Category: Psychology

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Regardless of what you think of her politics, her personality, or anything else, you have to admit she is quite a wordsmith.  Personally, I thought Elizabeth Warren was the best presidential candidate I’ve ever had the chance to vote for. But after her dismal Super Tuesday, it was clearly time for her to get out. She used the opportunity to be memorable once again, and to remind us that it was never about her, but about the movement.

Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Warren’s amazing pep talk of a withdrawal statement was one of the most remarkable pieces of oratory-in-writing (and, I’m guessing, oratory delivered in person to our campaign staff) I’ve ever seen. Since many readers of this blog are professional communicators, it’s worth analyzing and learning from it. Here it is, with my commentary:

I want to start with the news. I want all of you to hear it first, and I want you to hear it straight from me: today, I’m suspending our campaign for president.

No shilly-shallying, no evasion. Straight to the unpleasant truth.

I know how hard all of you have worked. I know how you disrupted your lives to be part of this. I know you have families and loved ones you could have spent more time with. You missed them and they missed you. And I know you have sacrificed to be here.

Acknowledging how her volunteers and staff have put their lives on hold. Few candidates do this. More should.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, for everything you have poured into this campaign.

Not just acknowledging, but giving direct thanks.

I know that when we set out, this was not the call you ever wanted to hear. It is not the call I ever wanted to make. But I refuse to let disappointment blind me – or you – to what we’ve accomplished. We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together – what you have done – has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters – and the changes will have ripples for years to come.

Rooting the disappointment in optimism and accomplishment.

What we have done – and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built – will carry through, carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Going for the long-term view.


So think about it:

  • We have shown that it is possible to build a grassroots movement that is accountable to supporters and activists and not to wealthy donors – and to do it fast enough for a first-time candidate to build a viable campaign. Never again can anyone say that the only way that a newcomer can get a chance to be a plausible candidate is to take money from corporate executives and billionaires. That’s done.

Look how she frames this: as a forever improvement to a broken system. Wonderfully bold.

  • We have also shown that it is possible to inspire people with big ideas, possible to call out what’s wrong and to lay out a path to make this country live up to its promise.

  • We have also shown that race and justice – economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, criminal justice – are not an afterthought, but are at the heart everything that we do.

And at the heart of this message. This was a campaign based from the start in social justice.

  • We have shown that a woman can stand up, hold her ground, and stay true to herself – no matter what.

Something we needed a certain amount of assurance about, after the debacle of 2016.

  • We have shown that we can build plans in collaboration with the people who are most affected. You know just one example: our disability plan is a model for our country, and, even more importantly, the way we relied on the disability communities to help us get it right will be a more important model.

This collaborative approach is rare in political campaigns, especially at the presidential level. Acknowledging the contributions of experts who don’t merely study but actually LIVE the experience in formulating policy.

And one thing more: campaigns take on a life and soul of their own and they are a reflection of the people who work on them.

This campaign became something special, and it wasn’t because of me. It was because of you. I am so proud of how you all fought this fight alongside me: you fought it with empathy and kindness and generosity – and of course, with enormous passion and grit.

Fairly typical kudos to the staff and volunteers. Nicely done, but other candidates have done the same.

Some of you may remember that long before I got into electoral politics, I was asked if I would accept a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was weak and toothless. And I replied that my first choice was a consumer agency that could get real stuff done, and my second choice was no agency and lots of blood and teeth left on the floor. And in this campaign, we have been willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor. And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election.

Back to the long-haul strategy, the idea that this is a fight that takes time, and that there are victories along the way, from years past to even as recently as this week

Now, campaigns change people. And I know that you will carry the experiences you have had here, the skills you’ve learned, the friendships you have made, will be with you for the rest of your lives. I also want you to know that you have changed me, and I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.

Doesn’t she sound like she’s giving a graduation speech? She’s reminding them of the inspiring, even life-changing experience they all had together in support of this larger cause: building a movement.

So if you leave with only one thing you leave with, it must be this: choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough – and they will – you will know that there is only option ahead of you: nevertheless, you must persist.

A lot going on in these three lines. A command to do what’s right, a reminder that you’ll face deep-seated opposition, and a call-back to the popular meme that sprung up around her after Mitch McConnell refused to let her read Coretta Scott King’s remarks on the Senate floor. McConnell was the one who said, “Nevertheless, she persisted,” and within days, that was on bumper stickers all around the country

You should all be so proud of what we’ve done together – what you have done over this past year.

  • We built a grassroots campaign that had some of the most ambitious organizing targets ever – and then we turned around and surpassed them.

  • Our staff and volunteers on the ground knocked on over 22m doors across the country.

  • They made 20m phone calls and they sent more than 42m texts to voters. That’s truly astonishing. It is.

  • We fundamentally changed the substance of this race.

Not just listing some of the accomplishments, but quantifying them. She’s reminding them that she is a policy wonk, that she uses data to substantiate her claims and justify her many detailed plans.

You know a year ago, people weren’t talking about a $0.02 wealth tax, universal childcare, cancelling student loan debt for 43 million Americans while reducing the racial wealth gap, or breaking up big tech. Or expanding Social Security. And now they are. And because we did the work of building broad support for all of those ideas across this country, these changes could actually be implemented by the next president.

Again, reminding them how they helped to change the discourse and make space for the next president to put these things into practice.

A year ago, people weren’t talking about corruption, and they still aren’t talking about it enough – but we’ve moved the needle, and a hunk of our anti-corruption plan is already embedded in a House bill that is ready to go when we get a Democratic Senate.

A subtle call to get that Democractic Senate majority, and a subtle reminder of the large pile of bills passed by the House but in limbo in the Senate.

We also advocated for fixing our rigged system in a way that will make it work better for everyone – regardless of your race, or gender, or religion, regardless of whether you’re straight or LGBTQ. And that wasn’t an afterthought, it was built into everything we did.

A universalist call for inclusion and intersectionality that manages to avoid insulting white working class straight Christian men, who are just as much “everyone” as those who identify as other than that.

And we did all of this without selling access for money. Together 1.25 million people gave more than $112m to support this campaign. And we did it without selling one minute of my time to the highest bidder. People said that would be impossible. But you did that.

Again, she is rewriting the expectation of what’s not only possible but can become normal.

And we also did it by having fun and by staying true to ourselves. We ran from the heart. We ran on our values. We ran on treating everyone with respect and dignity.

Social change can be fun! As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.”

You know liberty green everything was key here – my personal favorites included the liberty green boas, liberty green sneakers, liberty green make up, liberty green hair, and liberty green glitter liberally applied. But it was so much more.

A bit of branding. In truth, I hadn’t noticed this. Warren’s signs have been blue-and-white for years (I live in Massachusetts and I’ve seen them since 2012).

Four-hour selfie lines and pinky promises with little girls.

In other words, what you staff and volunteers did helps to shape the next generation. A strong claim to deeper meaning.

And a wedding at one of our town halls. And we were joyful and positive through all of it.

Celebratory! And a talking point: what other candidate would inspire a wedding at a Town Hall, and what other candidate would make space for that to happen?

We ran a campaign not to put people down, but to lift them up –

Another message of empowerment, and a huge contrast with the incumbent.

and I loved pretty much every minute of it.

OK, so she’s probably exaggerating. But it is clear that she loved most of it. It’s obvious that she enjoys debating, meeting constituents and fans, showing up with media in tow even at a detention center for migrant children, doing funny TV appearances, chowing down regional food, showing off her policies, etc.

So take some time to be with your friends and family, to get some sleep, maybe to get that haircut you’ve been putting off – you know who I’m talking about.

Humor in the face of stress and disappointment, followed by…

Do things to take care of yourselves, gather up your energy, because I know you are coming back. I know you – and I know that you aren’t ready to leave this fight.

Another call to stay active and involved.

You know, I used to hate goodbyes. Whenever I taught my last class or when we moved to a new city, those final goodbyes used to wrench my heart. But then I realized that there is no goodbye for much of what we do. When I left one place, I took everything I’d learned before and all the good ideas that were tucked into my brain and all the good friends that were tucked in my heart, and I brought it all forward with me –

Reiterating that the fight goes on, and so do the policy wins and the friendships.

and it became part of what I did next. This campaign is no different. I may not be in the race for president in 2020, but this fight – our fight – is not over. And our place in this fight has not ended.

Because for every young person who is drowning in student debt, for every family struggling to pay the bills on two incomes, for every mom worried about paying for prescriptions or putting food on the table, this fight goes on. For every immigrant and African American and Muslim and Jewish person and Latinx and trans woman who sees the rise in attacks on people who look or sound or worship like them, this fight goes on.

Reiterating the intersectionality piece, the economic and social justice pieces, and the importance of defending the most vulnerable members of society.

And for every person alarmed by the speed with which climate change is bearing down upon us, this fight goes on. And for every American who desperately wants to see our nation healed and some decency and honor restored to our government, this fight goes on. And sure, the fight may take a new form, but I will be in that fight, and I want you in this fight with me. We will persist.

Bringing in the environment, which hadn’t shown up here so far. And again, reminding of how low the bar has fallen.

One last story. One last story. When I voted yesterday at the elementary school down the street, a mom came up to me. And she said she has two small children, and they have a nightly ritual. After the kids have brushed teeth and read books and gotten that last sip of water and done all the other bedtime routines, they do one last thing before the two little ones go to sleep. Mama leans over them and whispers, “Dream big.” And the children together reply, “Fight hard.”

A big, emotional close. Showing how the campaign’s motto is changing lives into the next generation. I would have ended it there but she has one more inspirational line:

Our work continues, the fight goes on and big dreams never die.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Along with much of the nation, I get to decide what vision for the next four years inspires me. As a progressive, I have many friends in both the Warren and Sanders camps. 

I  think either Bernie or Elizabeth would do well in debates against DT and win big against him, IF the likely Dem voters in swing states are allowed to vote and if ballots are counted fairly. Those are two very big IFs, and they will be an issue with pretty much any Democratic candidate. For Sanders, it’s even more of an issue because the party is so hostile to the idea of his nomination that they will do whatever they can to sabotage it. One only has to look at the dirty tricks the Hillary Clinton campaign used against him four years ago.

But my big worry with Bernie is he may get elected but be functionally unable to govern, because the Dem establishment will block his agenda at every turn, as the Repubs promised but failed to do with DT. Bernie is not a team player or a negotiator and he will get sabotaged.

I also think Elizabeth is smarter and her plans are more well-thought-out. She would prove that HRC didn’t lose because she’s a woman but because she 1) came with a whole lot of negative baggage, such as the pay-to-play scandal, 2) ran a terrible campaign (as just one example: failing to visit Wisconsin even once between the convention and the election, despite losing hugely to Sanders in the Wisconsin primary), and 3) faced a disinformation campaign funded by at least one foreign government. I voted proudly for Bernie in the primary four years ago (and not-so-proudly for HRC in November), but I’m voting for Warren tomorrow. I live in Massachusetts and feel she’s done an excellent job as my Senator.

I do agree with my Bernie-supporter friends that if she does poorly on Super Tuesday, it’s time for her to endorse Bernie and get out.

I have to wonder yet again why the Dems didn’t bring us mandatory hand-countable paper ballots (I wrote that post back in 2007)  and ranked-choice voting when they had the chance in ’09. I don’t think DT would be squatting in the Oval Office if there had not been active voter suppression (see that top link in this post again) and if there were paper-ballot recounts in those three very marginal states that put him over the top–and yet the Dems ignored (and may have actually sabotaged) Jill Stein’s effort to get recounts there. Their failure means I and millions of others do not accept the 2016 results as legitimate. It would have been healthy for the country to settle the question of who actually one.

I also don’t believe DT would be president if we’d had ranked choice four years ago. We might have President Hillary Clinton, President Ted Cruz, or President Bernie Sanders–but we would not have this lying, cheating, mean-spirited sociopathic bully destroying our foreign policy, our environment, our education, and our human rights.

I am proudly voting for Warren tomorrow. And in response to those who say a vote for anyone other than Sanders is ultimately a vote for Biden, let me quote democracy activist and constitutional scholar Jennifer Taub:

Q: Bernie supporters told me that a vote for Elizabeth is a vote for Biden. Is that true?

A: No. A vote for Elizabeth is a vote for Elizabeth. Bernie’s camp is reasonably worried that nobody will have a majority of delegates when they get to the convention this summer?.

There are rules in place that Bernie helped write in 2016. Under those rules, on the first vote at the convention, pledged delegates must vote according to our primaries. If nobody has a majority, then there will be a second vote. On the second vote, delegates can realign. And so on.

It’s quite likely that neither Bernie nor Biden nor Warren will have a majority at the outset. So, all three of them will be viable and there will be some serious horse trading.

Please join me in voting for the future we want, and not any kind of “lesser evil.” We might have to do that in November, but we certainly don’t have to do it now.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, language, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with

Effigy of "the Donald," photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC
Effigy of “the Donald,” photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC

That guy who’s squatting on government property at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC (The White House) has more chutzpah than just about anyone, anywhere.
His latest gambit, telling the two most liberal Supreme Court Justices they should recuse themselves, is especially ironic considering how Attorney General William Barr behaves as a matter of course, and how blatantly biased Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham conducted themselves during the travesty of the impeachment kangaroo court with a preordained outcome.
There’s an old Yiddish joke that defines chutzpah as the man on trial for killing his parents who pleads with the court, “Have mercy. I’m an Orphan!”Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Green Business, Green Marketing, language, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. My three words are:

  1. Clarity (click to read Part 1, where I discuss this word)
  2. Justice
  3. Healing

Justice

Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain

Today’s installment is about Justice, and how it shapes both my career and my activism.

My career has evolved quite a bit from its founding (as a term-paper typing service!) in 1981. For the past several years, I’ve focused my writing, speaking, and consulting on helping business turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. By showing companies how to make a profit doing this, I hope to leverage far greater change than I would if I tried to motivate them through guilt, shame, and fear.

Lets make this concrete: I listed several benefits for each of five different examples in this blog post.

Ready to know more?  In the very early phases of this shift in my business, I did a TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare.” (you have to click on “Event Videos”, and then on my talk). It’s a nice 15-minute introduction to this idea as it existed in 2014; I’ve refined it quite a bit since then. A much deeper introduction is my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, endorsed by Chris, Seth Godin, Chicken Soup;’s Jack Canfield, Joel Makower (Executive Director of GreenBiz.com) and many other business and environmental leaders. And of course, I’m happy to talk to you about how I can be a “Sherpa” on this journey for your organization. 

But now, let’s go back to the activist side. In order to talk about Justice, I also have to talk about Injustice: what we’re trying to change.

And from there, how I personally am working to change injustice into justice through community-based activism: the work I do in my non-career time. There have been a few times in my life where that work dominated my day and pushed the career part off to the side. This is one of those times.

Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

As a citizen of the US, I’m deeply concerned about the attack on our planet and its people (and other living beings) by the current federal government. This government and its most visible spokesperson have viciously attacked immigrants, people of color, people without a Y chromosome (not male, in other words) or who don’t identify with the gender of their birth or any gender, people who are not Christian or even Christians who condemn him, people with disabilities, people suffering in poverty who face attacks on safety-net programs such as SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) as well as authoritarian responses to homelessness, people who’ve survived crimes this government doesn’t view as important (such as sexual harassment), and even 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg–as well as people who might be likely to vote for someone other than that very visible spokesperson.

Humans, at least, can defend themselves. Forests, oceans, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants and animals that we share our planet with–they need human beings to defend them against the brutal attack by this administration. Since January 2017, this government has rolled back dozens of environmental protections, stripped government websites of information about issues from the human impact on climate change to toxic pollution databases, barred government scientists from speaking out, and of course, pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.

As of October, 2019, that same visible spokesperson had lied at least 13,435 times while in office. He has violated his Oath of Office every single day since he was sworn in, because he refused to divest himself of emolument-laden business interests and thus undermines the Constitution; he illegally uses his position for personal enrichment. He even went so far as to order the next G7 Summit held at his own golf resort (public pressure forced him to walk this one back; even Fox raised an eyebrow). And of course, there were the two violations so egregious that they led to his impeachment. I would have preferred a much fuller bill of criminal activity (this link lists nine potential counts as far back as July, 2018).

But the problem goes far deeper than one corrupt and mean-spirited individual in a position of great power. 

As a citizen not just of the US but also of the world, I worry to see similar patterns repeating in many other countries, among them Brazil, Hungary, India, and Bolivia–and less intense versions attempting to rear their heads in places like France and UK.

I’ve been an environmental and social justice activist since October, 1969. That’s just over 50 years. Since that time, I’ve done much to improve the lives of my fellow residents of Earth, whether human, other animal, plant, fungus, or other lifeforms. I’ve been involved in numerous campaigns, and was glad to play a role in winning some of them. But there’s so much more to be done!

Each of these situations involves many cases of justice denied. I will do what I can to turn that around; I will continue to write and speak and act and organize and demonstrate and lobby from a place that says we are better than this, that we don’t accept this as normal, and that we are not willing to turn the clock all the way back to 1930s Germany. And I will continue to take comfort in the small victories we win, and the many friends I have made in the Resistance who prove to me that we are, indeed, better than this.

And each of us has an impact, often far greater than we realize at the time. Never accept that you cannot make a difference as an individual! But recognize that it’s easier to make that difference if you work with others.

I can take direct credit for victories ranging from a crosswalk at an intersection that desperately need one to starting the movement that saved a mountain when the “experts” thought our victory was impossible. And I’m far from done.

In May, 2019, my wife and I were accepted as sanctuary accompaniment volunteers, helping protect an upstanding immigrant who has to live in a church because he would be deported if caught outside the grounds. This is a hard-working man who just wants to provide for his family, including three children born in this country. He has lived in the US for nearly two decades, and in the church for more than two years.

A month later, we participated in an eight-person delegation to stand witness outside the prison holding up to 3000 migrant teenagers in Homestead, Florida. That prison, like the far worse one in Tornillio, Texas, was closed due to public outcry. The affinity group we went with is called Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Massachusetts. In February, we will be part of a ten-member JAIJ delegation doing relief work on the border at Brownsville, Texas and Mataoros, Mexico. Despite our tiny numbers, we’ve had a lot of influence, because we’ve been doing talkbacks, media interviews, and multiple public events since our return from Florida, and we’ve raised thousands of dollars to support the relief mission.

As in all my environmental and social work these 50 years, I hope to see my work become obsolete and unnecessary, because the problem has been fixed.

I dedicate my 2020 work for justice to the spirit of Frances Crowe, of Northampton, Massachusetts. She requested, for her 100th birthday, a demonstration with 100 signs representing 100 causes. She got 300 people marching in the streets, and I think she got her 100 causes, too. A few months later, she attended one of our public talks about the Homestead Detention Center just two weeks before she died. She was working on a climate scorecard for individuals to observe and improve their behavior at the time of her death.
I first met Frances at one of those actions that turned out later to have made a huge difference. She and I were both among the 1414 people arrested in 1977 while occupying the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, in New Hampshire. She was 58; I was 20, and I didn’t have a leadership role. When we got out, we discovered we’d birthed a nationwide safe-energy movement.

Part 3, on why I chose “Healing” for my third word, went live on January 20. Please leave your own three words (or any other appropriate comment) in the comments. Note that they are moderated, so don’t bother spamming.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Copywriting, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Other, People Helping People, poverty, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. And this time, I’m going to emblazon them on a printout in huge type, and post it where I can see my words every day.  My three words are:

  1. Clarity
  2. Justice
  3. Healing

Clarity

The first three lines of an eye chart
I’ll discuss Justice in Part 2 (with lots of links(), and Healing–including  a deeply personal experience that happened to me this month–in Part 3.eye chart reminds me of having clarity in this year of 20//20 Clarity, 2020 AD

The year 2020 reminds me of 20/20 vision: seeing with perfect clarity. While I don’t expect to achieve perfect clarity, even with the new glasses I’ve just been prescribed ;-), I do want to focus on seeing and acting as clearly as possible.

It’s been several years since I changed the focus of my business toward helping other businesses (and other types of organizations such as nonprofits) find the sweet spot where profitability intersects with environmental and social good.

I now market myself as the person who can help any organization discover opportunities to do go in the world by creating, identifying and re-purposing, and/or marketing profitable products and services that turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance.

I’ve gotten a lot clearer in my messaging since starting this quest in the summer of 2013, since giving my TEDx talk in 2014, and even since publishing my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, in 2016 (which Chris Brogan endorsed, along with Seth Godin, Jack Canfield, and many others).

But I’m still nowhere near as clear as I need to be about:

  • Who wants to pay me to do this work?
  • Which services they most want, and to achieve what goals?
  • How to set a price structure that’s fair both to solopreneurs and large corporations? 
  • Who do I most want to serve?

I’m beginning to figure out the answers. I’ve settled on pricing based on the size of the organization, which seems reasonably fair because larger organizations are more complex and therefore a task such as a marketing plan our outlining a product development campaign will take a lot more of my time–but I’m not sure I’ve got all the bugs worked out yet. I’ve realized that I’d rather work with small entities than large ones, but I am very open to being farmed out by a larger entity to their smaller customers, suppliers, or business units–and to the larger entities sponsoring me in other ways, such as funding my speaking to organizations that can’t otherwise afford me.

Hopefully, seeing that message of clarity on the wall of my workspace every day will inspire me to figure all this out, and to make my message so clear that everyone understands exactly how I can help and why it’s important.

 

I’ll discuss Justice in Part 2 (with lots of links), and Healing–including  a deeply personal experience that happened to me this month–in Part 3.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Branding, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Greenwashing, language, localism/locavore, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

Nostalgiawashing: pretending that you represent the “good old days” of small-town, small-business artisanship while actually running a large, highly mechanized operation.

Although I just invented the term (zero relevant hits on Google), nostalgiawashing’s been a thing for decades. Think about Jack Daniels or Pepperidge Farm. Or nostalgia-driven experience-based companies like Cracker Barrell and even Disney. (Disney is a bit schizophrenic on this, because it markets both nostalgia (for example, Main Street, USA) and its opposite, which I’ll call “tomorrowism” (for example, Epcot). All these companies try to bring us back to a simpler era, when nearly all the figures of authority were straight, white, middle-aged, able-bodied Christian men, and when the upper class could mostly avoid contact with the “masses yearning to breathe free”: immigrants and locally-born alike in the lower classes. Of course, that era never actually existed!

I’m not going on the warpath to eliminate nostalgia-based marketing, even when I think it’s deceptive enough to be called nostalgiawashing. But at least don”t insult our intelligence with it!

This is inspired by a mailing that did insult my intelligence. It was a card that offered “warm winter wishes” on the outside and then offered me a discount on replacement windows and “one of my favorite holiday recipes” (included on a separate index card). I have been a customer, getting replacement patio doors from them a few years ago, so I’ll give them credit for at least keeping in contact. Here’s why it didn’t work:Four-piece mailing from the window company

  • The envelope used a very nice handwriting font, but a return address sticker without a name, just an address…a first-class presort stamp and a sprayed-on barcode. It wasn’t difficult to figure out that this was bulk mail, though I thought it was from a charity.
  • The card is in a different handwriting font, even though it purports to be from the same person who addressed it. And they even positioned the text so it slants up the page–but uniformly on every line??? Come on, people, do you really think you’re fooling anyone?
  • I understand why the recipe card, on what pretends to be an old-fashioned index card, uses yet a third handwriting font–because, of course, the manager’s “Aunt Amy” wrote it. But at the end of the second side (not shown), it has a copyright notice in the name of the company. And the recipe itself is something I personally found disgusting. I can’t imagine wanting to make a dessert out of a whole sleeve of saltines, and Heath bar bits.

Of course, I don’t happen to be in the market for new windows anyway. Even if the mailer had been brilliant, I don’t need what they’re selling. But if they were a client of mine, I would have not only used a completely different approach, but recognized that not a lot of previous customers necessarily need four more windows right now and provided incentives for referrals.

 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Diversity, Eco-friendly, General Commentary, Gratitude, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, language, Psychology, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , ,

Guest post by Seth Godin, 

Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.

reprinted with his permission. Originally published on his blog under the title, “‘Not good enough’ is an easy place to hide“

 

Sniffing at the others who care is a form of virtue signalling. It’s also an ineffective way to create real change.

“My Prius Hybrid gets 140 miles per gallon.”

“My Tesla is solar powered.”

“Really, well I take an electric scooter.”

“We carpool by sharing a horse.”

“A horse? You should walk!”

This misses the real problem: The 1998 Chevy Suburban, with just one person on board, doing a forty-mile commute at 12 miles per gallon.

The same goes for ranking elected officials on who is the most perfect on the issue we care about.

The people who are paying attention are the ones who are trying. And shaming people who are trying because they’re not perfect is a terrific way to discourage them from trying. On the other hand, the core of every system is filled with the status quo, a status quo that isn’t even paying attention.

Focusing the group’s energy on shutting down stripped-mine coal is going to make far more impact than scolding the few who are trying.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Consumer Issues, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , ,
Simulation of TV newscast. By Original photograph by Sylvain Pedneault. Derivative work by Mike Liao. - Self-made. (Modified from Image:FirePhotography.jpg, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4500164

Remember some of those unflattering names for TV in the 1960s and 70s? “Boob tube.” Idiot box.” I think these names are rooted in the neurological changes TV works on our brains, combined with the inherently passive nature of watching–AND with the low content quality that too often marks this powerful and addictive medium.

TV too often incites violence and racism. And I don’t choose to play in that sandbox. For every Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street inculcating positive values, for every National Geographic or Discovery Channel special that broadens our sense of what is possible, there are dozens of shoot-em-up adventure shows and newscasts to focus our attention on the worst parts of our society. And it’s all tied together with ads designed to make us feel inadequate because we don’t buy certain brands. As Mick Jagger sang, “He can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke/the same cigarettes as me.“

The original promise of cable TV was no ads in return for the monthly payment (1970s). But that original promise didn’t last very long! I grew up in NYC, which had seven stations on the VHF band, plus what must have been another 20 on UHF for those who had sets that could pull them in. Moving to places that had only two or three channels on the broadcast spectrum, I could see the appeal, at least for those who love TV.

TV is not an active part of my life.

We moved when I was 10 and left the big clunky ancient black-and-white TV behind. We didn’t get another one for two years–just in time to watch All In The Family. That was pretty much the only show I watched through high school. Through much of my early adult life, we didn’t even own a TV.

And when we got one, it was mostly as a video monitor, with some PBS kid shows on the side. We thought it was healthier to let our kids watch up to an hour a day of content-supervised TV than to ban it altogether and have it become alluring forbidden fruit.

A few years ago, when regular old broadcast TV was discontinued, our cable company gave us a converter box free for the first two years. We never even got it to work properly, and when the two years were up, we returned the box and eventually convinced them that we shouldn’t be paying the $10 month for a service we weren’t using. They acted deeply shocked but eventually lowered our bill. They supply both our landline phone and our broadband Internet.

A few times a year, we go to a friend’s house or a public place to watch a presidential debate, World Series game, or other special broadcast. I think TV news is the worst kind of mind pollution and get my news from other sources–that’s been true for decades, even when I had a working set. I still read my local daily newspaper, which has great coverage of my own region and at least some coverage of the wider world. I read a ton of e-newsletters that keep me informed within my various niches, and click to interesting links on social media (which has its own positives and negatives)–yes, including some TV clips. I’ll listen to radio news and public affairs programs such as All Things Considered (NPR) and Democracy Now (Pacifica). And yes, I spend some time daily on social media.

In fact, I deeply resent being forced to watch TV news with all its shallowness and violence when I ride elevators, wait for planes or buses or trains, or use a hotel fitness room. If there’s a great skit on Saturday Night Live or a new Randy Rainbow parody, or shocking testimony implicating high government officials, I will hear about it on Facebook and watch online. I worry about the people who spend so much time watching violence disguised as news, especially if they do it right before bed, leaving the whole night for the subconscious to absorb the message that this is normal.

It’s not.

There’s plenty of good in the world. People doing amazing things: harnessing technology to solve problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change…finding new ways to empower others…joining with neighbors or colleagues to do something too big for any one person or company–but the media is trained to focus on what’s wrong: “If it bleeds, it leads.” There are some nice exceptions, like Yes Magazine, Positive News, and Good News Network (among many others), that consciously focus on positive news–and even some mainstream outlets join this happy chorus. Also, because I’m in the green business world, I read publications like GreenBiz, Eco-Business, and Triple Pundit that are tremendously tilted toward highlighting positive innovation but don’t shy away from negative stories that need to be told.

While I don’t duck from the unpleasant things happening, I don’t steep myself in them. I surround myself with enough positive news (through those and many other channels) to insulate me from the bad effects of soaking in negativtiy. I recommend doing that as much as possible.

What strategies do YOU use to stay focused on the change you can make rather than letting the problems paralyze you? I’d love to see your comments, below.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Environment, Ethics: General, Gratitude, language, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

One of my marketing buddies, Marisa Murgatroyd, posted a picture of Greta Thunberg along with an inspirational message about how Greta’s work empowered Marisa to find her own place to make change.

Greta Thunberg on the cover of GQ, with commentary by Marisa Murgatroyd (Instagram screenshot)

It attracted a lot of comments, many of them expressing thanks for a great post–but others, far too many, dissing Greta and her work. Here’s my comment, in italics.

Thanks, Marisa, for posting this. Shocking how many people are posting to tear this young woman down because she’s changing the world. She will probably grow out of her extremism but if the world is lucky, she will keep her passion. I ask every person who is putting Greta down: what have you done in HER lifetime to make the world better, and what are you doing now toward that goal? Why is it important to you to spend your good energy attacking someone who is making a difference in the only ways she knows how?

And before you attack ME for using the word, “extremism,” remember this:

  1. This was a response to people who see her as an extremist. I used their own talking point to perhaps be listened to–to increase the chances that I might change a mind or two.
  2. Greta is acting out of deep despair. She does sound extreme at times. But let’s remember how hard it is to act out of despair, even if you don’t have Asperger’s (as she does). Positive motivators tend to work much better. To act from a dark place in a positive way is itself remarkable. In time, she will learn (as I did) that the world can be a very positive place, and we get the fun job of making it more positive, harnessing and amplifying the trends in the good directions, doing our best to neutralize the haters and the planet-killers. And that while the pace may seem glacial, we are actually winning.
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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Gratitude, language, People Helping People, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , ,

Guest post by Jacqueline Simonds.

Way back in 1979, I worked in a Texas bar & grill. One of my co-workers discovered she had Graves Disease/hyperthyroidism. She was put on a medication and her slightly bulging eyes and weight started to diminish.

Then she discovered she was pregnant.

[Recall that in 1979, there were no home pregnancy tests available. By the time she figured out she might be pregnant, and got into the doctor, she was maybe 2 – 2.5- months along. That’s 6 – 8.5 weeks.]

She told the doctor who was treating the thyroid, and he freaked. The medication she was taking would 100% result in a mangled fetus. He insisted she get an abortion – for the sake of her health, and her family.

My friend, a Latina, was also very very Catholic, and already had 3 children with her husband. This caused a terrible crisis for her. So she went to her priest, and told him what the doctor said. He immediately told her she couldn’t have the procedure, because it was against God.

My friend was completely wrecked by the moral and ethical challenges before her. What should she do? She understood the danger, but the priest said it was wrong. She cried all day at work.

She called her doctor and told him what the priest said. Then the doctor did something sort of amazing.

He called the priest and asked him to come to the office.

When they met, the doctor explained what was happening in my friend’s body. He showed the priest pictures of what a healthy developing fetus looked like, and what would happen to this one. And then he described, in great detail, the life my friend and her family would have. That my friend would have to quit work, and take full care of the child, for the rest of its life (caring for a medically-challenged child was even more financially and emotionally draining then than it is now).

But more, the doctor said, is that it might just kill her. Then her 3 children would be left without a mother, her husband without a wife, the parish without a devout member. And how did this serve God? How, he asked the priest, can you help her best? (He did not demand that the priest give in to the doctor’s way of thinking.)

The priest was astonished at all this information, and asked for time to go and pray. The doctor told him he encouraged him to do so, but not to take too much more time. The procedure had to be done soon.

The next day, the priest called my friend and told her he felt God wanted her to lay down the burden of the pregnancy, and that the priest himself would take her to the procedure.

And he did. And she was saved.

My friend suffered guilt and remorse and sorrow on a scale I could barely stand to watch. But with all of our love, she got through it.

If the conversation between the priest and the doctor seems unlikely to you, it is because times have changed that radically. We were on the middle path back in the 70s, where you could object to abortion, but see its necessity. When you could be pro-choice, but have an adult conversation that didn’t involve a screaming match – and therefore might change a mind.

Extremism erases rationality and damages real people. Right now, we HAVE to fight right wing pseudo-Christian extremism, because it is a toxic poison to women’s bodily autonomy. Once we can force the extremists back into the shadows, we can return to a time of the middle path, where your decision is YOURS.

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