Christine Bronstein

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Drugs, Rape and Political Terror: Interview with Isabel Allende on her Latest Novel Maya’s Notebook

When I asked Isabel Allende for a quote from one of the many rave reviews of latest novel, Maya’s Notebook, she responded with this one:

“An explosive novel…Every character is enthralling…This is a boldly plotted, sharply funny, and purposefully bone-shaking novel of sexual violence, political terror, “collective shame,” and dark family secrets, all transcended by courage and love.”

~ Booklist (starred review)

I found this quote quite fitting for not only her latest novel — her first set in the present — but also for herself and her tumultuous life. 

Allende, small and beautiful, bold and funny, is no stranger to dark family demons or political terror.  The fiery Chilean-American literary powerhouse has used her life’s traumas-which include being politically exiled from Chile when her cousin was overthrown by Pinochet, the devastating death of her daughter from a rare disease and the drug related deaths of two of her step-children-to better the world through her writing, her speaking and through her foundation and non-profit work.

Allende is a prolific and wildly popular author with 19 books translated into 35 languages and more than 57 million copies sold.  She also holds 12 international honorary doctorates and has won 50 awards in more than 15 countries. She lectures all over the world on women’s issues and also started a foundation to empower women and girls, which she created to pay homage to her daughter, Paula Frias, who died in 1992 at 28 years old. 

Her latest novel, Maya’s Notebook, is the gripping story of sixteen year-old Maya Vidal, told through her notebook. Maya was lovingly raised in Berkeley by her Chilean grandmother and her African American grandfather. But when cancer took Maya’s beloved grandfather, she started into a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol.  After being sent to a school for troubled kids in a remote part of the Northwest, she escapes and ends up after a violently twist of fate in Las Vegas. Before long, her drug dealer, the FBI, and a corrupt Vegas cop are after her.  On the run, Maya eventually ends up in a a remote Chilean island where she is sheltered and changed by the people of the island of Chiloe.

Read more about Maya’s Notebook on Allende’s website.

The very busy Allende was nice enough to answer a few of my questions about her latest book.

What was your inspiration for writing this story?

My inspiration to write this story was my grandchildren and their friends, all teenagers when I was writing the book.  I saw that they were exposed to many dangers and the parents could not really protect them: drugs, alcohol, crime, violence, unsafe sex, porn, etc. Fortunately they all survived those very vulnerable years and now they are in college. 

This book includes some very complex, sometimes violent characters.  What was your research process like for researching/writing these kind of characters?

I did not have to research much for this book.  My three stepchildren are addicts; two of them have died of drug related causes.  I have seen how devastating addiction can be in young people’s lives and the lives of everybody around them. I only researched about the new drugs in the street, they change all the time.

What do you hope is something that readers remember about the book long after they have read it?

I wish my readers will remember the characters.  When I write fiction I never try to deliver a message, I just want to tell a story.  But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader’s heart. 

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Keep Calm and Rape A Lot? Domestic Violence: Not Just a Women’s Issue Aggression towards women has gotten a lot of attention lately, allegations that Olympian Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, anchor Rob Morrison’s arrest for allegedly choking his wife, and an Academy Awards ceremony that began with a dubious homage to accomplished actresses called “We Saw Your Boobs.”   We can add another example of misogyny misogynist to this list, t-shirt company Solid Gold Bomb, which blamed a computer error for the creation and sale of shirts with slogans like “KEEP CALM AND RAPE A LOT” and “KEEP CALM AND HIT HER.”   Though Amazon swiftly removed these shirts from sale on their site and the t-shirts’ manufacturer as asserted in his apology that “As a father, husband, brother and son, I would never promote such product in our company,“ it’s clear that we still have a long way to go before violence against women is eradicated.  For every triumph, like the hard-fought renewal of the Violence Against Women Act after 500 days languishing in Congress, we’re faced with reports that mandatory federal spending cuts will erode many programs intended to help victims of abuse.       Here are some shocking statistics about the prevalence of domestic violence: According to the US Department of Justice, 1 in 4 US women will experience intimate partner violence. (This statistic is greatly underreported) Approximately 4.8 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually (Findings from the 2000 National Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) According to the US Surgeon General, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to American women. On average more than three women a day are murdered by their current or former intimate partners. Young women ages 16-24 have a higher incidence of partner violence than any other age group, almost triple that of the national average. Their victimization rate is 1 in 3.       Clearly, this issue remains a huge problem for our society across a wide range of demographics. But one thing remains consistent, according to  Camille Hayes, a writer and Sacramento-based domestic violence advocate: in the large majority of cases, the batterer is male, which makes domestic violence “a men’s issue, not just a women’s issue,” says Hayes.   “The domestic violence movement was born out of Second Wave feminism in the 1970s,” she says.” so from the beginning, we’ve defined domestic violence as a women’s issue, and I think that’s left us with a gap, or blind spot, in our conceptualization of the problem. The information we have to date is very victim-centered: we know a lot about victim needs, how best to protect them, what the warning signs of abuse are.”   “But that’s leaving out the other major actor in these relationships—the batterer. We don’t know nearly enough about them, about their motives and needs. How can we hope to change batterer behavior if we don’t fully understand it?”   “If you look at battery statistics across all groups—gay, straight, men, women—it’s uniformly the case that men are much more likely to be the aggressors…. So even when the sex of the victim changes, the sex of the likely perpetrator is still male. But although it’s very apparent that men play a defining role here, we haven’t managed to gather much useful information on them. I think that has to change if we ever want to get these incidence rates down.”       Christine Bronstein: What are the limits of policy reform?   Camille Hayes: For the last 30-plus years, since the domestic violence movement grew into a distinct professional field, we’ve been addressing this problem at the societal level mostly via public policy reform. And there are lots of good DV laws on the books at the state and federal levels, and of course a network of crisis intervention agencies across the country that help individuals. But still, a quarter of American women will be abused in their lifetimes—I think we can all agree that’s too many. It appears that we’re beginning to bump up against the limits of what we can accomplish through legislative reform and the criminal justice solution.  We need to continue to support those methods of violence control, while also adding new strategies.   What is the role of individual psychology in the fight against domestic violence?   The analysis of domestic violence that drives most of our policy and intervention, and which is the basis of our understanding of abuse dynamics, was inherited from the feminist movement. What that means in practical terms is that our analysis of violent relationships is a high-level, socio-political analysis. It’s focused on large-scale systems change and figuring out how big cultural institutions, like the criminal justice or education systems, impact us. Now, that kind of analysis is great, and it’s taken us really far toward reforming large institutions and censuring them for systemic sexism. But when you’re working on a problem like domestic violence, you start to see the limits of the socio-political analysis pretty quickly—namely, it doesn’t have much to say about individual psychology. Batterer behavior is so pathological that I don’t think we’ll ever know why partner violence is so common, or be able to reverse that trend, until we put real effort into understanding the psychology of abusers.   How many men are batterers?   Are most batterers repeat offenders?   Many are. Given that the vast majority of men aren’t violent, to get such a high victimization rate among women, and among gay men, you have to have these chronic abusers who are battering multiple partners in their lifetimes.   How likely are batterers to repeat? The numbers I’ve seen vary, but anywhere from 40-62% of batterers will re-offend.   Are there any programs out there for batterers?   Yes, there are certified Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs) in every county in CA, and I think that’s true of most states. In California they’re overseen by Probation Departments, meaning they have the authority to certify and de-certify official BIPs. Probation offices are county-level authorities, so that means all 58 counties in California manage their batterers programs differently. The types of programs they certify and the criteria they use aren’t specified in statute. Some of those programs collect outcome data, others don’t, but even the ones that do aren’t all collecting the same kinds of data. The state of our knowledge about batterers programs is kind of a mess.   Which types of batterers programs seem to be most successful? Even for the programs that are deemed “successful,” because people aren’t collecting consistent data, we’re not in a good position to tease out which aspects of the programs are the efficacious ones, and which aspects aren’t necessary for success. Now, how these programs measure success also varies. Sometimes it’s by checking to see if they have re-offended after a certain amount of time, sometimes they use before-and-after surveys to test movement on attitudes about things like sexism and conflict resolution. So even the way we define a successful batterer intervention is all over the place—there’s just a lot we don’t know.   What are some possible solutions…is it through the private sector nonprofits, policy or government programs or a combination?   I think what we need at this stage is for large governmental organizations like the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Justice to get involved, to help oversee and systematize data collection in existing programs, and fund outcome research on promising new interventions. One of the challenging things about working with batterers is that the ones we know about generally are somewhere in the criminal justice system: in prison, on probation, seeking mandated counseling. Psychologists can’t just walk up to a prison and say “I’d like to do some research on your domestic violence offenders.” Access can be tricky, so I think we really need some government involvement to get the ball rolling.     If you want to learn more about programs that work with batterers, check out ManKind, one of the nation’s first batterer education programs for men who are violent with their female partners. Established in 1980, the two goals of ManKind are to help men end their immediate violence toward and abuse of their partners, and to engage men in community advocacy to change the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that support men’s violence against women and girls. Learn more here.    

Keep Calm and Rape A Lot? Domestic Violence: Not Just a Women’s Issue

Aggression towards women has gotten a lot of attention lately, allegations that Olympian Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, anchor Rob Morrison’s arrest for allegedly choking his wife, and an Academy Awards ceremony that began with a dubious homage to accomplished actresses called “We Saw Your Boobs.”

 

We can add another example of misogyny misogynist to this list, t-shirt company Solid Gold Bomb, which blamed a computer error for the creation and sale of shirts with slogans like “KEEP CALM AND RAPE A LOT” and “KEEP CALM AND HIT HER.”

 

Though Amazon swiftly removed these shirts from sale on their site and the t-shirts’ manufacturer as asserted in his apology that “As a father, husband, brother and son, I would never promote such product in our company,“ it’s clear that we still have a long way to go before violence against women is eradicated.  For every triumph, like the hard-fought renewal of the Violence Against Women Act after 500 days languishing in Congress, we’re faced with reports that mandatory federal spending cuts will erode many programs intended to help victims of abuse.

 

 

 

Here are some shocking statistics about the prevalence of domestic violence:

According to the US Department of Justice, 1 in 4 US women will experience intimate partner violence. (This statistic is greatly underreported)

Approximately 4.8 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually (Findings from the 2000 National Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

According to the US Surgeon General, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to American women.

On average more than three women a day are murdered by their current or former intimate partners.

Young women ages 16-24 have a higher incidence of partner violence than any other age group, almost triple that of the national average. Their victimization rate is 1 in 3.

 

 

 

Clearly, this issue remains a huge problem for our society across a wide range of demographics. But one thing remains consistent, according to

 Camille Hayes, a writer and Sacramento-based domestic violence advocate: in the large majority of cases, the batterer is male, which makes domestic violence “a men’s issue, not just a women’s issue,” says Hayes.

 

“The domestic violence movement was born out of Second Wave feminism in the 1970s,” she says.” so from the beginning, we’ve defined domestic violence as a women’s issue, and I think that’s left us with a gap, or blind spot, in our conceptualization of the problem. The information we have to date is very victim-centered: we know a lot about victim needs, how best to protect them, what the warning signs of abuse are.”

 

“But that’s leaving out the other major actor in these relationships—the batterer. We don’t know nearly enough about them, about their motives and needs. How can we hope to change batterer behavior if we don’t fully understand it?”

 

“If you look at battery statistics across all groups—gay, straight, men, women—it’s uniformly the case that men are much more likely to be the aggressors…. So even when the sex of the victim changes, the sex of the likely perpetrator is still male. But although it’s very apparent that men play a defining role here, we haven’t managed to gather much useful information on them. I think that has to change if we ever want to get these incidence rates down.”

 

 

 

Christine Bronstein: What are the limits of policy reform?

 

Camille Hayes: For the last 30-plus years, since the domestic violence movement grew into a distinct professional field, we’ve been addressing this problem at the societal level mostly via public policy reform. And there are lots of good DV laws on the books at the state and federal levels, and of course a network of crisis intervention agencies across the country that help individuals. But still, a quarter of American women will be abused in their lifetimes—I think we can all agree that’s too many. It appears that we’re beginning to bump up against the limits of what we can accomplish through legislative reform and the criminal justice solution.  We need to continue to support those methods of violence control, while also adding new strategies.

 

What is the role of individual psychology in the fight against domestic violence?

 

The analysis of domestic violence that drives most of our policy and intervention, and which is the basis of our understanding of abuse dynamics, was inherited from the feminist movement. What that means in practical terms is that our analysis of violent relationships is a high-level, socio-political analysis. It’s focused on large-scale systems change and figuring out how big cultural institutions, like the criminal justice or education systems, impact us. Now, that kind of analysis is great, and it’s taken us really far toward reforming large institutions and censuring them for systemic sexism. But when you’re working on a problem like domestic violence, you start to see the limits of the socio-political analysis pretty quickly—namely, it doesn’t have much to say about individual psychology. Batterer behavior is so pathological that I don’t think we’ll ever know why partner violence is so common, or be able to reverse that trend, until we put real effort into understanding the psychology of abusers.

 

How many men are batterers?   Are most batterers repeat offenders?

 

Many are. Given that the vast majority of men aren’t violent, to get such a high victimization rate among women, and among gay men, you have to have these chronic abusers who are battering multiple partners in their lifetimes.

 

How likely are batterers to repeat?

The numbers I’ve seen vary, but anywhere from 40-62% of batterers will re-offend.

 

Are there any programs out there for batterers?  

Yes, there are certified Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs) in every county in CA, and I think that’s true of most states. In California they’re overseen by Probation Departments, meaning they have the authority to certify and de-certify official BIPs. Probation offices are county-level authorities, so that means all 58 counties in California manage their batterers programs differently. The types of programs they certify and the criteria they use aren’t specified in statute. Some of those programs collect outcome data, others don’t, but even the ones that do aren’t all collecting the same kinds of data. The state of our knowledge about batterers programs is kind of a mess.

 

Which types of batterers programs seem to be most successful?

Even for the programs that are deemed “successful,” because people aren’t collecting consistent data, we’re not in a good position to tease out which aspects of the programs are the efficacious ones, and which aspects aren’t necessary for success. Now, how these programs measure success also varies. Sometimes it’s by checking to see if they have re-offended after a certain amount of time, sometimes they use before-and-after surveys to test movement on attitudes about things like sexism and conflict resolution. So even the way we define a successful batterer intervention is all over the place—there’s just a lot we don’t know.

 

What are some possible solutions…is it through the private sector nonprofits, policy or government programs or a combination?

 

I think what we need at this stage is for large governmental organizations like the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Justice to get involved, to help oversee and systematize data collection in existing programs, and fund outcome research on promising new interventions. One of the challenging things about working with batterers is that the ones we know about generally are somewhere in the criminal justice system: in prison, on probation, seeking mandated counseling. Psychologists can’t just walk up to a prison and say “I’d like to do some research on your domestic violence offenders.” Access can be tricky, so I think we really need some government involvement to get the ball rolling.

 

 

If you want to learn more about programs that work with batterers, check out ManKind, one of the nation’s first batterer education programs for men who are violent with their female partners. Established in 1980, the two goals of ManKind are to help men end their immediate violence toward and abuse of their partners, and to engage men in community advocacy to change the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that support men’s violence against women and girls. Learn more here.

 

 

1 note

Nothing But The Truth Publishing Partners With Notes And Words For The Truth in Words Essay Contest

imageI’m truly excited to announce that Nothing But The Truth will be partnering with Notes & Words for the Truth in Words essay contest.

The topic of this year’s essay contest is “Transitions” and we expect to see stories ranging from starting a family, recoveries, graduations, aging, career changes/promotions, marriage and divorce.

The maximum length of the essay is 1,200 words. The submission deadline is March 18, 2013, the same day tickets go on sale for Notes & Words 2013.

Up to THIRTY semi-finalists will be chosen by a Truth & Words panel, led by New York Times best-selling author Kelly Corrigan (The Middle Place and Lift).

Judging will be based on criteria such as originality, creativity, use of language, and appropriateness to contest theme. The semi-finalist essays will be published in the next Nothing But The Truth So Help Me God anthology, available in bookstores and online December 2013. Their work will appear alongside that of influential writers, artists and thought leaders such as author and motivational speaker Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author Kelly Corrigan, and 85 Broads founder Janet Hanson.

Excerpts from each of the thirty semi-finalists will also be posted to the Notes & Words Facebook page, where users will vote on their favorite entry. The judging panel will factor those votes into consideration when they choose one grand prize winner.

The grand prize winner will have one-on-one phone consultations with:

A senior editor at Random House/Ballantine

A literary agent at ICM

The Executive Editor of O Magazine

The grand prize winner will also receive two tickets to the Notes & Words performance and after-party on May 18, 2013 at The Fox Theater in Oakland, where they will have an opportunity to meet all of the performers.

Contest entries must be emailed to submissions@abandofwives.com as a Microsoft Word attachment. Please attach a 100-word biography. One essay submission is allowed per person. For more information, please see the official contest rules here, and the FAQ here. To read the 2012 winning essay, click here.

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Not up for shelling out $100 bucks to message Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg?  Social innovator and marketing thought leader Ekaterina Walter has a much cheaper way to pick the brain of the famed boy wonder.  Her new book, Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg, examines the success of Facebook and its controversial founder.   Focusing on what Facebook has done right, Walter outlines what she believes are the the five “P”s of Facebook’s meteoric rise.  A positive, informative and inspirational book, Walter also delves into the success of many other successful companies with maverick leaders, including Zappos, Pixar, TOMS, 3M and Southwest Airlines.   To those who wince at Walter’s praise of Zuckerberg, she writes, “…no matter what one thinks about young Zuckerberg, one cannot call eight solid years of his company’s unprecedented growth pure luck.”   Walter is an unusual mix of female technology genius and down to earth woman’s woman.  She is a member of the online social network I run, called A Band of Wives. A believer in our plan to change the world by supporting the women in our own backyards, Walter was happy to answer some of my questions about the book and how she manages life as a working mom.   You outline a formulaic, point-by-point system for success. Do you believe, even if the “5 P’s” are followed precisely and applied the way you describe, that there may be a “x-factor” necessary for success?    Think Like Zuck is an analogy of a leader who follows his/her passion, leads with purpose, builds great teams, and strives for continued excellence in his/her product (or services). It is a mentality that drives great leaders to building successful business and the approach they use to doing so. Hence, the 5 Ps described in the book are:   PASSION—Keep your energy and commitment fully charged at all times by pursuing something you believe in PURPOSE—Don’t just create a great product, drive a meaningful movement PEOPLE—Build powerful teams that can execute your vision PRODUCT —Create a product that is innovative, that breaks all the rules, that changes everything PARTNERSHIPS—Build powerful partnerships with people who fuel imagination and energize execution   But this isn’t the exhaustive list by any means. There are a number of different factors that need to align to drive success. For example, timing is important – are the customers ready to embrace your product? Even a little bit of luck is needed every now and then. Discussion of all of them would probably not fit in one book. So I chose to focus on the ones that I’ve witnessed to be more impactful over the years in anyone’s success and growth.   The title “Think Like Zuck” seems very masculine.  Can you explain why this book is just as (if not more) important for women to read?   Think Like Zuck is more of a way of thinking, a philosophy of a leader. And women have the same potential to be leaders as men. Oprah, Estee Lauder, Amelia Earhart and many other female leaders were driven by their passion, led with purpose, understood true power of partnerships, persevered and exemplified excellence. Some of them are quoted in my book.   The lessons in the book are universal. Working within the large brand but advising start-ups in my spare time, I’ve seen both men and women apply them to drive change and make a difference.  But it seems to me that women are naturally more inclined to follow their heart, listen to their gut, and rally people around the same vision. And when they do that, women make great visionaries. Sometimes we just need a little bit of encouragement, someone saying “Go for it!” That is why it is critical for women to support each other. We are much stronger and more successful together than we are apart! That’s my mantra. That is the reason I spend a lot of time mentoring other women, supporting them, and that’s why I never said no to anyone who seeks career advice.    You paint a pretty rosy picture of Mark Zuckerberg: his intentions, his challenges, and his accomplishments. What would you say to the people who claim he is not the most likeable or ethical character?    Zuck is a very public figure. And just like with anyone else who has the level of visibility that he does, there will always be people who praise him and people who criticize him. Undoubtedly, he made some smart decisions and some poor decisions. As a brand marketer, I’ll be the first one to tell you that it isn’t easy to work with Facebook sometimes.   I think we should learn from others rather than judge them. No one is perfect. And no matter the shortcomings we think Zuckerberg has, there is a lot to learn from him. That’s what I tried to focus on in my book.   You are not only in a high-powered job, you are also a mother and a wife (and find time to travel and dance, according to your website). What are tips for being a modern woman juggling so much?   I don’t think the secret sauce exists, really. And I believe that the balance is an elusive concept. If you prioritize something, it means you are sacrificing something else. The way I look at it is: you need to be crystal clear on what your priorities are and be brutally protective of your time. Outline what you need to focus on (work vs. family vs. exercise vs. volunteer work vs. your hobbies or social life) and which one gets the priority at any point in time. There are times to multi-task and there are times to be fully present. Do whatever works to increase your productivity. Notice what times of day your productivity is at its highest and book that time to do strategic work, to write and brainstorm or execute on your projects. Book the rest of the time for meetings and more mundane tasks.   And don’t be afraid to delegate and ask for help. Sometimes we seek excellence (which is great!), but by doing so we are taking on the tasks that we may not trust others to execute and in the process over-committing. Delegate, empower others to jump in and support you and you might be surprised at the initiative and quality of work you see from others. And if your finances allow it, hire help. Outsource all the work you dread doing like cleaning your house, for example. Preserving your sanity is much more important in the long run.    What do you say in response to studies that say social media can be detrimental to our development, independently and as a culture?   There are always two sides of a coin to everything in life. The fact that kids nowadays are constantly glued to their devices isn’t a good thing. But reality is that face-to-face interaction is still the activity valued by most teenagers. Multiple studies show that they look for real-life experiences and want to experience adventures with their friends.   Good or bad, the world evolves and we need to evolve with it. Millennials are demanding access to social networks at work and value that over monetary compensation. Youngsters grew up feeling comfortable with technology. Facebook created a sweet 24/7 addiction of information flow and connectedness. I definitely think that the fact that kids hide behind the avatars of social networks and gaming consoles isn’t a healthy trend. That’s why I ensure my daughter gets plenty of social interaction outside of home and not a ton of time with technology (except for educational purposes). That is why my husband and I insist that every night we have a family dinner, free of technology and toys, so that we could have a conversation about the day and plan for the next one.    I have 3 kids so this comes up a lot in my house-at what age will you let your daughter have a Facebook page?   Mine is still 3 years old and I am not yet sure what the world would look like in 10 years. So I guess my answer would be “when I feel confident that she understands the cons and pros of having a digital life.”   Privacy is my biggest concern. For example, I have always been extra cautious with what I am posting online. My mantra is: even if I post to a close group of friends, if I don’t want the whole world to see it, I don’t post it at all. For example, I never post pictures of my daughter anywhere online because I feel like she gets to have a say in what pictures of her are floating out there on the web. It isn’t my decision to make, it is hers. Though I have to tell you – it is sometimes super hard not to share that cute little face with others.    Because of your extensive marketing experience, do you have any advice for marketing tactics or strategies that might win over those who are not as social media savvy?   My advice will probably be very fundamental.   Build relationships: just like you build relationships with your partners and investors to advance your business, you have to build relationships with your customers… and social media is the best way to do so. Listen to them, understand what they relate to, know what they like, engage with them in meaningful ways that show that you listen.   Love your customers: it doesn’t matter where you connect with them, if you love your customers and you delight them with your service and personal attention, you will always do well. Here is an example of how REI delighted me this holiday season with custom-created video response to my tweet.   Go back to basics: know your objective, know your audience, and based on that decide what social channels will work best for you. Don’t get distracted by the next shiny object, focus on what works best. But don’t be afraid to try new things and track the performance as much as you can so that you could learn in real-time.   Add value: there is a ton of ways to add value to your customers. Contrary to a popular belief that the customers are only looking for discounts, they are also looking to understand, learn, and grow. They are looking for great content. You can either engage within the existing communities like LinkedIn groups and offer your expertise to those communities on a regular basis, or create your own communities on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or your blog and offer valuable content/advice/offers to your customers that will keep them engaging with you.   Building relationships and producing amazing, custom content takes time, no doubt. But that is the only way to stand out from the noise and delight your customers. 

Not up for shelling out $100 bucks to message Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg?  Social innovator and marketing thought leader Ekaterina Walter has a much cheaper way to pick the brain of the famed boy wonder.  Her new book, Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg, examines the success of Facebook and its controversial founder.

 

Focusing on what Facebook has done right, Walter outlines what she believes are the the five “P”s of Facebook’s meteoric rise.  A positive, informative and inspirational book, Walter also delves into the success of many other successful companies with maverick leaders, including Zappos, Pixar, TOMS, 3M and Southwest Airlines.

 

To those who wince at Walter’s praise of Zuckerberg, she writes, “…no matter what one thinks about young Zuckerberg, one cannot call eight solid years of his company’s unprecedented growth pure luck.”

 

Walter is an unusual mix of female technology genius and down to earth woman’s woman.  She is a member of the online social network I run, called A Band of Wives. A believer in our plan to change the world by supporting the women in our own backyards, Walter was happy to answer some of my questions about the book and how she manages life as a working mom.

 

You outline a formulaic, point-by-point system for success. Do you believe, even if the “5 P’s” are followed precisely and applied the way you describe, that there may be a “x-factor” necessary for success? 

 

Think Like Zuck is an analogy of a leader who follows his/her passion, leads with purpose, builds great teams, and strives for continued excellence in his/her product (or services). It is a mentality that drives great leaders to building successful business and the approach they use to doing so.

Hence, the 5 Ps described in the book are:

 

PASSION—Keep your energy and commitment fully charged at all times by pursuing something you believe in

PURPOSE—Don’t just create a great product, drive a meaningful movement

PEOPLE—Build powerful teams that can execute your vision

PRODUCT —Create a product that is innovative, that breaks all the rules, that changes everything

PARTNERSHIPS—Build powerful partnerships with people who fuel imagination and energize execution

 

But this isn’t the exhaustive list by any means. There are a number of different factors that need to align to drive success. For example, timing is important – are the customers ready to embrace your product? Even a little bit of luck is needed every now and then. Discussion of all of them would probably not fit in one book. So I chose to focus on the ones that I’ve witnessed to be more impactful over the years in anyone’s success and growth.

 

The title “Think Like Zuck” seems very masculine.  Can you explain why this book is just as (if not more) important for women to read?

 

Think Like Zuck is more of a way of thinking, a philosophy of a leader. And women have the same potential to be leaders as men. Oprah, Estee Lauder, Amelia Earhart and many other female leaders were driven by their passion, led with purpose, understood true power of partnerships, persevered and exemplified excellence. Some of them are quoted in my book.

 

The lessons in the book are universal. Working within the large brand but advising start-ups in my spare time, I’ve seen both men and women apply them to drive change and make a difference.  But it seems to me that women are naturally more inclined to follow their heart, listen to their gut, and rally people around the same vision. And when they do that, women make great visionaries. Sometimes we just need a little bit of encouragement, someone saying “Go for it!” That is why it is critical for women to support each other. We are much stronger and more successful together than we are apart! That’s my mantra. That is the reason I spend a lot of time mentoring other women, supporting them, and that’s why I never said no to anyone who seeks career advice. 

 

You paint a pretty rosy picture of Mark Zuckerberg: his intentions, his challenges, and his accomplishments. What would you say to the people who claim he is not the most likeable or ethical character? 

 

Zuck is a very public figure. And just like with anyone else who has the level of visibility that he does, there will always be people who praise him and people who criticize him. Undoubtedly, he made some smart decisions and some poor decisions. As a brand marketer, I’ll be the first one to tell you that it isn’t easy to work with Facebook sometimes.

 

I think we should learn from others rather than judge them. No one is perfect. And no matter the shortcomings we think Zuckerberg has, there is a lot to learn from him. That’s what I tried to focus on in my book.

 

You are not only in a high-powered job, you are also a mother and a wife (and find time to travel and dance, according to your website). What are tips for being a modern woman juggling so much?

 

I don’t think the secret sauce exists, really. And I believe that the balance is an elusive concept. If you prioritize something, it means you are sacrificing something else. The way I look at it is: you need to be crystal clear on what your priorities are and be brutally protective of your time. Outline what you need to focus on (work vs. family vs. exercise vs. volunteer work vs. your hobbies or social life) and which one gets the priority at any point in time. There are times to multi-task and there are times to be fully present. Do whatever works to increase your productivity. Notice what times of day your productivity is at its highest and book that time to do strategic work, to write and brainstorm or execute on your projects. Book the rest of the time for meetings and more mundane tasks.

 

And don’t be afraid to delegate and ask for help. Sometimes we seek excellence (which is great!), but by doing so we are taking on the tasks that we may not trust others to execute and in the process over-committing. Delegate, empower others to jump in and support you and you might be surprised at the initiative and quality of work you see from others. And if your finances allow it, hire help. Outsource all the work you dread doing like cleaning your house, for example. Preserving your sanity is much more important in the long run.

  

What do you say in response to studies that say social media can be detrimental to our development, independently and as a culture?

 

There are always two sides of a coin to everything in life. The fact that kids nowadays are constantly glued to their devices isn’t a good thing. But reality is that face-to-face interaction is still the activity valued by most teenagers. Multiple studies show that they look for real-life experiences and want to experience adventures with their friends.

 

Good or bad, the world evolves and we need to evolve with it. Millennials are demanding access to social networks at work and value that over monetary compensation. Youngsters grew up feeling comfortable with technology. Facebook created a sweet 24/7 addiction of information flow and connectedness. I definitely think that the fact that kids hide behind the avatars of social networks and gaming consoles isn’t a healthy trend. That’s why I ensure my daughter gets plenty of social interaction outside of home and not a ton of time with technology (except for educational purposes). That is why my husband and I insist that every night we have a family dinner, free of technology and toys, so that we could have a conversation about the day and plan for the next one.

 

 I have 3 kids so this comes up a lot in my house-at what age will you let your daughter have a Facebook page?

 

Mine is still 3 years old and I am not yet sure what the world would look like in 10 years. So I guess my answer would be “when I feel confident that she understands the cons and pros of having a digital life.”

 

Privacy is my biggest concern. For example, I have always been extra cautious with what I am posting online. My mantra is: even if I post to a close group of friends, if I don’t want the whole world to see it, I don’t post it at all. For example, I never post pictures of my daughter anywhere online because I feel like she gets to have a say in what pictures of her are floating out there on the web. It isn’t my decision to make, it is hers. Though I have to tell you – it is sometimes super hard not to share that cute little face with others.

 

 Because of your extensive marketing experience, do you have any advice for marketing tactics or strategies that might win over those who are not as social media savvy?

 

My advice will probably be very fundamental.

 

Build relationships: just like you build relationships with your partners and investors to advance your business, you have to build relationships with your customers… and social media is the best way to do so. Listen to them, understand what they relate to, know what they like, engage with them in meaningful ways that show that you listen.

 

Love your customers: it doesn’t matter where you connect with them, if you love your customers and you delight them with your service and personal attention, you will always do well. Here is an example of how REI delighted me this holiday season with custom-created video response to my tweet.

 

Go back to basics: know your objective, know your audience, and based on that decide what social channels will work best for you. Don’t get distracted by the next shiny object, focus on what works best. But don’t be afraid to try new things and track the performance as much as you can so that you could learn in real-time.

 

Add value: there is a ton of ways to add value to your customers. Contrary to a popular belief that the customers are only looking for discounts, they are also looking to understand, learn, and grow. They are looking for great content. You can either engage within the existing communities like LinkedIn groups and offer your expertise to those communities on a regular basis, or create your own communities on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or your blog and offer valuable content/advice/offers to your customers that will keep them engaging with you.

 

Building relationships and producing amazing, custom content takes time, no doubt. But that is the only way to stand out from the noise and delight your customers. 

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What Do APEs And 4 Hour Chefs Have In Common?

For those who think that alternative routes of publishing a book are only for poor schmucks who can’t get a traditional publisher or for egomaniacs who want a “vanity” book, Guy Kawasaki and Tim Ferriss are legitimizing unconventional strategies and opening up a whole new world for everyone, like it or not.

After writing ten successful and traditionally published books former Apple chief evangelist , venture capitalist, speaker, and blogger Kawasaki leapt into the self-publishing world with a 99 cent ebook singing the praises of Google’s foray into social media, Google +.

“In 2011 the publisher of one of my books, Enchantment, could not fill an order for 500 ebook copies of the book. Because of this experience, I self-published my next book, What the Plus!, and learned first-hand that self-publishing is a complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process,” Kawasaki says in the Amazon description of his second self-published book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book.

APE reads like a conversation with Guy himself and although it’s dauntingly detailed, it is a book that everyone from bloggers to famous authors should have on their tablets. 

Aside from providing a step-by step diagram for self-publishing, APE also pushes forward a new paradigm, called artisanal publishing, and thus completely reframes self-publishing from a “vanity” to a craft.

“If I could hire my editor and publicist from [traditional publishing house] Penguin I would,” Kawasaki told me, but otherwise he is happy to be able to control the entire process of his book.  

And he’s not the only one: self-publishing is an art form that is growing very rapidly, as much as 287% since 2006.  

And Kawasaki is not the only big name jumping from the proverbial traditional publishing barge. Tim Ferriss, the nutritional supplement business man turned million plus copies sold author, recently published his latest book, The 4-Hour Chef solely through Amazon.com’s own imprint.

In supposed opposition to Amazon, book retailers are refusing to sell The 4-Hour Chef in their stores, a move that that seems to some like more of a shot at the author and in the foot than a stand against Amazon.

In a recent live interview in San Francisco, Ferriss admitted that he has taken some hits by going with Amazon over a traditional publisher, but he believes so much in innovation that he is willing to take the blows, to take the leap with a new way of publishing.  No other publisher, Ferriss said, could have excerpted parts of one book into another as Amazon did for his 4-Hour series.

Both Kawasaki and Ferriss are shaking up the Goliath of the publishing world for very different reasons and with very different approaches. Who will win is undetermined, but according to political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft  “When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win…even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

But Kawasaki is not taking his taking his role as an iconoclast lightly, and warned me that the power afforded by the artisan approach to publishing is  to be taken seriously.

 “Greater control creates greater responsibility.” 

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How to Rock Your Slut Vote and Other Tips From My Interview With Kimberley Johnson

“What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex — what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.” — Rush Limbaugh

In response to an environment where Republican legislators in 49 states introduced 916 bills targeting women’s reproductive rights, radio talk show hosts like Limbaugh refer to college students speaking before Congress as “sluts,” and anti-choice activists convinced the Susan G. Komen Foundation to defund reproductive services provider Planned Parenthood, one group is taking up arms in the War on Women in an effort to get every American woman to vote with both bravado and a sense of humor.

“If every women was aware of the literally thousands of bills targeting women’s rights, I predict this election would be a landslide Obama victory,” Rock The Slut Vote spokesperson Kimberley A. Johnson told me.  “Those who claim this War On Women is merely a liberal distraction will soon realize how serious and destructive the GOP plan is to both genders. It’s our goal to make sure that never happens.”

Some of the more egregious pieces of legislation she cites are:

In Wisconsin, Republican Senator Glenn Grothman introduced a bill criminalizing single mothers, calling their marital status a contributing factor in child abuse and neglect.

In Arizona, doctors have the legal right to withhold medical information from pregnant patients who may be facing life-threatening issuesin order to prevent them from having abortions.

Senate Republicans blocked the Equal Pay bill, thus denying a woman the right to sue an employer if she finds a male counterpart is being paid more for the same job.

“As you can see, we are being hit from all directions and this campaign against women is not just about the right to choose.” Kimberley explained.

Founded in March, 2012, by 56-year old mother of two Susan McMillan Emry, Rock The Slut Vote’s stated purpose is “to fight the GOP effort to bully, subjugate and silence women. We will wrest the power from the word slut and help women get informed, get involved, get registered and vote.”

“Women and men need to be informed,” Johnson told me.

“This is one of the most important elections in recent history and we all must understand what’s at stake. Only looking at and voting on the headlines doesn’t provide the full picture of what’s going on and can prove detrimental in the voting booth.”

Johnson, also an anthologist and an actress who appeared on Days of out Lives, joined the Rock The Slut Vote effort in April of this year. Together, Johnson and Emry have received national attention and a following that grows daily. They’ve also released a book, Rock The Slut Vote: American Edition: Navigating The Republican War On Women. 100% of the profits are donated to Planned Parenthood.

RTSV also has an online store, where supporters can purchase t-shirts, tote bags, and bumper stickers to support the cause.

“The favorite slogan chosen for t-shirts and bumper stickers is ‘Rush Limbaugh Thinks I’m A Slut,” Johnson said.

CB: The word slut is controversial and not every woman, including liberals, will want to take on that label. What do you say to those women who may be uncomfortable with the word?

KJ: We are uncomfortable with the word slut, but we are more uncomfortable with all of the legislation being introduced by Republicans that denies access to birth control, fair pay and the right to choose. We realize the term is ugly, but much like our Founding Fathers embraced the derogatory term Yankee, we choose to embrace and seize the word slut and refuse to allow a small group of people to take away our power. In other words, if Fluke is a slut for wanting affordable birth control on her insurance plan, then we are sluts too. We don’t expect that every woman will take on the name and that’s okay. We choose to fight this very real War On Women and have garnered enormous support from people in more than 25 countries all over the globe. We’re proud to have men and women from all walks of life support our cause. Most recently, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry was seen at the Democratic National Convention wearing a pin that read: Sluts Vote.

CB: What is your goal?

KJ:  To get women registered and to the voting booths. Our site www.waronwomenhas a tab that makes registering easy. We are galvanizing and informing both genders and our message is to get out and vote! While 10 million more women than men voted in 2008, another 20 million women did not vote in that election. Those numbers are dramatic and important.

CB: If Romney were to win the election, what do you see happening to women’s rights?

KJ: Romney is on record saying he will defund Planned Parenthood. The Republican platform states very clearly they are against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.Ryan has a record of working on legislation that takes power away from women and the two of them would reverse decades of progress. Once elected, there’s no telling how fast they will work to dismantle the laws already in place, but we believe it’s a safe bet they will act swiftly.

If you’re interested in getting involved with Rock The Slut Vote, you have a number of options.  When I spoke with Johnson, she said about twelve thousand people are reading the articles outlining the GOP agenda and blog posts directing people to volunteer for the Democratic Party on RTSV’s Facebook page.

The RTSV websitealso “provides various resources to get informed and involved, including tabs that get you registered to vote, Truth vs. Propaganda and a Sound Off tab that makes it easy to contact local officials and have your voice heard on the specific issues that concern you,” Johnson says.

But the most important thing you can do to Rock the Slut Vote is, of course, to vote.  “I often hear people complain their vote is meaningless. To that I say, vote anyway!” Johnson said. 

“If you owned a business and a top-ranking employee was damaging the company, would

you throw your hands in the air and say, ‘Oh well, there’s nothing I can do, so I’ll keep

paying them.’ Or would you fire them? The answer is clear. We are the government’s

employer. It is our civic duty to partake in the democracy on which this country was

founded. Freedom isn’t free and it’s up to each and every citizen to exercise the right, the

privilege and the duty to vote.”