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Entries Tagged as 'Business Ethics'

Another Case of Customer Service Stupidity

January 17th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Business Ethics, Customer Service as Marketing, Shel's Personal Life

Rule Number One of my approach to marketing is to treat the customer right. As I say in my books, it’s far cheaper to bring back an existing customer than to have to go out and recruit a new one. And even in the following case, where there is no likelihood of a repeat purchase, [...]

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Advice to New Entreprenurs

December 16th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship

My friend Denise O’Berry is running a contest for the best advice to new entrepreneurs. I don’t have much use for the prize (a year of blog hosting at Network Solutions–I’m happy hosting my own blog), but it felt like a fun and seasonal thing to do. Here’s what I posted:
1. Be as helpful and [...]

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Are Kids Really More Prone to Lie than Previously

November 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Business Ethics, Ethics: General, Web 2.0/Social Media

Here’s a depressing article that says today’s teens think they have to lie and cheat their way to success.
Sorry—I’m not buying it! Call me naive, but I’m the parent of both a teenage boy and a bit-past-teenaged girl. Among their friends, I see a delightfully high awareness about the importance of an ethical, socially conscious [...]

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Ben Franklin: Genius and Contradictions

November 27th, 2009 · 5 Comments · Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Ethics: General, Publishing, Transparency vs. Secrecy, propaganda

While visiting Minneapolis, I took in the opening day of the new Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. I’ve long ben a Franklin fan. To me, his far-reaching curiosity, big-picture viewpoint, multiple interests, creativity, willingness to question authority and even make fun of it, media and persuasion skills, dedication [...]

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Social Responsibility: A Global Virtual Summit–Q&A with John Gerstner/Discount Offer

November 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability

What motivated you to organize this conference?

You could say this was an alignment of some stars that had been orbiting for quite awhile. First, social responsibility (or sustainability, corporate citizenship and green) is a topic I’m very interested in, going back to when I was Manager of Environmental & Safety Communication at John Deere [...]

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The Unethical Nature of Anti-Competitive Behavior

October 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Business Ethics, Transparency vs. Secrecy

Guest post by Elizabeth Johnson
I was very proud of the notebook computer I had purchased a year ago; in my mind, I felt I had secured a good deal and that it was value for money. The only flaw (if you could call it that) was that it came with the Norton Antivirus security solution. [...]

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Earth to Marketers: Don’t Act Like We’re Stupid!

October 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Advertising, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

Respect your prospect’s intelligence! It’s one of the points I make repeatedly in Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–and with good reason. To succeed in business, you need long-term relationships. And you don’t get them by insulting people.
I could list bad-practice examples from now until the end of time. Every once in a while, [...]

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Sidewiki Makes Me Question Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” Mantra

October 7th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Business Ethics, Ethics-International, Media Ethics, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media

mmediate spark of this post (which has been brewing for over a week), is my deep concern about Google’s Sidewiki.Sidewiki, as I understand it, allows users who have the Google Toolbar installed to comment, unmoderated, in an area that appears on the left side of the webpage–but those comments are only visible to others who have the Toolbar installed! Among the many evils this can lead to: spamming, blocking site owners’ sources of revenue (or even replacing them with links that benefit those commenting), loss of control over one’s own website, black hat search technique, slander of site owners or contributors, unethical business practices such as deceptive advertising, and even something as simple as wrecking the aesthetic and content integrity of a carefully designed website

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Your Comment? Porritt: CSR Won’t Save Amoral Businesses

September 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability

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 [...]

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Don’t Publishers Have an Obligation to Tell Authors They’re Publishing?

September 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · Business Ethics, Publishing

While going through the claiming process in the Google Books settlement (if you’re an author, you should do so too–by tomorrow!–so you get royalties if they sell your stuff, or can opt out), I discovered that my very first book, co-authored with a well-known NYC literary agent and a subject-matter expert, had been published as [...]

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