slamboard

Skinny Bitch is an irreverent book. It has an unapologetic tone. It began climbing the Best Seller list after Victoria Beckham was photographed with a copy in her lithe hand.

The book is anecdotal and offers advice about a strict vegan diet. Some people who bought the book have been vocally disappointed about an unadvertised focus on animal rights.

The authors are a bit perplexed and even offended that the people are crying foul over the chapters detailing inhumane conditions in poultry farms.

I attended a course called Issues in Agriculture when I was in my early twenties. There is an author whose work I came to detest while I took that course. His name is Peter Singer. He is brilliant and eloquent and, in the end, rather boring.

I suspect that when skinny bitches who are in PETA take a serious tone, they probably sound a lot like him.

I don’t have a problem with the fact that the marketing of a best seller failed to detail the less saleable parts.

There are 174 customer reviews of this book on Amazon.

Sources:NYT, Wikipedia

In the Kimkins controversy storm that has swirled these past few weeks around the net’s most popular low carb blogger, Jimmy Moore, I had started to wonder whether my admiration of the man had been misplaced. Turns out, absolutely not!

Many people have called Jimmy stubborn, misguided, a hothead, and much worse — but it takes a real man of integrity to shoulder the responsibility that Jimmy did on Friday with his no-holds-barred apology to the low carb community and renunciation of his affiliation with Kimmer/Heidi Diaz of Kimkins.com. My respect for Jimmy Moore has deepened profoundly.

Jimmy appears to be in the process of removing every last Kimkins affiliate link and positive blog post he has made about Kimkins. This represents a big financial hit for him. However, the low carb community is rallying around him and I can only hope that this lost income will be cushioned by the increased support.

Heidi Diaz is publicly “supporting” Jimmy’s decision right now; reading between the lines, though, she implies that he made the decision for business reasons, and I really don’t think that’s the story. I would advise Jimmy to prepare for the possibility that Heidi will turn on him now, but I’m sure he’s seen and read enough at this point to know that already.

Bravo, Jimmy Moore!

UPDATE: Looks like at least one other former Kimkins affiliate has decided to sever ties.

This is part six of a series of posts about successful fad diet site Kimkins.com and its mysterious and controversial creator, “Kimmer,” or Heidi Kimberly Diaz. My wife Catherine was Heidi’s business partner in the founding of the Kimkins.com site. You can find the first post and table of contents here.

Heidi spent July and August of 2006 alternating between manic promotion of the Kimkins.com site and periodic frustration over the demands of her members on her time and attention. By mid-August, Catherine had seen enough that her initial respect for Heidi was a distant memory and she was increasingly unhappy in the partnership. She was walking on eggshells to avoid unnecessarily triggering Heidi’s irritable moods.

This unhappiness accompanied a worry that had been forming in Catherine’s mind. In negotiating the partnership agreement, Catherine and Heidi had agreed in their contract that Heidi could buy out Catherine’s interest in the partnership at any point in the first 12 months of the Kimkins.com business for a certain lump sum. After 12 months had elapsed, the contractual buyout price would change to an amount equal to Catherine’s share of the profits for the trailing 12-month period immediately preceding the buyout.

Kimkins.com had exceeded expectations in two ways: it was both more profitable, and far more work, than either Heidi or Catherine had anticipated. Kimkins.com was more than a full-time job for both of them. The bottom line was this: because of profits that exceeded far exceeded expectations, if Heidi bought Catherine out in month 12, she would pay just a small fraction of what the buyout would cost in month 13.

By late August, Catherine had become thoroughly sick of Heidi, her moods, and the way she did business. There was no love lost; it was obvious that Heidi was only tolerating Catherine’s presence and influence in business decisions because of the work and technical expertise Catherine was contributing. A suspicion was becoming a certainty: Heidi would avail herself of Catherine’s presence as a business partner until nearly the end of the 12-month period and then buy her out.

Catherine decided to be proactive and demand a renegotiation of the buyout clause. Catherine told Heidi that she could not continue to devote all her time in return for such an undervalued interest in the business, and she requested a more equitable buyout. She felt that there was a good chance that Heidi would opt to buy her out right away, and she looked forward to getting out of the partnership. As she anticipated, and to her relief, Heidi soon announced that she was exercising her option to buy Catherine out.

The details of the transaction were set out and all the business assets were conveyed at the end of September 2006. Between her share of the site profits during her tenure and the buyout lump sum, and based on a 50-hour average workweek during the time she was involved with Kimkins.com, Catherine made just over $10 an hour for her time launching and developing the business. However, the education and life lessons she acquired were tremendously valuable.

Catherine was happy to be out of the partnership on what seemed at least to be civil terms. Heidi had made a show of being polite and gracious toward Catherine. It’s amazing how women who dislike one another can go through the motions of being nice, but Catherine had no illusions about Heidi’s real feelings. She was, however, somewhat taken aback when she realized that her Kimkins.com membership had been cut off a few days after the buyout was final. Shrugging it off as Heidi’s prerogative, Catherine moved on with other projects.

Then Heidi did something so inexplicably vindictive and downright wrong that Catherine has not forgiven her: she attempted to smear Catherine’s honesty and integrity to Kimkins.com’s most successful affiliate, Jimmy Moore.

To provide a little background, when Jimmy joined Kimkins.com as an affiliate he requested payment by check instead of PayPal. Since she knew Jimmy would be a valuable affiliate, Catherine made an exception to the PayPal-only rule and agreed to cut a check for him every month and mail it from our home in Europe. The final affiliate payments from Catherine’s last month with Kimkins went out on October 5, 2006, and Catherine mailed Jimmy’s check as usual.

On October 7, 2006 Jimmy wrote to Heidi to inquire about his affiliate payment arrangements now that Catherine was gone.

Heidi replied, with a copy to Catherine, on October 8 [emphasis added]:

She [Catherine] assured me that all affiliates were paid at the end of September. She sent me an Excel spreadsheet which I have been unable to open so I don’t have an accounting of September expenses, including affiliates. I hope everyone was paid!

Catherine responded to both Heidi and Jimmy, again October 8:

The check went out as it usually does last week to Jimmy. All the other affiliates who were owed money by the Kimkins affiliate program were paid via PayPal, even the affiliates who had not yet reached their minimum, as per our agreement Heidi. I will forward the PayPal receipts to you if you’d like since you seem to be uncertain about whether the payout took place.

Heidi, this is the first time you have followed up with me about your access issue with Google spreadsheets since you mentioned the day of the Kimkins handover transaction that you had a one-time problem logging in. I had assumed that it was resolved since I had not heard from you! Please let me know what email address you are using to access Google spreadsheets and I’ll make sure you can get in or send you a file copy instead.

I am frankly surprised, Heidi, that you would use such a tone about the issue when you have not informed me that you were still unable to get into Google spreadsheets. My receipts and books regarding Kimkins are open and if you need further documentation about ANYTHING let me know.

Jimmy, it was a total pleasure working with you! As in the past, if you do not receive your check by the third week in October let me know and I’ll get it reissued to you. The amount for September was $287.52. Heidi has possession of the affiliate program and database if you need details. If she is still using the same software, affiliates have a log in and are able to go in and see their reports at any time. I’m sure Heidi would be happy to help you out with that if you need your log in reissued.

To which Heidi replied on the same date [emphasis added]:

Jimmy, I apologize for you being in the middle. I received the password for the affiliate program and no training or guidelines. From what I see you earned $655 last month, but Catherine has a different figure. I’ll research it and make up and difference owing.

Catherine was shocked. We wondered, why would Heidi lie about such a thing? There was nothing to be gained by attempting to damage Catherine’s reputation in this way and, with Catherine in the know about many of Heidi’s lies and manipulations, it would seem that there was much to lose. My opinion is that some people are just wired that way — to react first by lying instead of telling the truth, and by being mean rather than being kind.

Catherine had had it, and after defending herself and offering full disclosure of all financial records to Jimmy (an offer that stands to this day) she wrote to Heidi on October 8:

I am really aghast at how you are behaving with Jimmy and I simply do not understand it. I have always been 100% honest and forthright in my business dealings with you and the Kimkins affiliates and I have the records to prove it, so in the end you are going to make yourself look bad to try to imply otherwise.

If this slanderous behavior continues on your part I will have no choice but to defend myself with the truth. If necessary, I will publish a full accounting of our business dealings and records (minus the members’ identifying details of course) and forward it to our affiliates, the IRS, and Social Security Disability Insurance authorities.

To the best of Catherine’s knowledge Heidi backed away from her smear campaign with Jimmy once Catherine stood up for herself in this way.

The check, of course, arrived in the mail late and was cashed by Jimmy without incident.

NEXT: Kimkins.com Part VII - Business Lessons Learned

Phil McGraw has admitted no wrongdoing in relation to his involvement with promoting a diet supplement.

…And how’s that working for you?

The class action suit resulting from consumer’s impressions that they were being misled or defrauded was started in 2004 and a settlement was reached in 2006 that will see $10.4 million in cash and product being handed out to consumers.

Here is some interesting back story. The company that made the diet pills shares an office building with Phil McGraw’s litigation-consulting firm. This is the firm that was Phil’s principle endeavor before he met Oprah when that same firm provided legal consultancy services to Ms Winfrey. She was being sued by Texas cattle ranchers.

The cattle farmers failed in their bid to milk millions from HARPO.

Dr. Phil quickly became a regular on Oprah and eventually was given his own show. Dr. Phil gives some sound advice about parenting and relationships. I think he needs to stay clear of issues related to marketing and consumerism, because he has a habit of contradicting himself in both word and action.

Sources: LawCash, WomansPassions

I had intended that Part V of this series would deal with an issue that arose during July and August of 2006. The issue, and the doubts it engendered, impacted the contractual relationship between my wife, Catherine, and her business partner Heidi Kimberly Diaz (”Kimmer” of Kimkins.com). It does not, however, have much direct bearing on the current controversies and questions surrounding Kimmer and Kimkins.com. Upon review and careful consideration, I have decided that I do not have enough documentation and source material to discuss that particular issue publicly at this time. Instead, Part V will shed light on the guerilla marketing tactics that resulted in the “celebrities on Kimkins” rumors.

Looking back through the email record, it’s remarkable how much progress was made in the development and marketing of Kimkins.com in the two months post-launch. Between the June 2006 launch and mid-August, Catherine implemented Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing pay-per-click campaigns, an opt-in follow email list for newsletters written by Heidi and member contributors, a Flash-based member chat program, and an affiliate program.

While Catherine was developing these new features, she was also handling technical and payment customer service for members and dealing with ongoing script bugs and technical issues arising from the inadequacy of the webhosting server and its subsequent upgrade. Heidi/Kimmer was spending a great deal of time posting actively on the Kimkins.com forums every day. Also, Heidi was continuing to do substantial guerilla marketing on Craigslist, Freecycle, and similar sites. Kimkins.com had become more than a full-time job for both women.

Heidi’s marketing activities were beyond the scope of her role per the partnership agreement, and the extent of Heidi’s actions were at times unclear to Catherine. Catherine continued to be puzzled and somewhat troubled by how driven Heidi seemed to market the site — particularly given the fact that the organic search engine optimization, pay-per-click campaigns, and affiliate program were getting good results. The site was profitable and growing. It seemed odd that Heidi was so extremely motivated in her marketing efforts if she was using her share of the profits for charitable purposes. At times, Heidi would complain about the burdens of advising Kimkins.com members while continuing the marketing activities seemingly without pause. The ebook remained unwritten.

In August, while evaluating search engine rankings and inbound links for the Kimkins.com site, Catherine ran across a rumor on a message board that Jessica Alba was doing the Kimkins diet. She suspected that it was a rumor planted by Heidi, but she was not sure. Catherine suggested that I write a quick piece on the rumor on a celebrity blog I ran. I did a post, “Is Jessica Alba Doing the Kimkins Diet?” or something to that effect, and that was the end of it for a few weeks.

Then, on August 13, 2006, Heidi excitedly pointed Catherine to my blog item, apparently unaware that it was I who had written it. Catherine told Heidi point blank that the blog was mine and asked Heidi if the original rumor had, in fact, been planted by her. The following are direct quotes from Heidi drawn from emails dated August 13/2006:

Yes! I’ve planted “seeds”, 1 post here and there, on teen sites. I went to one celebrity site where you an “ask a question” and mine was “I heard Jessica Alba lost weight for her tour by doing a new diet called Kimkins. Is that true?”

I don’t care if it’s one of Martin’s sites, LOL. We have “almost credible” information that Jessica Alba did Kimkins. We can certainly exploit, I mean, post on the blog, website, newsletter, Jimmy?

I knew it wasn’t Jessica Alba. She doesn’t know Kimkins from a bag of beans.

In a subsequent email:

One of the foster boys has a huge crush on her [Alba] and she’s “young” — figured she’d be the perfect name to drop at various teen and celebrity sites. I do one post only, nothing obvious. I’ve done a couple other celebrities also.

Heidi justified the fake rumors thusly (again from an email on August 13, 2006):

Everyone size 2 girl on the Red Carpet does Kimkins or KE a week before. Whether they stick a Kimkins tag on it I can’t say, but they “do” Kimkins.

An Internet search reveals that Kimmer or someone on her behalf (as NikkiLuvsFun) appeared to still be pushing the fake rumor late last autumn:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061014161537AAs4n7p

Next: Kimkins.com Part VI - The Partnership Buyout and the Post-Buyout Backstabbing

The celebrity news people have followed the drawn out legal proceedings in the cases that have been brought against the diet company TrimSpa for one reason. Their celebrity endorser was Anna Nicole Smith.

Starting back in February, TMZ.com and others were covering the story. The most basic way to describe the plaintiffs case is that they were given false hope as a result of claims made by TrimSpa and Anna Nicole Smith. I found a source pointing out that the suit came after TrimSpa was made to pay fines to the FTC.

Speculation by the media at the beginning was that Janet Luna would most likely lose her case. There are six pages of comments on the TMZ article. Several of the comments were made after the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

The death of Anna Nicole Smith did not change the facts of the case. Other people came forward with legal action.

There is now an opportunity for anyone who purchase TrimSpa X32 between Apr. 1, 2003 and Oct. 31, 2006 to make a claim and receive a package deal of cash, products and coupons.

I think the lawyers will be quite happy with this. I am reasonably sure that they are not being paid in diet pills. TrimSpa itself can probably weather this out. The actual cash award is only $1 per bottle. The retail value of the products is signifcantly more than that. I can only assume that a very large proportion of potential claimants won’t bother filling out the form.

Edit: Anyone who wants to claim the settlement package can start the process by going to www.trimspasettlement.com

Stories about optimism related to cures and effective prevention for cancers make me happy.

There are trials going on now involving vaccines that may be effective against cervical cancer and brain cancer. A five year study with the goal of doing the same for breast cancer is underway as well.

A cure for cancer would be greeted with celebration largely because of all the human suffering that it would prevent. That pretty much goes without saying.

I look forward to seeing a cure for cancer for other reasons. Once there is a real cure or prevention, the huge sums of money and the wealth of talented scientists can be diverted to other problems. I do not endorse this exhaustive condemnation of The Cancer Business. I can’t even take the time to read the whole thing right now. I am just linking to it as an example of someone’s concern at the size of the industry that is devoted to cancer.

Edit: I read some more of the Cancer Business. The author is a wing nut. I will leave the link in my post. Please limit the grains of salt with which you take the article. Excess sodium intake has been linked to stomach cancer.

This story is bizarre and troubling.

Chelsea Clinton is the showcase weightloss success story that is being used in advertisements in China to sell fraudulent patches that are supposed to remove body fat.

There is no question that the claims made about what the product does are false. Investigators easily determined that the patches are designed to exude a fatty substance after they are put in place.

There is no question that other claims such as the country of origin of the product are false. They advertisements claim that it is an American made product while it in fact made in China.

What troubles me is that I have carefully read two reports on this and nobody is saying whether the apparent endorsement by Chelsea Clinton is a false claim. Are people outsourcing the manufacturing of political scandal now?

I can only assume that Chelsea and her parents will are preparing to make a definitive statement about the matter.

Source: SMH

Michael Moore’s movie Sicko is going to get a rough ride in the mainstream media for the simple reason that the media depends on advertising dollars for its survival. Here is an article discussing the dependency that newspapers have on drug money. Complicated issues, just like drugs, have a shelf life. The article is from 2004.

Here’s something fresh and potent… Google is Pro-Big Drug Company and Anti-Michael Moore. I have heard that their business model is somehow related to advertising as well. In their defense they try not to be evil. I am reminded of Bart’s famous “I can’t promise that I’ll try. But I’ll try to try” line.

This post is part of a series about the Kimkins diet and its controversial, secretive creator, Kimmer, aka Heidi Diaz or Kim Drake. My wife Catherine was Heidi’s founding partner when Kimkins.com started and the business partnership taught her some harsh lessons. Meanwhile, the Kimkins controversy is ongoing and new developments happen daily. You can find the first post in the series, along with the table of contents, here.

Over the past few days, with Catherine’s permission I’ve been able to delve into her email records (thank God for Gmail) to establish a more accurate chronology of the dates of start-up. For the better part of a year, Catherine has tried to put the details of the failed business partnership out of her mind while she works on more productive things, and so her memory was less than clear on the date of startup. Here’s what I’ve established:

April 18, 2006 — Kimmer started the very popular “Ask Kimmer!” thread on LowCarbFriends.com (LCF).

April 19 or 20, 2006 — Seeing the immediate popularity of the thread, Catherine first contacted “Kimmer” through LCF private message to explore the idea of an ebook and a site. Kimmer/Heidi Diaz wrote back on April 20 and an agreement in principle was negotiated.

April 22, 2006 — With the agreement of Heidi Diaz, Kimkins.com was registered in Catherine’s name at GoDaddy.com.

April 25, 2006 — The partnership agreement was signed by Catherine and Heidi Diaz. In the following weeks there was a lot of back-and-forth communication about the site and the ebook. The site was built and Catherine helped to assemble a lot of content for the ebook from Kimmer’s old LCF posts, but the project stalled out somewhat due to what seemed to be a case of writer’s block on Heidi’s end. As people have noted, the promised ebook never did materialize.

June 11, 2006 — As a result of antagonism and drama at LowCarbFriends.com, Kimkins.com was launched without the ebook and Kimmer announced her departure from LCF and the launch of her new site. Her supporters started joining immediately.

June 14, 2006 — Kimmer told a prospective member in email (blind carbon copy to Catherine), “My portion of the funds are going to help my foster kids, teenage boys who need ’stuff’ when they move out at 18 — security deposits, getting the electricity turned on, get a microwave, towels, etc.” She had already announced on the Kimkins.com boards that all her share of the profits were going to foster kids. Catherine felt right away that this was a knee-jerk reaction to criticism about the membership fee, and she wondered whether Kimmer was going to hold herself to the commitment.

Freecycle:

Within about ten days of site launch, Heidi got involved in some aggressive marketing tactics. She told Catherine that she had listed some household items she didn’t need anymore on the local Freecycle, with Kimkins.com in her signature. She apparently spent a lot of time convincing some people who expressed interest that they should join. Then she decided to try listing more free things — offers for giveaways that did not exist — on other Freecycles in other cities to generate more leads for the site. It turned out that she was posing as a satisfied Kimkins.com customer, a mom giving away used Little Tykes toys, and this crossed a line in Catherine’s mind between “guerilla marketing” and unethical business practices.

Catherine was not sure how to approach the issue with Heidi because Heidi appeared to be so anxious to make the site a big overnight success. In Catherine’s opinion, Kimkins.com was doing just fine under its own steam and it had lots of legitimate word-of-mouth advertising. Furthermore, Catherine was doing search engine optimization work which would bring longterm sustainable site traffic. It seemed strange to Catherine that Heidi — who, on the site, was just giving advice like she always had, and who had stated that all her money was going to a good cause, was so manically motivated to hype the site. She tried to gently suggest that Heidi lay off the Freecycle tactics and just relax while the site grew on its own.

Within a week, on June 26, 2006, Catherine received a demand from GoDaddy to explain the Freecycle posting Heidi had been doing, with the threat of revocation of the domain name registration for spamming. Catherine insisted to Heidi that she has to stop the Freecycle spamming or risk losing the business. Heidi agreed, and apologized for what she portrayed as just overenthusiasm.

The demands and anxiety about site promotion continued from Heidi. Catherine’s original expectations were that the site’s growth would be limited by Heidi’s desire for privacy and refusal to do personal appearances. She was not sure where all the promotion was supposed to lead if Heidi was not willing to make the talk show and interview rounds to promote the diet. Between the demands of troubleshooting the new site, responding to customer service requests, and then dealing with Heidi’s aggressive promotion tactics and their fallout, Catherine was starting to become disillusioned. She now feels, in retrospect, that the Freecycle situation was the red flag that should have made her demand that Heidi buy her out. As it happened, it was two more months until things came to a head.

The Before and After Pictures:

I felt that there was something off about the before and after pictures the first time I saw them in July of 2006. As I recall it, I said to Catherine, “Look, these aren’t the same people.” Catherine has always had a hard time with faces (to her embarassment, she’ll walk past our accountant or her hairdresser on the street without a second glance). Also, she knew that dozens of people had successfully followed Kimkins to lose weight at LCF, so why would Heidi make up fake stories?

Heidi had a back story for Catherine about every before and after testimonial she produced. However, it has since been pointed out by observant people that some of the early before and after pictures appear to have been faked and stolen.

One of the after pictures Heidi provided, an after of “Jackie,” turned out to be an 80’s model by the name of Louise Vyent. It seems like Heidi had cold feet about “Jackie” and I believe that this before and after was not used until after Catherine was gone. My review of the email record revealed some remarkable (in hindsight) statements from Heidi to Catherine about “Jackie.” These statements are taken directly from Heidi’s emails to Catherine:

July 19, 2006: “BTW, Jackie is my boys’ therapist. Tammy is my sister’s manicurist, she’s a hoot! She was so impressed when my sister lost 70 lb she had to give Kimkins a shot.”

July 19, 2006: “I’m sorry but we can’t use Jackie. Her husband thinks since she’s a “professional” it would be harmful for her to appear on a commercial website. Ditz. Oh well.”

July 25, 2006: “I’m also still working on Jackie’s husband. He’s a man’s man, if you know what I mean. The approach is different. Dummy.”

About “Deane” (whose after picture is the blonde in a graduation cap and gown):

July 25, 2006: “I think we found the girl for our next newsletter. It’s beyond impressive! She’s a lurker from LCF. I coached her via email. You pronounce her name Duhnay.”

Christin, whose real Kimkins success was the subject of a recent Woman’s World cover story, has still not commented on Heidi’s alleged refusal to meet with her when Christin was in Los Angeles. To this day, I am not aware of anyone who can claim to know “Kimmer” in person.

UPDATE: See many of the most controversial Kimkins before and after pictures here.

Next: Kimkins.com Part V - Celebrities on Kimkins?