Our Community is made up of a lot of diverse people with wildly differing views on life, but if there’s one united opinion we see on merchandise, it’s this: cancer sucks.

Stand Up To Cancer is an organization looking to unite support from experts to celebrities to the everyman in order to put and end to cancer once and for all.  (Be sure to check out the video from Larry David on their homepage if you think that cancer is always a gloomy subject.)

Thing is, cancer research is expensive. With that in mind, the folks from Stand Up To Cancer looked to some non-traditional methods of fundraising partnerships – and in this case, it’s an online shop that allows their supporters to wear it loud for the cause.

So stand up and be counted while you make it count.

Hearing people’s stories is one of the great things about working here; from military wives to stay-at-home-dads to college students, our Community is a diverse crew with a common goal of rewarded self-expression.

Our Affiliate manager came to me this week to tell me about a really interesting Affiliate, Dan Carbone, who wears a lot of hats: he also happens to be a Shopkeeper, a husband, a dad, and an Army helicopter pilot.

In his words:

I am a member of B Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Campbell, KY. We are currently deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. We were deployed to Iraq in 2006. I am a Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot. This is what I do for a living when I am not trying to make money online -

It’s a freakin’ cool job.

We think it’s pretty great that an active soldier is using the CafePress system to make extra money while he’s deployed overseas, and so we asked Dan to tell us a little more about himself.

I am an incredibly fortunate guy, happily married to the lovely Wendy for 15 years this year. (Our anniversary is Sept. 11th). I am the proud father of four happy, healthy, handsome sons. I have been a soldier for 15 years and a Cavalry Trooper since 1995. I spent 10 years as an enlisted soldier before going to flight school. I’ve been stationed in Korea, Texas, Germany, Bosnia, Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Iraq , and Afghanistan. Phew, only 5 years to go!

This is a current photo of our unit here in Afghanistan. We got here in January 2008, and hope to be home by March of 2009. I am in the first row – last one on the right.

You can always get better info if you leave this in my wife’s hands. I have been running CavHooah.com long enough to get her interested in starting her own. She is the rock who not only takes care of the family and runs the website business from home, but she is also our troop’s Family Readiness Group Leader. FRG leaders are like the Commander’s voice for the families back home. She relays important information to the spouses while we are deployed, and helps keep morale up with the families. She recently organized and executed our Squadron’s first-ever Kid’s Spur Ride! Awesome job, honey! I’m proud of you!

While that video was from our last deployment to Iraq in 2006, it still is pretty cool and really tells what we do for a living. Rest assured, the Banshees already have another video in the making!

What I love about CafePress goes far beyond just being able to express my ideas on shirts and gifts. The CafePress community has been a tremendous source of information in helping me get my site started and helping me connect with other military shopkeepers and families. The forums and the people who participate in them are knowledgeable and always friendly. We have a common goal and we all stick together. But CafePress has also helped me teach my children about basic business practices. I am helping my sons start their own shops – they are always busy creating new designs and they realize how hard work can be rewarded. I think what I like most about CafePress is that it is a great place to go when I am off-duty here in Afghanistan. Working on my shop helps me pass the time, even with our agonizingly slow internet connection. I always seem to have have many more ideas than time!

I got started with CafePress when I was looking for a Cavalry shirt. When soldiers in our units have new babies, we call them Cav Babies and Wendy and I thought that shirts would make a great gift for the new parents. Since we couldn’t find a shirt we liked, we came up with a basic Cav Baby design for a shirt and it is still our best selling item to date!

Our current mission in Afghanistan and our past tour in Iraq are both similar in nature. Our primary mission is to support the soldiers on the ground. When they are crossing high terrain and they just can’t see over the next hill, that is where we come in, providing both reconnaissance and security for the guys with their boots on the ground. We have been called the “angels on our shoulders” by some, and by most of them we are known as the “K-Dubs” (short for KW, or, Kiowa Warrior, which is what we fly). If a convoy strikes a roadside bomb, we race to the scene to provide security and scout out the enemy. We have also conducted security missions in order to protect and maintain vital infrastructure such as oil refineries, pipelines and power lines, along with providing security for Iraqi civilians during their elections. When our soldiers are out there in the dark, all alone, wondering what’s out there, it is a pretty comforting feeling when they hear us overhead. It’s an incredibly rewarding job, knowing that we are protecting our comrades in arms.

Dan Carbone
www.cavhooah.com
www.realarmywives.com

Big thanks to Dan for sharing his story.

A couple weeks ago, we had a chance to illustrate what “User-Generated Commerce” means to the 2008 election. MSNBC was as thrilled with our Shopkeeper creations as we are. Here’s the piece:

Big thumbs up to you, creative and ever-amusing Shopkeepers!

“The View” did a similar segment this Monday, showcasing the thongs. Whether Barbara Walters or Whoopi modeled the thongs is for us (and those who watched it) to know.

Happy day-after-Memorial Day, everyone.

For some, Memorial Day is a time for reflection and appreciation for our country and the fallen soldiers that died to protect its freedoms. For others, it’s a time to spend a day with friends and family. And still others are just happy for an extra day to sleep in.

Whatever Memorial Day means to you, most probably agree that your morning cup of coffee tastes that much better on the Tuesday after a 3-day weekend… and truly, that morning cup of Joe is an American tradition and something that many a workplace can’t survive without. (We don’t want to think of what would happen ’round here were there no coffee to keep the crowds satiated – eek!)

So what’s as American as Memorial Day, the three-day weekend, a morning cup of coffee and apple pie? The political process, a’course.

Patriotism and political activism are popular themes in the CafePress system, and with the upcoming election we asked folks out there to share their efforts to start something.

For the photos, we have pundit vs. canine. Hmm… Dennis Prager might win in a debate, but we’ll take Daisy in a tug of war.

One of the more intriguing submissions was this video. And after all, what’s as American as the write-in candidate?

So keep it up, folks. After all, your videos and photos and t-shirts and all the other outlets you choose to express yourselves ensure that your freedom of speech is not just self-evident.

With headlines buzzing over Hillary’s win in Kentucky, it was time to check a random but somewhat fun indicator of socio-political trends here at CafePress. Which is to say that while traditional media will count delegates, we’ll count underwear.

Obama has been leading the thong primary for some time now, with Hillary in second and McCain trailing as a distant third. Stats of today are:

17,500 Obama thongs

6,670 Hillary thongs

1,960 McCain thongs

One interesting note is Obama’s recent groundswell in the boxer primary. Hillary had been leading this all-important race, but as of today we see Obama boxers outnumbering Hillary boxers 7,260 to 13,500. Here we also find McCain as a slightly more impressive third with 2,930.

And if you’re into retro politics, we’ll note that the JFK : Nixon thong battle has Tricky Dick leading Kennedy by almost 20%. One can only wonder whether this particular thong battle would different were it taking place after the 1960 debates…

Graffiti is always an interesting topic to debate: is it art? Is it a form of self-expression? Or is it just vandalism?

There’s an extent to which graffiti – like so many of our t-shirts – might be considered a form of micro-blogging. Graffiti after all has a long history dating back to ancient times, leading us to wonder whether the Kings of Rome and Egypt considered these public works to be an eyesore or simply an expected public testimony. (If some history buff out there has the answer to this question, do please let us know.)

We ran across a video* made in Buenos Aires that, we thought, demonstrated unique self-expression and a clear passion for graffiti as an art form. Let us know what you think.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

*(Note: we do have the artist’s permission to share this with you.)

California made headlines today when the Supreme Court overturned the gay marriage ban.

The timing is an echo of the period leading up to the 2004 election, when San Francisco legalized gay marriage and started a fevered national dialogue over the issue.

While we’ve always had a healthy amount of gay/lesbian merchandise, 2004 was the year that we really saw an explosion of content around the gay marriage debate, with both pro and anti-gay marriage designs flooding into the system.

At present, the gay marriage and civil union supporters are out-dressing the anti gay marrige folks in numbers; the gay marriage vs. anti gay marriage search is 107,000 vs. 18,000.

An interesting sidenote is the “family values” search, which would indicate that those on both sides of the gay marriage debate are claiming family values as part of their cause.

Will California’s controversial ruling cause another frenzied national debate on the issue that affects the coming election?

Time (and T-Shirts) will tell…

A month ago we noted a series of unfortunate events that led to an unsatisfactory rating with the BBB.  Yikes!

We also noted that we’d be taking the appropriate action to make sure that the few unresolved complaints were addressed.

We’re happy to report that all outstanding issues have been resolved, and that we’re back to a satisfactory rating with the BBB.

Customer Service is our main focus – whether you’re a buyer or seller.  So thanks again to the local blogger who called this to our attention and helped us realize that we had a broken process.  We’ve made some changes internally to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

Have a nice Wednesday!

Over the past 6 months or so, some of us on the CafePress staff have been contacted by individual Shopkeepers with the odd news that a local licensed-brands shop (we’ll call them “Glitz Factory”) is actively combing our Marketplace, trying to identify “high-value” Shopkeepers, and then contacting them with unsolicited emails or phone calls with a hard sales pitch to switch to the Glitz Factory Print-on-Demand system.

These sales pitches generally involve big sexy promises, and can include cross-country trips to California and signing bonuses.  The best terms, of course, carry the catch that the Shopkeeper ends an already-successful business with CafePress. The deals also require NDA’s and contracts, the latter of which apparently carry aggressive exclusivity term limits (i.e years).

Our Shopkeepers are as baffled as we are about the poaching strategy, particularly given that Glitz Factory has traditionally focused on showcasing licensing deals that have nothing to do with the rewarded self-expression that’s at the heart of the CafePress Community.

At this point I’ve heard a multitude of stories from a variety of people, most of whom are calling full of indignation and asking, basically, the same four questions:

1. Did you know about this?
2. Does this bother you?
3. So what do you think about it?
4. What are you guys going to do about it?

The first question is easy to answer: Yep, we’ve known about this for quite some time.

One might expect that we’d have already come out beating our chests and climbing tall buildings to bellow about our size, scale, lead, and the simple fact that people make a boatload (think freighter) more money over here – heck, CafePress Shopkeepers are quitting their day jobs (and Glitz Factory knows that). Thing is, we prefer action over words. And so we’ve continued to focus on our Community and our business in order to improve the CafePress experience for our Shopkeepers and buyers. After all, our lead is our Community’s lead – and that’s what’s important.

But when our Community is targeted in a detrimental way, and when Shopkeepers are genuinely looking for answers to the same few questions, it’s time to speak up. So:

Q) Does this bother you?
A) Yes – but perhaps not for the most obvious of reasons.

A local blogger posed the question as to the ethics behind the poaching efforts a few months back. What he failed to mention is the collateral damage – and that’s the income of the person running the already-successful CafePress shop.

I got a phone call from an anonymous someone that I’ll call… Pat (androgynous anonymity is the most anonymous, after all). Pat is filled with deep regret after signing an exclusive Glitz Factory contract and being forced to remove most of his/her CafePress content. Pat has admitted to making very few sales in the Glitz Factory shop – including periods with no sales at all – and has come to the realization that the big promises were “all words and no substance.” Pat also mentioned that Glitz Factory seemed “annoyed” that Pat didn’t have the magical secret to be successful on their platform.

In Pat’s words: “Once the conceit of being treated like a big shot wore off, I realized that I’d been had. And I don’t want anyone else to make the same mistake.”

Pat went on to say that s/he’s embarrassed and kicking him/herself for ever getting involved in such an “underhanded” deal in the first place. So basically, Pat’s entire online business income (thousands of dollars a month and consistently growing) has screeched to near standstill. And sure, that bothers us.

For any company to deliberately take advantage of an individual’s desire to make a better life for him or herself at the expense of that person’s livelihood – for the primary purpose of trying to hurt the competition – leads to some very serious questions about business ethics, and about the respect that company has for its potential customers as customers, as business owners, and as individuals.

Here’s the reality: there’s no need for anyone to close their CafePress shops if Glitz Factory is going to provide incremental sales.

But that’s not the case here. The Glitz Factory deals are a BYOB deal. (Bring Your Own Buyers.)

And the thing is, most of our Community members have figured this out. Because CafePress Shopkeepers that are running successful businesses are generally successful because, you know, they’re smart about their businesses.

Another Shopkeeper put it this way:

“I think they assumed that we’re all just little stay-at-home people who don’t understand our businesses. So they figured that flying us out and sitting a bunch of senior executives across the table is going to impress us or intimidate us and make us believe all the big promises, and that little old me wouldn’t figure out that the promises were vague and that the contract terms weren’t much different than their actual Terms of Service. The Big Kahuna exec looked me straight in the eye and told me that signing the contract was a ‘No Brainer’ – I think they just figured I didn’t realize that I’d be losing most my business if I switched over.”

Q) So what do you think about it?
A) You guys rock!

I mean, seriously. Our Community is the heart of what makes the CafePress Marketplace so vibrant and interesting, and to see people being flown in and recruited NBA-style makes us proud both of the Shopkeepers who have built such amazing cottage industries, as well as proud of having provided a way for them to do so.

Our energies are, as ever, focused on making sure that your good ideas are celebrated and rewarded. Sure, we have a nice long list of big guys like Snoopy and Discovery using us too, but our primary focus has always been to empower the creativity of the human spirit and make a difference in people lives.

Q) What are you guys going to do about it?
A) Keep on keepin’ on.

Honestly, there’s no point in getting distracted by a small company’s attempt to disrupt our groove. Our focus is looking forward in order to ensure that we continue investing our time and energies into efforts that improve the overall CafePress experience. We don’t like the idea that someone is out there trying to sow dissent in our Community, but the thing about community is that people have come together for good reasons. In any case, actions (and paychecks) speak louder than words.

We have a lot of groovy things planned for this year, and they’ve all been designed with our Community in mind. So you too can look forward… to some awesome surprises.

There’s a very good reason we continue to grow like mad in revenue, membership, traffic and catalogue size every year. And that reason is you. Yes, you. You guys taking advantage of your own imagination, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit to create such a lively (and huge!) Marketplace of self-expression.

You guys are rock stars – and you don’t need a black car waiting for you at the airport to prove it. Congrats, big thanks and a huge green thumbs-up for making CafePress the awesome, vibrant and successful community it’s become. Rock. On.

So keep it up, folks. Just remember: the grass may look greener on the other side, but in this case it’s orange.

—-

If you’ve been approached by Glitz Factory:

1) Stop, drop and roll.
2) Feel free to give us a holler. (You can probably skip #1. Up to you; it might make compelling video…)
3) Feel free to share your story by commenting on the blog.
4) If you take the trip out here, let us know! We’re just up the road from Glitz Factory, and in this case there really is such a thing as a free lunch. Just give us a shout to tell us you’re in town and we’ll hit a local haunt to chat about whatever suits your fancy.

Whether or not you’re in town, we’re always happy to talk with you about your shops, your life or your favorite dog breed. If you’re not sure who to call, email blog@cafepress.com and we can steer you to the right person. We truly do value our relationship with our Shopkeepers, and a real live person really is just a phone call or email away.

Yep, Dundler Mifflin is in the house.

The funny thing that happened on the way: Monty Python.

We’ve had a lot of Michael Scott fans clamoring for Office t-shirts, so those of you who absolutely can’t live without Dwight can now sleep with him. (We recommend the organic T-shirt. It’s soft and sure to engender warm, fuzzy dreams of beet farms and Cousin Mose.)

Some of you may wonder, “But how did someone get to put up this gear?”

And the answer is: a licensing deal.

And so the real question is: “But buzzcowboy, can I go out and do a licensing deal?”

And the answer is: yes, of course. Anyone can approach a rights-holder with a merchandising proposal. So if you have a cult classic that you absolutely must have on a thong and a t-shirt and whatever else, go for it. Just remember: licensing deals can be labor-intensive and tricky and not for the faint of heart. So put on your teflon romper and get out there!