By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity

I always start my day looking at the queries from reporters looking for story sources on HARO (Help A Reporter Out). This morning, in addition to the three that I answered, I spotted this intrigung one:

Looking for people who use household robots for chores, communication,
security or entertainment. Parents if youve purchased toy robots for
your kids to play with, Id love to hear from you, too. Am wondering if
you’ve ever had any security/privacy concerns with regard to your robots
(especially ones that can be controlled over short distances using remote
control or via the Internet) and/or if youve ever noticed any odd
robot behavior. No experts needed, just looking for people who own some
kind of robot and are interested in participating in a fun Tech story.

Putting aside the question of whether reporters should be allergic to apostrophes, I was struck by how far we’ve come, so fast, in my lifetime. In my childhood and teens in the 1960s and 70s, robots were very much a part of my life…in the science fiction I read, in movies, and on TV. But nobody I knew actually had a robot in their house.

It’s hard enough for my kids to believe that I grew up in a world without so much of what they took for granted.

Never mind the Internet; the only computer in my life was the mainframe in my mom’s office at a university, that filled three large rooms, had to be specially air conditioned, was talked to through punch cards, and probably had less computing power than my $5 solar calculator.

Cell phones? Our tethered landline phones were black and had rotary dials, and most families only had one phone for the whole house. When I went to college, we had one phone for a dormitory floor with 20 people, although by then they were beige. My family did have a private number but I know people who grew up with shared party lines. We did have the first answering machine I ever saw. My dad paid $400 for it in 1961 (a huge fortune at the time), because he was self-employed and also holding down a full-time job. It actually lifted the phone off the hook and played the recorded message into the receiver.

We had a black-and-white television with maybe a 15-inch screen. It picked up only channels 2-13. For most of the country, that meant between one and three stations. Living in New York City, we actually had seven–what luxury! Oh yes, and if you missed a program, it was gone. No TiVo, no DVD, no VCR.

It was a big treat to go into a fancy office in the summer, because they had air conditioning, and most of the rest of us didn’t.

So much of the technology that enriches our lives didn’t exist yet or was reserved for an elite few. I could go on for pages listing the innovations that have reached every corner of our lives. And of course, go just a few decades earlier than my childhood and you’re in a world with no cars, telephones, or electric lights. I’ve met plenty of people who grew up in that time, though most of them are gone now.

Other changes were in the social sphere, and ultimately far more important. Most jobs weren’t open to women, and in many parts of the country, weren’t open to minorities either. Disabled people were shunted aside and kept out of sight, and there was very little infrastructure for them. Forget about the Americans with Disabilities Act; most sidewalks didn’t even have curb cuts on the corners. There was no mass consciousness at all about environmental issues; it was considered the right of any industrialist to pollute, to leave toxic dumps, and so forth. Organic food was hard to come by, and so was decent coffee.

Sometimes, instead of ranting at all the things we want to change, it’s nice to take a deep breath and remember how far we’ve come. We’ve just passed Canadian Thanksgiving, and the US Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks. This seems like as good a time as any.

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By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with ,

If you enjoyed my Twitter follow policy, here’s some insight as to how it works in real life.

When I receive a bunch of Twitter follow notices, I first scan them for any people I actually know. Of the remainder, if some include keywords of interest to me (e.g., on the environment, ethics, or marketing), I’m fairly likely to click over and have a look. And I confess, if someone has an exotic name, I may visit just to see where they’re from and who they are. For the rest, I’ll open a few at random.

Today, I opened three. The first had nearly 14,000 followers, and if I were motivated only by greed, I’d see this person as a center of influence and would want to follow in spite of unappealing content. But the Tweet stream was all either spammy-sounding bizop stuff or long lists of people to follow. I didn’t see anything that added value to me (and I wondered if the high number of following/followers had something to do with a robot scheme). As they say in Twitterese, “Fail.”

The next person tweets in German. I know a tiny bit of German and could take the significant time to puzzle out the tweets, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. Let people who really speak and understand German fluently follow this person.

Third, another Internet marketer but one who intersperses call-to-action tweets with glimpses of the real human being…who engages in dialogue with others that has universal application…who shares highlights from conferences using hashtags to make them easy to follow–someone, in short, who adds value through Twitter. And by coincidence, this person also has about 14,000 followers, and probably a lot more legitimacy to them than the first person I checked out.

Yes this one I followed. I would have followed back even if only 100 were following this person.

As for those whose profile I didn’t happen to click on…they can get my attention with an @ message or DM, and I’ll take a look. If I like what I see, I’ll happily follow.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Peace and War, Uncategorized Tagged with , , ,

Woke up this morning to the startling news that US President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Price–and a perceptive entry on Huffington Post wondering why.

After all, he has initiated a slow and limited timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, pretty much continuing the “progress” of his predecessor–and has made very clear his intent to expand the war in Afghanistan.

Now it’s true that these were wars he inherited, and that he’s had a very full plate even by presidential standards. It’s also true that he has moved us forward on climate change and the environment, on labor, and on the idea that foreign affairs should be primarily addressed through diplomacy And that last bit has certainly help the slow process of rebuilding the U.S.’s stature in the world, after eight years of a rogue coup d’etat regime that left the world negatively astounded and quite terrified. His speech in Cairo was a terrific example.

But the Nobel award does seem a bit, ummm, premature. I’d have rather they waited until he successfully extricated us from the Bush wars, or until he made a speech like this:

Ladies and gentlemen, both my fellow Americans, and my fellow citizens of the world–in the 21st century, war simply has no place in the arsenal of foreign policy. The last significant example of a war achieving policy ends was World War II, when the world responded to a series of power-mad totalitarian regimes with equal force, stopped the aggressors at a great cost in human lives, and installed democratic governments in West Germany, Italy, and Japan. That was 64 years ago, and took six bloody, difficult years to achieve. Korea was a stalemate, Vietnam was a failure, and both Iraq and Afghanistan are succeeding only in giving strength and comfort and eager recruits to the enemies of freedom. Therefore, I have ordered the immediate drawdown of troops. Over the next three months, all US military personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan will be coming home, along with the private US military contractors that participate. In their place, we will devote significant resources toward hunger relief, education, rebuilding of bombed infrastructure, and eliminating corruption in those countries. There will be a small security presence whose mission is to protect the workers for social and economic justice that we will send over, but there will be no military mission beyond that. We can learn from the powerful example of countries like South Africa, Poland, and Northern Ireland, where peace and democracy were not imposed through the barrels of guns, but by the powerful leadership of indigenous residents who organized together to say, ‘enough of this.’ It’s long past time, in the words of John Lennon, to Give Peace a Chance.

The Nobel committee has made strange choices before (can you say Henry Kissinger?). I can only hope that they’re following the philosophy of rewarding the behavior they want to see in the hopes that the behavior will rise to meet the treatment. This is a great strategy in parenting, in conflict resolution between individuals, in customer service desks (I even write about it in my sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First). It would be great if it turns out to work in international politics too.

Oh, and President Obama, I give you free and full permission to use the above speech in full or in part, at any time—including your Nobel acceptance speech in Sweden!

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics-International, Media Ethics, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , ,

If you search on Google for the word Google plus the exact phrase “Don’t Be Evil”, you get 366,000 hits. The company’s motto has been used at least since 2001, according to Wikipedia.

As someone who has been writing and speaking about business ethics for seven years, I applaud this motto. But I question its authenticity as it applies to some of Google’s actions. In other words, I see Google occasionally violating the motto with at least three sets of policies that–intentionally or not–certainly do evil.Read more »

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Protests and Crackdowns Tagged with , , , , ,

Last time I checked, there’s something here in the United States of America called the First Amendment that protects the right to speak and write.

Somehow, that right did not extend to Elliot Madison, a New York City activist who was arrested in Pittsburgh on the first day of the G20 summit for—get this!—tweeting that the police had ordered protesters in a certain area to disperse.

A week later, his house in New York was raided and all sorts of personal possessions belonging to him and his housemates (who were kept handcuffed at the scene for 16 hours) were seized.

Democracy Now ran a long interview with Madison and his lawyer this morning. It should be must-reading for anyone concerned about civil liberties. This is as bad as the abrogations of rights that happened to US citizens under the Bush administration (at the various national party conventions, for instance).

Lots more on this story in the New York Times and elsewhere.

We MUST NOT ALLOW the continued criminalization and marginalization of dissent!

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By Posted on Posted in Blog Tour, Entrepreneurship

Guest post by Jacqueline Wales

Everything that glistens may be interesting, but it’s not gold, and it’s a mistake that many young entrepreneurs make.

So here’s my top 10 list of things to do when starting your own business for the first time.
1. Create a step-by-step strategy. SERIOUSLY simple steps (ex. step 1: buy domain name step 2: buy hosting package etc.)
2. Set a budget and stick to it. Until you start making money…And then still stick to a budget.
3. Don’t believe everything that’s shiny. Just because someone says they are the expert in their field doesn’t mean they are.
4. Be prepared to use the materials and follow the instructions before deciding it doesn’t work. Most programs fail because of lack of implementation.
5. Ask yourself if you really need this now. (You may in the future, but that’s another thing). I have a word I use. “Sombrero”. Whenever I’m confronted with something I’m not sure I’ll use, I consider whether it’s a useless trinket like a Sombrero.
6. Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you must have it.
7. Titles on the bookshelves won’t bring you results unless you read them.
8. There is only one of you and you don’t have to do it all at once.
9. Be consistent in your approach and don’t chase bright shiny things unless they really will work for you.
10. Get a coach! It’s about accountability. If no one holds you to your goals, will they materialize?

And lastly, if the fear stops you in our tracks, take a deep breath and make a decision. It may not be the right one first time around, but it will teach you something important. After all, that’s why we make mistakes, isn’t it?

Jacqueline Wales is known the world over as The Black Belt Millionaire.  Her unique programs have helped women around the globe develop strong personal success, confident communication and clear visions of their goals. She is the author of five books including The Fearless Factor and you can sign up for a free report at https://www.thefearlessfactorbook.com/signup.html
To get YOUR copy of The Fearless Factor visit https://www.createspace.com/Customer/EStore.do?id=3392398

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

Remember that old bumper sticker, “Trees are America’s Renewable Resource”? It’s true. You can regenerate a harvestable forest in 20 years or so: a nanosecond compared to the millions of years necessary to create fossil fuels.

However, and it’s a BIG however—biofuels such as timber or scrap wood, or for that matter, corn-based ethanol, are for the most part not sustainable. They are far from carbon-neutral, and in fact generate large amounts of carbon and other pollutants. Think about it: coal and oil are fossilized carbon that originated from plants and animals; wood and corn haven’t fossilized the carbon, but they are very much carbon-based life forms, and we add a lot of carbon back into the air when we burn them.

So the effect of these fuels on climate change is negative: they push us more in the direction we DON’T want to go.

Add to that such effects as habitat destruction from clear-cutting, food shortages resulting from diversion of protein crops into energy that powers machines instead of humans and animals, and toxicity from burning chemically treated wood scraps, and it’s pretty clear that this path isn’t sustainable.

Are there biofuel technologies that actually are sustainable? Maybe. The Q microbe certainly seems to have promise. As a non-scientist, I leave that answer to those who know more than me.

In the meantime, let’s focus on those technologies that clearly ARE sustainable. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that we could easily save 70 to 80 percent of our energy by simply designing for maximum energy utilization and eliminating the considerable waste of our present systems. Beyond that, truly sustainable technologies such as small-scale solar, wind, and hydro generated at or very near the point of use hold out a lot more promise than either biomass plants or centralized coal, oil, and nuclear.

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

Inspired by a Tweet from Susan Harrow, I’ve decided to post my Twitter policy every once in a while.

Some of this may sound harsh. Please keep in mind that as a somewhat public figure, I am absolutely bombarded with messages not only on Twitter but through many other channels. I have to cope with about 300 emails on a typical day, plus a three-inch stack of postal mail, plus the 1454 people I’m following on Twitter. 2390 are following me, and I recognize the disparity—but I also do have a business to run, a family to be with, and a physical need to be off the computer for half an hour or so after I’ve been on for about an hour.

I did seven Tweets outlining my policy, and I think they’re worth repeating here (slightly modified with the benefit of “but I MEANT to say” hindsight and spelling out the contractions/not needing to cram it into 140 characters):

1. I don’t follow you just because you follow me (on Facebook and LInkedIn, BTW, I pretty much do). I check out a few each profiles from new followers day (somewhat randomly, but if your follow notice includes a keyword I pay attention to—see #5, below—it ups the odds substantially). If your feeds interest me, I follow. I don’t unfollow you for not following back, since I followed you in the first place because I found your profile interesting and not because I expected reciprocity. And I don’t track whether or not you unfollowed me; it doesn’t matter in the way I sue Twitter unless you’re someone I have an actual friendship with.

2. You can drastically increase odds that I follow back by sending me an @ (NOT a spam), naming me in #followfriday, or Retweeting me; this will get me to look at your profile .

3. Having watched with horror as spammers killed e-mail, I zealously protect Twitter as useful tool. Spam me and I make it public/block/report. (I will tolerate a clueless auto-DM when I follow, unless it links to something scummy. If your auto DM or an @ message sends me to a game-the-twitter-system-get-more-followers site, porn, dating or gambling site, I’m gone. If you did it as other than an auto-DM on follow, I report and block you too.

4. The first time your account gets hijacked and you involuntarily spam me with “join my mafia family,” I cut you slack and tell you I’m not interested. If it happens again, I assume you’re not smart enough to change your password and that spammers will bother me through you. At that point, I block you.

5. I tend to follow: Green/eco/ethical, soft-sell marketers, book publishers and authors, social media people, folks into progressive social change, quoters, people who post interesting links, people who tweet leads from reporters looking for sources. If you fall into one of these categories and you @ me telling me so, I’ll certainly click on over for a look.

6. I always like to say that I became a writer because I’m interested in almost everything, but don’t forget the almost part. If you have a great profile about stuff that I’m simply not interseted in, now matter how good it is, I won’t follow. A few subjects I find uninteresting: online gaming, hard-sell interruption marketing, get-rich-quick stuff, football, super-techie computer coding…and schemes to get more followers you haven’t earned.

7. I tend to follow people who offer a mix of glimpses into their personal lives, interesting tidbids they find online, dialogue with the community, and no more than 20% blatant promotion. And I try to keep my own Tweets in this pattern. I try to be helpful, friendly, useful in my Tweets. Follow me because you like my posts, not to game the system with one more well-connected follower.

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By Posted on Posted in Networking, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , ,

Yesterday, I co-hosted a teaching call with the amazing George Kao, a social media trainer who specializes in highly productive techniques for using social media (and who is socially conscious, too.

George gave me permission to share his very informative handout: his slides are at https://georgekao.com/socialslides

I also want to share a few of the takeaways

* Find the actions that provide the greatest benefit for the least work (he lists many of these in the slides)
* Balance the human and the professional/expert
* Find easy ways to show you care, like spending one second to click and say you like a comment on Facebook
* Multiple approaches increase likelihood of connecting
* Twitter is not only indexed by Twitter, but searchable on Google–BIG reach! Easy way to spread ideas
* Make your last comment of the day (or in a batch of posts) count–it has more staying power because it will be at the top of your page all night

This was the fourth call with George I’ve been on since June. I always learn so much! In fact, it was the incredible value of his content that made me reach out to him, form a friendship (we and our wives had dinner when I was in San Francisco this summer) and partner with him to deliver this call to my network.

I’m going to be participating in his 12-session coaching program on social media, and also his program on running webinars for fun and profit, and eagerly looking forward to both. I have *never* encountered a better social media trainer, and I’m an avid consumer of coaching calls.

You may want to as well. There’s a signup link at the end of the slides. Each course is usually $720, but I’ve arranged a discount–you can learn form this “Jedi Master of Social Media” (my term–he’s much too modest) for $480. Mention my name. If you order both of George’s programs (normally $1440) with the one-payment option, it’s $920. Mention my name (Shel Horowitz), and George will paypal you a $200 rebate on this double package.

Full disclosure: yes, I make a commission on this. But more importantly, you get a tremendous education in social media that can knock months or years off your learning curve, set you on the path to profitability, and save you hours per week.

Will I see you on the calls?

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , ,

Fascinating interview with Jonathan Porritt, long-time environmental activist and outgoing environmental advisor to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

I find this statement particularly worthy of discussion, and would love to hear what y’all think on this:

Still, he says there are also too many examples of corporate responsibility deployed by companies with fundamentally amoral business models that cannot stand up to scrutiny. He says a particularly stark example is the UK banking industry.

The corporate responsibility teams of UK banks have strong reputations, he says. “They were seen as extremely professional parts of those financial institutions … who used to win lots of awards.

“But the reality is they never, ever got close to the business model of those banks. They were never given access to the decisions being taken about changing the investment strategy, about rethinking approaches to risk, or about the balances of portfolio or a different approach to asset management.”

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