Posts with Category Engaged Consumer

The Kardashians accused of supporting sweatshops, I come to their defense

kardashian-sweat-shop-postStar magazine reports (if that’s what you want to call what they do) that the clothing lines of Kourtney, Khloe, Kris, and Kim Kardashian are made in sweatshops in China!

Gasp! Oh, the horror!

And they seem like such fine well-grounded young women who would think less of themselves and more about issues such as global labor rights, don’t they?

Last month I watched my first and only episode of Kourtney & Kim Take New York — the latest version of their reality show. It was awful and of course I watched the entire thing – every petty fight, every naked yoga session, every marriage disintegrating in less than one NBA off-season. It was the mental equivalent of eating donuts…

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Patagonia on Cyber Monday: Don't buy it!

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Are you up to your web cam in free shipping and buy-one-get-three offers this Cyber Monday?

Patagonia, one of the nation’s largest and most well-respected outdoor retailers, is asking us to pledge to “Think before we buy.” Gasp!

Cyber Monday, and the culture of consumption it reflects, puts the economy of natural systems that support all life firmly in the red. We’re now using the resources of one-and-a-half planets on our one and only planet.
Because Patagonia wants to be in business for a good long time – and leave a world inhabitable for our kids – we want to do the opposite of every other business today. We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend…

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2 strangers, 6 years, and 1 moment

T-shirt Factory
Six years ago I met a worker outside of the Delta factory in Villanueva, Honduras, that changed my life. It wasn’t so much what he said or what happened when I met him, but all of the unanswered questions I had about his life and the life of other such workers around the world.

I met him shortly after I posed for the above photo in front of the factory he worked at in 2005.  I’ve been in Honduras now for a week and the questions many of you who’ve read “Where Am I Wearing?” and/or heard me speak about Amilcar and all the other workers I met is, “Have you found Amilcar?”

Sort of.

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Japanese underwear helps you burn calories

Sometimes I wish I lived in Japan. This is one of those times? When Will our underwear technology catch theirs? When will I be able to burn calories simply by wearing underwear that restrict my movement to such an extent that walking to get a Twinkie burns calories?

Behold, CalorieShaper underwear!

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A longer, harder, more spine-tingling….consumer conscience

When Nick Gerlich and Kris Drumheller of West Texas A&M told me they wanted to do a research project on how Where Am I Wearing? influences readers, I must admit that I was a bit nervous. What if reading the book made no impact?

Well, the first round of numbers are in and Nick concludes, “at the end of the day, we are extremely satisfied with our findings, as should Mr. Timmerman. I think he accomplished what he set out to do.”

(Insert sigh of relief here.)

Nick goes in-depth on the details of the study on his blog. Here are the nuts and bolts:

  • 939 people responded to their survey which measured consumer ethnocentrism. The lower the score on the CETSCALE the less ethnocentric the consumer.
  • Their theory was that reading…
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Big News: The Adventure Continues

IMG_2542 copyI’m on a flight to Dallas and I hope to God know one asks me about the book I’m reading. Why? Because of all the millions of books I could be reading, I’m reading the only one I wrote. Of course, maybe if I cover up the author photo, laugh really loud now and again, and pepper in a few hmmm’s of interest, it would be good marketing.

“You’ve just gotta read this book! This dude named Kelsey goes to all of the places his clothes were made….”

But this isn’t why I’m reading my own book.

My publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has asked me to do an update and revision. When Richard my editor called…

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Win a Kindle Touch, join the WAIW Project survey

kindle touch 3g 4Nick Gerlich and Kris Drumheller of West Texas A&M University are conducting a study to see how consumers view made-in-America and made-in-sweatshop products and whether or not reading Where Am I Wearing? impacts that view.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW

The survey takes 10 minutes. If you haven’t read Where Am I Wearing?, you can still take it. A drawing will be held on November 30, 2011, and one person will win an Amazon Kindle Touch.

I’m eager to see the results.

TAKE IT NOW or I will curse you with a Kindle-Touchless life and an eternity of itchy underwear tags.

You can check out Nick and Kris’s other research projects at their site Media…

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An alibi of 6 states, 6 schools, 7 days

Behold the order of the Frisbee

If I’m suspected of committing any crimes in Muncie, Indiana, over the past week, I have a string of good alibis.  I haven’t been home.

I talked at Ashland University in Ohio on September 22nd and 23rd. From the student newspaper: “The man waving a pair of boxers above his head on the stage in Hugo Young Theatre Sept. 22 has possibly investigated more pairs of underwear than most of us own.

I got home Friday evening and left early, early Sunday morning for Arkansas. (Okay, so maybe there were a few hours for me to commit some crime against society, but I was tired.)

I spoke…

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Reshoring the outdoor apparel industry: An interview with J. Brandon of Ascent Douglas

This interview is part of my Glocal Interview series.

President Obama, with his American Job Act, isn’t the only one focusing on job creation. Below J. Brandon of Ascent Douglas – a movement to bring outdoor apparel manufacturing into Douglas County Nevada – offers some interesting insights into how one community is trying to create jobs.

What’s in a job? For every $1 of sales related to manufacturing, there is a $1.40 return throughout the U.S. economy. This is opposed to overseas manufacturing in which for every $1 of sales there is a 58-cent output.

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Where are you a local?

I live in Gardnerville, in Douglas County, Nevada. I’ve also lived in Silicon Valley, the Pacific Northwest, Las Vegas, and as a child, very briefly…

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Dear Germany,

Each of the past few semesters I get a host of emails from a class in Germany which is reading “Where Am I Wearing?” I doubt that you’re up for listening to me blab for 38 minutes, but if you are…have at it.

Also, I apologize for my breath. I recorded this first thing in the morning on Labor Day.

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