In the Saturday November 21 New York Post, reporter Michelle Malkin writes a scathing op-ed piece on the Service Employees International Union,  entitled “The Union That Hates the Boy Scouts.“.  The major point of her piece is that the SEIU strongly opposes volunteer work in many communities, because they believe that volunteer work takes paid work away from union members.

Her description of certain union positions rings true to me because I recall that the Stamford Youth Foundation (Stamford, Connecticut) could not staff the variety and volume of after-school activities that it would have liked because union contracts required it to pay every teacher for the extra hours worked after the regular school day.  This deeply bothers me.

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This has been a most interesting week for me, especially the first two days I spent in Los Angeles with my older son in meetings relating to three investments in performing arts projects: a small commercial independent film called Fog Warning, (a trailer is viewable on YouTube), a reality TV production company called LongStoryShort Productions, and a film script on which my son Mike and I are working together.  From these meetings on all three investments, as well as other conversations I have had with many people in the performing arts business, I have learned about the challenges artists have with agents, distributors, or other intermediaries.

In the recording industry, the intermediary is the record label.  In movies, screenwriters have to approach producers through agents, and film producers have to reach the marketplace through sales agents or distributors.  TV producers have to go through agents to reach TV networks and other content buyers.  This is similar to what I experienced and saw in the broader business world: there are always gatekeepers between product and service producers and the end customer.

What is great about the Internet is how it has the potential to give those who want to reach a customer the ability to bypass intermediaries and create a better balance of power with those intermediaries.  I love the fact that Paranormal Activity, a movie produced for $15,000, which used predominantly low-cost direct marketing channels, including social media, has grossed over $100 million since its release. Too many intermediaries would be threatened if that became the norm on how to get a movie to the public.

Related to this, I was so happy when my younger son became a very capable online seller during his senior year of high school, and my daughter learned about to get harp performing engagements directly without needing a booking agent.

I believe strongly that we will see far more prosperity and a more equal distribution of income and wealth if individuals have the skills to sell their products, services, and labor directly to those who need them.  Intermediaries can serve a very valuable role, and many are essential to the people they serve.  However, just like any monopoly situation, when they have sole or primary access to the end customer, they can get complacent and not do the best possible for the seller.  That’s why I like the potential direct marketing opportunities the Internet provides.  It gives any seller, including me, the ability to say to an intermediary: “Either be as passionate and single-minded about what I am selling as I am, or get out of the way.”

One of my experiences was a lunch at a popular New York City restaurant on July 8.  When I looked at the menu, every item was labeled relative to the calorie content of the item.  I was ready to order the caesar salad as a low-calorie alternative, when I was shocked to find out that the salad contained 790 calories, and that the salad with chicken was 1,325 calories.  To my surprise, the 10-ounce filet mignon was only 390 calories, so I ordered it and also had a cup of soup.  Undoubtedly, absent the disclosure, I would have ordered the salad.

I also wear a pedometer every day and almost always am able to walk or run sufficiently to get to 10,000 steps per day.  On July 8, on my way to the restaurant, I was taking a subway from East 86^th Street in New York to Grand Central Terminal at East 42^nd Street.  While I was on the subway, I noticed that I had 20 minutes to spare when the train pulled into the 59^th Street station, and that I needed to log a number of steps.  As a result, I exited the train at 59^th Street and walked the rest of the way, because I saw that it would be difficult for me to get to my target.

At Pitney Bowes, we took one further action relative to marketing the benefits of walking.  At the bottom of our 3^rd floor stairway in our World Headquarters, we have a sign that informs someone that if they walk up and down these stairs every for a year instead of taking the elevator behind the stairs, they would lose 5 pounds.  I watch people make the discretionary decision to take the stairway rather than the elevator.

The Wall Street Journal article notes that the same behavior occurs relative to electricity usage when a home has a power monitor that informs the home owner minute by minute how much power has been consumed.  The author, Geoffrey Fowler, cites an Oxford University study in 2006 that found that “people getting direct feedback on their power consumption reduced use 5% to 15%.

There are two implications to these data points:

•       If we want to reduce overeating or to increase exercise, measuring, monitoring, and disclosing the quantitative aspects of a behavior will change the behavior.
•       Conversely, if we want to change an unconscious behavior by altering the environment that produces it, that will be successful as well. Eating, exercising, and other behaviors, good and bad, have a heavy unconscious, automatic aspect to them.

Reflecting on my behavior in the restaurant and on the subway, I am more convinced than ever that mandatory nutritional labeling works if it is quantitative.  Warnings like the Surgeon General’s warning on cigarette packages are much less effective because they are not quantitative.  Similarly, disclosures on prescription drug packages relative to side effects are also relatively ineffective because they are not quantitative.

My good friend Dr. Elliott Fisher of Dartmouth’s Health Policy Institute introduced me to a different form of disclosure relative to prescription drugs, a one-page chart that lists every side effect, but that specifically supplements the disclosure by listing in quantitative fashion the results of the clinical trials conducted for that drug.  Thus, for example, the chart does not simply say that Drug X has been shown to cause headaches in some people.  It specifically discloses that of the 2,500 people who took the drug, 17 of them, or .68%, experienced headaches.  There are some indications that individuals confronted with quantitative information react differently.  Some pay attention to the disclosure and decide they do not want to take the risk; others are reassured by a low-percentage risk disclosure and decide they will take the risk.  In both cases, the quantitative disclosure altered behaviors.

Because of all these experiences and observations, I have become a strong believer in more detailed labeling and disclosure, as well as much more quantitative disclosure, whenever such disclosure is not false or misleading.

As I delve more into the study of health and health care, I find myself learning more about the influence of government food policy on what we eat, and what is causing our epidemic of diet-related conditions: diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, strokes, and even cancer.

Michael Pollan wrote an exceptionally informative article in the October 12 New York Times Magazine, entitled “Farmers in Chief.” Among other observations, he makes the following points: (more…)

In the July 1 New York Times, there was an interesting article about the effort of the Congressional Black Caucus to get the addition of menthol to cigarettes banned because menthol cigarettes are the choice of 75% of African-American smokers. There is a clear recognition that menthol and other sweeteners added to cigarettes make them more attractive to vulnerable populations, like young people, minorities with health risks that make smoking health-threatening and young women.

When I read this article, it occurred to me that the misuse of menthol and other sweeteners to attract people to cigarettes can be turned on its head to make healthy foods more attractive to eat. When our younger son, who is now 17 years old, was under 10 years old, we had a great deal of difficulty getting him to eat anything other than junk food. We had particular difficulty getting him to eat green vegetables. (more…)

I believe strongly that health is enhanced by healthy behaviors, such as good nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyles. To some degree, we can mandate healthy behaviors by law and regulation, or by centralized controls.

However, just as I noted in a blog several months ago in which I described some of the findings in the book Mindless Eating, authored by Brian Wansink, the best behavior change drivers are those of which the individual is not conscious. Steve Victor’s Fit For Life blog provides a brief summary of the book’s key takeaways.

For example, in our World Headquarters at Pitney Bowes, we have created a healthy environment by the food we serve and the way we price it. We have an on-site clinic and on-site fitness center, and we have many outreach programs for preventive screenings and immunizations. (more…)

In my last posting, I referred to parts of America that have been described as “food deserts,” meaning that residents living in those areas do not have access to supermarkets or other food stores or restaurants from which they can purchase affordable healthy food. One of my Pitney Bowes colleagues referred me to a satirical YouTube posting called The Bronx Bodega, which powerfully illustrates what I have noted in a few postings: in many poorer communities with less healthy people, not only is healthy food unavailable at affordable prices, if it is available at all, but the unhealthy food is exceptionally inexpensive and attractively packaged.

But I have learned that the absence of healthy food is just one form of deprivation for low-income communities. They lack four other prerequisites for healthy living:

• Safe outdoor play areas, like parks, to get exercise;
• Primary care clinics for treatment of minor illnesses and injuries, preventive screenings, and immunizations, as well as referral to medical specialists;
• Pharmacies; and
• Information sources. (more…)

Recently, I gave a speech at the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) business conference in Chicago on the prerequisites for a workable solution to our health care cost crisis.

One of the main points I made is that convenient and affordable access to healthy foods, prescription and over-the-counter medications, and primary care physicians and nurses for preventive screenings, immunizations, and treatment of minor illnesses and injuries was a more important issue to attack than simply expanding coverage. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that I am right.

This morning, I was listening to an interview on WFAN-New York radio, and the interviewee, a founder of an organization trying to address the issue of hunger in America, referred to “food deserts,” a term I had not heard before. He defined the term as a geographic area in which many people live, but they do not have convenient access to a supermarket or any other food store that carries healthy foods. He said that the entire city of Detroit and major chunks of New York City have no supermarkets. As a result, residents of these communities eat fast food or they go to bodegas or convenience stores that stock inexpensive junk food and nothing else. (more…)

The more I have studied the issue of obesity, the more convinced I am that one of the highest leverage points in attacking the problem is getting agricultural food subsidies changed.

We tend to blame individuals for their eating habits, particularly obese poor people. What we fail to take into account is the extent to which their eating habits are dictated by the relative costs of different foods, particularly the costs of unhealthy vs. healthy foods. We fail to understand that both the availability and cost of foods is heavily influenced by long-standing agricultural subsidies baked into federal laws and U.S. Department of Agricultural regulations.

I first learned about this in reading an article in my local newspaper, the Darien Times, about a lecture in Westport, Connecticut, at which Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, among others, commented on the influence of agricultural subsidies on producing more sugar and grain-based foods. She and others commented that fruits and vegetables are considered “specialty foods” which are not given subsidies and therefore more expensive. (more…)