Crossing over into the absurd

Surely you can't be serious.

Anyone read Swedish?

Content, Context, and Crisis Communications

Today Verizon said it was reversing its decision to prohibit an abortion rights group from sending text messages through its network. Via the NYT:

“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect,” Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon, said in a statement, adding that the earlier decision was an “isolated incident.”

This is a great example of two things: A company understanding that you can apply meaningful context when evaluating content, and a company doing a very good job at crisis communications after a gaffe.

There may not be a more sensitive and emotionally charged political issue in America than this one. So I'm almost able to understand why someone at Verizon made that initial decision. (Almost.)

One can also understand the quick reaction from both abortion advocates and first-amendment champions. One can also expect those who oppose abortion to leverage this technology in the near future as well, and they have every right to do so.

But Verizon did the right thing. They changed their decision. They acknowledged their mistake. They got word out quickly. And they demonstrated that they are taking steps to prevent this mistake from happening again.

Are you watching this, Facebook?

I'm really amazed and disappointed here. Facebook has created an outstanding tool that facilitates communication and empowers the people who use it. Yet they continue to refuse to participate in one of the most important discussions about them. This has a draining effect on Facebook's reputation.

Textbooks have been written about this sort of thing. You never resolve a situation like this by staying in the bunker. Never.

Talk to us, Facebook. Verizon just showed you how to do it. It's only going to get worse for you if you don't.

My wife scooped my company

It's been a crazy and a funny week. Yesterday I was in DC for my annual performance review. I got a promotion, and once I got out of the meeting I sent my wife a quick email to share the good news, and basically went back to work because I'm typically in my DC office for just a few days a month and there's always a lot going on.

About the same time my boss was writing an intra-office email announcing the promotion, my wife was, unbeknownst to me, blogging about it. We're a social media family - in addition to her Women's Health Matters blog, she writes our "couple" blog and she contributes to another group blog I put together for our globally dispersed extended family so people can keep everyone up to date. She mentions and links to my employer in both blogs. I don't normally name my employer here, but I'm not trying to hide it and it's not hard to discover - it's on my linkedin profile, for example.

So of course, the second she clicks on "publish post," a bunch of people in my company get a Google Alert. (Actually, I think two Google Alerts.) And since my boss is a busy guy - and frankly, there's not any huge rush to let people know about it - my wife posted before my boss finished the email.

So before my colleagues are learning about my promotion from my boss, they're learning about it from a blog.

And I doubt I've heard the last of it from my colleagues.

I (heart) NY

No, not because Ahmadinejad is in town tying up traffic. And not because the AG is taking an interest in social media issues (though that's important and I'll have more to say about that later). Not even because the Yankees lost last night.

I (heart) NY because I got to see my three sisters all at once for the first time in a while.

And because tonight I'm going to be discussing blogs and social media with some leaders in our industry and a really impressive and influential blogger. More on that soon.

The medical community has spoken...

I'll be traveling much of this week so posting will be very light - maybe phoning in a post, but litle else. I've given a lot of thought to the Facebook controversy, and while I may rant about it again I think it's probably more important to offer constructive information. So I'll take a page out of my wife's book and offer some helpful links:

• American Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement on Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk
• American Dietetic Association's position on Promoting and Supporting Breastfeeding
• Journal of the American Medical Association article linking longer duration of breastfeeding to reduced incidence of Type 2 Diabetes
• American Academy of Family Physicians Breastfeeding Policy Statement


• AMNews (the newsletter of the American Medical Association) article on the problems of "pro-ana" sites
• American Psychiatric Association Expert Opinion on Eating Disorders
• American Psychological Association Help Center on Eating Disorders
• American Academy of Family Physicians Treatment Guideline for Eating Disorders

So where's the Senate?

The US House of Representatives and The White House now issue updates on Twitter.

I was skeptical of this microblogging thing but the breaking updates style of this tool is pretty useful. The real reason I think I'll like it is Ad Age apparently hates it - which I learned, of course, via twitter.

I feel a big post coming on talking about evolution at the nexus of social media, advocacy, and government. Or I could just have indigestion. I need to get back to everyone.

"The milk just dried up"

Big-league political blogger John Aravosis on the neverending topic of irrelevant pitches:

There's been a marked recent increase in the number of people asking me to write about their organization, campaign, or client. Whether it's a non-profit with some new-fangled incredibly-esoteric project, a politician promoting their latest highly-interesting-to-them but-kind-of-boring-to-you policy proposal, or a public relations firm being paid big bucks to push the lame ideas of yet another client, the volume of "give me free publicity" requests has skyrocketed of late.

Interestingly, at the same time, the number of ads these same groups are running on blogs has plummeted.

Want to reach the thousands of DC opinion-elites that read John's blog, but don't have something that interests John?

Buy an ad. In fact, you should put blog ads in your project budget. They're better at targeting very specific policy-elite audiences than most trade publications. Ask your average twenty-something or thirty-something congressional staffer or agency political appointee where they get their news, and they'll rattle off a list of blogs.

And I understand why people would prefer to get premium space for free, but it doesn't work that way.

(see, moms? at least you're not the only ones getting irrelevant and annoying pitches from us.)

My Conversation with Facebook

Rather than insert a bunch of new commentary on Facebook's banning of a breastfeeding pic while allowing 350 pro-anorexia groups at this point, I think I'll just print the emails to and from Facebook verbatim. I will keep the name of the person I corresponded with confidential, and I should stress that the person was prompt, professional, and courteous.

For background, I've written about this here, here, and here. My wife discussed some of the scientific data on "pro-ana" sites and offered some really helpful advice here.

So here goes, the email I sent at 8:02am Wednesday:

Hello -

I'm David Wescott and I'm a member of Facebook. I write a column for Business Lexington called "Living Locally, Working Globally." I also write a blog called " It's Not a Lecture." The Lexington, KY network on Facebook is rather robust, as you may know. You may also know that last month a local Applebee's forced a woman out of their restaurant because she was breastfeeding. This sparked a national protest and it continues to be a topic of discussion on the national level.

I was surprised to read reports in the Canadian media that Facebook had banned a member because she had posted pictures of herself breastfeeding her child. I noticed a newsworthy disconnect when I also learned via BBC and Canadian media sites that Facebook has roughly 350 "pro-ana" groups not only condoning anorexia but suggesting ways for people (young girls suffer from anorexia disproportionately) to continue to starve themselves. Recent research published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders found that visiting "pro-ana" websites made women feel
negative emotions and have poor social self-esteem. I am not aware of any scientific data that suggests looking at pictures of breastfeeding women elicits similar emotions or responses.

I have written about this disconnect on my blog and I'm planning to write a column on the free speech implications - specifically how a social networking site would clamp down on speech and activity on the issue of breastfeeding but not on "pro-anorexia" groups. I want to give you an opportunity to respond - explain your policy, perhaps give some background on the situation that I may be missing. I am aware that there are many pro-breastfeeding groups on Facebook. I am also aware of a new protest group with several thousand members.

I would appreciate a statement or comment from you regarding this specific speech issue and the apparent disconnect here. Please email me at [email address] by Thursday, 5pm ET with any statement or relevant details, or feel free to call me at [cellphone]. Thanks much.

Here's what I got back:

Hi David,

Facebook does allow mothers to upload and share photos of themselves breastfeeding their babies, and those photos remain available on Facebook as long as they follow the site’s Terms of Use. Photos containing a fully exposed breast do violate those Terms and could be removed. Facebook’s Terms of Use can be found here: http://facebook.com/terms.php

Please attribute this statement to Facebook or a Facebook spokesperson.

Thanks,

[name]

So I wrote back:

Thanks [name] - I appreciate the quick response.

Did the specific case reported in the Edmonton media last week involve a case that violated this policy?

And do you have any statement regarding "pro-ana" groups on Facebook?

I also called at this point asking for clarification on the Edmonton case, and I was referred to the earlier email. I think this is because Facebook's privacy policy probably prevents them from discussing issues regarding a specific member, which I totally understand and respect. Within a few minutes I received this:

Hi David,

Facebook supports the free flow of information, and groups provide a forum for discussing important issues. Many Facebook groups relate to controversial topics; this alone is not a reason to disable a group. Facebook considers whether the content on wall posts and discussion boards of groups offer opinions on both sides of the issue. In cases where content is reported and found to violate the site’s Terms of Use, Facebook will remove it.

Please attribute to Facebook or a Facebook spokesperson.

I think I'll just open it up here at this point for discussion, and then I may add some thoughts of my own later. And I do plan on writing a column about this. But I thought it was important and fair to get Facebook's comments out there, verbatim, in public - and I pledge to pass on anything else they send me.

Transparency in healthcare is just plain hard

While basking in the euphoria of knowing Keith Sprankle is following me on twitter...

My wife brought this to my attention in an email on Tuesday:

Next spring, the government plans to release data showing how consumers rate care in hospitals across the country. But Northwest Community Hospital isn't waiting: Its results already are up on the Internet.

I also noticed that Paul Levy saw the same issue and said simply,

Won't it be a pleasure when stories like this one cease to be newsworthy?

Well, of course it will. But this will be newsworthy for quite some time because:

There are no exact numbers on how many hospitals have taken this step and no standards governing the disclosure of quality information. Many data sources exist, and medical centers could leave out information that portrays them in an unfavorable light. Experts recommend that consumers be aware of the potential for bias and discuss findings with their physician.

So, sure, kudos to the hospitals that choose to jump ahead a bit and get their data out. But let's make sure they paint a complete and accurate picture - no simple task. Because transparency doesn't work if you only go half way. And it's impossible for consumers to compare hospitals if we don't have common standards.

Of course, there are already a lot of smart people working on this in the private and public sectors. But we're years away from consensus on reporting methods -- perhaps it does make sense for hospitals to report everything they can and let the market figure out what's most important.

(This is when I'm really happy that Paul Levy has his job and I have mine.)

Update on the Facebook Fiasco

My wife found some new research on the impact of visiting "pro-ana" websites and posted some valuable commentary at her blog, Women's Health Matters. More importantly, she provides links for people to get help if they're suffering from anorexia.

From a communications and liability perspective, this raises the stakes for Facebook. This can no longer be dismissed as the wild rantings of angry feminists. There's scientific data in a legitimate peer-reviewed journal that says this stuff can be harmful. It won't take long for trial lawyers to discover that social media mega-sites with venture capitalists swooning over them represent the deep pocket in "Class Action 2.0." Lawsuits have been filed and settlements have been scored with far less data to go on.

I just see it as a basic disconnect. You can't ban members because some people can't get past the "breast" in breastfeeding while not lifting a finger on an issue where there's scientfic data saying pro-ana sites are harmful.

Social media is a conspiracy to destroy the world economy

I learned this, of course, by listening to last week's For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report. Neville Hobson quotes studies suggesting that Facebook's impact on worker productivity is draining an amount of money from the global economy roughly equivalent to the GNP of Kerblakistan. (I'm not a fan of Facebook lately, but this is rubbish.)

I've listened to their podcast for a few weeks now, usually while walking my dogs in the morning. I got hooked for good after they interviewed Peter Brill of Radio Salaam Shalom.

Shel Holtz asked his listeners to "tell three friends" about the podcast, so I thought I'd plug them in a post.

Their podcast is a little heavy on Facebook updates (yes, it's changed everything utterly and forever, I know) but I've learned about some valuable nuggets there - most notably the "Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web." It was compiled by some of the biggest names in social media, and I view it as a more grassroots-style assertion of the ethics of the web we've heard so much about this month.

The mere notion that users feel compelled to assert "ownership of their own personal information" is profoundly disturbing, but the truth is this information has now been commoditized to the point where it truly is a packaged product available to anyone for sale or rent, with less structure or regulation than, say, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Apathetic or unsuspecting users have essentially surrendered this information in enough public places now where the gathering of this information is akin to ocean salvage. It's unappealing, but basically legal. I sort of get the feeling that we're trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. Personally, I think the cause was lost when people didn't react strongly enough to the "opt-out" tactics of the direct marketing industry. Bottom line: we still react more viscerally to spammers than we do identity thieves.

Still, it's important to tell social network utility executives that they need to be more vigilant in understanding the basic privacy and security rights of their users, and to make sure honest thought is put into justifying why they really need certain information. In my opinion, they'd help themselves by offering information to users about what's really being done with their personal information and how they can use social networking tools safely and effectively.

Of course, enforcement of this new "bill of rights" is essentially impossible. The worst penalty right now is the scorn of a small yet reasonably influential group of smart early-adopters.

Facebook's worst nightmare, part II

Facebook has a new worst nightmare. Scoble brought this article to my attention.

Facebook is getting an online scolding after the social networking site deleted pictures of nursing babies it considered "obscene content" and closed the account of at least one Canadian mom.

Lest we forget, the Canadian media brings this to light once again:

A search for anorexia-related Facebook groups generates a list of 384, while a search for "pro-ana" reveals more than 350 groups, some with more than 1,000 members.

This is just my opinion: Facebook's deafening silence on the issue of 350 pro-anorexia groups on its network, combined with its selective enforcement of "obscenity" rules to ban breastfeeding pictures presents a profoundly disturbing disconnect.

The medical community is clear: anorexia nervosa is a disease, and not a lifestyle choice, that affects women disproportionately. Obviously, breastfeeding is a task that falls to women. Facebook has come down on both sides of a "free speech issue" here - once clamping down, once letting speech and organizing go - and in each case it's come down in a way that arguably sets women back.

Whether the administrators at Facebook like it or not, they're the defacto traffic cops for an enormous amount of communication. One mistake is probably just that. Two mistakes is a track record.

No one will ever be perfect when they're stuck with the job of deciding which speech (and activity) to allow and which to reject. But it would appear one could do a better job than this. Facebook has a lot of explaining to do - not simply on breastfeeding, not simply on anorexia, but on how its leaders' decisions play in a larger context of women's issues.

To be fair to Facebook, they may not have been asked about the pro-ana issue (though I tend to doubt it). They aren't quoted in the Canadian article, and I don't remember seeing them quoted in the BBC piece either. I'd love an email from them explaining this, and I'd be happy to print it, verbatim, on this blog. There are also plenty of pictures of breastfeeding moms on Facebook, and plenty of pro-breastfeeding groups.

I live near the latest epicenter on the breastfeeding issue, so maybe I'm thinking about it a little more than I might. My wife, a women's health expert, raised another important point about this about this over the weekend - there are a lot of pictures that are far more sexually suggestive on Facebook than anything people have banned in this situation. A LOT of pictures. A LOT worse.

This whole dustup also shows how people who use social media engage on important societal issues. Over 17 thousand people joined the facebook protest group, 7000 in the last week. We've seen the potential here to organize thousands around an issue - it was sparked by a single event, covered by mainstream media, and grew super-fast.

Now we'll see what difference it makes.

The season comes down...

The season comes down to one weekend, the good guys versus the evil empire. If you don't hear from me next week you will know why.
Click here to listen

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Congratulations are in order

Kudos to Sharon Tessandori, proprietor of Barefoot Works Yoga - Lexington's only eco-friendly vinyasa yoga studio.

Sharon's been in business for a full year now. Anyone who knows anything about entrepreneurship and starting a small business knows that's no simple feat. Yoga was a much tougher sell in Lexington a year ago than it is now, and I think Sharon had something to do with that. My wife teaches yoga there occasionally, and we've had the chance to get to know her and Andy, and they're great.

So congratulations and best wishes for many more successful years.

Econo-blogs...

I am NOT an economist, but I did advise a senator on economic issues for a time. (yes, it's like not being a doctor but playing one on TV.) My job, in part, was to keep track of smart economists, try to translate their stuff into English, and synthesize it all into a meaningful commentary that would inform policymakers and shape policy. The best economists could do my job for me, and I would just send a note to the senator and say, "you should read this."

Of course, that was before many economists wrote blogs. Today, young and eager legislative assistants on the hill read blogs before most other things, and the smart ones go beyond the hard-line political blogs for economic news and views. Here is an abbreviated list of my regular reads.

Republicans I know often visit these folks:

• Greg Mankiw's blog
• Cafe Hayek
• Knowledge Problem
• Marginal Revolution
• Asymmetrical Information

Democrats I know often visit:

• Brad DeLong's Semi Daily Journal
• Economist's View
• Environmental Economics
• Oligopoly Watch
• Calculated Risk

Of course, I realize that most (if not all) of these economists/writers will resist being folded into D versus R categories, and there's never a perfect fit. Some wear their politics on their sleeves, most don't. I've found each of these blogs to be useful and I note that all ten of these blogs often link to other economists that have very different perspectives than their own.


Who else should I be reading?

Why Robert Farley ROCKS, part 1

Because very few people can pull off "Sunday deposed monarch blogging" with style.

The Horse Race Discussions

No, they have nothing to do with the September yearling sale at Keeneland I've been blogging and twittering about. One of the most common discussions ever on the big political blogs has always been the horse race - who's ahead in the polls, who's trending favorably, where do candidates sit head to head. And the explosion of polling companies provide new fodder every day.

Autumn marks the official beginning of prediction season, and typically political bloggers like to put the best spin on the numbers and what they'll mean in a year. So can you guess the blog that published this about the Virginia Senate race?

...it seems likely that the VA GOP is about to embark on a nasty primary consisting of character attacks, moderate vs. conservative battle lines, and a general nastiness that will turn off the very voters who are already sympathetic to Warner. Unless something changes the dynamic of this race, it is already a likely D pickup.

Put alongside CO, NH, ME, OR, MN, and NE, Democrats are likely to gain 4-7 seats this cycle. The next Congress could easily have 42 to 45 R Senators.

Uber-liberal race handicapper Markos? Maybe the former political staffers at Americablog?

Nope. Red State.

This is shaping up to be an interesting season in the political blogosphere. For the first time in a long time, perhaps the first time ever in the blogosphere, top conservatives are predicting significant losses with more than a year to go before election day. Frankly, I think it's a little absurd to predict things like that with a year-plus to go, but it reflects the mood of the activists and sends cues to those who earn a living talking with political activists online.

Citizen Editors

A week or so ago I decided to add a couple of widgets to my sidebar - one tracks the amount of money all the top-tier presidential candidates are raising, the other tracks the political stories that politically-oriented digg users tag most. I do not necessarily agree with or verify the accuracy of the stories in the digg widget. I put it there because I'm interested in the political discussions that take place online, regardless of the ideological slant, and it's important to know what's getting attention and from whom. These are just some focal points of larger discussions - they're not my points. I tend not to digg political articles of any slant, so I have no control over what's showing up in the widget.

Then this morning I see this:

A news agenda formulated by citizens would be radically different from that put together by journalists.

That is the conclusion of a US study which compared what made the headlines in the mainstream media with that of three diverse user-driven news sources.

Read the executive summary here.

Of course, this is just the latest example of consumers shaping the news. While the study authors classify what's happening here as the creation of a "secondary" discussion of the news, I find very little about it to be "secondary." Yes, it's reasonably clear to me that early adopters of technology tools such as aggregators are skewing the discussions toward their own interests. But as I look at the politcal digg widget in the sidebar, I see something different.

I see an interesting mix of really salient political stories coupled with some that clearly are driven by activists who want to draw attention to certain things. I see news stories being used as part of a political agenda. And I see how issues-based PR professionals might want to use digg to promote certain stories. And I see a lot of opportunities for less-than-transparent abuse.

tracking discussions online and off

One of the things I like most about Business Lexington is they're not afraid to share perspectives one doesn't readily find in current policy debates (unless one reads media targeted directly toward the Latino community), such as this column by Andres Cruz.

Kentucky counties that have received the most immigrants (whether measured in absolute number or in percentages) tend to have stronger growth in wages and lower unemployment than counties without significant immigration. This does not prove that wages are immune from an influx of immigrant workers, but it does emonstrate that those counties in Kentucky with a significant immigrant influx are also the counties that prospered more over the same period.

I've been paying close attention to online political discussions, and this is currently one of the big ones. Other than terrorism and the war, this is the most-discussed topic on political blogs that skew right. Literally thousands of conservative political blogs are firmly anti-"amnesty" and they're talking about "illegals" and linking to news articles that reference Mexico. A few noteworthy exceptions on the right are "pro-reform," but they aren't talking about the latino community in a positive context either - you see a lot of "they take the jobs no one else wants to do."

Very few people on the left have discussed immigration at all, other than making the sweeping generalization that "the republican party has lost the latino vote for decades over this," as if any group of people that large cares about only a single issue.

Cruz' pro-business perspective should be included in the blogosphere's discussion.

BREAKING: Rich People Buying Fast Horses

Watch live here, Sept. 10 to 25 (no sales on the 14th.) Real Player required.

There are a pair of 747's parked on the tarmac of Blue Grass Airport.

That can only mean one thing: the September yearling sale at Keeneland, and Sheikh Mohammed is in town, essentially deciding which of the best horses he'll take and which he's willing to let the folks at Coolmore have.

It's a bit of a spectacle, but the city gets to demonstrate that it's a bit more global than people realize.

WKYT gets it

So just when I'm about to write off televsion, WKYT makes a bid to become my preferred local TV news outlet:

CBS affiliate WKYT-27 will launch an Internet-only 4 p.m. newscast later this month.

With an expected length of 10 to 15 minutes, it's being touted as a newscast for people still at work who might not be home in time to watch the station's regular newscasts between 5 and 6:30 p.m.

"We're going to try to make sure it has the feel that the day's still going on and this is what's developing," said news director Robert Thomas.

The newscast will be the first such Web-exclusive offering by a Lexington affiliate.

NBC affiliate WLEX-18 currently streams some of its live newscasts on its Web site.

OK, a few thoughts on this.

First, online video broadcasting has become much, much cheaper than it was, and we'll probably see a lot more professional-looking vlogging and vodcasting from small groups and individuals. (Props to Richard Stacy.)

A web-specific newscast is preferable to a simple live stream of a tv broadcast. The content can be tailored to my interests and needs - for example, I'd expect more tech and business news. (I work at home so I'm not worried about traffic reports, but I can see why predictions of the evening weather and commute could be helpful.)

If WKYT is really smart, they'll pair the 15-minute live version with shorter segments and let me choose which individual stories I want to watch, like I would with an RSS feed from a news source. Then they'll build a viewer widget so people can embed WKYT broadcasts in their own blogs and sites, or in aggregators like netvibes.

Of course, their target audience is still at work at 4pm, and WKYT's newscast may constitute "personal use" of company computers, conflicting with many of the computer use policies at Lexington's largest employers. Fifteen minutes is a good chunk of time in the workday. But again, WKYT can help workers by gearing their content toward a business audience, creating the leigitimate need to watch it. I hope companies make an exception if their policies are too restrictive.

The folks at WLEX say that their audience won't currently support a 'net cast like this. But I think WKYT is looking at trends and thinking about what the audience will want a year or two from now. So kudos to WKYT and I hope people understand it will take them some time to get this right. I'll be watching for it.

Crossing over

The latest example of political people going beyond political blogs:

Democratic US Senate Candidate Al Franken talks to Green Options' Maria Surma Manka.

(via twitter)

Online surpassing television in politics

I saw this post at Tech President about how people with digital video recorders like Tivo will just pass right by all the political commercials the candidates and 527's will be cramming the airwaves with this year. First, I noted the irony - campaigns are raising millions online and using that money for TV ads that people won't watch.

And then it dawned on me: forget about Tivo - I hardly watch television at all. I tested myself on where I get my information and here's what I got:

That big orange chunk is blogs and social media. The green is online news networks and publications like the Boston Globe and Lexington Herald-Leader. About a month ago the proportions were reversed, but now I rely on Twitter for breaking news updates from BBC, CNN, WSJ, NYT, and so on. I was surprised to discover that the third largest category for me was satellite and terrestrial radio (it's mostly sattelite). I subscribe to a couple of magazines and one newspaper (Business Lexington). I watch television maybe 2 hours a week - excluding sports, but even then I don't watch much of that on TV either. (For some reason, I love listening to baseball on the radio.)

While I don't necessarily think I'm representative of the general population, we all know people continue to leverage online sources more for information. Newspapers were the first to suffer, but television is clearly also feeling the bite.

Campaigns and 527's are already looking at the television vs. online debate much differently. First, the online channel gives the campaign an opportunity to interact with the user and ask for money. Television doesn't raise a thing - it costs money, and the rate of return is diminishing, thanks to DVR's and other innovations.

As the political folks move more online they face even greater challenges than the product marketers who annoy mommybloggers. First, they have to decide how much time they will spend talking to their natural base - political blogs with aligned ideologies. The need for relevance in outreach is critical, since consumers and citizens beyond the political activists don't aggressively and constantly seek out political information. They will have to make the case that what they're selling is integral to the discussions already taking place.

It's not just about ethics - it's about common sense

I was pleased to find a new "blogger outreach code of ethics" from a huge PR/marketing firm this morning. Of course, this isn't the first attempt at a code of ethics from the industry. But it's nice that people in our industry finally heard what I'm now calling Stefania's shot heard 'round the PR world.

I hope that this new ethical code doesn't just become a line of defense that a firm employs once it's caught doing this wrong. (I don't think it will - I know a couple of the people who work at that firm and they strike me as honest and generally smart.) We all know the story of the other big PR firm who got bagged and then said, "we subscribe to the WOMMA code" in its defense. It's like saying "I don't approve of my own behavior." Everyone makes mistakes, but it's really hard to position yourself as a thought leader when you're breaking your own rules.

I guess what strikes me about all this is the underlying assumption that all of the "other" ethical standards and principles we employ in traditional communications somehow don't apply because the communication is done via email. The ethical code spelled out today is essentially (I hope) a re-statement of the rules we employ when reaching out to anyone anywhere, and frankly, I hope they're simply the values that guide our lives each day: transparency, relevance, respect, accommodation, and truth.

Look, the bloggers are asking for relevance and respect. If you lack truthfulness and transparency you won't get in the door. If you can't accommodate the method of contact the blogger outlines you won't get past the spam filter and the blogger won't even be aware you reached out. And if you're not respectful of people you don't know, you're not going to succeed in any field - you're probably just a jerk.

It's really all about relevance. That's what Stefania and Mrs. Kennedy and Liz and Kelly and Kristen and Julie are really talking about. You have to spend a lot of time researching the people you identify and make sure they're interested in what you have to say, and then you have to realize that it's really their discussion and you're just trying to be a part of it. You have to do a lot of reading and linking and so on. It's not particularly difficult, but it's time consuming, and in our business time is money. If you can't spend the time to be truly relevant, you get taken to the woodshed by Stefania.

And you don't belong in this business, online or offline.

The fact is the bloggers have led this discussion all along, and I'm guessing they're pretty much over it at this point. We continue to play catch up.

I may just have to put on a necktie

It's so much fun to see a person who writes about her or his interests online start to thrive and succeed. It's even more fun when that person is a great friend.

So I was psyched when I checked out Off the Cuff DC and learned that my pal Chris Hogan now has his own weekly feature at Men's Flair. He's also contributing to a men's lifestyle website called Be Better Guys.

Chris' day job isn't in fashion - it's just an interest of his, and he decided to write about it. He clearly knows his stuff. Now he's writing for other online properties and he's getting emails from top-tier publications. All because he decided to write a blog, share some knowledge (my personal favorite: "Indiana Jones had a man bag"), and network a little.

Chris and I like to go back and forth a bit with our blogs, all in good fun. Now I get to say I knew him when.

So congratulations, Chris - onward and upward!

Seriously, just stop it already

Every time I see this I gag:

Once in awhile I get an e-mail from a PR person who wants me to write a blog post about one of her clients. I must have been pretty feeble in a previous life to deserve to be left on some infernal master list of babybloggers way past Jackson's toddlerhood expiration date...

Typically they read whatever post is at the top of my page, work some comment about it into their first paragraph, and then paste in their pitch directly below...

Because it's the job of online PR to woo me into inserting their client's latest cross-platform marketing solution into a long pointless blog post about my blisters.

Hello Eden, I hope you are doing well. I'm writing today in follow up to my [intentionally ignored] message last week. I'm eager to hear your thoughts and feedback on [big retailer's] online resource center and back-to-school promotions and deals.If you are interested, please feel free to share with your readers the shopping guide and news of the [huge retailer's] contest. You can contact me with any questions about [massive retailer's] programs. Have a great day!

This is basically personalized spam. Sweet robot monkey god, it makes me itch. I know that someone somewhere thinks the Internet is full of soccer moms swapping tips on where to get the latest backpacks -- I have not seen such web sites, but maybe they're out there.

I swear I was going to drop this topic. I thought I've said enough about it. I didn't want to write about it. Big-time bloggers have written about it better than I could.

But it's becoming clearer to me that maybe the marketing folks should just stop pitching to moms altogether, because here's the bottom line: The online outreach tactics from a majority of PR firms are actually making it harder for everyone to engage bloggers transparently and respectfully and effectively. We are hurting our own cause.

I don't know exactly what the goal of this blind pitching is, but I'm fairly sure it's NOT to help bloggers write posts ridiculing marketers - something that's happening with greater frequency. And if PR flacks don't get it by now, they won't ever get it. We're in a hole. Stop digging.

The PR/marketing industry, with only a few exceptions and despite many statements to the contrary, has made a clear decision to "mail it in" on online outreach. It's become the sassy little add-on to our proposals that allow us to check the box and say "we do online too," but we invest almost no good thinking in it. We're clearly not inclined to build relationships and have discussions with moms or just about any other blogger.

We're developing and implementing models of online outreach that more closely resemble direct mail tactics that generate a one or two percent response rate. We're pushing the online outreach portions of our PR plans to interns. We're still reserving the high-powered, big-think resources for scoring the NY Times story or the placement on CNBC.

Except bloggers WRITE BACK, and they're smarter than we are, and when they're angry and snarky and clever and funny our clients take the blame. So then our clients get upset and scared, and don't want to engage.

And then we blame the bloggers for being radioactive.

Seriously, I just gagged again.

Social media is NOT for cowards

I hear complaints from companies all the time about how angry bloggers say mean things, and they're not interested in entering online discussions because someone says something mean about them and it's uncomfortable. I tell those folks that you have to pay attention to everyone that talks about your issue or your brand, but in the big picture, the angry blogger is sometimes not much different than the village idiot. In some cases, people realize he's a one-trick pony and there's no need to engage there.

However, there are some rather uncomfortable yet incredibly important discussions happening online that deserve and demand attention from everyone. These discussions are being led by brilliant people with real challenges in their lives - and they've taken the courageous step of using blogs and other forms of social media to confront stigma and bias.

So if you're in social media, marketing, policy, or communications generally, you need to read, learn from, and embrace Real Mental. THIS is social media in action, and it's being driven by some very courageous people who are sharing their stories and their talents.

The communications tool isn't sophisticated - it's just a group blog - but it's perfect for the content. When you have content as strong as this, you shouldn't let it trip over technology. All the sexy new social media tools we love to swoon over wouldn't convey these stories as powerfully. Heck yeah, this is a Best Blog EVAH. I have nothing but respect for people with the guts to write like this.

The real question now is what companies and their flacks do with Real Mental - will we stay at arms length, or will we engage? Do companies who care about mental health have the guts to tell the writers of Real Mental that they're listening? Will they enter the discussions that everyone knows we have to enter, or will they let their discomfort with the subject matter or the fact that there's an occasional f-bomb here dictate their actions?

I suspect the payback will be huge for the company that transparently and respectfully engages first. In this case, engagement may just take the form of saying "we hear you and we support you." But it may be more than that - I think that's up to the writers of Real Mental.

Capitalism, democracy, and the online citizen

I took some time over the labor day weekend to read an article in FP Magazine by former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich called "How Capitalism is Killing Democracy," an adaptation of his new book. In it he writes about the tensions between investors, consumers and citizens, and has some rather unflattering things to say about folks in my line of work (subscription required):

Democracy has become enfeebled largely because companies, in intensifying competition for global consumers and investors, have invested ever greater sums in lobbying, public relations, and even bribes and kickbacks, seeking laws that give them a competitive advantage over their rivals. The result is an arms race for political influence that is drowning out the voices of average citizens. In the United States, for example, the fights that preoccupy Congress, those that consume weeks or months of congressional staff time, are typically contests between competing companies or industries.

Furthermore, on Secretary Reich's own blog, where he subtly and tastefully mentions (just in passing, mind you) his new book, he describes Corporate Social Responsibility efforts as "a detour... a frolic... a distraction," and getting in the way of government doing its job.

I know first-hand that Secretary Reich makes an important and accurate point about the influence of companies on government. There's no denying that much of the legislative process has been outsourced to corporate lobbyists. And while I never saw a bribe or kickback, I worked specifically on international trade and energy issues for a Senator on the Hill - which means I could typically trace the "sponsorship" of an amendment to a trade or energy bill directly to a company or trade association. (By the way, this was the case for Democrats as well as Republicans.)

I and others used to joke that it would be easier if Senators and their staffs traded in our wool suits and instead dressed like NASCAR drivers - at least then you could see all the corporate logos slapped all over our bodies, and you'd know who's paying us.

However, I've lobbied Congress and I've known hundreds of lobbyists. They actually add critical experience and perspective to a system in which the average Congressional staffer is in his mid-twenties, drastically underpaid, and has virtually no knowledge of the industry he's trying to regulate. And - this may shock you - they're actually decent people.

Rather than take meaningful steps to add substantial transparency to the process, Congress instead passes bizarre travel bans - we wouldn't want you visiting the companies and meeting the workers you regulate, after all - and gift bans that are intended to prevent the most egregious violations but actually do more to hinder the process. I think it was Congressman Barney Frank who quipped that lobbyists now work in a world where they could be indicted for "conspiracy to commit dinner."

The real problem is more and more lobbying and legislating is done in secret. Committee markups are closed. "Floor managers' amendments" are developed and inserted into massive bills overnight and voted on without anyone seeing them. Americans can't see the process, so when they want things done they look to the places where actions are staged but at least they're public - corporate social responsibility programs.

The consequences of this are apparent and research confirms what Reich asserts: Americans now expect businesses to fulfill the duties of citizenship and to address social ills to a greater extent than they expect the government to do so. Reich worries that the influence and interests of investors and consumers now outpace the concerns of citizens, and he makes a persuasive case.

But I don't think CSR is the problem - I think CSR is a combination of some folks in corporate America actually wanting to do the right thing (shocking!), and filling a void that the political process left when legislating and regulating went underground and the public portion of the process became little more than show.

I do think this is changing, both for government and business. Citizens - not just consumers - now use the Internet to harness their collective power and serve as a check on those who would put the interests of investors or consumers over those of citizens. And companies are exercising a new form of responsibility by speaking with online citizens and holding themselves accountable through important conversations. It's PR, but it's not just making a six-foot replica of a cashier's check and smiling pretty for the camera. There's actual accountability there for societal issues.

Of course, these tools are still so very nascent and one can argue Goliath is still beating David, but the pace of progress is truly unprecedented and increasing. Political bloggers on the left and the right, as well as non-partisan groups are all leveraging the Internet to raise awareness, and more importantly, prompt action on the most important issues.

I'd like to think that I and some of my colleagues are actually playing a positive role in this as well by directly connecting citizen bloggers with the business leaders who are contributing to (and, as Secretary Reich asserts, making) policy decisions that affect all of us. The Internet is facilitating discussions we never thought possible even a year or so ago. It's really just the beginning, but government and their corporate sponsors can no longer lecture to the rest of us.

What I'd love to see more of is the change in thinking that I'm starting to see through my work - when citizens have access to corporate and government decision makers and realize that they're contributing the discussions AND the decisions, citizens and companies view each other a little less as adversaries and a little more as partners in progress. It won't happen overnight, but I see incremental improvements each day.

The fruits of our labor

I took a little time over labor day to assess my work and think about where I'm headed. I'm very grateful for the opportunities my job has afforded me and I appreciate the fact that I get to work on something new and different.

One of the things I like best about my job - at my company - is the relentless dedication to strategy over tactics. I work for a strategic communications company, not a social media release factory. (And no, that's not a slam on anyone. The social media release is an innovative tool that has changed how we look at communications, but today SMR's are commoditized. Even the folks who developed the SMR say it's the tactic, not the strategy.)

So much of "public relations" remains tactical, even operational. There are some who simply spend their days cranking out press releases from a template and care more about the AP Style Guide than telling and placing the right story for the right audience. And no, a media list of "political writers," for example, is not a strategy.

At my best, I have a specific reason for approaching every online writer I pitch. I'm interested in the relationship more than the daily placement. I take the time to know my audience and the issue. I work with my clients to figure out what the news is and what's relevant to particular people.

I also appreciate the fact that my job (and this blog) allows me to explore the issues that interest me. I finally got to do some actual reading of stuff from smart people and I have a few more topic ideas (and perhaps a new Best Blog EVAH).

It's been an amazingly productive summer, with new clients, new work, and new opportunities. Autumn is going to be very busy but I'm really looking forward to it.