23 December 2010

And to all a good night

I'm getting as far off the grid as I can for the next week.  This blog slowed down as my activity on other blogs stepped up, but I think I'll try to be a bit edgier next year on this space.   My sincere thanks to everyone who stopped by here for a bit.

And now, the token "viral videos of the year" I hope to share with clients who tell me they want a "viral video" for their communications campaign.  I'll say "I don't think 'viral video' means what you think it means."  Looking forward to more fun next year.

21 December 2010

My personal history with "the gay"

Col. Cammermeyer
Tomorrow President Obama will sign legislation to eventually repeal a series of rules at the Department of Defense known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  For the past 13 years, it's been OK to BE gay and serve in the military, as long as you don't ever let anyone actually KNOW that you're gay. (Of course, if someone outs you, you're discharged.)  And theoretically, the DoD isn't supposed to care who you sleep with - i.e., for 13 years or so they haven't asked people who enlist about their sexual preferences. Of course that hasn't stopped them from discharging 14,000 people under this rule in that time.

It's always been an important issue to me, one I've always followed very closely - not just on the merits, and not just because I've always known a lot of gay people.

(No, this is not where I tell everyone I'm gay.  Sorry.)

This issue (then referred to as "gays in the military") was the first item I ever worked on as a paid Senate staffer.  It was 1993, I was fresh out of college (and a stint in Connecticut on the presidential campaign), and I had just scored a job as a staff assistant on Senator Kennedy's Labor and Human Resources Committee.   My boss was responsible for "gay issues" (among many other things) for the Senator and I was basically the guy who help his small office run - answered the phones, hired and fired interns, wrote the speeches/letters/memos he was too busy to write, do some help with research on this or that.

Politically, I don't think this was an issue any of us really expected to address at that time.  President Clinton had just entered office, the new session of Congress was just starting. The economy was top on everyone's agenda, and while candidate Clinton mentioned his support for lifting the ban on gays in the military, it was never considered a top-5 issue at the time.  But opportunists saw a wedge issue that played on people's fears and made the President look weak.  Republicans quickly tried to codify a ban and dared Democrats to oppose them.  The Senate Armed Services Committee, then led by Sam Nunn (a conservative Democrat from Georgia), almost immediately called for hearings. And this is when I started learning about how politics works in the big leagues.

On the merits, this was never a complicated issue to me.  Granted, I've always had a bias in favor of advancing civil rights and protecting minorities.  But to me, the merits have always gone something like this:

General: A lot of soldiers think gay people have cooties, so we can't have them in our military.  I need my soldiers to focus on killing enemies, not avoiding cooties.
Liberal guy: But gay people really don't have cooties.  You're just condoning prejudice.
General: I don't have the luxury of adopting your Utopian world view.  I have wars to fight, and I can't take on every social issue you want me to.
Liberal: But gay people are already in the military, you just don't know they're gay.  Gay people aren't the source of the cooties, it's the perception of gay people that brings the cooties.
General: Hmm... never thought about it that way.  OK, from now on, nobody is ever allowed to think about gay people.  I'm not going to bring it up, and you're not allowed to say you're gay.   Anyone who talks about the gay is out.   There - problem solved.
Liberal: Wait, that's not what I meant...
General: LA LA LA LA LA!!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! NO GAYS HERE! LA LA LA!

Of course, there was much more to the debate than this.  I saw a lot of nasty, nasty stuff.  I watched Senators tell gay people directly they had an affliction and they needed medical help.  I watched people tell decorated veterans they were condemned or unnatural.  I heard the same arguments that racists made against integration and that nazis made against Jewish people - things like gays spread disease, they hurt morale generally, they can't control themselves, they are all part of some big conspiracy.

I also saw what I thought to be cowardice but what was probably political reality - Senator Kennedy spoke up strongly in favor of lifting the ban in 1993 while most other Democrats were largely silent.  Today we see he was truly ahead of his time.  The political "compromise" that was struck represented little more than an accommodation for a new president who couldn't afford a total loss.  In substance, DADT wasn't a compromise at all.  Before 1993, the military began the discharge process as soon as it learned a person was gay.  That's still the policy today.  DADT was, however, a tacit acknowledgement that being gay wasn't the problem.  It took 13 years for that logical concession to result in a real change.

But what I'm struck by most is the courage I saw from so many people.  "Coming out" is a difficult thing to today, let alone 13 years ago.  I watched my boss, an openly gay man, stare down hate and work closely with people who had no bones about telling him he was an abomination.   I watched another young man, then in the closet while working for a Republican senator, risk his job by coming by the office after hours to provide strategic counsel and intelligence.  (That man eventually became one of the most influential liberal political bloggers in America.) And I watched a host of veterans who served in our military with distinction come through our office and tell their story - knowing the consequences would be significant.

One of those veterans was Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer, a decorated army nurse who acknowledged she was a lesbian during a security clearance interview in 1989  About 3 years later (military bureaucracy being what it is) she was "separated" from the military and quickly filed suit.  Her story was the one that really catapulted the issue to the forefront - she wrote a book, the book turned into a movie (Glenn Close played her character), and she testified at the Congressional hearing, where I remember Senator Strom Thurmond openly questioned her mental health.  I never spoke with her that much but she came by the office a few times and I remember her as personable, courageous, engaging, and smart.  Eventually she won her lawsuit, was reinstated in the military, and retired in 1997.

Earlier this year the Undersecretary of Defense issued a press release without much fanfare, announcing some additions to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, "an independent advisory committee that provides the department with advice and recommendations on matters and policies relating to the recruitment and retention, treatment, employment, integration, and well-being of highly qualified professional women in the armed forces." Tucked in a list of ten names was Col. Cammermeyer.

These changes have come far too slowly.  And more changes are still needed.  But tomorrow I'll be thinking of all the brave people I met and all the lessons I learned and I'll smile.

15 December 2010

What was that about Twitter and influence again?

Just in case you were wondering if web traffic and things like twitter followers were an accurate measurement of influence, I submit the following, as of December 15:

White House Twitter feed: 1,901,538 followers.

MC Hammer Twitter feed: 1,973,240 followers.

I may just track this one.  And I'll be sure to build some MC Hammer outreach into my PR plans.

06 December 2010

The world hasn't changed that much.

Last week I was on a phone call with some colleagues about a project we were working on and I said, "the folks at Worldchanging would probably be interested in this."

At which point they both said, "David, Worldchanging closed its doors this morning."  Which, of course, sucks.  On many levels.   From the note nailed to the door:
Why is this happening? Worldchanging readers were generous over the years and an important part of our ongoing operations, but we were never able to secure major foundation support, so Worldchanging relied most heavily on income generated from Alex Steffen’s speaking engagements (Alex gave more than 400 talks over the past five years) and the Worldchanging book. The strenuous travel schedule it takes to deliver that many talks, though, was unsustainable, both personally for Alex and in terms of the impact it had on Worldchanging’s ability to develop new work. It was clear we needed a new model if we were going to stay in operation.
Early this year a new board was brought on to reshape the organization and pursue a more traditional nonprofit development model (based more on grants, gifts and major fundraising drives), with many new board members recruited in just the last few months to help us re-imagine operations and launch these new plans. Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts (and a successful October event), funding ran out before such a transformation could happen. Given the financial realities we faced, the board and staff have agreed that it is time to bring Worldchanging to a close as gracefully as possible.
I loved the content at Worldchanging, though I clearly didn't read it every day. Alex Steffen is obviously a really smart guy who gets asked to speak at a lot of really smart conferences.  The site featured some outstanding stuff from people I admire.  But sadly, as perhaps begrudgingly admitted above, the large-foundation and NPR crowd can only support so much for so long.   In a down economy, there's even less ability to provide support.  I'm guessing the new board considered some opportunities to partner with the private sector, but it's pretty clear they either didn't want to "soil their hands" or didn't have a compelling enough offering.

A couple of things come to mind here:

1) The advances in technology that gave almost all the power to information consumers haven't only hit traditional media companies.   Worldchanging isn't the only really good site (from a content perspective) to fold. Bottom line: very few people have figured out how to crank out good, smart, topical, family-friendly content online at a profit.

2) The rest of the foundation-supported blogosphere better take note of this.  (I'm looking at you, Global Voices Online.)  Some groups have stronger relationships with foundation benefactors than Worldchanging did,  but reliance on foundations is NOT a sustainable business model in the new media age.

3) It's long past time to stop equating working with companies as "selling out."  This is a much larger discussion for another day, but working with people who don't think exactly the way you do is NOT a weakness.  Developing relationships where all parties get something of value is NOT evil.   If you're worried about conflicts of interest, just disclose the nature of your relationships.  People are smart.  They can tell the difference between an entrepreneur and a whore.

01 December 2010

Science Cheerleader and the Brouhaha


Both of the people who read this blog regularly know I'm a contributor to Science Cheerleader, run by Darlene Cavalier.  Darlene leverages her position as a former cheerleader for the Philadelphia 76ers to attack a pair of stereotypes: don't assume cheerleaders are ditzy blondes, and don't assume scientists are ugly nerds. Darlene is one of the very few people who actually tries to push science content into more "mainstream" communities that don't see it often, and she knows you sometimes have to find creative angles to do this.

Darlene was at the National Science & Engineering Festival on the Mall in DC with a group of professional cheerleaders who also have careers in science.  At the event the cheerleaders talked with young people about pursuing careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields, explained a bit about their jobs and what it took to get them, and how rewarding careers in those fields can be.  Media reports suggest it was a very positive experience for the kids at the event, and I'm sure the cheerleaders had a good time too.

They also produced the following "offending" video:



The event on the Mall generated some fairly robust criticism from the science blogosphere. Apparently some people thought the "GOOOOO SCIENCE" cheering stuff was basically all they did, and never checked with Darlene (or read any of the ample news coverage, or even visited The Science Cheerleader blog) to check on this.  Some of the criticism was really quite thoughtful, some was rather misinformed, and some suggested that the blogger saw the word "cheerleader" and really couldn't get past it. You can find a decent summary with a lot of links at Skulls in the Stars.

I've had a lot to say about this in the past. I think making science "relevant" is more important than making it "cool," but if cool opens the door first then that's what you do.  I reached out to Darlene before I wrote this to get her thoughts.  She's taken more than her share of criticism from science bloggers, and she doesn't take it personally.  However, she was a bit surprised at how many bloggers got their facts wrong.  More than once she noted the irony of science bloggers who often complain that journalists don't check their facts now doing the same thing here.  Darlene has been very accessible about this project, and she's consistently asked bloggers to contact her if they have questions about anything.

The other point she mentioned more than once - science bloggers aren't her audience.  Kids (especially girls) and moms are. To this audience, "cool" is basically the same thing as "relevant."  Darlene gets letters and emails - lots of 'em - from moms thanking her.  Letters that say things like "my daughter has only been interested in cheerleading and now you've shown her that she can do this too."

There's an issue here that irks me a bit more than it does Darlene.  I've worked in PR and politics for about 20 years now, so I've spent a lot of time developing and implementing successful communications campaigns. What Darlene has done strikes me as effective, at least in terms of the media attention and the spike in traffic to her blog. Time will tell if it contributes to more people pursuing STEM careers.  But she's getting bashed by people who have never developed a successful communications campaign in their lives and wouldn't know the first thing about building one. And here's the kicker - many of them don't publish their real names on their own blogs.

I understand completely why some people feel the need to remain anonymous as bloggers. Sharing thoughts publicly involves some risk, and sometimes the only way you can safely get information "out there" is anonymously.  This isn't unique to the science blogosphere - it happens a lot with people who write about finance.  Further, some people just don't want the over-the-top abuse Darlene or people like Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney take when they put their names to their words.   I'm cool with that.

But let's get real here.  Sometimes - definitely not always but sometimes - some of this anonymous posting is really about avoiding accountability.  It's about sidestepping the awkward moment when you meet the person you called an "ignorant fuckwit" last month.  And sometimes maybe it's writing something that benefits you personally or professionally without having to disclose that teensy little conflict of interest.  Maybe some people find anonymous bloggers to be completely credible.  For me, there will always be that kernel of doubt.

Bottom line - Darlene is one of the few people actually trying to bring science to mainstream communities and having some success. She's putting science in a positive light. She would be the first person to tell you her approach isn't intended to engage everyone on everything.  But she takes constructive criticism very well, she's open to working with people who don't agree with her on everything (like me), and she has a relentlessly positive attitude.

And with very few exceptions, the science blogosphere remains scientists talking with other scientists about science and the things that irk scientists.  There's nothing wrong with that, but science needs all the PR help it can get these days.  If you want to criticize the people who are trying to promote science and scientists, you might want to put some actual skin in the game.

And start by sharing your name.