Category: Uncategorized

By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Uncategorized

Chris Owens has a really interesting blog post about Obama and Giuliani, about the power of an individual who thinks for himself and surrounds himself with advisors who raise questions versus the mentality of groupthink where advisors aren’t willing to question

As a black American, Owens also discusses–and dismisses–perceptions in the black community that Obama is “not black enough.” Fascinating.

I’m certainly not ready to make my choice just yet, but it’s early. Still, I see a lot of hope in the Obama candidacy–because he at least says all the right things (though his record doesn’t show so much leadership), he will attract capital and media, and he is a clear alternative to the warmongering, Patriot Act-supporting Hillary.

Democrats take note: If Hillary is the candidate, I and probably a lot of other progressive Democrats are likely to vote Green. The right will come out in droves to vote her down, but the left will not show enthusiasm, and she’ll be buried.

The candidate who most closely represents my own politics is Dennis Kucinich. I was thrilled to vote for him in the ’04 primary and will probably do so again. Unfortunately, he was ignored by the media and wildly underfunded. In short, his candidacy was utterly marginalized, to the continuing shame of the American media.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Uncategorized

Among some very intelligent calls, such as the inventor of the life-saving MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technology, the National Inventors Hall of Fame has named John E. Franz, inventor of the herbicide Roundup.

Pardon me while I puke.

Roundup has been linked to cancer and many other diseases, as well as some severe pollution issues:

Roundup is toxic to earthworms, beneficial insects, birds and mammals, plus it destroys the vegetation on which they depend for food and shelter. Although Monsanto claims that Roundup breaks down into harmless substances, it has been found to be extremely persistent, with residue absorbed by subsequent crops over a year after application. Roundup shows adverse effects in all standard categories of toxicological testing, including medium-term toxicity, long-term toxicity, genetic damage, effects on reproduction, and carcinogenicity.

This kind of “fame” we can do without. Infamy is more like it.

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

I knew there was a company called jigsaw.com. I assumed it was for puzzle lovers. Then I stumbled on my colleague David Batstone’s blog entry about it. (Author of the WAG newsletter and the Right reality blog, David is another blogger on corporate ethics; I’ve been on his newsletter list for a couple of years.)

To say I was horrified is an understatement. This company actually pays people to gather business cards and punch the information into a for-sale database!

I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely creepy. I give a business card to someone because I’m interested in facilitating that person’s ability to stay in touch with me. As public as I am, and I’m pretty public, I don’t really want people exploiting me by selling my contact info. As it is, I am cursed, as an early adopter on the Internet, with the dubious honor of being included on every blankety-blank list of contacts that spammers buy and sell already.

Let me say categorically that if I ever find out that someone has mined my information in that way, I would *never* do business with that person again. It is an invasion of privacy and a very bad business model.

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

Well, my seventh book, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, is finally done, at the printer, and due to ship back to me shortly. Finally.

My original expectation was that I’d have copies in late July for an official publication date of September. Ha! The universe had other plans in store for me, apparently, and even delaying the official date to March 15, I’m only coming in about a month ahead–far closer than I’d like.

The good news is that much of that delay was involved in making the book better. This was supposed to be an “easy” book that I could spin off quickly from my 2000 publication, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World. But as soon as I started writing realized it was going to be a whole different book. I simply know too much about book marketing to shoehorn it into an excerpted little box. Still, every aspect of this project kept dragging on–tearing up the cover I thought was done once I got (very negative) peer feedback on it, demanding that the indexer do a far better job on the index than was represented in her irst draft, and on and on in went.

I guess I’m spoiled because book #6, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–a book that I think could actually change the world–really was on the fast track. Even though I didn’t even have a title until the manuscript was finished, and it took two months to get an appropriate cover, and I lost six weeks having to switch printers unexpectedly, it was still just ten months from the time I wrote the first word (and about six months after I completed the first draft) until I held finished books in my eager hands. Without the delays, it would have been eight and four–phenomenally fast by publishing industry standards (not counting barely-edited “instant books” that surface within weeks of some event like Princess Diana’s death). Yet despite the fast timetable, that book has gone on to win an Apex Award, be sold to foreign publishers in India and Mexico, and gain over 70 endorsements.

The new book has been getting great reviews and endorsements, from some of the top names in the independent publishing world–among them Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Fern Reiss, Marilyn Ross… I’m sure it will do well. But I think I’ll wait a while before I tackle another book–and when I do, I’ll try to be more realistic.

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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 Business Ethics, Media Ethics, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    An article in today’s SpeakerNet News (scroll down to “Do book testimonials work? — Ian Percy”) posits that many, if not most, book blurbs are signed by people who’ve never examined the book.

    I surely hope Mr. Percy is wrong! Certainly, when I’m asked for a book blurb I spend some serious time with the book and read at last several sections as well as the Table of Contents, index, etc. I will confess–I don’t generally read the whole thing–but I read enough of it that I can comment accurately. I find it scandalous that some people apparently consent to blurb a book without looking at it at all.

    Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to them that ultimately, it’s *their* reputation at stake as well as the author’s. To endorse a book you don’t actually believe in is asking for trouble on both moral and practical grounds.

    And when I request a blurb from someone else, I want that person to give me something based in honesty and a true appreciation of the content of the book. The blurbs I get, as a result, have enough substance that they actually do sway a sale. Yes, I believe readers can tell the difference between an honest enthusiastic blurb and a fake. (In fact, I spend some time explaining what makes a good blurb and how to get them, in my newest book Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers).

    Blurbs are a crucial tool in creating a marketing buzz, and one that helps equalize the playing field between those books published by big houses and those published by small independents. Let’s not cheapen them, please!

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    By Posted on Posted in Events, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

    I’m just back from the National Conference on media Reform in Memphis, where much honor was deservedly poured on Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated in that city just a few blocks from the conference (now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum).

    My reports on the 2005 conference in Saint Louis are posted on my Frugal Marketing site; I’ll try to get at least some of my ’07 coverage up this week.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

    I’m a frequent reader of Chris MacDonald’s Business Ethics Blog, and through Chris, I found Joel Makower’s list of Top Green Business Stories of 2006.

    This is must reading for those interested in sustainability and how the business world addresses it/markets around it.

    Chris himself explored one of those 10 issues, Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

    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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