Principled Profit

A friend of my daughter’s was planning to visit her at college over Thanksgiving weekend, and we took advantage of this to courier a large book. While we were at it, and since my daughter was planning to cook a big holiday meal, my wife prepared a bottle of dried organic basil, rosemary, and oregano from our garden.

And then it hit me: the student is from Venezuela. TSA or Homeland Security might think it was drugs, and my daughter’s friend could be arrested or even deported. Ummm, let’s not send the herbs. And then, in a fit of paranoia, I decided that even though we’re 50 and Caucasian, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to bring the other bottle of herbs to my brother-in-law in Minnesota. After all, we also have to go through airport security!

I notice a few changes in my behavior. If I’m reading a magazine like Mother Jones (progressive politics), I’ll actually fold it open so the cover is not visible before arriving at the airport. And I very consciously don’t wear political t-shirts on airplanes. This is not paranoia; I’ve heard of a lot of cases of people stopped for wearing a shirt that had a harmless phrase in Arabic, or a peace message. If I’m going to be on the no-fly list, I want it to be for my writing and speaking, and not for my taste in fashion.

And TSA is consistently bizzare and inconsistent anyway. Once, my son was stopped because he had a set of tiny screwdrivers (about two or three inches long each) to adjust his oboe–like the sort of screwdrivers opticians use to tighten a pair of glasses. TSA said we couldn’t bring the set, but we could bring one of them. I asked if we could each take one, since there were four of us, and four screwdrivers. No, we had to throw the other three away. But somehow, I once discovered a week into my vacation that there was an actual knife–6-inch blade!–in my carry-on bag (a remnant from a potluck where I’d brought a loaf of fresh bread), and that went through security, no problem.

Oh yes, TSA also once made me eat my leftover broccoli and rice noodles that I was planning to have for lunch hours later–at 5:30 a.m.–because I happened to put it in a cottage cheese container! I managed to choke down a few mouthfuls, but it really wasn’t my idea of breakfast–and then I had to buy lunch later. Grrrr!

So, you can rest safe and secure in the knowledge that no terrorists in either Minnesota or Ohio will be smoking our rosemary. Doesn’t that make you feel much better?

Yesterday, I thought I’d invented the word “jargonaut.” Then I found out it already existed.

And in today’s world, there’s no excuse for my not checking. It was, after all, a pretty obvious coinage, and William Safire used it 27 years ago.

So my two lessons here are:

1. If you think you’ve invented something, check on Google. and you won’t feel like an idiot if someone beat you to it. Many good ideas were developed independently by researchers/inventors in different locations, but they didn’t have the luxury of the Internet. I do and should have used it.

2. If you make a mistake, own up to it. I made a mistake. It’s not life-threatening but I do have to backtrack to all the places where I made the claim, and correct it. And then it’ll be done.

Today through Friday, I’m blogging daily on the Blogger’s Code of Ethics at the blog of the International Association of Online Communicators (IAOC).

My first post identifies which of the numerous codes of ethics we’ll be working from, and focuses on the biggest ethics issue I see: disclosure.

Wow, they’re fast! Points for customer service, for sure. Less than an hour after I posted my query.

But the response was ambiguous, if polite:

Thanks for your message. We appreciate your thoughtful insight into our Terms
& Conditions and will take your comments into consideration. Apologies if your
reservations prevents you from becoming a member.

What this means is that I may join, but I’m not going to post anything useful on the forums until the TOS is changed.

I got an invitation to join a social network called Xing. It’s a business-oriented group based in Germany.

It looked promising, so I started the sign up process. Got all the way down to agreeing to the terms of service. I do give these a quick scan, because sometimes there are unfriendly clauses. This was one of those times.

First, a thank-you to Xing for making the type nice and big and legible. I have no patience with TOS agreements in 8-point type and have bailed on some, or if I was really in a position to need the service, taken the extra step to copy into Word and blow it up big enough to read.

The first thing I saw that made me say “huh” was one of the grounds for termination:

If the User is a member of a religious sect or a denomination that is controversial in Germany.

I’m assuming this is to keep hate groups out, but it’s very strangely worded. What isn’t controversial, after all? But I’m not a member of any terrorist orgs so OK, I’ll let it go.

But then, I found this:

When the User posts his or her contribution to a forum, the User grants XING an unlimited, irrevocable and assignable right of use for the respective contribution, which XING is entitled to utilize for any purpose. In particular, XING is entitled to keep said contribution on the forum, and on its Web sites and the Web sites of its partners, or use it for marketing the forum in any other way.

Consequently, XING has a right of use over all contributions to discussion forums it operates. Duplication or the use of these contributions or their contents in other electronic or printed publications is prohibited without the express written consent of XING. Copying, downloading, dissemination, distribution and storing of the contents of XING and/or third parties, with the exception of the cache memory when searching for forum pages, is prohibited without its express consent.

Um, excuse me, but no. I make my living as a writer. I want the ability to repurpose my own posts without crawling to Xing for permission. I certainly recognize Xing’s need to display and desire to have the option of parading my stuff around–but not if they don’t let me do the same. So this is what I submitted on the contact form:

Question About Terms of Service

I have a question about Clause 12, and I can’t really complete the signup until this is answered. As currently written, this transfers all rights to you from the poster. Wouldn’t it make more sense to take the nonexclusive rights you claim i the second paragraph, and then in the second paragraph after the words, “Duplication or the use of these contributions or their contents in other electronic or printed publications” INSERT “by anyone other than the original author of the forum post”

As a professional writer, I am quite concerned about my intellectual property rights. If I were to join under the current language, I would not contribute any forum posts (and I’m someone who posts extensively to Internet discussions)–because I wouldn’t want to ask permission to use my own words in a blog post, article, or book at some point.

I’ll let you know their response.

This is a post I’ve been wanting to write for over a month, but it deals with some big concepts and I wanted to let it roll around the back of my brain until it was ready to come out. And Erev Rosh Hashana, the night beginning the Jewish New year, is the perfect time to do it.

As a teenager and young adult, I was very skeptical about God in general, and about prayer in particular. Over time, and especially the last few years, I’ve made more space for God in my life. Not the beaded and fierce old man of my childhood, but a spiritual force, a higher power. And in the last year or so, I’ve begun actively communicating with that higher power, asking for advice–usually about little things.

On July 30, I was bicycling the hilly state highway I live on, coming back from the post office in South Hadley, Massachusetts. I was just coming out of one of the downhills, going at a good clip, when I got caught in a pothole I hadn’t even seen. I remember hitting the pothole, and the next thing I can remember is lying on the ground, unable to get up, bleeding from 19 different places, and in acute pain.

Somehow, I managed to flag down the next car. The driver, and another car coming the other way (Peter Edge of South Hadley, and thank you so much), helped me to sit on the guardrail and called my wife to come get me. My wife took me to see our regular doctor, who prescribed some Percoset and a sling and told me to get seen by an orthopedist.

But I couldn’t get an appointment until the next day, and even though it was strong enough that the pharmacy had to follow narcotics procedures, the Percoset did absolutely nothing for my pain.

I spent the whole rest of the day in severe pain, barely able to move. Shortly before I went to bed, I decided to ask for help. I sent this email to several hundred people:

Dina is typing for me because I can’t. I had a bicycle accident, broke my arm, and am in severe agony. Couldn’t see the orthopedist until tomorrow afternoon. Please send healing energy to me.

TIA
Shel

My wife checked the e-mail just before she came upstairs for the night, and reported that there were over a dozen responses. Just knowing that they were there lightened my load, and I was able to get some sleep.

In all, I got and responded to 30 messages–which means, probably, somewhere between 50 and 300 people actually held me in their prayers for a moment or more. An abundance of positive energy.

And I have to tell you, it worked a heck of a lot better than Percoset!

Charles Hayes is one of my favorite commentators. Coming from a very conservative background, he nonetheless has a very progressive slant. He first came to my attention as a client several years ago, seeking publicity help for his brilliant book on self-education and liberalism, Beyond the American Dream.

I’ve just read two of his essays posted here: “Liberal vs. Conservative: Peace at Last.” and “Did the Cold War Condition Us to Fear Democracy?”

Like everything I’ve read by Charles, these are very thoughtful pieces. Not an easy read, but certainly within all of our grasp, and worth the effort.

Charles sees five pillars holding up society, but the liberals lean on two and conservatives on the other three, causing a great deal of friction. In typical Charles fashion–a brilliant and very well-read self-educated man–he quotes many sources, including George Lakoff (whose analysis I think is vital for an understanding of the liberal vs. the conservative mind.

And Charles’ perspective on this is especially fascinating because he was raised a southern conservative, is a veteran (Marines), and came to liberalism much later in life. Personally, I think liberals have at least as much need for community as conservatives, but they seek a *different kind* of community. And both liberals and conservatives can support caring communities; evangelical churches and fundamentalist Muslims have often been actively involved in homeless shelters, feed-the-hungry, and other social service ventures.

I’ve been having a correspondence this week with a very conservative Muslim friend who’s active on a publishing discussion list that I frequent–a retired state trooper who now runs a press that publishes American Muslim fiction, especially by women. She and I value many of the same things, but the expression of those values takes very different forms. Yet we have a great deal of respect for each other. Today, she proposed an Israel-Palestine peace idea that would make any liberal proud. And yet she repeatedly razzes on a listmate who is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, accuses him of hating America, and tells us that we have a great deal to fear from radical Muslim extremists, even though she sees them as violating key precepts of Islam.

One of the things I’ve learned to do well is to seek common ground with people who are different from me. They can hear me a lot better that way, and perhaps some part of my message of peace and social change gets through. My dialogue with this woman is an example of that, the sort of dialogue that Charles says is entirely too absent from the discourse.

And I think he’s right. We spend so much time shouting at each other and so little time listening., Yet we make big progress when we do engage, and listen, and talk.

My greatest successes as an organizer/activist always come when I’m able to help people find unity. It gave me huge satisfaction back when I did Save the Mountain (2000) to drive around the neighborhood and see our lawn signs sharing lawns with signs for Gore, Nader, *and* Bush. We had found the common ground–and we involved thousands of people and won a nearly complete victory. And I find, over and over again, for 30 years, that when we listen respectfully to each other, we not only find common ground, but we grow in our thinking a our analysis is challenged.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet many people over the years who’ve truly made a difference in the world. I met another one today, in a nursing home in Bellingham, Washington.

Bob Luitweiler is 87 and ill with cancer–but he still talks about the alternative school he’d like to start. He demands a lot from his visitors: hearty, probing conversation that goes deep about personal lives and about the state of the world, punctuated by references to various books and magazines that surround his sickbed. He sprinkles his conversation with several snippets of other languages, and we have a long talk about whether to be optimistic that people will come out of their self-centered cocoons in time to avert the coming environmental crisis (I’m more optimistic than he is)–and about life in the post-Word War II, pre-NATO Denmark of alternative folk schools, peace, community, and an excellent safety net.

Bob is the founder of Servas, an international traveler/host network that fosters peace through international communication. As a member of this organization since 1983, I have enjoyed fabulous times both as a traveler and a host–and when our host offered to bring us over, I was delighted. It has made traveling not only much more affordable, but also much more of an experience of abundance (I strongly recommend this organization–here’s an article I wrote about the basic concept, and another describing ten of my favorite homestay moments–scroll down past the response to 9/11 article). Servas was started as a peace organization after Bob (who has been to 53 countries and speaks something like seven languages) experienced that remarkable culture of Denmark in the days following World War II, and now offers no-cost homestays in over 140 countries. We’ve enjoyed this very special way of travel in four different continents so far, including stays in Paris, London, Prague, Athens, Jerusalem, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and numerous small towns, backwoods cabins, and more.

Knowing that he was ill, I expected we’d visit for 20 or 30 minutes–but Bob didn’t want to let us go. He seemed thrilled to have a deep conversation, and when we finally excused ourselves after an hour and a half, he was deeply disappointed. He said he wanted to know us better and asked if we could come back another time before we leave the area. (Postscript: he called the following morning to tell us that our visit had been “the greatest gift of the last six months.”)

Clearly, this man who has accomplished so much has a lot more he’d like to do before his time is up.

For my wife’s 50th birthday, her parents sent us on a cruise through Alaska’s Inside Passage–a magnificent trip.

But it got me thinking–surely there are more eco-friendly ways to run a cruise ship. There ae astounding issues of waste aboard ship, and with so many ships plying these waters, the impact on fragile ecologies in these beautiful locations we all want to visit can be quite significant–and quite negative. And then I found out that on top of issues like food waste, ship sewage gets dumped into the water! There’s got to be a better way.

So, while still on the ship, I started working on a business plan for an eco-friendly cruise line that would serve as a lab for (and be funded initially by) the traditional cruise lines, developing new Green practices and technologies that the whole fleet could adopt. And maybe the land-based hotel industry could get in on it as well.

Making this a reality is a bigger task than I could take on on my own but if any one has ideas as to how to make this a reality, I’m very willing to listen, and to share my thinking. E-mail me through my contact form on http://www.frugalmarketing.com.

And hey, I’d love to be Marketing Director if such a line ever launches . Let’s reinvent this industry together.

A

Very refreshing article in the New York Times about foundations not only not burying their mistakes, but actually looking at how they happened, what went wrong, and what to do better the next time around.

Just a few years ago, it would have been astonishing for a foundation, particularly one as traditional as Carnegie, to publicize a failure. Today, though, many of the nation’s largest foundations regard disclosing and analyzing their failures as bordering on a moral obligation.

“There’s an increasing recognition among foundation leaders that not to be public about failures is essentially indefensible,” said Phil Buchanan, the executive director of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which advises foundations. “If something didn’t work, it is incumbent upon you to make sure others don’t make the same mistake.

I see this as a welcome trend, and one that businesses can learn from. Failure is not something to be ashamed of. I had a number of failures in business before I started the one I’m in now, back in 1981–and even then, it had to change with the times. It has reinvented itself several times, and I feel another reinvention percolating (don’t know how it will shape up yet).

Entrepreneurs almost always have failures to “brag” about. otherwise, we wouldn’t be entrepreneurs, because in order of succeed, you have to take risks.

When asked about has many failed attempts to develop a light bulb, Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have
successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” (Quoted in The
World Bank. 1994. World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for
Development. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press and cited here.)

I’ll tell you about a few of my failures over the years, within my current, successful business:

I won’t bore you with the whole long list. But I do think it’s important to take stock, to reflect on the mistakes/failures as well as the brilliant successes. I’ve learned, I’ve channeled my energy into becoming not only more successful financially, but a better person. And it’s showing results.

I urge you to admit and discuss your setbacks as well as your successes.

Maybe I should add admitting setbacks to the Business Ethics Pledge.