Today I have the privilege of joining a panel presentation for a group of Walden University doctoral students. Walden is the oldest accredited online university and the academic offices are located right here in Minneapolis. The students, staff, and faculty are meeting on the U of M campus for their summer residency.

If you came to the session today and you’d like more information about Parents for Ethical Marketing, you can read this post or explore the website. If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for our monthly newsletter and action alerts.

Here are the posts that I discussed today:

Children’s hospital naming rights go to . . . Abercrombie & Fitch?
BuzzFeed
A thousands words (Hooters toddler t-shirt)
Little girls gone wild (Review of The Lolita Effect at Salon.com)
Target Corporation assumes feminism is dead; dismisses bloggers
Target tells a blogger to go away (New York Times)
Quick Hit: Let P&G Know What You Think of Their Website for Girls (Shapely Prose)
Call for action: Site for adolescent teens promotes eating disorders (The F-Word)
Beinggirl.com promotes eating-disordered behavior, isn’t so safe or credible

If you’d like to learn more about blogging, social media, and nonprofits, be sure to check out Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media.

Questions? Ask in the comments or drop me a note at lisa (at) parentsforethicalmarketing (dot) org.

My girls are out of school, summer vacations have begun, and we’re moving into “summer office hours.” You can expect fewer blog posts from me here at Corporate Babysitter.

I am trying to line up some great guest bloggers and will continue to work on our site redesign.

One good way to stay on top of things is to subscribe to the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood’s RSS feed.

And while you’re thinking about CCFC, take a moment to send them a few bucks. They need to raise ten grand by June 30, are over half-way there, and just need a bit more to make it. Remember, CCFC accepts no corporate funding — so folks like us can sure help them pay the bills.

And now, off to Aberdeen, South Dakota. Back next week!

photo courtesy guruscotty

Today I’m honored to be interviewed by Kimberly Bock at Learning SEO Basics: Supporter of Ethical Marketing. Kimberly’s goal is “to establish communication with ethical marketers on a global scale [and] use this blog as a consistent daily feed of ethical marketing resources . . . .” The series includes interviews with Jonathon Colman from The Nature Conservancy and Chris Baskind from Vida Verde Media.

In addition to this interview, several other things have made me feel like a success today. The first was a visit to Corporate Babysitter from someone over at Jaffe Juice who hung around and read a couple pages. And some visits from Shakesville readers. And visitors still coming from Salon.com.

Success!

I also received my first unsolicited media kit. The folks over at the Pioneer Press want me to advertise in their Nonprofit Giving Guide published in November. Not sure how they got my email address, but hey: someone, somewhere thinks I have an ad budget!*

Success!

But the best was when my daughter approached me this morning. She had today’s newspaper in her hand and a look on her face that said: “Uh-oh, get ready for Mom’s head to explode.”

“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?” She handed me the newspaper and I saw this photo.

Although the story was not about salons catering to seven-year-olds, which would have made my head explode, I have to admit that she’s got a good eye.

Success!

*As I may have mentioned, Parents for Ethical Marketing has not yet been granted 501(c)3 status by the IRS.

Go to BlogTalkRadio’s Our View from the Park today at 11:00 a.m. (central) where I’ll be interviewed by Ginny Heinrich. You can call in with questions at (646) 200-4753.

I’ll be interviewed live this Friday on BlogTalkRadio. Minneapolis Community and Technical College librarian Ginny Heinrich will talk with me about blogging and Parents for Ethical Marketing on their show, Our View from the Park. Tune in at 11:00 a.m. Minneapolis time.

A little over a year ago I was talking about my crazy nonprofit idea with Chris Berger from Berger Brands. He had just seen Anne Elizabeth Moore at PUSH 2007, thought she was fantastic and that I would really dig her book, Hey Kidz, Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People.

Chris was right. A little over a year later and I’m helping promote Moore and her book Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity.

Moore, who will be in Minneapolis to present at the National Conference on Media Reform, will be reading at Arise! Bookstore, 2441 Lyndale Avenue S., on Sunday, June 8, at 7:00 p.m.

She will also discuss her role as executive director of the Anti-Advertising Agency’s Foundation for Freedom.

The mission of the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom is to bring the best and brightest former ad pros together once a year; inspire young people to leave the craft; focus the industry and public at large on the profoundly negative social justice impacts of advertising; inspire problem-solving methods focused on the most important issues facing the real world; and shine a light on the influence the advertising, media, and marketing industries has on dwindling public space, atrophying human relationships, and the destruction of democracy.

The event is free. Invitation also available on Facebook.

A quick “hello and welcome” to anyone who is visiting from the Nick & Josh Podcast or who found out about us at the May Day Festival in Minneapolis. New readers might want to read this PEM Primer I wrote for a conference I attended last month.

Ariah Fine interviewed me last week for the Nick & Josh Podcast. We met at the Birchwood Cafe and talked about parenting in a consumer-driven world. I also spilled the real, true story of the Target snow-angel ad fiasco. Talking with Ariah and Mindy, his wife, was truly delightful.

Ariah was also kind enough to stop by our information table at the May Day Festival yesterday. We were right be the lake and it was a *tad* windy, so I spent most of the day wearing my winter down parka.

A common reaction from passers-by after reading our sign was “Good luck with that!” Seems people have given up or given in to the idea that marketing and advertising are inherently dishonest and that there’s nothing to be done about it.

On the other hand, I was inspired by the people who stopped to talk:

– A young woman in her mid-twenties who talked about how the manufactured images of thin girls that surrounded her as an adolescent contributed to her eating disorder (she’s now recovering);

– A high school teacher who tries to reach kids through media literacy courses but finds that it’s not enough to combat the marketing machine;

– A woman who works in an adolescent psych ward who signed up saying she sees the associated problems “all the time;”

– A woman who pulled her child out of preschool because she didn’t want to pay someone to introduce her five-year-old to childhood consumerism;

 – A college gymnastics coach, concerned about binge drinking, wondering why radio stations air ads for “all-you-can-drink” nights at bars; and

– A father of four, citing books being sold in schools through Scholastic (not prompted by me), talking about the value of addressing media messages with his kids head-on.

There were many more. The most motivating feedback was from several people who simply said, “Thank you for taking this on. It is needed.”

Thank you for your encouraging words.

I’m excited to have an information table at Sunday’s May Day Festival in Powderhorn Park. The May Day Parade and Festival is my all-time favorite annual event here in Minneapolis. The parade tells a story — this year’s theme is A New Bridge. You can see the cool storyboard here.

If you attend, please stop by and say hello!

May Day Map and Schedule