Dennis Norman Musings

I attended a presentation on mobile technology for real estate today, part of which focused on social media and how to use it to market your business.  There was a fair amount of discussion about Facebook, Twitter, Twellow, Linkdn as well as some others.  The best part though was the speaker played a video that I had seen before but had forgotten about that does a great job of presenting the facts and figures on social media….clearly it works and it is here to stay.  While searching YouTube I actually found a new version of the video from last month that has updated statistics….

Here it is:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This morning I saw an article on STL Today about a retired art teacher that was sentenced to 20 days in jail after he refused to make changes to art he has displayed in his front yard that “court and city officials have deemed dangerous.”

According to the article, Lewis Greenberg was convicted in October in St. Louis County court of two counts of city ordinance violations – littering and storing hazardous materials. The judge told Greenberg to clean it up or face a penalty. Well, I gotta give it to this guy for standing up for what he believes in as apparently yesterday he showed up in court and told the judge “he had no plans to comply.” This prompted Judge Lawrence Permuter to sentence Greenberg to 20 days in jail and pay a $1,000 fine.

The judge said he has been trying to get the property safe, so I guess one could assume this is some pretty dangerous art the old art teacher came up with. According to STL Today, Greenberg’s attorney said his client’s art was “no different than holiday lights or a birdbath.”

Being a staunch supporter of first amendment freedoms as well as private property rights, and, quite honestly, really curious at this point, I decided to drive to Mr. Greenberg’s house at 977 Morena Court, in Ballwin, MO, and see what all the hubbub was about.

Well, I’ve been there, shot a bunch of photos which are below, and had myself a good chuckle. I have to admit I was a little taken aback when I rounded the corner and saw Greenberg’s art display….his house sits on a corner so his entire yard, front, both sides and rear, is visible from the street (which, in light of the “no trespassing” signs on the property made my life easier) and I would say pretty much most space has been used. Now, whether Mr. Greenberg’s attorney’s statement regarding this being “no different than holiday lights or a birdbath”, all I can say is….that may be a stretch….well, unless he was referring to Clark Griswold’s holiday light display in Christmas Vacation. Oh, what about the Judge’s and City’s claim they are just “trying to keep the property safe”….hmm….I don’t know that it looked that dangerous to me, I guess if you threw yourself at the corner of the star of David you may be able to impale yourself but for starters you would have to trespass and then jump up in the air since the stars are hanging from trees. So I guess the city’s claim is probably a stretch too…reality it they probably just don’t like the look of it.

My take on things….

The art display does not appear to me to be something that Mr. Greenberg is doing just to annoy people or offend people…clearly, as the pictures show, and he has said, it appears that the art is a statement on the Holocaust…it looks like to me it is the work of someone that is passionate about sharing his thoughts and feelings about the holocaust, and is willing to stand up for his right to do so. Now, would I want to be his next door neighbor? Honestly, probably not…it would probably be annoying to have the display of art and the attention it gets next door to me. However, freedom of speech is an annoying thing...let’s face it, for a lot of us, this freedom is fine as long as people are saying what we want to hear…we just don’t like freedom of speech when people are saying what we don’t want to hear or expressing it in a way we don’t like. I relate it to the fact I’m a Christian and I like nativity scenes that you see displayed in people’s yards at Christmas. Are there people that don’t like, or may even be offended by them? Sure. Just like there are people that take offense to the way Mr. Greenberg has expressed his thoughts and feelings…Who’s right? Nah, I’m not going there….

Before I close I do want to say that I have many friends that are Jewish and I have even met a couple of people that were in concentration camps and survived to tell about it….It was one of the more horrific events in our history and I can understand why, particularly at a time when some people are even going as far to say the holocaust didn’t happen, someone, such as Mr. Greenberg, could be so determined to share his art with people to remind everyone about this horrible time in history….

Now for the photos:

Wikipedia defines “Guerrilla Marketing” as:

…an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral.

Wikipedia defines “Terrorism” as:

…in the most general sense, the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

See the difference? Guerrilla marketing is a “system of promotions” and is commonly quite clever and creative in it’s approach, intended to be “engaging and thought-provoking“.  Terrorism, on the other hand, is not normally an approach to marketing, at least not in the U.S.  Well, until Marc M. Keyser had a brainstorm on how to promote his new book on, of all things, terrorism.

Read on it gets even better…

So, according to a press release issued by the FBI in Sacramento, in January 2007 Keyser mailed a package to the Sacramento News & Review, promoting a book that he had written about potential anthrax attacks in the United States by terrorists. The package included a copy of the book on CD, a note offering to discuss publication of excerpts of the book, and a cylindrical aerosol canister labeled “Anthrax.” The mailing resulted in the evacuation of the building and a full law enforcement and hazmat response. An investigating FBI special agent interviewed Keyser at that time, informed him of the consequences of the mailing, and specifically admonished him that he risked prosecution under the hoax mailings statute if he sent any similar mailings in the future.

OK, so it seemed like a good idea maybe at first….but the FBI warned him not to do it again so of course he didn’t…right?  Wrong!

I have to admit I have had some ideas that sure seemed good when I played them out in my head for a couple of seconds before putting them in action, only to have it blow up in my face or backfire.  However, in my case, I generally wake up and smell the coffee…I realize my idea wasn’t so good and abandon it as quickly as I initially embraced it.  Oh, and if my wake up call was the FBI telling me my idea was not good, after I peed in my pants from fear, I would then permanently erase the idea from my head. Not this guy though…..he not only does it again, he does it 100-fold!

In late October 2008 Keyser mailed over 100 packages that contained a CD with excerpts of a new book on terrorism that was labeled in large print “Anthrax Shock and Awe Terror” and a small sugar packet that had been re-labeled with a bio-hazard symbol and the words “Anthrax sample.” Most of the packages had no information indicating that the CD contained a book. The mailings were sent to various newspapers and other media companies, officials, and retail outlets nationwide, causing police, fire, and hazmat teams to respond to emergency calls in many states.

So what’s Keyser say about his plan?

Again, according to the information from the FBI, Keyser stated to investigating agents that he intended the mailings to be “provocative” and that he hoped the controversy and “buzz” generated by news reports about the mailings would heighten awareness of anthrax vulnerability and spur sales of his book.

So how did it work out?

Well, I’m not sure how Keyser’s book sales are going, but I would say his marketing plan was a bust…well actually he was busted,  convicted by a jury on September 17, 2009 of three counts of committing an anthrax hoax and two counts of mailing threatening communications, and on Monday of this week was sentenced to 51 months in prison.

The National Day of Prayer (36 U.S.C. § 119) is a day designated by the United States Congress when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation“. The law formalizing its observance was enacted in 1952, and is being challenged in court.

On April 15, 2010, United States District Court Judge Barbara Crabb, for the Western District of Wisconsin, struck down the National Day of Prayer statute, 36 U.S.C. § 119, as violating the Establishment Clause. Judge Crabb ruled that the statute serves no secular purpose, but rather calls the nation to engage in a religious exercise – prayer.

The National Day of Prayer belongs to Americans. It is a tradition that dates back to 1775 and it is not for a Judge to take away. We the people called for the day of prayer and for 59 years we have practiced our freedom to gather and pray.

This is an attack upon our religious freedoms and it is a sad day in America when an atheist in Wisconsin can undermine this tradition for millions of others who simply wish to join their fellow citizens in praying for their country.

The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith – it does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

This video was sent to me and if it wasn’t for the fact it is probably a reasonably accurate depiction of the budget deficit, it would be funny.  It’s a great illustration of the Federal Budget, the deficit and Obama’s recent promise to cut $100 Million from the budget.

By: Dennis Norman

OK, I’ll admit it, I couldn’t figure out a way to write about this on any of the real estate blogs I write for so I had to write about it here.

I really didn’t think there could be a Congressman that could say something dumber than the things I have heard Rep Maxine Waters say in the past, but this morning that all changed.  Rep Hank Johnson proved he may know less than Rep Waters when he asked Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, about the impact of U.S. troops on the island of Guam and expressed his concern that “… the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” …Yep, he said it, you have to watch the video below!  Oh yeah, kudos to Admiral Willard for somehow being able to restrain but busting out loud with laughter…he actually kept his composure and assured the Congressman that the island was not going to tip over.

Apparently outdoor-apparel manufacturer The North Face doesn’t think so.   I say this because of a recent lawsuit that was filed by North Face against South Butt, a company manufacturing outdoor clothing as a parody of North Face. 

The suit alleges that the South Butt brand is causing confusion amongst consumers with the North Face brand.  While the slogans are somewhat similar they invoke different messages I think: North Face, “Never Stop Exploring^TM“. South Butt, “Never Stop Relaxing^TM”

South Butt was started by 19-year-old University of Missouri student Jimmy Winkelmann in 2007 and I think was a relatively “unknown” company with it’s products only distributed in a couple of St. Louis area drug stores and available on their website at TheSouthButt.com.  That is, until The North Face started trying to curtail their business first with a cease and desist letter back in October, then a couple of months later a lawsuit.  

Thanks to the actions of The North Face, The South Butt suddenly began getting a ton of media attention (ah the power of GOING VIRAL!) which I would assume has brought them significant sales as well as support.  One of the supporters of The South Butt is St. Louis attorney Albert Watkins who has agreed to represent the company in exchange for a “nice bottle of wine”.   Included in the coverage (translation “Free Advertising”) was this video below on Fox News:

Fox News Coverage

OK, now for the good part.  I would think most people have not read an answer to a lawsuit file with a court, or certainly have not done it for entertainment, but you have to read the answer to The North Face lawsuit filed by Albert Watkins on behalf of the defendants, it’s quite unusual and comical.  You can read the entire answering by clicking on the link below but here are a few highlights:

“The South Butt” — evoking the opposite of Plaintiff’s historia nomen–being the soft undercarriage of the non-mountain climbing human anatomy, commonly known and referred to in non-salacious form as, among others, rump, bootie, bottom, buttocks, posterior, rear, saddle thumper and butt.”

“Rather, North Face has voluntarily and as a matter of public record, elected to depict the commercial undertakings of South Butt and its co-Defendants as “piracy”, evoking not intellectual property issues, but high crimes on the high seas, perhaps the South Seas, as contrasted with its oft explored polar opposite.”

There’s much more, it’s worth a read. South Butt Answer to Lawsuit

By: Dennis Norman

Wikipedia defines “Guerrilla Marketing” as:

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral 

Being a life-long entrepreneur and, often the “underdog” in the race, I have had to rely on guerrilla marketing tactics to promote myself and my businesses.  So, “having been there, done that”, I’m always impressed when I see good guerrilla marketing in action. 

Over the weekend I ran across a blog that highlighted, not only a great example of a business that acted upon a situation that was literally the textbook (well, wikipedia) example of a guerrilla marketing opportunity, but the story also contained a great example of another business that blew it and couldn’t have wasted the opportunity more.
I’m referring to a blog called DoctorWifeMom and the post was titled “A Tale of Two Managers”.  This was my first time to the site and while it appears to be a political blog of sorts.  In the header is the following statement;

“Blogging about life as a woman who wears many hats and lives in the red flyover states where we cling to our bibles and our guns and rely on hard work and ingenuity to make it”

However it was at this site I found a great example of guerrilla marketing.

Carolyn, the blogs author, wrote about a political rally she attended in St. Louis, Missouri which brought out a couple of thousand people.  the rally was held on, what sounds like, a busy corner with a shopping center across the street from the rally.  Being the best source of parking it appears many of the rally attendees chose to parking on the shopping center lot although the lot no doubt had signs posted that parking was for patrons of the shopping centers stores only.  Clearly some of the attendees, including Carolyn, did make a purchase from a business  in the center, but many did not. 

In the story there were managers of two businesses located in the shopping center that looked out onto the parking lot, saw all the “illegal parkers” as well as the crowd of people out front and took action.  One person responding was a manager of a major local grocery chain that does over $2 billion of sales in the St. Louis area a year (no doubt many of the rally attendees are customers) and his response was apparently not nice and was more combative than friendly.  The other response was from a manager of another business in the center; one Kyle Gilbertson, manager of Mr. Goodcents Subs and Pastas who took a different approach; he was friendly and nice to the 2,000 unexpected “guests” out front and had employees hand out coupons, food samples and so forth.  No doubt his sales that day were way above normal.  You gotta love it.  Carolyn’s story is much more detailed and complete and I would invite you to check it out by clicking here.

By: Dennis Norman

Today the U.S. Department of Commerce reported new home starts for March were down 10.8% from February and down 48.4% from a year ago.

This is a sharp contrast to last months numbers which showed a 22% increase over January.  However, like I said in my post last month, I don’t think the increase was necessarily good news with regard to the real estate market as inventories are still high and sales are still sluggish…it’s not time to ramp up the building yet.

By: Dennis Norman

This past Tuesday I attended the St. Louis tea party at Keiner Plaza in downtown St. Louis. I had not previously attended any of the tea parties so I was anxious to experience it.

I arrived about the time it was starting and was immediately surprised by the large crowd that was there. The crowd was quite eclectic and many were carrying signs or waving flags. I was pleasantly surprised to see the event leaders started the festivities with a prayer and the crowd responding at the end with a resounding “Amen”; then followed with the star spangled banner with a lot of audience participation.

The theme of the night was to protest big government, government spending and taxes. There were several speakers, including Jim Hoft from the Gateway Pundit. I shot video of some of them, the quality is not great but it will give you a taste of the event.

All in all I was happy to see so many people so passionate about something and willing to try to do something about it in a peaceful, but yet effective manner. Agree or disagree with their position as you may, I think credit has to be given that at least they are doing something. I get so sick and tired of listening to people complain about politicians, government, their jobs, etc and yet their butt never leaves the couch to try to change anything in their lives…heck half the time when I ask if they vote the answer is no.

Videos and photos below…