Last Saturday, June 18^th, the first ever nationwide fundraiser benefitting the Young Faces of ALS was held in 14 cities across the country.  All over the US, people of all ages were playing the classic tailgate game, cornhole.  Not only was everyone having a great time, they were getting the ALS Therapy Development Institute (TDI) one step closer to finding a cure, or at least an effective treatment, for ALS.

As mentioned in a previous post (http://wagshoppermarketing.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-volunteer-why-not.html), WAG became involved with ALS TDI and the Young Faces of ALS campaign over a year ago when I started working here.  The volunteer spirit must be contagious, as everyone here at WAG has contributed their skills in someway to help raise awareness and money for this disease.  As soon as it was determined that the national fundraiser would be a cornhole tournament, WAG set to work designing logos, posters, flyers, e-mailers, banners, etc.

Planning this event was no small task.  I worked with my friend’s family to put on the local event in San Francisco, as well as working with the people at ALS TDI to figure out the logistics of the event on a national scale.  The San Francisco tournament was held at the amazing Great Meadow at Fort Mason.  We took a gamble with June weather in the city, but we were so lucky that it paid off.

The event in San Francisco was nothing short of amazing.  About 150 two-person teams played in the tournament, and at least 100 spectators spent the day at Fort Mason enjoying the competition, beer, music, food and raffle.  The Aidells sausages were hot off the BBQ, bags of PopChips were being opened left and right, Gordon Beirsch beer was flowing, and DJ Leethalmix kept the energy high.  What is most amazing…all of these things were donated.  Companies recognized a good cause and gave willingly of what they had that we could use.  Seeing all the people that showed up to work as volunteers was another amazing sight.  Some people found our event on Volunteer Match, others were just random sign-ups, and then there was Simply Hired that brought 15+ volunteers as part of their volunteer day program.  Everyone was hustling to make the event run smoothly, and did so with a smile…all day.

If a day comes where my faith in humanity needs to be restored, I will think back to June 18^th, 2011.  It was great to see all the people that love and support my friend there, but greater than that was seeing all the people there that don’t know my friend from a hole in the wall.  People that saw a poster hanging in a bar, an ad on Facebook, or through word of mouth and decided to devote their Saturday to playing cornhole for a cause.  The highlight of my day, was meeting a group of men who came after seeing the WAG designed poster hanging in the window of a dive bar on Polk St.  I specifically remember hanging that poster too, and thinking that this particular bar just was not our demographic, but what the heck.  One of these men saw the poster and recognized ALS as the same disease that had killed his friend’s mom two years ago.  Not only did he round up his friends, but he brought TEN TEAMS, and wants to get his company involved with the Young Faces of ALS!  He promised to bring 50 teams next year.   Just when I felt that maybe all the hitting of the pavement we did with posters and flyers may not have paid off, it did so ten-fold.

Across the country, we met and then exceeded our $100,000 fundraising goal.  But maybe even more importantly, we brought awareness of ALS to thousands; and unlike money, that is something that can’t run out. 

Immediately after the event, I went home and thought of the improvements I would want to make for next year: #1- MAKE IT BIGGER!  Next year, not only do I believe that all of this years participants will come back to challenge the 70+ year old Mr. Sagali and his son for the San Francisco title, but I’m confident that the spirit of fundraising (and simply a good time) will spread to those around them- just as I am grateful that it did here at WAG.

Meandering Thoughts on Plastic Wrap

I use plastic wrap for my sandwich that I take to work for lunch. You’d think after all these years that the manufacturers would have figured out how to dispense this product without having it become hopelessly stuck together on its roll in the box. Much less get it to tear evenly once you’ve managed to get it unrolled. So I started to wonder: Just how long HAVE they had to get this under control?

I searched online and read that Saran polyvinylidene chloride or Saran resins and films have been wrapping products for more than 50 years. Saran works by polymerizing vinylide chloride with monomers such as acrylic esters and unsaturated carboxyl groups, forming long chains of vinylide chloride–this copolymerization produces a film with molecules bound so tightly together that very little gas or water can get through.

Got all that? I started to fade a bit at “copolymerization”. I was an art major in college, and the only science classes I took were under duress. In a high school science class I once answered an involved test question about the differences between plant and animal life with the smart-ass answer of “One has a root, the other a foot”. That answer got a shocked look and a stifled laugh from the girl sitting next to me, and my teacher was only mildly amused.

As often seems to happen, the discovery of plastic wrap came about inadvertently. In 1933, Ralph Wiley, a college student who cleaned glassware in a Dow Chemical lab, accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride–only because he couldn’t wash it out of the beakers he was trying to scrub clean.

Dow researchers managed to make Ralph's discovery into a greasy, dark green film, which Dow trade named "Saran". Why “Saran”? According to someone on the web, “The Turkish word 'sarmak' mean 'to wrap'. 'Saran' is the present participle of 'sarmak'. In other words, saran = wrapping in Turkish.” Someone at Dow was a Turkish scholar? Another explanation for the name is that Wiley's two daughters were named Sara and Ann. Hence the polymer he created was named "Saran." Take your pick.

However the name came about, the product was only a middling success initially. The military sprayed Saran on fighter planes to guard against salty sea spray, and carmakers used it on upholstery to protect the seats against the elements (and the mishaps of small children). Dow continued to refine Saran, eliminating its original green hue, and ridding it of its offensive odor. Hey, it’s always been hard to market products with offensive odor. Even in the name of progress in the “go-go” post World War II era, when an optimistic America believed that science could solve any problem, deal with any issue.

Dow finally got their Saran film out to the consumer in the form of Saran Wrap, the first cling wrap designed first for commercial use (1949) and then into households in 1953. Over the years, it’s been discovered that the plasticizers in PVC can migrate to some foods such as cheese, fatty fish and even meat. It's caused enough concern that several countries around the world have banned it. Today, most plastic wrap for home use no longer contains PVC’s; instead they are made of low density polyethylene (LDPE). It doesn’t cling quite as well, but it’s probably better for your leftovers.

I visited the Saran Wrap site and learned that I am not alone in my mishaps with plastic wrap. Here are a couple of gripes consumers have posted:

“What can I do to prevent losing the end of my Saran Plastic Wrap and keep it from tearing when I unroll it?”

“My Saran Wrap keeps popping out of the box when I use it. How can I prevent this?”

Not to mention the numerous complaints about the wrap not sticking, or sticking too much–generally to itself. On the roll. Seems there are a lot of people who are plastic wrap challenged.

 I discovered there’ are several alternative uses for plastic wrap aside from the intended. To wit: prevent ice crystals from forming on ice cream in the freezer. Completely wrap the ice cream container in plastic wrap before returning it to the freezer. Oh, right. And while you’re at it, wrap the dog so you don’t have to vacuum up pet hair ever again...

I did like this one: Clean the top of your refrigerator for the last time! Clean it, then cover it with overlapping layers of plastic wrap. When it gets dirty again, merely pull off the wrap and put down a new layer. For those of you that think it would be tacky and ugly to cover the top of your refrigerator in plastic wrap, I’ve got to ask you–how often do you look up there? It’s already tacky and ugly.

So now I know more about plastic wrap than I will ever need to know in my lifetime. And though I have been told that with knowledge comes power, I know that in my daily battle with the wrap, the wrap shall triumph more than I. And probably draw blood, too, just to show it can.

Jules Verne's Birthday, Oh What a Journey!

Today is February 8, 2011 and it is the 183rd Birthday of Jules Verne! Yippee, who's Jules Verne?

Jules Verne is the mastermind author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and may very well have been the first creative writer of exploration! Jules was able to take us Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (28,272 miles!),* Around the World in 80 Days (24,901 miles!) and on a Journey to the Center of the Earth (3,959 miles) ­taking us a total of 57,132 creative miles in three books!!

 

In review of the mileage, I became puzzled . How can you go 28,000+ miles under the ocean, but to get to the center of the earth it¹s only about 4,000 miles? It was a question that needed Google research! In my research, I found LOTS and LOTS of creative material centered around "Twenty Thousand Leagues", but hard as I looked, I couldn't find an explanation for Jules' math. However, I did find a Saturday Night Live skit that ponders this very same question:

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93qleagues.phtml

But really, who cares if Jules was accurate? It was 1869 when he wrote the book! Jules took readers to places they had never even ventured to think about, let alone imagine themselves going! He used creativity to capture his audience by introducing visuals of historic proportions! By bringing to life the Nautilus, Captain Nemo's famous Œfish-like' submarine, he introduced another world to his readers and brought them the experience of walking on the bottom of the ocean (which could have never happened the way Jules described it. They would have been crushed by the water pressure but that¹s
another story!)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has been made into a radio show, a play, a TV show, several movies and a ride at Disney World. There is even a soundtrack with the macho man himself, Kirk Douglas, singing! Google has continued this legacy by honoring the creative genius with a special Google logo today in honor of his 183rd birthday. The logo is super fun, and definitely creative as it's interactive. If you move the handle to the left of the logo, you can peek through the submarine's portholes to take a look at the ocean, and then move the level around to look at different ocean
views.

Jules pushed the creative limit by writing a book that not only fascinated people of the nineteenth century, but is still fascinating people today as evidenced by Google's logo! Here's to creativity, all the way around, which makes for a better, more interesting world.


*A "league" is an ancient unit derived from the Gauls and introduced into England by the Normans. It was estimated by the Romans to be equal to 1,500 paces‹a pace, or passus, in Roman measure being nearly 5 feet.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Preserve!!

The Preserve toothbrush isn’t anything special in itself.  It’s got a nice shape and the bristles are soft enough nylon, some good colors too (dark blue!) but there are so many other reasons to love about my Preserve Toothbrush.

A toothbrush, you may ask?  How can you love your toothbrush?  Well, let me state the ways.

There are many reasons why I love it but lets start with their ‘green’ sustainable packaging!!  The Preserve Toothbrush packaging that sits on-shelf at my Whole Foods is the exact packaging that, following my 3-month use, I utilize as a ‘mailer’ to send back the toothbrush to Preserve.  BACK?  Did she say, “BACK?”  Yes, I said back because the packaging that you purchase your toothbrush in is the same package that you use to return the brush to Preserve for recycling! 

Isn’t that dynamic?  Preserve Toothbrush is not only sustainable in that they are made from 100% recycled yogurt cups, they may very well be the only product that is returned for recycling via US MAIL - how cool is that?  They are leveraging the energy expended already by the US Mail, an organization that comes to each of our homes daily, to reduce the environmental impact of transportation retrieving their product for recycling!

See the 'BUSINESS REPLY LABEL'?  no postage necessary!! 

Lets recap the main reasons I love Preserve:

1.     Love that they actually recycle toothbrushes!!  They are the only toothbrushes on the market that’s recyclable!

2.     Love the ‘on-shelf/return mailer’ package!

3.     Love the use of recycled Yogurt cups!

4.     Love their utilization of transportation that’s already in use- our own US Postal service!

5.     Love that they actually use the recycled toothbrushes for park benches!

Now the minor reasons why I love Preserve:

1.     Prefer their on-shelf package to a toothbrush that has a ‘carrying case’! 

2.     I still love my Sonic-Care toothbrush too but I need to use a ‘manual’ brush to rinse anyway so Preserve is perfect for the rinse cycle!

And, one other great product benefit I forgot to mention:  My dog Taiga LOVES them and uses them to brush his teeth.  I give Taiga my toothbrush after 3 months use and he loves it!  He brushes his teeth, and then leaves the Preserve on the floor ready for me to recycle!  I’m certain the Preserve people wonder why my toothbrushes are so ‘chewed up’!!  Want to see The Taig in action with my Preserve? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqIjbBh5d5k

Thank you Preserve.  Thanks for the great product, thanks for thinking about the environment and a big thanks from Taiga!  Ruff, ruff!!  I hope more consumer product companies follow your lead!

Starbucks are you GREEN? OR are you capitalizing on your SLIPPAGE?

Starbuck's latest mailer.

I have to admit, I have a latte problem- I just don’t feel comfortable at my desk in the morning unless I have a latte in hand.  I’m not brand loyal to coffee, but I do enjoy a good cup IF I don’t have to go out of my way.  A few weeks ago I got a $55. Parking ticket as I talked to a baby at my local coffee shop (World Grounds, Oakland) and I didn’t want that to happen again so my local Oakland shop loses so I can drive where the parking is free…Starbucks!

Knowing that I planned to go to Starbucks at least 4x a week, I signed up for their ‘Gold Card’.  Unlike their other membership card (the one I paid $25. for and liked better!!), Starbucks changed to the ‘Gold Card’ – personalized with your name- for loyal consumers like me!  The Gold Card allows me to get free soy milk, free coffee refills, a free drink on my birthday and a free drink after I’ve collected 15 stars.  Makes me happy, I think.

I’m not enamored by the ‘buy 15, get one free’ offer.  Fifteen is a LOT of lattes, but it’s Starbucks so it’s expected that the reward threshold would be high.  What really bothers me and the sole reason I’m even writing this blog post is this:  when you qualify for your FREE drink from your 15 ‘buy’s, you get a postcard in the mail.  The postcard explains that you must have this printed postcard in hand at Starbucks to get the free drink!!  AND there is an expiration date on the postcard so you must use it quick!

HUH??  Why is this?  Starbucks knows who I am, they know my name in every store, and they know what I drink everyday.  I have their App telling me my ‘Gold Card’ balance in real time, my drink recipe, locations of the closest Starbucks based on my GPS, so why do I need a printed card to redeem my free ‘reward’ drink or my free ‘birthday’ drink?  Why doesn’t Starbucks Reward program electronically add my ‘free reward’ onto my ‘Gold Card’ to make it simple and easy to redeem?  My little local Coffee shop gives you a card with a bar code that they scan to register your purchases to offer free beverages too.  They don’t send you a postcard.  They scan and then tell you your eligible.  So, why doesn’t the largest coffee company in the world offer the same customer convenience as the small mom and pop shop?  Slippage, people, slippage. 

Slippage is when retailers offer consumers something for free during a promotion but the consumer doesn’t redeem.  This is the ultimate little coup.  The company offers you benefits to purchase but if you don’t redeem the reward, the company doesn't have to pay out!  They win double!!  They got you to take advantage of their offer (purchase) but when you fail to use their ‘postcard’ to redeem, they won again.  Pretty smart, eh?

But, so what if Starbucks wins twice.  Its not the end of my world and will not alter my life, however, its not their ridiculous offer of one free latte after 15 latte purchases (that offer is almost laughable, certainly gratuitous), what really frustrates me is that Starbucks would rather print and send out thousands of these postcards just to gain slippage then go the easy, direct, most green method of reward transfer and the method I’m sure a majority of their customers prefer, electronic transfer.  I’m not happy that Starbucks prefers to cut down trees and expend energy just so they don’t have to redeem their lowly consumer offer so I took a further look at their policies. 

I visited the Starbucks website and viewed their ‘responsibility page’ where they tout their ‘goals and progress’, http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/learn-more/goals-and-progress.  On this site they claim commitment to doing business responsibly for forty years.  They even have a scorecard you can download.  They have all kinds of community involvement projects, environment stewardship and ethical sourcing.  What they don’t have and what they don’t claim, is they don’t activate minor actions that could immediately make a difference.  Things like electronic rewards instead of postcards, compostable cups, (been to NYC at 5:30?  Seen all those bags of trash?  How many bags of trash a day is Starbucks generating everyday on this planet??!!), recycling bins in all stores, to name a few.  These things seem so easy to do and if Starbucks were committed, as they claim they are, they would be doing EVERYTHING they can to be environmentally friendly.

Big changes can come from lots of small efforts.  Starbucks, stop wasting the postcards and start providing your rewards electronically.  Then, maybe, just maybe, Howard Schultz’s Great Great Great Grandchildren will have trees too!

Socialnomics is a Great Entry Book for Social Media Marketing

But don't take my word for it:

"Most people with a pulse can tell you that Facebook and Twitter are all the rage, but Socialnomics drives it home with detailed examples from organizations that have embraced social media and found huge success (Obama’s campaign detailed in Chapter 4), to companies that have missed the boat (see Hasbro’s Scrabble incident in Chapter 7).  It’s interesting stories like these that really drive home how powerful social media can be when taken seriously."  www.jasonyormark.com

"In Socialnomics, the book, Erik goes into how social media has allowed the average person to have a say with regard to products or services he or she may be interested in, or critical of. More importantly, he goes into how businesses can use social media to become more relevant.

Businesses that do not engage their customers and ignore them online will do so at their own peril. Prior to Internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, the only way to reach potential customers were though mediums that interrupted them — billboard, radio commercials, TV, and direct mail. Consumers are not paying attention to these mediums and are giving much more credence to what other consumers are saying about products and services."  blogcritics.org writer Laura Betterly

"Erik puts it all in context in the first 3 chapters and explains how social media is not a “time suck” or an insane distraction – as some of us initially thought, myself included – but rather a more efficient and deeper way to communicate.
I found myself nodding along the whole way, and really seeing the bigger picture – outside of online business and internet marketing. How social media is changing the way we talk, shop, learn, share… and even vote." clicknewz.com writer Lynn Terry

Why Ingrid Betancourt is a Haagen-Dazs lover for life!!

I lay in my comfy cozy bed with my 9000 thread count sheets.  I feel uneasy if the slightest bit of light is shining through my bedroom curtains.  My husband must cover the blue of his alarm clock and the room must be completely silent, then, and only then, can sleep come to me.  Oh, and the room must not be too hot and my feet must not be covered.  These are my prerequisites to a good night sleep.

Sleep is important.  Sleep is part of being healthy.  Good sleep, good food, good exercise, good hygiene, we all know the mantra and we try to practice it every day.  But what if there are no comfy cozy beds, no warm food, no exercise and no hygiene? As I go through my everyday life worrying about the most mundane of matters, like where I can find the cheapest Greenies (Dog treats!) for the Dog, I realize not everyone has my life.  Some people have real life dramas happening right now- things that movies are made of.  I realize that in this big world there is a LOT happening so anything that isn’t going right for me is probably miniscule in the scheme of things.  And that’s the way I look at life everyday now that I met Ingrid Betancourt and read her book “"Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle".

Ingrid Betancourt was running for President of Colombia when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped her in February 2002.  She was warned not to go into a rebel-controlled area, but in her own words, the President of Colombia was venturing forward into this area, so she thought she was safe.  At a roadblock, she looked down at the boots of the soldiers.  She knew that if the boots were rubber these were the guerillas, but if the boots were leather, these were the feet of Colombian soldier.  By the time Ingrid could recognize the rubber boots and demand that her driver immediately turn around, the rebels had surrounded her car and she was captive.  Thus began her long journey into hell on earth.

The rebels knew Ingrid Betancourt and they were happy to have her.  They knew with Ingrid they would have a bargaining chip with the Colombian government, as she was well known and well supported by both the Colombian and the French Government with her dual citizenship.  Ingrid was a ‘well-known’ prisoner.  This was a good, and a bad, thing.

She spent many of these years side-by-side with her publicist, Clara Rojas, who was also captured with Ingrid. Clara and Ingrid spent the first year as each other’s only company. They shared a 6’x4’ living space where they slept, spent their day, exercised and ate their meals. If they had to use the bathroom, they went together.

The Bathroom?  When I leave my comfy cozy bed, I often think of Ingrid’s ‘bathroom’.  Her bathroom was several holes in the ground.  When they got ‘full’ they were simply covered.  When Ingrid first used the ‘holes’ she asked her escort where the generator was as she heard a loud and consistent buzz of machinery.  Her escort laughed, and then shined her light on the ‘hole’s’ where thousands of bugs swarmed making the incessant noise of Ingrid’s ‘generator’.

She attempts escape.  She runs out in the middle of the jungle in the dark, dark night with Clara.  They run as fast as they cannot see a single thing, as the jungle is black; they know the rebels are close behind.  They stop to catch their breath as their hearts pound out of their chests.  Ingrid can feel heat so close to her she could reach out and touch it.  They stand in the dark knowing that they are so close to being captured.  Movement.  An animal brushes past Ingrid’s leg.  She will never know what it was.  In the jungle, it could have been a panther, a wild boar or something else.  They keep running.  The next day Clara leaves the backpack on the side of the road as the women walk down to a stream for drinking water. As they climb back up to the road, there is a rebel waiting.  He smiles and shoots his gun alerting the others that he has found the prisoners. He won.

They chain Ingrid around the neck and walk her back to the compound chained like a dog.  They tie the chain to a tree near her sleeping compound.  She can move but if she moves too much, the chain cuts into her neck. To use the bathroom, they remove the chains and for this, she is very grateful. 

As the Colombian militia moved closer into the jungle to look for Ingrid and the other kidnapped victims, FARC moved the prisoners.  Each time they are moved, first by main roads to minor roads to pathways, they move further up into the jungle.  They were sometimes lead by mules and sometimes were put in boats, small and large, to float up the river.   After a 40-mile march, they were finally sent to a prisoner’s camp with a group of hostages and lived in a prison like environment. 

As hostages they fought for everything that meant anything- food, space, favors from the guards.  They learned that while they had no influence with each other, they could influence the guards who used their vulnerability against them. When you are captive and fighting for everything in your life, you become aggressive towards those that have something you don’t.  The guards knew this and used intimidation whenever possible.  To scare them from trying to escape into the river, the Guards showed them a giant anaconda. They were constantly using intimidation techniques to harness the prisoners.

What inspires me most about Ingrid is that through it all, she hung on to the one thing the rebels could not take- her identity.  The Rebels had given each prisoner a number and in a roll call style wanted each prisoner to say their number when called.  When they got to Ingrid, she replied “Ingrid Betancourt’.  Her fellow prisoners thought she was making trouble but she held on. It was important for her to make sure her captors knew she was a person, not a number!  The guards carried guns and could shoot her or any of the prisoners at anytime for any reason.  Ingrid felt it was easy to shoot a number.  She wanted the guards to have awareness that the prisoners they guarded were people. 

Ingrid Betancourt was freed on July 2, 2008 when FARC soldiers landed helicopters and told the camp commander that the prisoners were to be taken to a different location.  Once the helicopters were airborne, Ingrid was informed that the FARC soldiers moving them were actually the Colombian military by saying “We are the national army. You are Free’.

Following her freedom, Ingrid spent 18 months in Wyoming writing of her experience with FARC.  When asked how she remembered her ordeal in such vivid detail, she replied ‘I will never forget any of it- every detail, every smell, every sound, every color.  I live the jungle every day of my life’.

And how has her life changed now that she’s free?  She’s a Mom to her daughter and son (who were 16 and 13 when she was kidnapped), she’s her Mother’s best friend again and she’s a friend with her ex-husband.  She talks daily to her fellow-captors (although some have been critical of her) and she has been able to keep the promises she made to herself in prison:  To cook for her loved ones and to always have flowers in the room, wear perfume and eat ice cream and cakes- That’s Ingrid’s world now.

So, when the light has wakened me from my perfect sleep and the dog is begging to go outside, I will roll out of bed, think of Ingrid and all those still in bondage and move forward through the miniscule details of my life knowing the one thing for sure that Ingrid herself wanted me, and all of us, to know- Peace. Go in Peace- be peaceful, share peace.

Want to see more of my meeting with Ingrid?

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097335&id=1293966030&l=da098baa3b