Urban homesteading – or PR 101

Today is an international day of action for bloggers. Today people are posting threads with the words ‘urban homesteading’ and ‘urban homestead’ in the title.

This is in response to the trademarking of those terms, and subsequent legal letters sent out by the Dervaes family in the US to let people know they now own those words and we (you and me included) are not to use them.

So first up, I guess I’d better acknowledge that at this present moment in time, the Dervaes family of Pasadena US own URBAN HOMESTEAD ™ and URBAN HOMESTEADING ™ among others and yes, they HAVE TO BE WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS – THE EQUIVALENT OF YELLING!!

Of course, being urban, suburban or peri-urban homesteaders we’re already living, thinking, and working outside the square, so telling us what to do was always going to cause a backlash – and backlash there has been. Fast, furious, and via facebook.

Hence today’s international day of action – and it is international – while the family are based in Pasedena in the US, I know of at least one writer here in Queensland who has received their now infamous letter.

But I wanted to take a different tack with this. A public relations tack.

My background is in public relations, communications and crisis management.

I got a good way through a Masters degree in communications focusing on crisis communications and my 15 year career was well and truly in the realm of managing potential and real media disasters and major stories – this was before I decided to focus my energies on learning about permaculture (a word that has never been trademarked, nor will be) and other good stuff.

But as I’m watching all this unfold I’m fascinated. Its text book stuff – I hope someone writes it all up one day as a case study – great example of how not to do things.

First up – the original idea.

Trademarking words that represent a social movement. Really bad idea – lots of bad press and word of mouth makes or breaks you. They probably took advice from lawyers rather than someone with a background in communications – bad idea.

Years from now anyone who googles their names will find all these sad stories sitting there – it won’t ever go away, not these days, not ever.

They should never have filled out those forms. I won’t go into their claims as to why they did it, you can read about online if you’re interested.

But no, bad idea, don’t do it. Put the pen down, walk away, have a lie down and a big think about what you’re doing.

Next up – getting it approved

What’s with the US trademark department? It should never have happened. It sets a very dangerous precedence. How many small, home-based businesses do you think could be shut down by this type of government action? What’s going to be trademarked next? ‘Organic Farming’, ‘Radical Homemaking’? Sheesh, give us a break.

Next wrong move - sending out the letters

Bad idea number three – the only people who benefit from such actions are the lawyers – who I imagine are the ones who told them to do it. Ka-ching $$

The letters have gone to libraries, bloggers, websites, writers, news sites and publishers – oh yeah, they’re thorough!

You can read the letter yourself online – the people who have received them have published them for all of us to read. So there is no hiding for the family – everyone can read what they have to say.

Bad idea number four – become defensive and accusatory when questioned about why they did it. Shutting down feedback and comments on your website. Shutting down your facebook page to stop anyone commenting there. Going into ‘circle the wagons’ mode (as someone put it so well).

Keep arguing, keep justifying your bad decision and keep diggin’ that hole.

Keeping the letters out there. No retracting them. Not apologising. Not showing any empathy. Playing the victim. Pointing the finger of blame at others. “They did it!”

How to ruin a reputation / brand / business / career – lesson 101 now complete.

Putting it in the context of peak oil responses, they are clearly in survivalist mode. Community has gone out the window, instead they have put up the barbed wire, built big walls, and got the metaphorical (I hope) rifle out and protected what they perceive to be rightfully theirs.

This approach never works – well not for long anyway – someone bigger, smarter, faster and better will always come along. Working with others is the only way to go – and don’t alienate your primary supporters either – really bad move.

In summary, the bigger you are, the harder the fall – and this is prime example of that.

They prided themselves on leading the way and were respected for it, and then tried to take ownership of it – respect and reputation now gone in one single act.

If they had instead trusted their own abilities, stepped up to the role of elders in the movement, kept greed at bay and perhaps had a think about the ethics of permaculture for instance, they probably wouldn’t have taken this road.

Care of Earth – well yes, they were doing a good job of that – but this may very well cost them their livelihood (which was based on caring for the earth) and it has damaged the movement overall.

Care of People – they missed this one completely – putting people out of business is bad. Sending threatening letters to others is not caring about people – and this will come back to bite you in the rear and probably via social media.

Fair Share – putting dibs on something and trying to hold it to yourself isn’t fair share.

And finally,

They have broken the cardinal rule – never underestimate the intelligence of people. People talk and they don’t want to be associated with or support a business that don’t share their ethics.

Mixing organic food production and living simply with legal action is never going to work – and you need both the quality products and the background ethics for it to work. Take one away and you have nothing.

From my experience in public relations, I’d say it would be highly unlikely that the family business will ever recover from this. Customers will cancel orders and bookings for workshops and talks, families will stop buying produce from them, restaurants will stop buying their food too – they won’t be able to risk losing their livelihood over this family’s bad press.

I’d say whenever they turn up in public, there will be a protest to greet them. If they hold a course people might book in who want to ask them about their actions. Every time they stick their head up now there is a good chance someone will be there asking a hard question. Not good PR.

You’ll go broke or collapse from stress and exhaustion trying to sue everyone.

Its sad, because not only will they have lost their business, with the stress they must be under and I imagine not equipped to handle, they also risk losing their quality of life, their health and their peace of mind.

Shame they can’t turn back time. How quickly things can all go bad.

Here's a link to the facebook page

Sonya