The Clean and Green Club

I write this on July 1, after reading news coverage of the huge Pride Marches in NYC commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

The gay, lesbian, and trans people who fought back against another unjust police raid had no idea they were igniting a quiet-until-then international movement, and that by 2014 it would be legal to marry a same-sex partner in every US state—something unthinkable as recently as 2000. Even by the time I came out as a 16-year-old college first-year in 1973, the energy had already shifted. We were a long way from equality, but we were recognized as existing and becoming much more public. I give them my thanks and congratulations.

(Of course, I’ve been to hundreds of actions that didn’t have long-term impact—but that’s ok.) Here are four among many actions I’ve participated in that turned out to make a difference:

• The Seabrook occupation of 1977 birthed the US safe energy/no nukes movement and brought the massive US nuclear power program to a grinding—and fully deserved—halt (link goes to a 4-part retrospective I wrote for the 40th anniversary)
• The movement my wife and I started that saved a local mountain—and inspired me a few years later to braid my activism and my marketing together into the consulting, speaking, and writing I now do about the intersections of profitability and regenerativity (making things better in areas like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change)
• The massive Women’s March on Washington the day after the current president’s inauguration, letting him know that we would resist his promised agenda based on hatred, environmental destruction, and further enriching himself, his family, and his corporate cronies—and the smaller demonstrations around the country about a week later, keeping that promise and demonstrating that the Muslim ban was racist and unacceptable (and putting that despicable project on hold for several months until he could get a toned-down version through the courts)

In my life, too, some of the actions I took by myself turned out to be very important. In 1984, I went to my city councilor with a concern about the need for restaurants in our town to accommodate nonsmokers. It was not a big public organizing effort. But within a few months, every restaurant was required to have a nonsmoking section. Two years later, when the US bombed Libya, I called up our most prominent local peace activist and asked where the demonstration was. She said she didn’t know of one. I said “noon at the courthouse.” I did a vigil there at noon for three days. The first day, I was out there by myself, and most passers-by were hostile. By the third day, I had a few people with me, and the mood had turned sympathetic. I like to think I had something to do with shifting public opinion in my community, and I think that’s every bit as important as being arrested at Seabrook.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

The Great Pivot: Creating Meaningful Work to Build a Sustainable Future, by Justine Burt

About Shel 

I listened to publicity guru Steve Harrison interview a mortgage-originator named Brian Sacks, who’s been fantastically successful at getting publicity, including 9 years with a regular spot on a network-affiliate TV station in his Baltimore market.

This gentleman is very aware of the power of the press, and was discussing the way it (and some other self-generated credentials) sets him apart from all the others in his niche. Pretty much alone, he has both customers and Realtors calling him, while his competitors are all out prospecting and trying to differentiate themselves.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

DUH! Marketing: 99 Monstrous Missteps You Can Use to Learn, Laugh, & Grow Your Business! By Liz Goodgold

I confess: I took this one off the shelf because I wanted a quick read to keep me entertained on a four-hour train ride. But I’m glad I did.

Using mostly big-company examples, Goodgold pairs a marketing blooper (“DUH!”) with a marketing success (“TA DA!”), half a page each—and extracts a marketing lesson from each pairing. I don’t always agree with her choices, but her lessons are generally spot-on. It’s fun to read and even entertainingly laid out.

About Shel 

Here’s a technique many Practical Visionaries (such as the ones I profiled in the December 2017, March, May, and July 2018 issues) use to get planet-changing conversations going.
Faced with resistance—denial, hostility, or just “we’ve always done it this way”—they ask two simple questions, consciously or unconsciously:

1. What’s the best way to get from where we are to where we want to be?
2. What are the consequences if we take no action?

I call that second question “turning the question upside-down and inside-out.” And it’s a lever to create both personal and social change. Let’s look at an example of each:

• PERSONAL CHANGE: When an older client says, “I’ll be too old” after a career coach suggests pursuing a goal that involves extensive training, the coach asks, “and how old will you be at that time—and how much closer to becoming the _____ you always wanted to be—if you DON’T get that training?”
• SOCIETY-WIDE CHANGE: When opponents of the Green New Deal challenge advocates about how to pay the cost, business environmentalists and global strategic thinkers should ask several questions: “And how much will it cost us to rebuild entire cities or rehouse their population when climate change makes them uninhabitable? Cities at risk include Houston, New Orleans, Miami, New York, Boston, San Diego, and many others?” (Non-US residents, please substitute your own at-risk coastal cities.) “How will you replace the millions of acres of farmland that will go unproductive because of climate change, even as people are uprooted and face mass hunger?” And even “What if the climate deniers are right—and what if they’re wrong?”

Since those two links are a lot to read, I’ll keep it short this month.

I will be attending Book Expo in New York City, May 29-31. If you’ll be at the show, I’m happy to schedule a meeting. If you’re in NYC but not at Book Expo and want to meet, I might be able to make it work Wednesday evening, or over lunch Wednesday or Friday. Thursday evening I’ll be attending the Evolutionary Business Council dinner on the Upper West Side. Call me on my landline, 413-586-2388 (8 am to 10 pm US ET), or email shel AT greenandprofitable.com with the subject Meet at BEA. The sooner I hear from you, the more likely we’ll be able to connect.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing by Brian Kurtz (Hay House, April 2019)

Overdeliver has deep roots in the principles I’ve advocated for decades: sticking to your ethics, thinking and acting from abundance, building relationships without looking for “gimmies,” creating massive leverage from small actions, and matching offer to audience.

Brian is a leading expert on direct marketing. Together with publisher Marty Edelston, he built Boardroom/Bottom Line newsletters to the most successful mass-market paid-subscription-based newsletter franchise in the country. And he’s not even a copywriter or a list manager (though he hires the best out there).

He is, however, a gifted writer. The book is filled with great stories told well. And nice touches—a summary of key points at the end of each chapter, thorough index—create a positive reader experience. He even got Jay Abraham to not only write a forward, but personally guarantee readers’ satisfaction. How many writers come up with a book so worthwhile that a non-involved third party will guarantee the purchase?

One thing he points out over and over again is the hidden cost of not being authentic. Don’t be seduced by quick dollars into making an offer that’s not congruent with your audience. Even one offer that feels false or out of alignment can cause massive unsubscribes. Suddenly, the list you built up for years loses half its names and 80% of its value.

For decades, Brian carefully tested, tracked and ANALYZED the results, segmented his lists, rinsed and repeated. He can even tell you the relative profitability of offers that brought high initial purchases but little repeat business, versus mailings that converted slowly at first but had vastly better renewal rates—across specific lists those two mailings were sent to.

With this data and an almost religious belief in lifetime customer value, he knew he could spend even three times the initial sale on acquiring the right customers, because they’d more than make up the difference over the next several years. He learned whether a certain list would respond to upbeat or paranoid copy, what freebies and incentives worked with which types of buyers, whether those buyers paid off in the long run, and whether they came from a list of inquiries, free subscriptions, active buyers, or ex-buyers. Tracking this granularly is far more useful than tracking demographics, and then your own list becomes golden. He lays out his testing strategy on pp. 112-113, and also some magic questions every marketer should ask, especially in Chapter 6. And he acknowledges mistakes/painful lessons.

Using this knowledge, he encourages his clients to analyze their customer acquisition and payback costs and to be unafraid of spending to acquire long-term customers if the numbers work. He even advises them to become so niched that they become “a category of one”: the only choice. But that doesn’t mean isolating yourself. Find people who will advise you, including telling you when you’re either too full of yourself or full of crappy ideas (pp. 215-216). That’s part of a relationship chapter that would be alone worth the price.

He also encourages marketers to respond to immediate changes. He removed affected zipcodes from a mailing following a hurricane, and then gave free list rental to disaster relief agencies. Related: provide superior service to win back ex-customers who become your best ambassadors. They came to you because they shared your vision and values, after all (p. 186).

Disclosure: Brian and I are friends, and I’m one of those several hundred people acknowledged (I don’t actually know why).

About Shel
How can you profit by putting the VALUE in your VALUES? Shel Horowitz shows how to MONETIZE your organization’s commitment to fixing problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. Shel consults individually and in groups, gives presentations, and writes books and articles including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (endorsed by Jack Canfield, Seth Godin and others).

Recently, I hit one web page that did something very right, and something else very wrong. I want to share these with you.

One of my big peeves when surfing the Net is the lack of clear instruction when you need to fill out a form. I especially can’t stand choosing a password with no guidance as to how the site requires that password to be structured, and then having my first two or three attempts rejected. And if I have to try three passwords, I will leave the site unless I absolutely have to register (for instance, if I am doing a website analysis for a client). So the first trap is failure to provide frustration-reducing instructions.

So I loved it when I hit a signup form on https://www.smartbizquiztribe.com/ and got this wonderful clear wording:

Security is important to us.
Password requirements: 8-20 characters long,
at least 1 uppercase, 1 lowercase character and 1 digit.

What I DIDN’T like: This was a link from a page of giveaways from various marketers. The page that got me to click was a page offering a free assessment tool. But when I clicked to the landing page, it was a 30-day free trial. I don’t see that as the same thing at all—and I lost enough trust that I refused to provide my information, walked away from the tool they were offering, and crossed them off the list of companies I might do business with.

1. Page failed to deliver what was promised
2. I don’t like giving my payment info when I’m not buying anything
3. I felt misled. I would never have clicked over if I’d known I had to subscribe to a paid service and then remember to cancel. My trust was gone and my time was wasted, and they lost any chance to make me a customer.

So even though I loved the way they did their password instructions, I was unhappy with the way this site took my time for granted and betrayed its promise. I lost trust and didn’t sign up. Betraying trust by delivering something different (and less than) you promised is Trap #2. Learn from their mistake!

Here’s the actual offer text that got me to click:

Free

Gift for Everyone

It’s a well-known truth that assessments and quizzes are SUPER-POWERFUL tools for growing your list and moving prospects to a YES! Smart Biz Quiz provides an automated assessment system that is revolutionizing the way coaches, trainers, speakers and consultants market their expertise online. From personalizing your communication, to increasing conversion from your one-on-one conversations, Smart Biz Quiz provides a new and innovative way to personalize your e-communication to double and even triple your conversion.
Value Each: $397 Quantity Available: UNLIMITED
Not a word about this being a one-month trial membership or about it not being a tool that the reader could use over and over.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall
What makes some “crazy” ideas take off and change the world, while others die a quiet, slow death? Bahcall, a physicist, biotechnologist, and former advisor on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, spent years studying this phenomenon across disciplines, industries, and cultures—from ancient China, to the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, to the US military in WWII, to contemporary industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals, aviation, computing, and even entertainment. This fascinating and ambitious book is the result.
What he found (a small sampling; I took five pages of notes and even recommended it to Seth Godin, who had already read it):

• Successful “crazy” ventures nurture two very distinct, conflicting roles—and each requires a different structure and different governance. The “artists” are the dreamers and inventors who make the flying intellectual and intuitive leaps that turn 1+1 into much more than 2. But the “soldiers,” who bring the new discovery into the mainstream, are just as necessary.
• Famous loonshots are often product-focused. But strategic loonshots, like American Airlines’ early computerized reservation system or Walmart’s initial concentration on the small-town heartland, can be just as important.
• Artists and soldiers are in dynamic tension, rubbing up against each other with each side strengthening in some places while weakening in others—in a “phase shift” similar to the subtle changes in temperature and pressure that shift H2O molecules between solid (ice) and liquid (water) states, or between liquid and gas (steam). Change happens best when they’re both valued equally, separated, yet ideas can transfer back and forth (yes, the soldiers have plenty of ideas for the artists, because they test the concepts in the real world, where artists might not go). So, soldiers may respond better to a rigid chain of command, while artists need independence–but that independence is tempered by feedback from the soldiers.
• Forget looking at individual molecules in a phase shift; any molecule can shift frequently to either state. But in the aggregate, as the temperature cools, more molecules will “choose” the solid phase; as it warms, more will liquify. It doesn’t happen at once, which is why some parts of a pond or a puddle might be ice at temperatures above 32 degrees F (0 degrees C), while other parts (perhaps in direct sunlight) will be liquid even at 30 degrees F.
• It’s crucial to analyze WHY a system is generating successful loonshots—or why it’s failing.
• Differentiate between false and genuine fails (Friendster’s failure was not about social network unworkability, but about poor infrastructure; cholesterol-lowering statin drugs succeeded when the labs shifted their methodology).
• Organizations ossify from loonshot-incubators into franchise-maintainers (filming the next James Bond movie or releasing the next incremental software performance enhancement) because of multiple factors. But, potentially, we can prolong the loonshot phase. We humans can influence which actors are in which phase, by controlling factors such as the size of a working group (around 150 seems ideal) or whether political in-group maneuvering or pure innovation is rewarded.

Loonshots is well-written, well-researched, and quite provocative. With a release date of March 2019, you might be the first on your block to gain from Bahcall’s work (I read a prepublication copy). Oh, and read the endnotes, also fascinating.

About Shel
How can you profit by putting the VALUE in your VALUES? Shel Horowitz shows how to MONETIZE your organization’s commitment to fixing problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. Shel consults individually and in groups, gives presentations, and writes books and articles including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (endorsed by Jack Canfield, Seth Godin and others).

Get No-Cost Support and Feedback from Other Social Entrepreneurs
Nicole Dean and I are planning to launch a Facebook discussion group for marketers involved with social entrepreneurship and/or green business: people who want their businesses to be both world-changing and profitable. It’ll be a place to get and give advice, bounce ideas around, share news, and help move society to do better. It WON’T be a place to complain or call names. If you want to be invited (probably within the next couple of weeks), please send me a direct message on Facebook. Please say that you saw the newsletter and want an invite to the marketers for social change group.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

World Famous: How to Give Your Business a Kick-Ass Brand Identity, by David Tyreman

About Shel 

How does an idea go from one person or one small huddle of people to become part of society? Although it happens all the time, it’s not easy. But as Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Think about some of the huge changes those small groups of people have accomplished:

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

Creating Customer Evangelists, by
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (Dearborn, 2003)

About Shel 

All printed editions of my marketing books are on sale this month, and they make great holiday gifts at a bargain price). Scroll down for the details.

One big copywriting nugget I got from Jeffrey was searching out the Ultimate Benefit: drilling down until you find the deep motivation. For instance, taking off 10 pounds or 5 kilos is not the true goal. People reduce wait to attract a new romantic partner or enjoy better health.

Even money is not an Ultimate Benefit. Money by itself is either a bunch of digital 1 and 0 marks in an electronic account or a pile of paper in your wallet. The Ultimate Benefit is what you achieve by using that money to buy something or give it away to someone/some organization. If you use that money to buy a car—or a yearly transit pass—you’re really buying the ability to go where you want to go. If you buy a new stove, you’re buying better meals and lower energy costs.

Lant’s analysis is based on selfish human desires. That’s crucial in marketing—but for most of you, so is altruism. I believe the urge to do good is just as powerful, and combining the selfish and altruistic is an unstoppable marketing combination.

My latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, explores this across several chapters. Here are a five examples, taken from a list of 13 in a section on marketing to “Lazy Greens”:

• “The warmest and softest slippers you’ll ever own, thanks to our special blend of all-natural ?bers.”
• “Enjoy fresh veggies from our organic greenhouse all winter. Need a scrumptious, juicy tomato for your dinner? Just pick one o? the vine.”
• “Let oil prices triple! You’re protected, because you heat and cool directly from the earth.”
• “You’ll never worry about waste disposal again. With our fully compostable packaging, you’re adding nutrients to the earth instead of paying to clog up your land?ll.”
• “You and your kids will both make new friends in the organic community garden and certi?ed nontoxic natural playground.”

Send in your own favorite examples of marketing that hits both personal and social/environmental benefits. If I get good responses, I’ll feature them next issue.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

As it happens, last week I mentioned to my friend Rita Joyan (a marketing and speaking consultant in Australia who had me on as a podcast guest a few years ago) a frustration I’ve had recently in my own marketing. She sent me a link to a remarkable Facebook Live she did. In half an hour, clearly and concisely, she does an excellent recap on core marketing principles. To have it all in one place, without having to wade through hundreds of pages in multiple books, is a huge favor to the marketing world. Go and watch it. She’s not selling anything and I don’t get commissions for recommending it. Do yourself a good turn and listen without distractions. I generally multitask when I’m listening to a marketing video but I listened pretty carefully to this one.

When I opened the book and read the first essay, I saw an ungrammatical mess. And my first thought was that if people tried to read that article, they would abandon the book and never get to my “brilliant thoughts.” So I had a self-interested motive to address that problem.

I went up to the publisher and told him that I thought that essay needed an edit. He told me that it had been pulling teeth to get that article in the first place, and he thought the author would not respond well to the idea of an edit.

This was a fun challenge. How would you handle it? (Hit reply or post a comment and tell me, and then scroll down to see what I did).

Order your copy of Shel’s newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World
Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/
Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Millionaire Success Habits: The Gateway to Wealth & Prosperity by Dean Graziosi
My goals have always included making the world better and having a rewarding life. Although acquiring big buckets of capital has never been a particular goal of mine, I have striven for financial comfort, freedom to travel and enjoy pleasures such as live performances and great restaurants. And because I enjoy learning from smart people and I find many of the self-made wealthy are very smart, I’ve read several books on the subject.

Dean Graziosi is one of those very smart people. Overcoming a childhood as a classroom underachiever with learning disabilities and poor social skills, Graziosi has succeeded in multiple industries, and has many great lessons to impart. His accessible, down-to-earth style, willingness to admit and learn from his mistakes, and especially his amazingly positive attitude make this worth a read.

I don’t often find a book about getting wealthy that not only discusses such concepts as attracting what you desire (a/k/a Law of Attraction) but also include a little mini-Marketing 101 course. This one does, and that makes a lot of sense to me, since 1) many entrepreneurs are motivated by the possibility of wealth, and 2) entrepreneurship is often a much better route to that wealth. Some of his marketing tips:

• Transparency and trust, going in both directions, are essential to successful marketing—something I’ve been talking about since at least 2002, and built a movement around starting with my 2003 book Principled Profit, by the way (pp. 151-152).
• People buy not when they understand, but when they feel understood (p. 145)—and when you sell them what they want, and not what you think they need (pp. 155-157).
• Great marketing is often built around storytelling, as we’ve discussed here many times (pp. 157-162).
• When you’ve closed the sale, stop talking—or you might talk yourself right out of the sale (p. 162).
• Throw in unexpected bonuses (what New Orleaneans call “Lagniappe”) (p. 169).

Some of my many takeaways (or, in many cases, reminders), outside the marketing advice:

• Keep asking why until you get to the real issue (pp. 34-41). Graziosi follows one of his mentors and goes seven levels. In my own life, I find it can be more or less than that.
• Notice and list what you’ll no longer accept –and what you now demand (p. 67).
• You have the power to largely disarm the negative impact of other people’s words (p. 72)—I’m in only partial agreement with this one; yes, when it’s a comment made to you. But how do you undo the negative impact of comments behind your back, that you’re not even aware of?
• Frame things as positively as possible. For instance, transform overwhelm into “blessed with opportunity” (pp. 74-75). Look for ways to transform negative self-stories vby focusing on the good that came of those experiences. Graziosi found benefits in his dyslexia (p. 94); I have seen some positive outcomes in a bunch of difficult times from surviving childhood sexual assault to my parents’ divorce.
• Think of the difficult times in your past as “research and development” necessary to create your amazing future (p. 95).
• When something bad happens, find the best outcome; don’t seek revenge (pp. 197-108).
• Come up with a series of motivational mantras or aphorisms to get you over the rough spots. One of his is “if I can get through this, I can get through anything”—but he has several that he uses for different situations (p. 121-122).
• Having a “don’t-do list” may actually be more valuable than your to-do list (p. 128). Hire others to do the things on your don’t-do list that need to get done, but not by you, and save your own resources for the things you’re good at or the things it doesn’t make sense to delegate (p. 137).
• Abundance mindsets open us up to solving problems that seem insurmountable when we view the world as scarce (pp. 154-155).
• Happiness leads to success, not the other way around (p. 184).
• Live life and run your business with passion (p. 163), but don’t be rigid about outcomes; be willing, even, to embrace failure (pp. 195-197).

And some places where I disagree. He sees wealth as a primary goal. I see wealth as one among many paths to abundance. I see money as only being useful for what it can buy; the stack of greenbacks in your drawer and the series of ones and zeros in your bank’s computer file aren’t useful by themselves. It’s only because we’ve agreed that you can trade them for services, possessions, and good works. But there are plenty of other ways to acquire goods and services or do good works.

I also disagree with the decision not to have an index. When will authors realize that their books become 10 times as valuable with an index that lets readers re-find key concepts and names in seconds?

The best part of the book is chapters 9, 10, and 11, leading off with 10 success habits, moving on to 17 “success hacks,” and concluding with a road map for getting started in the next iteration of your life. These 48 pages starting on page 184 are gold. If there were nothing else of value in the book (and as you can see, there’s quite a bit), it would still be worth reading just for these three chapters.

About Shel & This Newsletter
As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international speaker and trainer, blogger, syndicated columnist – Shel Horowitz shows how green, ethical, and socially conscious businesses can actually be *more* profitable than your less-green, less-socially-aware competitors. His award-winning 8th book Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet was a category bestseller for at least 34 months (and is now available exclusively through Shel), his newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has already won two awards and is endorsed by Jack Canfield and Seth Godin. Shel also helps authors/ publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors.

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

Subject: Breaking: Trump ordered tanks in D.C.

From this subject line, you’d expect some horror story about peaceful protestors facing American military might. It could happen. It has happened in the past–for example, the 1970 Kent State massacre that left four Vietnam War protesters dead and nine more injured by Ohio National Guard soldiers’ bullets. (The shootings at Jackson State College in Mississippi 11 days later were committed by police, not soldiers.) And protestors in countries with totalitarian governments have often faced tanks; if you want to see courage, watch the video of a man stopping tanks with only a flag, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989–WOW!)

It’s a clear attempt to generate hysteria, to have people perceiving tanks in the streets with their guns pointed at dissenters.

Only in the body of the email do we find out what’s really going on:

Shel —

Last night, the Washington Post broke the story that Donald Trump has ordered a giant military parade with tanks, guns, and troops taking over the streets of our nation’s capital. [1] This is the kind of parade that dictators around the world use to intimidate their enemies and, more importantly, their own citizens.

This is what authoritarian dictatorships look like.

But Trump can’t change the fact that we still live in a democracy — which means Washington, D.C.’s local government gets to have a say before Donald Trump’s tanks roll down its streets.

Note the use of mail merge software to appear personal. Does that really fool anybody anymore? But OK, even when you know it’s a mail merge, it still generates at least a small warm fuzzy.

More importantly, note that the actual content is totally different from the expectation in the headline. We can argue the foolishness of Trump wanting a military parade (I think it’s foolish, and an expensive attempt to stroke his ego, and even he has since canceled the parade)–but in no way is this the same as attacking demonstrators in the streets of Washington, DC.

The right wing is at least as bad. I don’t subscribe to their e-blasts, but I found this juicy example (with an introduction and then a rebuttal by the site hosting it) in about ten seconds of searching.

And then there are DT’s own Tweets, news conferences, and speeches, both during the campaign and since he took the oath to uphold the constitution as President of the United States (an oath he has been in violation of every single day of his term). They are full of lies, misrepresentations, name-calling, bullying, and fear-mongering. They are hate speech. I will not give them legitimacy by quoting them here; they’re easy enough to find.

As a country, we are better than this.

How You Can “Vaccinate” Yourself Against Sensationalist Fear-mongering

Before sharing any news story or meme, run through a series of questions to help you identify if it’s real. And if it passes that test, pop on rumor-checking site Snopes and check its status. For that matter, go through a similar questions for advertising claims.

The questions will vary by the situation. Here are a few to get you started:

Does the post link to documentation? Are most of the linked sites reputable? If they advance a specific agenda, does the post disclose this? (Note that THIS post links to several reputable sites, including NPR, New York Times, history.com, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google, CNN, Snopes, and my own goingbeyondsustainability.com and greenandprofitable.com. Yes, I am aware of the issues in using Wikipedia or Youtube as the only source. I am also aware that Google gives them a tremendous amount of “link juice” because on the whole, they are considered authoritative. For both those citations, I had plenty of documentation from major news sites.) Strong documentation linking to known and respected sources is a sign to take the post seriously.

Does the post name-drop without specifics? See how the Win Without War letter mentions the Washington Post but leaves out the link? Remember that ancient email hoax citing longtime NPR reporter Nina Totenberg? Name-dropping to buy unsusbstantiated respect is not a good sign.Are the language and tone calm and rational, or screaming and sensationalist or even salacious?

Is the post attributed? Can you easily contact the creator?

And last but far from least, the most important question: Who benefits from the post’s point of view? What are their relationships to the post’s creator? (Hello, Russian trollbots!). Don’t just follow the money. Follow the power dynamics, too.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Order your copy of Shel’s newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect is Tearing Us Apart, by Howard J. Ross with Jonrobert Tartaglione

Ross sees the need to be part of community as essential; we are hard-wired to demand it, to form community in numerous ways. He sees two kinds of communities, though: inclusive and exclusionary. Exclusionary communities bond internally but create barriers outside their in-group: they see themselves as “us” against “them”—while inclusive communities build bridges (pp. 16-17).

While those divisions have always existed, Ross sees them escalating dangerously: “People are no longer merely disagreeing; instead they are disavowing each other’s right to an opinion” (p. xi). It’s much harder to forge coalitions across these divisions now, or even friendships. And we surround ourselves with bubbles of like-minded people, who reinforce our prejudices. And that kind of social isolation.

The barrier(s) could be cultural, racial, religious, class-based, gender, sexual orientation, etc.—but they also could be ideological. If we demonize the “enemy,” if we treat them as a batch of stereotypes and not as human beings with the best interests of the world in their hearts, we create that “us versus them.” But because we create it, we can undo it.

How we define our bonding communities shifts situationally. A conservative Muslim woman or a progressive gay Christian might bond with one set of people over politics, another through religion, and a third as part of the sisterhood of women (a majority group that still experiences discrimination) or within the gay community (a minority subculture)—and some of these communities would see membership in the others as anathema.

And sometimes, others put you in the category. When the news media identifies someone as a radical Islamic terrorist but doesn’t identify the Oklahoma City bombers or the man who shot up the concert in Las Vegas as Christian terrorists, that creates a false identification of Islam with terrorism, and that demonizes Muslims but not Christians (p. 19).

One key piece of identity politics is the difference in perception between members of the dominant and non-dominant groups: members of dominant groups typically don’t often think about the experience of those in non-dominant groups. Yet, a person of color or a woman or someone who identifies as another type of minority experiences daily reminders that society puts up physical, psychological, economic, and other barriers.

That difference in perception seems especially relevant during the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination process, which was still going on as I wrote this earlier this month. Ross says we’re all heroes of our own stories (p. 55); certainly, both Kavanagh and Ford presented themselves that way.

I blogged about some of the parallels at: https://greenandprofitable.com/kavanaugh-and-the-culture-of-belonging/ Please read it. This review doesn’t duplicate that post. Here, I talk much more specifically about the book, which has relevance to so many situations in society, the workplace, the community.

There’s a lot of good stuff in the book, including a few specific ideas for defusing conflict and forming community across those “them” barriers. I will say, though, that I expected more of that. I didn’t really feel I’d been given a toolkit—but perhaps that’s because I’ve been doing bridge-building work for decades. As long ago as 1977, when I and 1413 other safe energy activists were incarcerated in New Hampshire’s National guard armories following a protest at the Seabrook nuclear plant construction site, I was one among many of the protestors who reached out to the young, conservative Guardsmen overseeing our captivity. I was only 20. Since then, I’ve met with and even stayed with Muslims (I’m Jewish), Evangelical Christians, conservatives (I identify as progressive), and others on the other sides of those us-them mental fences.

Ross presents 10 specific ideas to become more inclusive, pp. 53-58. While I wish he had included more, what he does include shows great wisdom. Examples:

• Look for places you can partner with the other side: where does the right-wing goal of personal liberty [I’m not sure that’s as universal a concern as he says it is, but that’s a different discussion] intersect with the left-wing goal of justice [again, I see many on the right wanting justice; they just define it differently] (p. 53)?
• Don’t confuse voting for a candidate with supporting all that candidate’s positions or actions (p. 55). If you’re talking to a Trump voter, you may feel that person is enabling racism, bullying, lying, etc. But you may discover that person is not acting out of racism, but perhaps economic issues or ending abortion. Similarly, if you’re talking to a Hillary Clinton voter, you may go deep enough to find that this voter didn’t support Clinton’s hawkishness or her tone-deaf and entitled campaign, but wanted to keep an openly racist and mean-spirited “loose cannon” away from the most powerful job in the world. It’s worth remembering that both candidates were caught up in multiple corruption scandals, and the media was not sensitive to the vast differences in degree of corruption. So a lot of people voted as they did to vote against what they saw as someone even worse, rather than voting for a future they really wanted.

Ross notes that having situational privilege, being part of the dominant culture and mindset in a particular interaction, doesn’t mean you don’t face challenges. But the nature of the challenge is different; you don’t have to prove that what you wear or where you travel or how you speak meets society’s standards; if you’re found wanting, it won’t reflect badly on your entire subgroup (p. 91). You may not even notice that members of different subgroups often don’t share that good fortune. And you’re very unlikely to feel negative physical effects from being marginalized, if you never experience being marginalized (p. 113).

But note the word “situational.” A gay white male will experience situational privilege when the focus is on race or gender, but will be the marginalized minority in other ways. And those who hold the power typically face far lesser consequences when they stereotype and marginalize (p. 152). Members of the dominant religion or ethnic group in one country may see other religions as not only not sacred, but even heretical (p. 130)—while in a different country, the positions might be reversed. At its extreme, the consequences of marginalization include death; I happen to be reading a poetry collection dedicated to a martyred white gay man, Matthew Shepherd (October Mourning, by Leslea Newman).

All of this affects how we communicate, and how we communicate also affects bias behavior. Language creates thinking and believing patterns (pp. 124, 126, 184). Inuit languages include dozens of words for snow, while corporate English has dozens to describe different strata in management. In Hebrew or Spanish or German, every noun has a gender. In English, that’s not true. How do we think differently as a result? How does social media, which can organize both positive and hateful movements, and which can amplify (go viral) and distort (fake news) messaging very quickly (pp. 164-165), shift the dynamics?

The good news: we can overcome the conditioning. Peru and Ecuador managed to settle a 175-year-old border conflict in just 77 days in the 1970s, by using a “process-oriented mentality” to really listen to each other (p. 173). The two presidents won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so, because they were able to treat the other’s point of view as just that, a point of view (p. 179).

Interestingly, this kind of inclusive thinking works better, even when it’s not easy. “Belonging has to include the uncomfortable” (p. 180). He lists eight factors in effective diversity training (pp. 196-197), notes that “breakdowns can be the source of breakthroughs” (p. 213), and stresses the importance of staying civil when you and the other person disagree (p. 214). At its best, as in Nelson Mandela’s leadership in post-Apartheid South Africa, idealism and practicality come together to create something amazing (p. 215).

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