to actually elect people.
    Oh yes, and I think the cost of switching to these much more reliable systems should be borne by the companies that brought us these unreliable machines in the first place. It should not fall on the taxpayer to pay for the clean up of this very preventable mess.

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

    I’m writing this from Guanajuato, Mexico; we’ve been traveling and studying Spanish since December 26. My wife and I were also here 22 years ago for an extended trip, and I notice differences in the business world since then.

    The most obvious is how much more advanced the infrastructure has become. A few examples:

    Making a long-distance call within Mexico had been rather an ordeal. In 1984 and 1985, a person would contact the operator, you’d get a call back in an hour or two when the line became available, and the sound quality was iffy. These days, just buy a phone card, slide it in, and dial, and usually get a good clear signal. However, you may have to try two or three phones before you find one that likes your card. And everybody that we met had a cell phone; many also have land lines. In the old days, most people had no phone at all.

    Intercity bus travel has become a joy (other than the constant barrage of poorly chosen TV and movies). Luxurious seats, immaculate restrooms, even a snack.

    Banking has been computerized, and transactions such as changing travelers checks that used to take half an hour or more now take only a few minutes.

    Purified water is common, and a healthfood consciousness has begun to be felt in the culture. A few examples–even Wonder offers packaged whole wheat tortillas…natural foods stores, though small, are easy to find…a few restaurants and cafes proclaim that they use organic ingredients.

    However, there are some less attractive changes as well.

    It seems that the strong local traditional culture is harder to find. Norteamericano fashion boutiques have replaced many of the traditional clothing vendors, and we saw almost no one wearing Mexican styles. And, like so many other parts of the world, some of the U.S.’s worst cultural exports have begun to crowd out local stores. We saw several Wal-Marts, McDonald’s, and–in picturesque downtown Guanajuato–even a Domino Pizza. And despite the wonderful varieties of Mexican soda and beer, Coke is enormously popular.

    Worse, Coke owns at least a few of the brands of bottled water, and that could be a dangerous trend. I believe firmly that water rights and water privatization will be major focal points for the struggle for economic justice, increasing in intensity to the point that water may be the oil of 2020 and beyond. And it should not be yanked out from under the local populace by multinational corporations.

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

    It’s 5 p.m. on December 23, which means I have only 7 hours left in my 40s.

    It’s been a magnificent decade. I feel very, very blessed.

    In fact, since I was about 15, life continues to get better and better. 15-20 was better than what had come before, my 20s were very nice–getting married, and moving together to Western Massachusetts.

    My 30s were even better, as I got to know my two amazing kids, born in 1987 and 1992, and as my writing and publishing career began to take really shape with the 1993 publication of Marketing Without Megabucks: How to Sell Anything on a Shoestring by Simon & Schuster, and then with my decision to buy back the remaining inventory two years later.

    And my 40s? This was the decade where I began to make my mark on a wider world, not just my local community. I built strong communities in Cyberspace, transformed my home-based business into a global presence–and also had an impact in my own town, with the formation of Save the Mountain.

    I founded STM to protect our much-loved local mountain from a very poorly conceived development plan. In all my years of organizing, this was the most amazing experience. I started the group when the first story in the local paper quoted a bunch of experts who said “this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do.”

    I knew they were wrong. I figured we could gather a small group of activists and stop the project within five years or so. It astonished even me when we got hundreds of people to turn out at hearings, thousands to passively support us with petitions, bumper stickers, and so forth, a very diverse active core of 35, including scientists, legal liaisons, organizers, students, farmers, local landowners…it was the closest thing to a true consensus movement I’ve ever been involved with, bringing together people from all political views and even gaining support from town officials who had a reputation for opposing progressive change.

    And we won…in just 13 months.

    That experience was one of the forces that shaped my decision to make change on a more global level, and to institute the Business Ethics Pledge campaign. I’ve given that campaign 10 years to see if it can make a fundamental change in the world.

    Meanwhile, I expect my 50s to be full of new books to write, new people to influence, new initiatives on sustainability and ethics, new countries to visit, plenty of fascinating client projects, land to preserve, speeches to give, and maybe even getting my office dug out of its clutter.

    In short, I fully expect to have an awesome time and even surpass my amazing 40s.

    I wish you, as well, an amazing 2007, and an amazing next ten years.

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