By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, media-general, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , , ,

Rarely do I open up my morning paper and see even one positive story among the day’s major news. Today—though I already knew about two of them from other sources—there were three:

1. The Wall Street Reform Bill has passed both houses of Congress. Is it everything I want? Of course not. Is it more than I expected from this stalemated Congress? You betcha.

2. BP finally seems to have capped the torrent of oil from Deepwater Horizon. A lot of wait-and-see before claiming victory, but at least for the moment, no oil is pouring out.

3. Overwhelmingly Catholic Argentina passed same-sex marriage rights legislation, striking a major blow for equality and human rights. The bill, according to NPR’s All Things Considered last night, has the support of an astonishing 70 percent of the population. Major demonstrations helped sway the legislators.

A very good news day, all in all.

Footnote: My local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, ran all these stories in today’s first section. But its news pages are only open to paid subscribers, so I’ve linked to other sources.

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Carmen, Costa Rica: A banana tree is a graceful thing, especially when it gets old and tall. Thousands of acres of bananas may look beautiful, but to me, the vast plantation was the most depressing place I saw in Costa Rica.

Carmen is a company town. Both Del Monte and Chiquita have facilities there, and the banana fields stretch for miles, broken only by thin strips of border plantings separating the fields from the roads and from each other, or by the drab company houses and the packaging facilities.

Most of our trip around Costa Rica has involved protected wilderness areas, and we’ve seen what bananas look like in nature; they grow a few here and there amidst the astounding biodiversity of the rainforest. Thousands of trees in orderly rows would not be found in nature.

A nearby organic farmer told us that this kind of monoculture requires enormous amounts of pesticides and herbicides. Not so good for the planet in this country that prides itself on its eco-consciousness.

That claim is somewhat at odds with what we observed and heard. Yes, the country has done a great job on land preservation, putting aside 25 percent of the country as protected areas. But we saw a lot of people applying pesticides (usually not wearing protective gear) on the fields along the roadsides. We saw almost no organic products in the stores. And a coffee merchant told us that hardly anyone rows organically because the yields are too small (something that’s even more true on a biodiverse farm, where farmers have to harvest different crops in small amounts and develop markets willing to take those small amounts). My guess is that in such a humid climate, it’s really hard to keep the pests down. Even the much smaller banana farms we saw protected the fruit from animals and insects with blue plastic bags (which then make it much easier to harvest the fruit, too.

And then there’s the matter of conditions for the workers. We met someone who had interviewed some of them, and she told us the spraying is done aerially and the workers are unprotected. They work 11-hour shifts with no break and get paid strictly on piecework.

I understand now why I once heard an interview with Barbara Kingsolver, promoting her wonderful locavore book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, about eating locally. She said, “some of my friends gave up meat to make the world better. I gave up bananas.”

I’ve been buying only organic bananas for a few years; I think I need to find a source for bananas that are not only organic, but fair trade. The way they are grown commercially is not sustainable, and doesn’t make me feel very good.

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By Posted on Posted in Shel's Personal Life

Hiking through the rainforest at night in a rainstorm? Are we crazy? Not at all. We had good flashlights and a naturalist/guide, and it was magnificent.

We’re in Santa Elena/Montverde, Costa Rica, and there are several “night walk” tours available. We asked Cristina, the all-knowing, ultrafriendly concierge at our hotel (Claro de la Luna), which was the best, and she told us it depended on what we wanted: popular or quiet. We chose quiet, and we were the only customers walking with Greyving (our guide) through the former Finca San Francisco de Assisi (Saint Francis of Assisi Farm). Arriving just before dark, we were awestruck by the majesty of the tall trees shrouded in mist, the sounds of the many species of insects, the thickness of the understory.

Dozens of mammal, snake, and bird species live in this reclaimed forest, now conservation land: sloths, agoutis, quetzals, porcupines, and monkeys, to name a few. But Greyving warned us that we weren’t likely to see many animals in the rain, and in fact we saw nothing with four legs. But we saw plenty of insects and spiders, including walking sicks, moths, crickets, grasshoppers—and two tarantulas. He was able to coax one of them—an orange-kneed tarantula about six inches in diameter, which he said was a very common type—out of its hole, and it came within a foot of us. I grabbed for my camera but she skittered off. The other one was busy eating, and couldn’t be prodded out of its tree trunk no matter what. But it’s quite something to peer into a hollow log and see these deep eyes staring at you from a twisted collection of black hairy legs.

This was a female, he said. Females live about ten years and spend their whole lives inside one place, in this case a hollow log. Males spend their days walking around the forest, and as a result—being a tasty snack for many of the four-legged creatures here, and also at risk of being killed and eaten by the female following impregnation—live only a couple of months.

We passed an enormous strangler fig that he estimated at 200 years old. And, he says, in the nearby parks there are some specimens five times as large and four times as old.

In all, it was a fascinating hour and a half.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Copywriting, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, propaganda Tagged with , , ,

Note From Shel Horowitz, Owner of this Blog:

I’m posting this not because I agree with everything Jim says, but because I don’t. I’m not going to tell you which parts I agree with and which I’d argue with, at least not yet. I’d like you to have your say first, and when I return from vacation (this post is being scheduled ahead), I might choose to add to the dialogue.

I proudly call myself a marketer. The problem with doing that is that a lot of people think that marketer=scumbag. I get it. Consumers have been burned before and they blame the marketing most of the time.

But that doesn’t make it right.

There’s a big difference between good marketers and bad marketers. Good marketers want to get your attention and make you aware of their wares, whatever that might be. Bad marketers want to deceive you into buying something that you don’t need for profit.

Good marketing is good business. Too often business owners don’t want to do effective marketing because they don’t want to be lumped in with the scammers out there. Here’s a few examples.

In the online world there are people called information marketers. They sell things like membership program and eBooks, and “systems”. These often come as something like a 22-disc DVD set, or online training program. To sell these products, they use tactics like long-page sales letters. You’ve seen those pages before perhaps? Is the page that is one big single column and you have to scroll 20 times to get to the buy button at the bottom. The page is filled with testimonials and bullet points about why the product/service is so awesome, etc… Then it’s got a ton of bonus items.

Here’s the secret to those pages. Know why you see them so often? Because they work… really, really well. As a matter of fact, pages like that are often the top converting page on the Internet today. And in the Internet business, conversion is job #1. If you don’t convert well, you’re losing the battle.

Does marketing with long sales pages letters make them scammy? Not at all. It’s a tactic, and yes, some of the people who sell those types of products are out to rip you off. However, most of them have really good products to sell you. The problem is that because of the tactic they use, they get lumped in with a certain mindset of consumers who will never buy from them.

What about those annoying late-night infomercials you see online? You know what I’m talking about. The late Billy Mays selling OxyClean or Vince selling a Slapchop. Ever notice the “but wait, there’s more” at the end of every tv spot where you get a “bonus” item for ordering now? Again, it seems kind of marketing wrong, right? Actually, it’s there because it works, really, really well.

The point is this. As a business owner, it is your job to drive more sales, leads or publicity to your business. Bottom line. Good business is good marketing. Don’t leave marketing tactics on the table because you’re worried about how you’ll look. At the end of the day, you’re going to need to find a way to improve your business and beat your competition. It might be time to start looking around at new ways to do that.

For over 15-years, Jim Kukral has helped small businesses and large companies like Fedex, Sherwin Williams, Ernst & Young and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how find success on the Web. Jim is the author of the book, “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money”, as well as a professional speaker, blogger and Web business consultant. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com. You can also follow Jim on Twitter @JimKukral.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics

This letter, except for the first paragraph (which I added), was just sent out by the Nuclear Information and Resource Center. You can also call your Rep at 202-224-3121. Note that this page is keyed to me. Scroll down about a half a screen and then click “if you are not Shel”–before you fill in the petition, especially if you’re modifying the text.

If you’re not familiar with the many problems with nuclear power, do a search in this blog on “nuclear”

Dear Representative,

Nuclear power is NOT Green, has serious environmental and security problems, and should not be supported. If we learn nothing else from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico–we should know not to put our faith in dangerous technologies when people think they can figure out a fix AFTER something goes wrong.

I have learned that the House Appropriations Committee may take up the FY 2011 energy and water funding bill next week.

I understand the Department of Energy is seeking additional funding for new nuclear reactor loans in this bill: a whopping $36 Billion increase for construction of new reactors, That’s taxpayer money that would go to some of the wealthiest companies in the world, companies like Electricite de France, Areva, NRG Energy, Toshiba, General Electric, and the like.

As you may know, these loan “guarantees” are actually taxpayer loans from the Federal Financing Bank. This is not the time to shell out billions more taxpayer dollars for the benefit of one special interest industry.

Please act to ensure that NO new loan “guarantee” authority for nuclear reactors is provided in the FY 2011 energy funding bill. Please tell your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee that they should vote no on new nuclear power loans.

Thank you,

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By Posted on Posted in International Association of Green Marketers

This week, I’ve been thinking out loud on this blog about how to start a brand new international organization to serve the needs of marketers who work to advance an environmental agenda. It’s a big and complex task, and I’m hoping to take the time to get it right.

But this is not going to be my private fiefdom. It’s going to be a community, a support network, and a joint effort.

There are a lot of questions to hash out. I’ve posted some of them here in the last seven days, and here are a few more:

  • What is the process for adjudicating controversial memberships, and who does the adjudicating?
  • What skills are required for the first Executive Director of the International Association of Earth-Conscious Marketers? How is the Executive Director selected, what will that person’s duties and responsibilities be, and to whom/how will he/she be accountable? How many hours of that position can we fund, to start? (Disclosure: I might be a candidate)
  • What other types of infrastructure/staff support need to be in place?
  • What kind of financial structure and income do we need to support our activities, and how will we gain momentum while the early members don’t get much concrete benefit in the startup phase? (subquestions on this would include: Should dues be at different levels for different sizes or revenue levels of organizations? Is membership by company or by individual? Are there appropriate sources of startup capital besides dues, such as grants, VC, etc.? Do those who volunteer for the organization get reduced dues? what incentives can we provide to join immediately?
  • What do we want our public presence to most emphasize?

    • And some longer-term questions, like

  • How will regional and national chapters be structured?
  • What is sufficient critical mass to establish a chapter?

    • To grapple with these questions, we need some sort of structure. I propose a Steering Committee of between five and ten people who are willing to devote some energy to this. Ideally, we’d meet once or twice a week via teleconference or Skype for an hour or so and hash out some of these things, starting in mid- to late July (I’m about to go on vacation until then). If you’d like to be part of the exciting process of birthing a new organization, drop me a line: shel at principledprofit.com, and use the subject line: IAECM Steering Committee.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, International Association of Green Marketers Tagged with , , , , , ,

    As I’ve been publicly thinking out loud about forming the International Association of Earth-Conscious Marketers (a trade association for Green marketers), this article by Matthew Ammirati on MediaPost, “Is It Enough To Be Green? What About Being Good?” seems very timely.

    The article asks whether we should…

    …be buying an all-natural household cleaner in a recycled package but if the company has a team of migrants in Africa working in horrendous conditions in 18-hour shifts, does it really make you feel better about buying that product?

    These kinds of questions come up regularly in my work the last decade or so, and they raise their heads again in thinking about how this organization will work. For instance, what happens if people who work on Walmart’s sustainability initiatives apply for membership?

    Walmart has a lot of Green cred. They’ve done a tremendous amount in the past few years not only to make their own operations substantially Greener (and not coincidentally saving hundreds of millions of dollars. But there are many other aspects of their operation that are deeply troubling to me, and I don’t shop there.

    I just looked again at the proposed behavior standards for membership–and I don’t see anything that would keep Walmart out. So if the organization were to adopt those standards, someone working on marketing Walmart’s sustainability initiatives would be welcome, as long as they were doing real Green marketing and not greenwashing. So would the conservative political consultant who has posted a couple of comments on these working drafts. Employees of a company such as Halliburton might have a much harder time proving they qualify.

    What about a tougher case? Suppose someone has been involved with the sustainability initiatives over at BP (a company that actually at one point was fairly well regarded by mainstream environmentalists)? What about questions about supply chain and vendor practices and investing and charity programs and and and… Some kind of arbitration system will be needed to determine who qualifies and who does not. Any ideas for how to set that up?

    In my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson), I very clearly and deliberately link ethical behavior and Green practices, and point out that the two combined are a powerful path to success. But the standards of behavior I’ve proposed for membership in this trade association are focused on the Green side and don’t really talk about ethics other than in a specifically Green context (e.g., no greenwashing). Should those broader issues be addressed? By whom, and who judges?

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, International Association of Green Marketers, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , ,

    What would be the mission of an international trade association for Green marketers? In launching the International Association of Earth-Conscious Marketers, here’s what I hope we’ll be focused on:

    1. To use our skills in marketing and our commitment to ethical approaches to create messages that encourage the use of earth-friendly products and services, and the rapid spread and adoption of earth-conscious ideas into the social mainstream.

    2. To identify and oppose (both publicly and privately) messages and methods that claim to be Green but are actually harmful to the environment and/or misleading to stakeholders and/or the general public. (Need an example? Read more »

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