Why I Said No To Groupon
A few weeks ago, a representative from Groupon called me about offering a coupon through their site for Angel Cakes.
We talked for a while and she explained it all to me. I recognize that she is essentially a salesperson and her job is to make it sound like a good deal. She succeeded. You can read all about it on Groupon’s site for selling their service to businesses, Groupon Works.
Despite the sales pitch, I was skeptical. I started talking to a bunch of people about their experiences and thoughts about it and eventually decided not to do it.
Why I said No
Let me be a bit conceptual here for a moment.
Like most small business owners, I consider what I do a craft. Each cupcake order I make is custom made in a small batch, usually by me with the occasional help of an assistant. What I charge for my work is that (sometime elusive) sweet spot between what it actually costs me to produce the order and what people think it’s OK to pay for cupcakes (aka “what the market will bear”). There’s not really a lot of wiggle room there.
Capitalism is really good at instilling in us the desire to pay as little for things as possible, despite what the things cost to produce. This doesn’t make sense. When we look at the “slow food” and artisan food movements, where things like organic vegetables and fancy cheese and nice bread cost a lot, the producers say it’s because that’s what it actually costs to make the food. While I’m sure we can all think of fancy food and artisan things that are over-priced, for the most part, while we live in a system where we pay for food (which is kind of absurd, but that’s another story), I think that charging what it actually costs to make something is right.
Offering a coupon (Groupon says it needs to be at least 50% off) encourages that kind of behavior – of thinking not of what something is worth, but a more self-focused “what kind of deal can I get this for” attitude that I don’t want to encourage. At all. It’s not the way to value things that are produced ethically, by people who care about what they are making and their customers.
Not offering a coupon feels like I’m saying “this is what my product is worth.” Good. Let’s go with that.
Isn’t it worth it for the marketing / getting my name out there?
As someone who works on publicity and marketing, I think about how to get the word out about projects all the time. Unlike other people, I think spending money on marketing and promo efforts is important and can be effective when done right.
When people say “I lost a lot of money using Groupon,” Part of me thinks of that dollar figure not as lost money but as the cost of a marketing effort. Then the discussion is, is that dollar amount something I am willing to pay as an investment in marketing? and did I gain customers as a result? For most people, the answer is no.
For example, when I look at my Groupon/coupon buying behavior and that of my friends, which I can guess is not that different from most of the Groupon-buying public, I pretty much only buy coupons for places I already go or have no intention of going to again after I’ve spent the coupon.
Most people who buy online coupons are coupon shoppers. If they want more cupcakes, they’re not going to buy from me, they’re going to wait for the coupon for the next cupcake place (because we all know that cupcake places are everywhere right now).
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to think about this in an in-depth way, I’m not doing that any more. It basically financially penalizes the small businesses and restaurants that I am patronizing and want to support. They’re not gaining me as a customer since I already go there (or don’t intend to go again), they’re just losing money on the transaction. If I don’t want people to do that to me, why am I going to do that to others?
One of the caveats I can imagine is that if I were offering, say, a yoga class where my costs stayed the same even if the number of participants increased, then it might make sense. But, obviously, cupcakes are different than yoga. And if I offered a class, I would probably just offer an introductory package (like half off your first month or something), bypass Groupon, and spend my time and money on social media.
Four Kickstarter Projects That Need Your Support
Apparently, everyone I know is doing a Kickstarter project. OK, Maybe that’s not true, but here are four projects from people I know personally that I am donating to, and I wish you would, too.
For the record, I think that Kickstarter is a brilliant idea. Or rather, I think that “crowd-sourcing” is a brilliant idea. The idea that a lot of people can give $20 and collectively make a big difference is nothing new – that’s what fundraising people who work at non profits do all the time, and that’s what Kim Klein says in her amazing book Fundraising for Social Change: the majority of money donated is by not wealthy people giving small amounts. It adds up, people!
But now people are doing it outside of the nonprofit industrial complex, and that’s just really awesome. Deanna Zandt did it to help her raise money to support her book. All these people are using Kickstarter as a way to do it for their projects. I, personally, am totally willing to give most anyone I know $20 to make their dream happen. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say that publicly. And I sure wish that Kickstarter didn’t take such a chunk of the $ raised, but I totally appreciate that they are providing a needed service.
PS – the one thing I hate about WordPress? You can’t embed Kickstarter videos. I don’t know who thought that one up. Anyway, each of these links has a video about the project – please follow them to learn more!
Anyway, here we go:
FOUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGNS THAT NEED YOUR SUPPORT
1. Roadmap to Apartheid is a film about Israel / Palestine. Here’s a piece from their Kickstarter page: “Ana Nogueira is a white South African and Eron Davidson a Jewish Israeli. Drawing on their first-hand knowledge of the issues, the producers take a close look at the apartheid comparison often used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Narrated by author and activist Alice Walker, the film breaks down the rhetorical analogy into a fact-based comparison, noting where the analogy is useful and appropriate, and where it is not.” I have a lot of friends who are passionate about Palestine, and I’m looking forward to seeing this full length film and seeing the perspectives of some people whose politics I know and like. This film, obviously, has the potential to be controversial, and in the best case scenario it would help spur some big conversations.
2. Fixed, another film by another awesome indy (and local!) filmmaker, is about the intersections of disability and technology. I remember reading a book in college called the Cyborg Handbook (10 years later I met the author, by the way, at an anti-war protest) that really introduced the complexities of these issues to me. I’m hoping that this film really explores some of the same issues. Here’s what Regan says about the project: “FIXED follows three remarkable people: Gregor Wolbring, John Hockenberry, and Patty Berne – a scientist, a journalist and a community organizer – each of whom has a personal story of disability and a passionate engagement in the debates around emerging human enhancement technologies.” Oh, and I donated some cupcakes as a reward for this one.
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Voces de Cambio/Voices of Change – Supporting Education in Guatemala
In 2008, I traveled to Guatemala to study Spanish and take my first trip outside of the United States and Canada. You can see my writing from then here, here, and here.
While I was there, I met some really awesome people who do awesome things. One of them, photographer Lucas Mulder, just launched a Kickstarter fundraising appeal to support a project called Voces do Cambio (“Voices of Change”), an after school program that teaches girls and young women skills through writing, photograph, and hopefully soon, video production. This is what Lucas says about the project: “I’ve volunteered with Voces de Cambio since its beginnings and it really is an incredible experience watching these young voices develop and strengthen through their involvement in this program. In the short-term, this project has the potential to impart some new skills, and create some great short films (and I know these videos will be a source of inspiration and learning for other youth both in Guatemala and abroad.) In the long-term, the curriculum developed for these workshops will make video a regular part of the core program, benefitting future program participants as they explore the important issues surfaced through Voces de Cambio. In effect, your backing of this one project will continue to benefit the program long after these workshops are over.”
You can view the Kickstarter page here.
I already made a donation and I hope you will too. I’m supporting this project because I think that this is a well organized program that has been run consistently for several years. I know that as a teenager, writing zines was instrumental in helping me become who I am today, and I know that my small contribution will go a long way toward making this project happen. Especially if you’ve studied at the Spanish language school PLQ (and I know a lot of you have!), this is an easy way for you to give back to a community that you have a connection with.
It’s OK to Give
Every year around this time I talk about how it’s important for radicals and progressive left folks to truly step up and support our institutions and movements – not just with words, but with dollars. I’ve talked for a long time about this huge aversion to talking about money within our communities, but that to build and sustain our institutions and movements, we really can’t hide our heads in the sand. Despite what we may want, we live in a capitalist society and money (and understanding how to use it) is a tool that we must use to accomplish our goals.
If everyone I knew gave just 1% of their income to support a cause of their choice – well, that would be a significant impact. If you can do more, great, but 1% is still a lot.
That said, here are some of the awesome organizations and people that I have given (or will, later today!) money (and usually time) to this year, and I hope you give something, somewhere.
- Riseup – My perpetual number one choice. This small collective that provides free, secure email, list, and hosting services to the radical community. Just the email accounts alone they provide allow the global justice community to survive, and they are keeping us out of the Google empire. Go directly to their donate page here.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation - Still amazing. They consistently work on issues that I care about and that directly effect me. Take this recent post clarifying some of the legal issues around the Wikileaks craziness. I would so love to work for them one day. Their donate page is here.
- The Yes Men – as I wrote recently, the Yes Men have been on the forefront of creative activism seemingly forever – and though they pull of big stunts, I know they, like most organizations, struggle for funding. I’m happy to make a donation to them this year, and you can go to their donate page here.
The Photography of JJ Tiziou
I first came across JJ Tiziou’s photography through his work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (you can see some of the photos here). I found his style, and of course his subject matter, compelling.
Recently I was able to interview JJ for Shareable about how financing social justice work – particularly media work – is a challenge, despite how vital this work is. Telling our stories, celebrating our victories, and analyzing our defeats are some of the most important things we can do to strengthen social movements. We need people like JJ to continue doing this work, just like we need magazines and websites as vehicles to tell these stories.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
Jen: JJ, maybe you can start by talking about how digital technologies and online content sharing sites have changed photography?
JJ: The advent of digital photography opened up the possibility of a new practice of photography as public art. Digital makes it easier for photographers to invest in personal community projects, and easier to share images directly with the communities that are being photographed. And millions of hobbyists are now practicing photography as public art through Flickr, Facebook, etc.
This is great, but this practice of sharing images online is also directly at odds with the ways that photographers have traditionally earned a living. Photographers have been able to survive as professional imagemakers through strict enforcement of copyright, by licensing images on a pay-per-use model. In other words, to survive as a photographer, you’re supposed to practice the opposite of sharing.
Interview on Sheepless.org
Yep, that's me!
Hey – so my friend Scott does this really fascinating website called Sheepless - it’s like for activisty / socially responsible small business people and entrepreneurs. I have lots of thoughts about the subject and how activism, money, capitalism, and sustainability are all related, and I’d really love to explore all those issues in the future. Maybe that will be some conversations with Scott, or other people who I’ve had really fascinating discussions with on the topic.
But, in the meantime, I was featured in an interview on Sheepless today, focusing on the work I’ve been doing over at Aid & Abet. We talk about how publicity is really about building relationships, what it means to run a business as an activist, and what is important about how you do your publicity, and some stuff about how Aid & Abet started. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
You’ve written about your experiences as co-founder and editor of the radical activist magazine Clamor from 1999-2006 in Becoming the Media: A Critical History Of Clamor Magazine. In what ways have those successes and failures shaped the way you run your business today?
I still struggle with a lot of the issues that I brought up in the pamphlet, like the general resistance by radical and progressive left individuals to really grasp and deal with issues of money, finance, and sustainability. I think it’s really important for those critical of the system to be able to understand how to live and thrive within capitalism without compromising too much – and not subverting our own needs for stability and security either.
How I Spend My Time
You might not know it from looking at this site, which seems to be all over the place, but I spend most of my time helping others, in some capacity, to promote their books and projects to the rest of the world, primarily through the publicity group Aid & Abet, which I coordinate along with my friend Matt Dineen.
What I do is, essentially, sales. It’s selling an author or their book to a writer at a magazine or to a host at a venue. “Sales,” in general, feels pretty gross, because potentially, I could fall into that loathsome set of people that self-promote constantly or who push their materials on you at inappropriate moments or try to sell you things you don’t need or want. Or who fuel consumption. Really, though, I think of it as a lot more (and better) than that – publicity can be all about helping authors/filmmakers/organizations connect with people who really want to know that they or their project exists. You know, like that moment when you find an amazing book and think to yourself, why did it take me so long to discover this? I look at my job as helping people connect with others who will be excited about their work. That feels pretty good.
Plus, and this is the good part for me, I get to choose the people that I work with so I get to interact with people who I am really excited about. And I’ve been really lucky over the years to work with people like Ted Nace, Raj Patel, and David Solnit, who I just think are really cool.
Anyway, the entire purpose of this post is to tell you that I’ve recently started working as the staff publicist for the Hesperian Foundation.
A lot of my friends/peer group have never heard of Hesperian before, though a few have heard of their book “Where There is no Doctor” (pictured to the left), which I first purchased myself around 1996. I still have my copy, along with “Where there is no Dentist.” You know, comes in handy when you don’t have health insurance.
Aiding & Abetting
Well, it’s finally time for me to make an update on all the things I have been doing in the last few weeks.
Although I often joke and say that I have 10 jobs, really my main job is to help awesome authors & filmmakers promote their work through events and other outreach. I work with a few other really cool folks, and we have a group called Aid & Abet. I know, this is not news. I’m just trying to get everyone on the same page here.
Well, I am absolutely thrilled to announce that today we relaunched the Aid & Abet website – it’s at www.aidandabet.org and I absolutely love it. The designer is Derek Hogue and I will highly recommend him to anyone who wants a new site or a redesign. Not only does it look great, but the user interface is amazing and easy to use.
Second, along with the new site, today we are announcing the release of a new booklet – Get Noticed! How to Publicize Your Book or Film – designed for all of our friends (including many of you) who have your own projects and don’t want to or can’t afford to hire a PR firm to do publicity for you. There is tons of info in it and it’ll be helpful for anyone who has a book, project, or film to promote. It’s available as a PDF download or as a printed booklet, and you can find out more about it at: http://aidandabet.org/resources/get-noticed/.
My Publicity Workshop
So, I think most of you know that one of my main jobs is as a publicist working with my friends Matt and Justine through our agency, Aid & Abet. Here’s a video of a Publicity on a Shoestring workshop Justine I did in March 2009 at the Women, Action and the Media conference. Here’s the link to part 2 of the video.
Right now we’re also in the process of writing a manual so yes, you too can publicize your own book or project if you can’t afford to hire us to do it for you.
I like to read books
I’m going through this major period of renovation in my life. There’s no other way to put it, really. It’s about redefining who I am and how I think of myself, choosing the important things and letting other things go. This blog will be going under some kind of overhaul in the near future, no doubt.
So, in the meantime, this means starting new projects and ending others. Like, you know, the new blog I just started, coz I don’t have enough of a web presence, right? Anyway, it’s called AMPERSAND, and it’s a group book review blog, where there are lots of contributors who write about all the fascinating stuff they are reading. Old books, new books, and all sorts of topics – fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, how-to, and yes, even poetry.
