Category: Shel’s Personal Life

By Posted on Posted in Frugality/Frugal Fun, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

The other day, I bought a loaf of artisan bread at a supermarket. It even happened to be a locally owned, single-location supermarket.

But then I looked at the label and saw it was made in California. I live in Massachusetts.

I’ve got plenty of stuff in my pantry that made a long trip–but for the most part, it’s stuff for which there is no local source. I can’t get chocolate of any sort, let alone the organic fair trade chocolate that I buy, that’s grown within even 1000 miles of my house. Ditto with olives, Indian pickles, etc. I can buy from local companies that import the stuff, but it will never be locally grown unless global warming happens a *lot* faster than I think it will.

The bread made me feel guilty, though. Within 10 miles of my house there are close to a dozen quality bakers, most of them locally owned and operated. I buy a lot of bread from them.

And part of my belief in people helping people is buying local, keeping money in my own local economy (or the local economy where I happen to be traveling)–as well as, where practical, reducing my environmental footprint. So I shop local a lot. The majority of my food dollars, at least in the summer time, are spent at farmer’s markets, our local Community Supported Agriculture farm store. I’ve even managed to find a local supplier for the recycled paper I feed my computer printer.

But in two ways, I’m not a purist. I do spend a fair amount of money in the local branches of nationally owned food stores, because selection, price, and convenience make that a sensible path for me, at least in the winter. (I’ve been shifting more and more to local markets, however–and when I happen to be in the town 25 miles form me with that local supermarket, I shop there.)

And I’m not yet willing to live the stark and barren life without the stuff that doesn’t grow around here. I want my daily cup of cocoa, my wife wants her black tea, we add those Oriental hot sauces to our cooking.

But bread? What was I thinking?

Resources:
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a nationwide network working on keeping money in the local economy. Website is unintuitive–even s a member, I had to hunt for it: https://www.livingeconomies.org/

Community Involved in Local Agriculture, a group here in Western mass focusing on buying local.

29,10o answers to the question, “Why Buy Local?”

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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 Business Ethics, Peace and War, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

About ten years ago, a local PR agency decided to subcontract some overload copywriting projects. She asked me if I wanted to try out wrking together. The first assignment she gave me was for a manufacturer of luggage–sounds innocuous enough, right? This was a local company, and I knew that they had a number of DOD contracts to make cases for weapons.

Well, when she sent me their sell sheets, they were so jingoistic and pro-war that they made me sick to even look at them.

I knew the PR agent was overwhelmed and didn’t want to mess her up (especially on the first project)–but after an hour of thinking about it, I realized there was no way I could work on this account–it was too at odds with my values.

So I very apologetically called the PR agency and told her I’d be glad to help her out, but not on this account, and sorry to strand her.

She immediately gave me a different account. I’ve never been sorry I turned that first one down.

OTOH, about a decade earlier, I did some work for Smith & Wesson involving sales materials for their police training program. The material was not rah rah, shooting is good–but emphasized the need for cops to be well-trained before being unleashed on the streets with lethal weapons. I decided that well-trained cops was an agenda I could support, at least to the point of doing this assignment.

In Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I go on at some length about when to say no to a sale. Discomfort with the politics of the client is a legitimate reason. At the same time, you don’t want to suddenly walk away from a big chunk of your income.

And this works two ways. Although I disagree with the position of making gay marriage illegal, I respect the right of a right-wing fundamentalist to say no to an account promoting gay marriage, for instance. It’s not congruent with their values. (Something I blogged about this idea a year ago, in fact.) I hope we and other activists can eventually change those values–a very hard thing to do and a whole other discussion.

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

As a copywriter and editor, I spend a lot of time chopping out redundant words, phrases, and concepts–even though I’m aware of the saleswriting mantra, “tell them what you’re going t say, tell it to them, and then tell them what you’ve told them.”

Still, for the most part, I try not to be too repetitious.

But with technology, redundancy is a good thing. Any website should have redundant backups, any e-mail should have multiple routes available.

This week, I did a live two-hour seminar on book creation and marketing. My co-presenter brought two mini-recorders; I brought a laptop with recording capability. We presold a few copies of the recording and also have a web page up where people can continue to buy the program.

Thank goodness for our redundancies! Only one of the three devices worked. But it worked beautifully, and as soon as we do some cosmetic cleanup on the file, we’ll have a nice new product.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

This is the first viral video I’m linking from in a year and a half dong this blog.

A film that morphs the faces of women from great paintings throughout history.

Of course, the marketing implications of viral travel of humor or inspiration over the Net have been known for a while–but this one made me think about art in an entirely new way. The paintings really seem to be alive.

As a marketer, I want to know why this had such a profound impact on me that I was instantly moved to share it not only with my humor email list, but for the first time, with my blog.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Publishing, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

Ever been to a rock concert where the merchandise sales tables has more books than CDs? I went to one Friday night in New York: the literary all-star band called the Rock-Bottom Remainders (a remainder, in the publishing world, is a book that the publisher gives up on and sells at a deep discount–these are the fancy $30 art books you see marked down to $8, for instance).

This band consists of people known for their books–Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, among others. they did have Roger McGuin of the Byrds sit in for a few songs (and he sounded great!). Missing the introductions while waiting to get in on that looooong line, I couldn’t figure out who the female singer with the black hair was who could actually sing. (I did figure out that it wasn’t Amy Tan, who has brown hair.) Later, my distributor, who came with me to the concert, told me it was Mitch Albm’s wife. But for the rest of them, it’s good clean fun, and the idea isn’t so much to sound terrific as to throw a great party.

And they did, singing mostly songs of the 1960s and early 70s–everything from “My Boyfriend’s Back” to “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

It’s been a decade or two since I’ve been to a packed New York nightclub–in this case Webster Hall, a fabulous old theater on East 11–and I’d forgotten that in New York, they multiply the legal capacity by several times when they determine the number of tickets to sell. The place was so crowded I literally couldn’t take off my backpack (filled with books and a laptop and probably weighing around 10 pounds). Ever try dancing like that? I could only stay an hour before my feet, worn down by eight hours of walking the BEA show floor, told me I had to stop.

But unlike the typical NYC crowd, nobody was rowdy on that long line to get in. All the booksellers and publishers sedately stood and waited our turn (in our case about 20 or 30 minutes).

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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 Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

The well-known sustainable business guru Paul Hawken recently wrote that the presence of a decentralized and not-even-connected movement for environmental is not only a powerful force for change, but one for which there’s no precedent.

Hawken actually tried to quantify the number of organizations working to adopt a river, or ease world hunger, or work for peace, or a whole lot of other causes. Small, grassroots groups–collectively numbering about two million organizations, and thus tens of millions of people. There’s no overal leader, no single agenda–but he sees these splintered fractions coming together as a definable movement for environmental and social justice, and having enormous impact.

The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remake the world…

And I believe it will prevail. I don’t mean defeat, conquer, or cause harm to someone else. And I don’t tender the claim in an oracular sense. I mean the thinking that informs the movement’s goal—to create a just society conducive to life on Earth—will reign. It will soon suffuse and permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied self-destruction.

As someone who has been involved with grassroots movements since I was 12 or 13, I think he’s right. In fact, in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I devote an entire chapter to the intersection of marketing and social change. I even included a case study about one social movement I started that defeated an extremely inappropriate development proposal–when all the “experts” said, “oh, this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do.” Well, we got thousands of people involved–and beat the “unstoppable” thing in just 13 months. (Note: the website hasn’t been updated in years–but it was a vital tool during the campaign.)

Starting that movement is something I will always feel is one of my greatest accomplishments.

There are a couple of books I want to write about the power of people to create social and environmental justice–and peace. In the meantime, I’m planning to start a high-level Internet discussion group for marketers who want to create social and environmental transformation. If you’re interested, comment here (with a way of getting in touch) or drop me a note at shel [at] principledprofit.com, subject line: Social Change Marketer Group (if you don’t hear back from me, check in again–email isn’t as reliable as it used to be!

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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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