Name: Nettie
Bio: Nettie Hartsock is a digital strategist and teacher. Nettie works with wonderful individuals and companies from all over the world, helping them create and convey their messages to the online world. She prides herself on her diverse base of clients and her customized and unique approach to each client’s needs. Nettie provides training to kick-start e-outreach for companies and individuals and fine tuning of social media initiatives and presence. Nettie’s clients have seen millions in YouTube views, features on DailyKos, Daily Candy, NYTimes, MSNBC.com, Entreprenuer.com, Pink Magazine, Inc.com, Allbusiness.com, Wall St. Journal, BlogCritics and other leading online sites. Her clients have also been featured in notable business, fiction and non-fiction podcast shows including Total Picture Radio, Mark Amtower Direct, Blog Business World Success, Cranky Middle Manager and others.
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The Right Five Words are More Important than Five Thousand Words
February 26th, 2010An interview with Bill Schley, author of Why Johnny Can’t Brand and the soon to be released, Micro-Script Rules.
Bill is also President and Chief Creative Officer of international branding firm, davidID (http://www.davidid.com/) and an avid skydiver. In this interview, Bill talks about skydiving, why five words are more important than five thousand and why everyone needs to know the micro-script rules.
Nettie: Bill, tell us a bit about your background.
Bill Schley: I started as a copywriter at Ted Bates back in the 80’s and got into advertising because I thought I was going to make funny dog-food commercials. What I learned was the unique selling proposition from the guys who invented it (Rosser Reeves and Ted Bates), and that changed my life. The unique selling proposition later became the “dominant selling idea.”
That made me realize how important a big idea at the center of any brand communication was paramount—that a big idea could move mountains and move markets.
Nettie: Did you get all your ideas while you were skydiving?
Bill Schley: (Laughs.) I got the biggest idea while I was skydiving, and that idea was that the hardest thing to do in branding was to commit to that one big idea. Committing to one big idea instead of throwing out all 20 features and benefits is as hard as jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. That lack of commitment is why Johnny Can’t Brand. Whereas if you close your eyes and you jump, you’re more committed than you’ve ever been in your life, and an amazing thing happens. You get a focus, clarity, creativity and simplicity that are brand-changing. It’s the universal paradox that the narrower you focus, the wider, farther and deeper your message goes.
Nettie: Can you define heuristics as it relates to marketing?
Bill Schley: A rule of thumb and when human beings are forced with some kind of stressful event or mortal danger, we go right to unconscious thinking that is super fast and gets to the heart of the matter in nanoseconds. That’s the thinking without thinking that’s the unconscious intelligence that cognitive psychologists have been studying for years.
Psychologists tell us that in moments of crisis, we shift to intuition. It’s remarkably fast and accurate—unconscious intelligence that acts before we even have time to think.
The intuition is based on heuristics or rules of thumb, which are just built-in instructions that tell our brain how to act instantly without analyzing a bunch of facts.
Nettie: What are the rules of thumb revealing to us?
Bill Schley: What they’re showing us is the heart of the matter—the real bottom line by telling us to do the opposite of what we’ve always been taught. They make us discard information not collect more of it, to make ourselves smarter. Too much data makes us dumber. The simplest message always wins, because our brains love it that way.
For a hundred years, people have said KISS—keep it simple stupid. We pay lip service to it, but we never do it. And in this hyper-connected world, it is “survival of the simplest.”
Nettie: Can you also talk about how your term “micro-scripts” relates to this?
Bill Schley: I can, and give you the four micro-script rules:
1. It’s no longer important what you say or what people hear.
The only thing that matters is what people repeat after you’ve said it. They won’t repeat anything because you tell them to. They’ll repeat it because they like saying it, and they gain from saying it. They say it two places: first to themselves, and then to their community.
2. Every screen’s a word-of-mouth machine.
In the old days, there were three mediums, now there is only one, and it’s not the Internet or social networking—those are just mechanical. It’s a brand-new, 50,000-year-old medium called word-of-mouth. We need to position and reframe what word-of-mouth is.
The fact is, people need to realize that all the digital machines in their pockets or palms are just 21st-century, word-of-mouth machines. Word-of-mouth never went away—it’s just sort of hid for 80 years because TV/radio only went one way. Now that technology goes both ways, it’s caught up to word-of-mouth. The ultimate equity in marketing is trust. Word-of-mouth flips the relationship with trust on its head. It puts trust at the beginning of the interaction instead of the end.
With word-of-mouth, either trust comes first or there won’t be a relationship.
So to rule #3, where we answer, “What kind of messages do they want to repeat?”
3. The answer is (the rule) they want to repeat “micro-scripts.” Here are some examples. Remember “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” or “the bridge to nowhere”? These are micro-scripts. It’s any set of words, from one word to a sentence or two—no more than you can fit on a Blackberry screen—that uses metaphors, vivid language or just rhythmic words to verbalize your idea in a way that people like to repeat it.
Micro-scripts are like magic words that have been used by master communicators since time immemorial. Their messages verbalize in a way that’s optimized for our heuristic brains. The truth is we’ve always had them; they’re just more important today than ever.
You might ask, isn’t a micro-script just a catchphrase or a sound bite? I say, yeah, but it’s a very special kind of sound bite. It’s an “idea-bite.” It either tells a whole story or provides a piece of a story that’s already running in my brain.
It’s just enough information to persuade people to act.
Here are more examples: “It’s made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar,” “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” “Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire” and “Airborne works because it was invented by a second-grade teacher.”
The last rule answers the questions, “What’s the subject of your MS? What should it be about?”
4. Your micro-script has to be built on a dominant selling idea. The ultimate idea at the center of your communication—the idea of a difference you’re trying to communicate. It’s the ultimate value, the one big advantage you can claim that others can’t. Your single best differentiating attribute.
In marketing terms, it’s your brand positioning, brought to its sharpest edge.
If I was going to apply one big idea to skydiving, it would be, “It’s not like falling it’s like flying.” In micro-scripts I would say, “If you want to fly like Superman, then put on a parachute and take a jump.”
Nettie: Any last tips?
Bill Schley: It all comes down to this. The right FIVE words are more powerful than five thousand. It’s more important than ever to tell your story—you just have to say it in a couple sentences or less.
If you’re branding, it’s more important to work from the ground up—from something incredibly simple—than from 50,000 feet down, even if you have a parachute.
David Meerman Scott: Changing the Rules of Marketing, PR … and Business
February 9th, 2010EDITOR’S NOTE:
David Meerman Scott has been a contributor to Cincom Expert Access since 2006. Check out the interview below and win a free copy of his worldwide bestselling book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly“courtesy of Cincom Expert Access. Thanks to David for freely sharing his time and ideas over the years. We only have 50 copies – so first come first serve.
Contact Steve Kayser at skayser@cincom.com or on Twitter at @SteveKayser.
INTERVIEW BY EXPERT ACCESS CONTRIBUTOR NETTIE HARTSOCK
David Meerman Scott’s best-selling book, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” has been extensively updated and features several new major marketing campaign stories as well as how Facebook and Twitter’s usage have impacted the online marketing world.
Nettie: What’s different in this new edition?
David Meerman Scott (David): This second edition of the book has gone through an extensive rewrite. Of course, I have checked every fact, figure, and URL. But I’ve also listened. In the past two years, I’ve met thousands of people who have shared their stories with me, so I’ve drawn from those experiences and included many new examples of success.
While including so many new stories and examples has resulted in my removing many of the less interesting originals, I’m convinced that these exciting replacements are even more valuable.
Nettie: The book also covers the new emergence of tools like Facebook and Twitter?
David: Yes, when I wrote the first edition of the book, Facebook was only available to those with a .edu email address (students and educators), so I didn’t feature Facebook. Twitter didn’t even exist at the time I was researching the first edition. I added extensive new information and examples on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
In fact, the rise of the term social media has been so strong in the past few years that I’ve even changed the subtitle of the book to include it.
Nettie: What are a couple of favorite case studies in the book that are new and will be of interest to readers?
David: I have dozens of examples in the book, but I’ll share two here:
Facebook group drives 15,000 people to the Singapore Tattoo Show (www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32140274011)
In its first year (2009), the Singapore Tattoo Show had an aggressive target of 5,000 attendees. Organizers launched via a Facebook group called Tattoo Artistry three months prior to the show. The group grew very quickly, securing a place as the center of tattoo artistry for the Asia region.
The passion of the Tattoo Artistry Facebook group members meant they would help promote the group to their friends, so the online community eventually included many people eager to attend the live event. Instead of relying on expensive advertising, show organizers built a community of passionate fans who built anticipation and buzz for the event. The Tattoo Artistry Facebook group quickly reached 3,000 members and was an important reason that more than 15,000 people attended the first Singapore Tattoo Show—that’s three times the expected number of attendees!
Film Producer Creates a World Wide Rave by Making Soundtrack Free for Download (http://www.thegraduatesmovie.com/)
As I say many times in the book, a great way to generate interest in products and services is to make select content available for free online. There’s no doubt that free content sells. The Graduates, a feature film released in 2009, is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world. Prior to release, the film had been developing a loyal following among the 18- to 34-year-old demographic following a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings. It had been advertised solely by word-of-mouth and in a clever marketing technique, via a free soundtrack download.
The film features the music of some incredible indie bands (The New Rags, Plushgun, Sonia Montez, The Mad Tea Party, Our Daughter’s Wedding, and The Smittens) that are popular with the buyer personas who might see the movie. So the idea of making the entire soundtrack available for free is a brilliant strategy.
Of course, the bands also benefit because new listeners are exposed to their music and, if they like it, may decide to buy an album or see them live. “We felt it made sense to give away the soundtrack to build loyalty, show off the product, and compensate for a zero-dollar marketing budget, all in one fell swoop,” says Ryan Gielen, executive producer of The Graduates.
I wondered about the musicians whose music was given away. Did any of them resist? “The worst-case scenario for even an established band is that we just crafted a $100,000 music video for them,” Ryan says. “The Rolling Stones should laugh us out of the room, but this is a good opportunity for many, many bands.” The strategy has worked well for Gielen. “The free soundtrack has been a real success,” he says. “The totally free music promo opened us up to many more people.”
What is a World Wide Rave?
Nettie: What surprised you most in the period since 2007 when the first edition was published?
David: Let me disclose a secret. Back when I was writing the first edition in 2006 and when it came out in 2007, I was a bit unsure of the global applicability of the new rules.
What is heartening is that since that time, 25 percent of the first edition’s sales have come from outside the United States. As I write this, the book has been or is being translated into 24 languages including Bulgarian, Finnish, Korean, Vietnamese, Serbian, and Turkish. I’m also receiving invitations from all over the world to speak about the new rules. In the past year, I’ve traveled to countries including Saudi Arabia, the UK, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Croatia, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the Dominican Republic.
So I can say with certainty that the ideas do resonate worldwide. We are indeed witnessing a global phenomenon.
Nettie: Your books are now being used as part of dozens of notable university marketing programs. Do you have any tips on how universities need to be educating marketing students in terms of social media?
David: At first, when the first edition was released in 2007, College and University marketing programs were resistant to the ideas. But a few professors, including Karen Miller Russell, Associate Professor, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia and Stephen Quigley from Boston University, quickly adopted the ideas in the book and began assigning it to their students as part of classes.
However, what I found most interesting is that it was the students demanding that their professors use the book that pushed adoption in dozens of universities. Students would email me exasperated that they were not being taught online marketing and PR and the tools and techniques seemed to be stuck in the 1980s. Several admitted they had cried when they read my book because they felt their investment in an education had been wasted.
So I would say to the professors out there: OPEN YOUR EYES. Study what’s going on and how smart marketers and PR pros are reaching audiences today and educate yourself on the new ideas so you can better prepare your students.
Nettie: What do you think are the three things everyone needs to understand about new marketing and PR for 2010?
David: Before the Web came along, there were only three ways to get noticed: buy expensive advertising, beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you, or hire a huge sales staff to bug people one at a time about your products. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the Web that your buyers want to consume.
The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg or bug your way in are the skills of interruption and coercion. Online success comes from thinking like a journalist and a thought leader.
The Web allows organizations of all kinds (large and small companies, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, political candidates, consultants, even rock bands and churches) the ability to become publishers of content.
So to be successful in 2010, everyone (including me) needs to be asking this series of questions:
1) Who are my buyers? (Or who are my donors, voters, readers, etc.)
2) What problems do my buyers have that my products or services solve?
3) How can I create some amazing information on the Web (a YouTube video, ebook, blog, Webinar, series of photos, charts and graphs, survey results, and so on) that my buyers will be eager to consume and that will brand me as someone to do business with?
Nettie: How do you deal with skeptics?
David: Here is my video response for that:
David Meerman Scott keynote at BMA 2009 national conference from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.
At every speech, I pose four questions to the audience and ask them to raise their hands if the answer to a question is “yes.” How would you answer?
In your personal or professional life in the past two months, when looking for an answer to a problem or to research a product, have you
(1) responded to a direct mail advertisement?
(2) consulted magazines, newspapers, TV, or radio?
(3) gone to a tradeshow as an attendee?
(3) used Google or another search engine?
( 4) electronically contacted a friend, colleague, or family member (email, IM, Facebook, etc.) who responded with a Web URL that you then visited?
I just love asking these questions in front of skeptics. I’ve asked them in boardrooms filled with senior executives who are adamant that my ideas are not appropriate for their business. I always turn people around.
Over the course of a year, in front of over ten thousand people from many dozens of groups all over the world including college students, marketing professionals, technology buyers, and executives at Fortune 500 companies, the answers were surprisingly consistent. Between 5 and 20 percent of people answer each of the first three questions affirmatively.
These answers mean that the ways most companies have historically reached people—advertising, direct mail, tradeshow booths, and pleas to the mainstream media for coverage—are only effective in reaching a small portion of potential customers. However, between 100 percent of people raise their hands to indicate that they have used a search engine to find a solution to a problem or to research a product and 90 percent report that they have checked out a Web site suggested by a friend, colleague, or family member.
Clearly, establishing a new rules of marketing & PR strategy and creating effective Web content that is indexed by search engines is critical for any business. When people are looking for answers to problems, they go online first.
Nettie: What would you say to people who think social media is a fad?
David: I’d say they are correct.
But let me explain. “Social media” is a misunderstood and over-hyped phrase. Much like the overused “Web 2.0,” many people think they know what social media is, but few can actually describe it. So in my experience, the use of the term “social media” is absolutely a fad.
By way of clarification, here is my personal definition: Social media describes the way people share ideas, content, thoughts, and relationships online. Social media differs from so-called ‘mainstream media’ in that anyone can create, comment, and add to social media content. Social media can take the form of text (blogs & wikis), audio (podcasts), video (YouTube), images (Flickr), and communities (Twitter, Facebook, & more).
What’s not a fad is that creating interesting information and publishing it online. The New Rules of Marketing & PR is incredibly effective and most certainly not a fad. The ideas in my book are much more than just “social media.”
Nettie: Thank you.
Leadership Lessons on “The Road to Woodstock”
December 7th, 2009
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL LANG
Michael Lang is a producer who is best known as co-creator of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969. He has produced festivals in East Berlin, the concert at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Woodstock 94 and Woodstock 99. He is the head of the Michael Lang Organization, which encompasses live-event production, film and theater production and artist management.
He is also the author of “The Road to Woodstock: From the Man Behind the Festival” with Holly George Warren. The New York Times best-selling book is available everywhere books are sold.
In this interview Lang shares some inside secrets from Woodstock, and his take in inspiration, preparedness and intuition.
Nettie: Are you starting to suffer traumatic interview disorder?
Michael: Not yet, but it’s getting close. (laughs)
Nettie: I loved the book. One of the things I read is that you said, “Money has never been my aim – always a side effect of what I do,” can you talk about that in terms of your life and career path?
Michael: I’ve been very lucky in that anything I’ve done I would have done whether it was something that was a paying proposition or not, so I’ve never really had to work at something just for money. That’s been a wonderful way to have gone through life and I’ve been very lucky to have done that. And luckily enough the things I’ve done have made me a comfortable life and enabled me to continue to do the things I’ve wanted to do.
I’ve always sort of looked at money as a tool to do other things.
Nettie: How do you define instinct and intuition, because you’ve said that’s what you really operated on?
Michael: I think if you trust your intuition and your instincts you’re really getting the benefit of that inner thought process without having to filter too much from what your environment tells you and I think that’s a much clearer form of information and much more accurate bit of information because it’s hard to put everything into concise thought and terms and analysis.
You know certain feelings come from just gleaning meanings from body language, and other things you don’t interpret necessarily consciously but provide you with huge and important amounts of information. I’m very much someone who is intuitive that way.
Nettie: Can you tell us the story about your Dad being on the scaffolding at Woodstock and who was playing?
Michael: Sure, that is something I just discovered last year as I was the DVD of Woodstock which had not watched for year. We were looking through some of the outtakes and footage. And as Richie Havens is walking offstage I caught a glimpse of my father, sitting above the deck, about 15 feet off the deck of the stage on the scaffolding. It had never registered that weekend and it was just a great moment for me seeing that footage.
I discovered it when we were making the new film.
Nettie: Was your dad smilling?
Michael: Oh yeah he was having a great time.
Nettie : It’s like the metaphor for dads in Texas sitting in the football stadium. Except your dad got to sit in an amazing music stadium and watch his son.
Michael: (laughs) That’s right. And he had the best seat of the house.
Nettie: Can you talk about John Lennon, in your book you talk about wanting him to come. Was he in Canada?
Michael: Yes, he was in Canada. He had been busted in England and was in Canada in early 68 – 69. The Nixon administration was very much trying to keep him out of the country because of his anti-Vietnam war stance and he was very vocal about his stance on the war. So there was really no way to get him a visa. We’d been working a long time with Apple in trying to make it happen.
In writing the book and doing my research, I went through what I euphemistically call my files, which are old boxes stuffed in the basement. And I came across this letter from Apple with all the Beatles copies, and it had an offer they made (because we couldn’t get John) for them to send The Plastic Ono band, James Taylor and Billy Preston, which all three would have been wonderful to have. But the letter came just as we were getting thrown out of Wallkill. And with the office being all packed up and all the confusion, I never saw the letter until last year.
Nettie: Was the letter opened? Or you found it and then opened it?
Michael: It was opened probably by one of my assistants and then left in my pile.
Nettie : Wow, that’s even a good lesson for the digital age – clean out your inbox.
Micheal: (laughs) Exactly stay on top of it.
Synchronicity, luck and being prepared…
Nettie: What do you think about the role of synchronicity and serendipity in your life and how this event played out?
Michael: I felt we were in this energy flow that was moving us forward. I’ve always had, I guess what some people would call luck. I really look at it more as though if you’re really prepared as well as you can be in every way that you can be and an opportunity presents itself, that’s luck. Lucky that you’re in a position to take advantage of whatever comes along. That’s how I interpret luck, there might be something beyond that, but being prepared is really 90% of it.
Be prepared for the opportunity to come. Because of all the work we did – preparation, planning and how thorough we tried to be, I think that’s why when those moments came along and things looked grim, and we might have needed that extra moment of faith or luck or whatever you want to call it that it happened for us.
Nettie: Is there a lot of pressure on you to be the best party thrower in the world? What is it like to be an icon?
Michael: (laughs) It’s always been really a positive experience. Everyone that comes up to me seems to relate it as a positive memory.
Nettie: Is it true that the helicopter dropped flowers and dried clothes?
Michael: It was not true. It is close to truth. It was small plane and it was rose petals.
Nettie: And what precipitated that small plane dropping rose petals?
Michael: I had hired the plane early on because I thought it would be neat. It was a lot of rose petals and it cost us like 400 or 500 dollars.
Nettie: What is your favorite performance?
Michael: I was stunned by Richie Havens, Country Joe, Joe Cocker, Santana – the highlight of the energy created by the audience was Jimi Hendrix redefining the national anthem.
Nettie: Has Pete Townshend been less grumpy since Woodstock?
Michael: (laughs.) Yes, I think he realized it was a good thing he did.
Sustainability, Woodstock.com and the future…
Nettie: You said about Woodstock, “we just avoided the silly confrontations that stupid rules can create.” Do you still do that in business?
Michael: Yes. Absolutely.
Nettie: What about Woodstock.com – http://www.woodstock.com , as a brand for the 21st century, sustainability, the green movement and your venture?
Michael: We want to be successful at promoting those ideas that are critical to our planet’s survival and the well-being of our kids and make some sort of contribution to empower the way people get along. I think Woodstock symbolizes that potential for things to work in a better way and I hope we’re useful for that to continue. I’m working on a musical now.
Nettie: What are you doing with that?
Michael: It’s called the Summer of 69 and it’s really about that summer when everything changed for us and hopefully, it will give the audience an experience of what it was like to go through that experience.
Nettie: Do you still drum?
Michael: (Laughs.) I do, but not outside of my childrens’ drum sets. My kids are into heavy metal.
Nettie: What happened to the BSA Victor you were riding around? Does it still run?
Michael: It’s still in my garage. It runs, but it’s incredibly hard to start, so it doesn’t get started very often.
Nettie : Have you come home again with all of this? Do you feel you’ve completed a circle?
Michael: Yeah, I do funnily enough. It’s an experience that I tried to move away from for a long time and I’ve embraced it to write the book and it has been very rewarding. I’ve gained a new perspective on it all and at the same time the people that worked on it are a pretty close knit bunch of people and we’re all still together.
Nettie: Are there parallels you see today in how this culture is changing and embracing a more authentic truthful way of being in the world?
Michael: I think absolutely. You talk about authenticity in that day we were really interested in the real thing, not just appearances. We felt we were really dealing with real issues and we’ve come back around to that. We’ve dealt with the 80s and the 90s, and we’re left in a position where we treated the planet badly and treated each other badly and now we’re facing the consequence. I’m very hopeful for the future and that we can all work for the greater good. Young people are getting more involved and creating a big difference in where we’re heading.
Nettie: What do you hope will happen with the Woodstock.com site long-term?
Michael: I hope it becomes a place where people can exchange ideas, and becomes a place of sustainability where we can all work together for the future.
Nettie: Thank you Michael.
Hoodwinked! An Interview with the Economic Hit Man John Perkins
October 28th, 2009
WHY THE WORLD FINANCIAL MARKETS IMPLODED – AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO REMAKE THEM
On November 10th, John Perkins’ latest book, “Hoodwinked”(Broadway Business, 2009) – Amazon Pre-Order Link – will be released.
John Perkins has seen the signs of today’s economic meltdown before. The subprime mortgage fiascos, the banking industry collapse, the rising tide of unemployment, the shuttering of small businesses across the landscape are all too familiar symptoms of a far greater disease. In his former life as an economic hit man, he was on the front lines both as an observer and a perpetrator of events, once confined only to the third world, that have now sent the United States—and in fact the entire planet—spiraling toward disaster.
Here, Perkins pulls back the curtain on the real cause of the current global financial meltdown. He shows how we’ve been hoodwinked by the CEOs who run the corporatocracy—those few corporations that control the vast amounts of capital, land, and resources around the globe—and the politicians they manipulate. These corporate fat cats, Perkins explains, have sold us all on what he calls predatory capitalism, a misguided form of geopolitics and capitalism that encourages a widespread exploitation of the many to benefit a small number of the already very wealthy. Their arrogance, gluttony, and mismanagement have brought us to this perilous edge. The solution is not a “return to normal.”
But there is a way out. As Perkins makes clear, we can create a healthy economy that will encourage businesses to act responsibly, not only in the interests of their shareholders and corporate partners (and the lobbyists they have in their pockets), but in the interests of their employees, their customers, the environment, and society at large.
INTERVIEW BY NETTIE HARTSOCK
We had a chance to catch up with John Perkins back from his trip to Panama with Jane Goodall and Lynn Roberts of Dreamchange.org and he answered our questions about his latest book, economic hitmen and his own mission for his grandson.
John Perkins has lived four lives: as an economic hit man (EHM); as the CEO of a successful alternative energy company, who was rewarded for not disclosing his EHM past; as an expert on indigenous cultures and shamanism, a teacher and writer who used this expertise to promote ecology and sustainability while continuing to honor his vow of silence about his life as an EHM; and as a writer who, in telling the real-life story about his extraordinary dealings as an EHM, has exposed the world of international intrigue and corruption that is turning the American republic into a global empire despised by increasing numbers of people around the planet. His website is www.johnperkins.org and he’s also co-founder of www.dreamchange.org . His TWITTER ID @economic_hitman .
Nettie: Could you please describe the term economic hitmen?
John: It is a tongue-in-cheek term, like “spook” or “spy’ for a CIA agent. My real title was Chief Economist at MAIN, a firm of over 2000 professional “consultants.”
Nettie: Can you talk about how economic hitmen work in third world countries and how establishing high debt is one of the things that contributes to the power of the global empire?
John: The most common approach for EHMs is to identify a third world country with resources our corporations covet, like oil. Then arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or a sister organization. But the money does not go to the country. Rather it hires US corporations to build power plants, industrial parks, and other infrastructure projects in that country. These benefit a few wealthy local families, as well as the US corporations, but do not help the majority of the people who are too poor to use electricity, not skilled enough to work in industrial parks, and basically live outside the economic system. The country ends up owing a huge debt that it can not repay. So we EHM go back to the country and say “since you can’t pay your debts, give us a pound of flesh: sell your oil real cheap to our oil companies, or vote with us on the next UN vote, or send troops to support ours in someplace like Iraq.”
On the few occasions when we fail, the jackals are sent in to overthrow the government or assassinate the leaders we EHM were unable to corrupt. This happened with me in Panama and Ecuador where Omar Torrijos and Jaime Roldos were assassinated as a result. If the jackals fail too, then the US military goes in — like in Iraq.
In this way we EHMs have created a global empire, the first in history to be developed primarily without the military.
Nettie: What are the political implications of this recession and the economics behind it? Are there things happening that the general public is unaware of in terms of the shifting of global power?
John: The geopolitics of the world has changed radically. No longer is it so much a question of countries as of corporations. We used to think of the planet as a big globe with 180 or so countries; a few of these — especially the US and USSR — influenced many others. Today, we still have 180 or so countries but we now see the power base as looking something like a group of large clouds that circle the planet. These are the corporations. They know no national boundaries, adhere to no particular laws. The strike deals with the Chinese and Taiwanese, the Israelis and Arab countries. . . We are at a time that is similar to when city states merged into nation states, except now the nations are becoming less and less important. A radical change in world politics and business is occurring.
We are at a time in history when everyone on this planet is faced with the same crises — global warming, resource shortages, rising prices. We are also — for the first time ever — highly interdependent. We communicate through the internet and cell phones with the most remote areas. We recognize that we are a fragil species living on a small planet. Now is the time for us to come together and devote ourselves to solving these problems in ways that will establish better lives for all of us, on every continent.
Nettie: Can you define corporatocracy and how it is operating in the world today and why it is dangerous?
John: It is the modern equivalent of the emperor — a leader who is not elected, does not serve a limited term, and essentially reports to no one. Today, rather than one person, we have a group, the people who run our largest and most powerful corporations; we call them the corporatocracy. As the major financiers of most political campaigns (directly and through their stockholders) and employers of powerful lobbyists, they control governments. They also control the mainstream press –through direct ownership and also advertising budgets. And because of the “revolving” policy they are constantly moving back and forth between the highest corporate and government positions. They control most of the world’s resources and institutions.
Nettie: What are some of the positive changes you see in terms of the world and how the awareness is growing in terms of these issues?
Since the publication of “Confessions” in late 2004, I have seen major changes in attitudes. One example: students. In 2005 when I dined with MBA students before my speeches at their schools and asked them to describe their goals, nearly all of them talked about making money and attaining power. In the fall
of 2008 and the first half of 2009, I did not hear one student speak like this. Not one MBA student from Stanford, Columbia, Wharton, the University of Michigan, Ohio State, Boston University, Harvard, Antioch, or the China Europe International Business School. Nor did I hear it from undergraduate students at Olivet College, Regis University, St. John’s University, William Patterson University, or Wilmington College. Attitudes had changed in just three years. Not a single student who attended those dinners and other meetings with me listed as his or her primary goal the accumulation of either wealth or power. What they said instead was that they wanted to help create a better world.
Nettie: Can you talk about your personal mission and your books and why it’s important for people to take action now?
John” My mission is to create a sustainable, just, and peaceful world for my 2 year old grandson, Grant. I know that in this highly integrated world, that is only possible if every child in every country enjoys that same opportunity. This is totally new. Never before has everyone on this planet been so closely related to everyone else. We are truly interdependent. We are all impacted by the same crises: climate change, diminishing resources, over population, increasing prices for the essentials of life, and violence due to deprivation and desperation.
And, for the first time, we all know it. We are all communicating with each other, over the Internet and cell phones. We the people have always been the ones to foment change. Whether it was about getting rid of slavery, women’s rights, cleaning up polluted rivers, or ending wars (like Vietnam), we have had to force the
politicians and CEOs to do it.
Nettie: Can you talk about your transformation in terms of your mission and how you liberated yourself from being an economic hitman?
John: A very long story which is discussed in my new book, HOODWINKED (Random House/Broadway Books, November 10, 2009). Short version: I came to understand that the world we have created is no longer viable and that it is in our self-interests to alter our path.
Nettie: What can companies do to make the world a better place?
John” They must change their primary goal from “maximizing profits, regardless of the environmental and social costs” to “making profits only within the context of creating a sustainable, just, and peaceful world.” We — you and I — must commit to buying only from companies that make that commitment — and we must let them know, by sending them emails and letters.
Nettie: You also work with DreamChange – Dream Change and Pachamama Alliance – can you talk about those groups and what inspires you most in terms of your work with them?
John: I helped to found both Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance back in the early 1990s and continue to serve on their boards. They are non-profits dedicated to creating a sustainable, just, and peaceful world. Both of them honor indigenous wisdom and ways of relating to the earth as part of their teaching tools and also help indigenous communities protect their lands and cultures from those who would exploit them, including oil, agribusiness, cattle, and timber companies. You can learn a great deal more at www.dreamchange.org and www.pachamama.org.
Nettie: How and why should corporations redefine themselves? What does it mean for a corporation to be a good citizen?
John: Ultimately, our survival on a planet any of us will recognize depends on it. So does the survival of these corporations. Once we all understand this, we will change.
Nettie: Can you talk about your new book Hoodwinked and what your mission was in terms of writing it?
John: In summary, HOODWINKED discusses the following.
As and economic hit man, I experienced today’s economic collapse before. The banking industry and sub-prime mortgage fiascos, the rising tide of unemployment, and the shuttering of businesses are all too familiar in the Third World countries where I worked. I have to say that I was both an observer and a perpetrator of events that have now sent the US – in fact the entire planet – spiraling toward disaster.
The real cause of our global financial meltdown is predatory capitalism – the mutant form of an economic system that encourages widespread exploitation of the few to benefit a small number of already very wealthy people. A new geo-politics has emerged; today the CEOs of big corporations, rather than governments, control human and natural resources around the globe, as well as politicians and the media. Their arrogance, gluttony, and mismanagement have brought us to the perilous edge. The solutions will not be “return to normal ones”.
HOODWINKED offers a way out. As I say in the book, “Unlike other empires,this one is not built primarily on the back of the military. It is subtle, market-based, and it depends on our voluntary choices. We hold the power – if we only recognize it.” HOODWINKED provides a blueprint for creating an economy that fosters a sustainable, just, and peaceful world for us and our children. It offers concrete actions each and every one of us can take..
Nettie: What do you hope to achieve with this book in terms of effecting change in the world?
John: A sustainable, just, and peaceful world — in my life-time.
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