Category: Uncategorized

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

One of the two most successful environmental activist groups I’ve ever been involved with is the group I founded ten years ago in Hadley, Massachusetts: Save the Mountain.

We were formed specifically for one purpose: to stop a super-destructive proposed housing development going up the entire side of a mountain immediately next to the much-loved state Mount Holyoke Range State Park/Joseph Allen Skinner State Park.

All the “experts” agreed this was a terrible project, but they said “there’s nothing we can do.” And that’s when I got mad enough to do something about it. I figured the campaign would take five years, but we involved over a thousand environmental activists (at least to the level of putting up a bumper sticker or yard sign, or singing a petition)–and we stopped the project in just 13 months. About 35 people were in the core, working on a number of fronts to make sure this monstrosity was never built. People brought a wide range of strengths to the effort. I had an organizing and marketing background, but I knew nothing about lobbying, state land issues, or endangered species. Others in the group had all that expertise, to name just a few things.

Yesterday, about half of that core group gathered for a tenth-anniversary celebration: a hike through the land we’d saved (now owned by the adjoining state park) and a potluck at my house (site of the very first meeting, which drew over 70 people).

Jim Seltzer, Chris Dixon, Holly Perry
Jim Seltzer, Chris Dixon, Holly Perry
on the Save the Mountain Hike”]Preparing to Depart on the Save the Mountain Hike[/caption]

I go into the history and success of Save the Mountain a bit in my award-winning book Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

Some of our naturalists
Some of our naturalists
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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Who knew? The tomato blight that’s been ravaging organic farms and gardens in my area of Western Massachusetts has been traced to starter plants apparently grown originally at one location in the South, and shipped to some of the big-box suppliers like Wal-Mart.

I know at least three local farms growing tomatoes in commercial quantities that have no crop this year. Thousands of infected plants had to be destroyed. At least one of those started their own plants from seed, and yet was done in by blight spreading from infected plants grown far away form the local ecosystem. And of course, organic farms can’t, by definition, use chemical fungicides.

Just tearing out our half-dozen rotten, smelly, toxic plants and doing our best to dispose of them properly was a job and a half. I can’t imagine dealing with a whole field’s worth.

In 2007 and 2008, we averaged about 1600 tomatoes, with a taste that simply cannot be equaled with commercial methods. This year, we managed to harvest *one* San Marzano before the blight set in. We still have a few from the hundreds that I dried last year, but not having fresh tomatoes is a huge disappointment. Still, I count my blessings. Compared to those who farm for a living and/or supply CSA members, we had a lot less to lose. Farms are faces losses of thousands and thousands of dollars.

The sad thing is, the farms hardest hit are those with a commitment to local, sustainable agriculture–tainted by other companies’ reliance on non-local, centralized systems that allowed this nasty disease to blanket the Northeast all the way out to Ohio.

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By Posted on Posted in Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

One of the fun things about social media marketing is that you rub shoulders with other social media marketers, and there a bunch of smart folks with lots of good ideas. I’m always in learning mode, and a lot of my consulting practices synthesizes a gazillion bits I’ve picked up from a book, blog, teleseminar, lecture, or even a Tweet.

During my rather frequent travels, I’ve often put in one or two blog posts, but usually from some Internet cafe or library on the road. Watching Chris Brogan continue to keep his blog active during vacation with a bunch of preloaded posts, I decided to do that as well. After all, why spend my travel time looking for WiFi? Chris is posting pretty much daily. I’m not as ambitious as he is–but this is one of three posts that will appear over the next ten days while I’m off on the West Coast.

Hopefully it’ll work. The last time I preloaded a post, which was not for a vacation but to coincide with a blogosphere event, I had to go in manually and publish it.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

I think this is soooo cool! Bicycles are already an incredibly liberating, essentially nonpolluting technology. Now someone in Africa has found a way to use native bamboo as a bicycle-building material. Sustainable, renewable, widely available, and with potentially an enormous impact.

How great would it be if this were widely adopted?

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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Yesterday, the fate of Minnesota’s Senate seat, undecided since the November election, was finally decided; the margin, out of 2.9 million votes cast, all of 312. Congratulations to Senator Al Franken.

In 2000, George W. Bush’s winning margin in Florida (and thus the presidency of the United States), was 537 votes, in an election whose legitimacy is still hotly debated (and to me, will never be legitimate). The hanging-chads issue alone could have swung the election to Gore by thousands of votes–just one among many irregularities. But in any case, it was close enough that it was possible to steal.

Years ago, I managed a friend’s campaign for local office; he was declared the winner by seven votes, and in the recount, his margin of victory slipped to four.

Four votes determined that election. If just five more people had shown up up to vote for his (entrenched incumbent) opponent, he would have lost.

Of course, it’s not enough that every vote counts. Who counts the votes is also an issue; witness the calamity in Iran.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics-International, Uncategorized

I love it that just about every scientific study ever conducted validates the opinions I’ve been expressing (without research stats to back me up) for years.

Here’s a fabulous study from Australia on whether ethics matters to employees. Conclusion: ethics does matter, big time:

* 84% of individuals believe being responsible environmentally is included in the definition of business ethics.

* A staggering 93% of individuals believe that organisations have an obligation to act ethically even if it occasionally harms their profits.

* And 91% agree that all organisations should make a formal commitment to acting ethically.

* 80% of individuals agree that they are willing to put in extra effort at work if they know that their organization is run ethically.

* 77% agree that if their employer acted in a way that contradicted their core principles, they would definitely leave the organization.

So, if you want some hard facts to back up the idea that ethics works better, here you go.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Energy & Sustainability, language, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

From a Starbucks press release–the second sentence in the first paragraph, and within the quote, I’ve linked to the full press release:

With the goal of prioritization and agreement on criteria for a comprehensive recyclable cup solution, discussions will address obstacles and opportunities.

Who writes this crap? I’m sorry, but that’s not English. Will someone please tell Starbucks that the purpose of a press release is to communicate, not to obfuscate? Especially when there actually is real news buried under the blather: First, that the chain is committing to 100% recyclable cups within three years, and second, that systems theorist Peter Senge will moderate a summit on the topic.

So why not say so without making people dig for it? If it had been my assignment to write this press release, you can bet it would have gotten right to the point and been understandable by ordinary people.

Starbucks of course is not the only offender. But a press release like this is useless. You want to tell the story, not hide it.

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By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

A couple of months ago, I got to look at the manuscript of Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski’s new book, The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back. I liked it enough to review it in last month’s Positive Power newsletter, and to cite it in my own forthcoming book. And now it’s finally available, and Judith and Jim are sweetening the deal with some bonuses, including one from me-–as well as David Riklan, Mark Joyner, Christine Kloser, Scott Martineau, Jody Colvard, Hay House…

https://theheartofmarketing.com

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Reviews, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , ,

Reviewed by Shel Horowitz

A very good basic introduction to the most important social network platforms–and some truly extraordinary content about how and why to use video to achieve massive conversion rates. A nice Q&A section answers several common beginner questions, very sensibly.

Clearly written, and delightfully formatted for easy on-screen reading.

Shama also walks her talk. In the six or eight months since I first saw her name, I’m running into her everywhere: on Facebook, Twitter, as a teleseminar guest with various other expert marketers…all using the no-cost social media techniques she describes in this e-book.

I’d recommend this highly for those just starting out in social media, as a way to jump-start your education. And if you’re experienced but haven’t done video marketing yet, or have not found it effective, that short section will be more than worth the price.

Shel Horowitz, author of Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World and six other books

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By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

This is the sort of post that’s often directed against Microsoft. But this time, Microsoft is the victim.

After last year’s skeevy maneuver of making it very difficult for on-demand-printed authors to do their printing anywhere else besides one of Amazon’s own printing companies, now it has announced it’s discontinuing support for rival e-book formats, such as those form Microsoft and Adobe.

Sigh. Will someone please tell them that the old cutthroat competition model is dead? And that customers don’t like to be bullied? Amazon’s model used to be about choice–remember “Earth’s largest selection”? What happened?

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