Feelin' green today.

Now, for a change of pace: some green news bulletins.

Car charging stations where you need them.  Retail outlets are starting to "get it" - making it easier for people who choose electric vehicles to shop at their stores.

NASCAR.  Seriously. They're adopting a corn-based ethanol blend fuel for all their cars.  Corn-based ethanol isn't the darling of environmentalists.  For that matter, neither is NASCAR.  But baby steps toward sustainability should be noted.

Urban gardens starting to flourish. There's even a "top 5 list" for cities with urban gardens now.

Praying for rain in Texas.  Somebody needs to remind the Governor of Texas that the only acceptable time to pray for rain is when you need to re-shuffle your pitching rotation.

Enjoy your weekend....

Obama, Trump, and Sheen - do we get the news we deserve?

I was walking through the reception room at my office yesterday when I noticed the television.  There was Donald Trump, declaring victory for compelling the conventional wisdom to conclude that the President of the United States was a citizen of the United States.  Or something.

Captain Comb-over has been all over the idiot box lately, insisting that the President's citizenship status was questionable, and his crack research team in Hawaii was unearthing some mind-blowing stuff.  Or something. Sadly, the news media just ate it up despite knowing it was all fake.  It got to the point where the President decided to stop doing his job for 30 minutes so he could go down to the press room to explain once again  that yes, he was born in this country, and perhaps the media might want to cover real news for a change.

This constructive criticism predictably injected a dose of responsibility in the press corps, compelling them to "fact check" and scrutinize Donald Trump's outlandish claims...

Oh, wait, they fact checked the PRESIDENT'S suggestion that this ridiculous side show was item one on their agenda.  In doing so they trotted out the "percentage of the news hole" metric - one that conveniently ignores the editorial decisions of what leads the broadcast or is "above the fold" and what's on page 8.  And buried in their defense was the admission their volume of coverage of the twice-bankrupt bluster-box eclipsed their coverage of the President for a week.  So now the media is covering their coverage of one of the most ridiculous non-stories in recent memory.  Somewhere Jon Stewart is saying, "hey - fake news is MY job."

But how big an issue is this, really?  I thought I'd take a look at "coverage" from a (perhaps) more appropriate perspective - in the age of media convergence, you can't ignore blogs from the rest of whatever Pew decides to call its "news hole."  Online discussions are not perfectly reflective of mainstream media coverage, but I don't think you can deny an association.  Bloggers invariably discuss what's in the news, and many bloggers are indeed journalists.  So how did the online discussion of these events really stack up - and are there any other stories out there we could include for some context?

So I decided to look at the last 90 days of online chatter for three discussions:

1. The Trump-Obama birther debacle (I excluded references that only mentioned Trump because they may have been related to his TV shows or other business interests),
2. Any blog reference whatsoever to the term "Social Security," and
3. Charlie Sheen.

Here's what I got, using Nielsen's BlogPulse Trend Search:

Even today, in what is presumably the nadir of the Charlie Sheen saga, he's still arguably bigger than "birtherism"  and social security.  His initial burst in March dwarfs both of those other issues combined.  And don't get me started on the royal wedding.

Of course, bloggers are consumers of news more than they are creators of it.  Maybe the media is just giving the people what they want.  But I thought journalism was supposed to include some kind of professional, editorial judgment on what is news and what isn't.  In my opinion, editors are letting us down here.

Great, no pressure

So I'm giving a talk next month in Kentucky.  Nothing too out of the ordinary there, right? Lots of PR folks give lots of presentations in lots of places.

Except this talk is called "What Women Want" and I'm supposed to go on local radio next week to talk about it. So I'm doing exhaustive research on the topic, using the most sophisticated tools and approaching the most credible sources.  Here's a glimpse of the sheer genius I've unearthed:

Make sure you tune in to the live online stream on May 3 at 1pm...  And may @almightygod have mercy on my soul. 

A #scimom update

I am enormously grateful for all of the posts people have contributed to #scimom and I've learned a lot from reading those posts. For those just joining us, #scimom is something of a "double blog-meme" that tries to build bridges between people who blog about science and people who blog about parenting.  You can learn how to participate by reading this post.

While I won't say the impact has been huge, I will say there are a few people reading some blogs that were new to them - and I think the sense of community among some of those writers and readers has increased a bit.  That's more than anyone could hope for.  I'm also glad we introduced some people to Darlene Cavalier's Science For Citizens.

We've had posts from moms who aren't scientists like Catherine and Thea and Carmen and Christina. We've had posts from moms who ARE scientists like Jeanne and Anne and Janet.  We've had posts from scientists who aren't moms like Sheril and Jade and Jason.  I've gotten such a kick out of watching people share and forward #scimom posts on Twitter, and the feedback has been very rewarding.  Further, the range of perspectives has been so impressive.  We've even gotten a couple of posts from people who explain why motherhood is not a choice they're making - I honestly didn't expect that, but I think it's an important viewpoint that deserves to be included as well.

I'm going to keep this thing going for a little while longer to see if anyone else has thoughts to share.  So my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has participated and my warm invitations to anyone who wants to play along!

EPIC FAIL, revisited

A year ago today the Deepwater Horizon exploded and gave us the worst man-made environmental disaster ever.  I'm re-publishing one of the posts I wrote about a month after the initial blast  - it includes a lot of links that give us some historical context.

"It is impossible to say and we will mount, as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environmental assessment. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest."

(BP CEO Tony Hayward, May 18, 2010)

I was planning to write the obligatory "what the oil spill means for social media" blog post but that's really just ridiculous.  To be honest this is as close to a 20th-century media crisis scenario as we've seen in some time.  The public is heavily reliant on professional journalists to get the story, a very large company is doing its best to control the flow of information (and compounding the damage to its own reputation in the process), the federal government is flailing about, and Members of Congress are threatening to write very sternly-worded letters if things don't improve eventually.  Oh, and there's a CEO out there saying some profoundly stupid things.  Sure there are some nice tech tools in play here - obviously - but this is a straight-up, mainstream media-driven story.

But as always the real story is the actual debacle, not the PR debacle. And we're learning the scope of this EPIC FAIL one merciless drip at a time.

• Eleven people are missing and presumed dead.
• Estimates of the flow of oil were wildly understated at the outset, and the current "official" estimate prompts scientists to laugh in disbelief.  Now when asked the company and the government simply evade the question.
• The company has to dig a "relief" well to stop this flow, and that won't be ready until late summer.
• The "best minds in the world" haven't been able to staunch the flow in over a month.
• The first hugely technical and scientific idea to fix this was a big metal box.  It didn't work. (but remember - this idea didn't "fail," it just didn't succeed yet.  Or something.) 
• The second big idea was a smaller box.  It failed before it started.
• The third big idea was a tube. It really didn't work either.
• The fourth big idea is to dump mud and stuff in the hole.  Like a cork. Even if it "works" I think won't completely stop the flow of oil.
• Because remember, none of this stuff has ever been tried a mile below the ocean surface.
• And we're dumping "dispersants" (i.e., moderately toxic chemicals) into the oil flow to diffuse it.
• Even though there are more effective and less toxic chemicals available.  No there aren't.  Yes there are.  So stop.  No.  OK, slow it down.  No.  Seriously, slow it down or I'll think about saying stop again.
• But hey, it's not like this is a big deal or anything.  In fact, it's tiny.
• And BP will reimburse people whose claims BP considers "legitimate."
• And at least we know exactly who is at fault here - someone else. BP says it's Halliburton and Transocean's fault.  Halliburton says it's Transocean and BP's fault.  Transocean says it's BP and Halliburton's fault.

Meanwhile, in the government...

• The White House issues a moratorium on new outer continental shelf drilling permits.  But I don't think "moratorium" means what they think it means.
• Then we learn the government agency that regulates this industry is the one with the Bush-era folks who were having sex with the lobbyists, snorting crystal meth on toasters, getting plastered at lobbyist-sponsored parties and sleeping it off in lobbyist-paid hotel rooms because they were too drunk to drive.  
• Oh, and they were letting the companies fill in their own inspection reports in pencil which they would later trace over in pen.
• But not to worry, because the White House has assembled a(nother) blue ribbon panel of outside-the-box scientific thinkers.  Like the climate change denier / "proud homophobe" guy.  Oh, wait.
• And the guy who assembled the panel of experts - the Secretary of Energy - is apparently learning the details by reading about them in the papers. 
• But it's BP's responsibility.
• But we're putting boots on throats and will push people out.
• But we don't know what we would do differently if we were in charge, so we're not in charge.
• But we're in charge. 
• And we think BP should pay for everything. 
• Except we don't.

Meanwhile, the politicians and beltway clowns jockey for soundbites and political advantage.  The Republican governor of Louisiana who likes the idea of small government and refused that stimulus package money is nowdemanding more money from the feds and wants the Army Corps of Engineers all over the place STAT.  The Senate Assistant Majority Leader istrying to come up with two-word catch-phrases that begin with the letters B and P.  And the Chatty Kathy's of the very serious Washington punditry club were first falling over themselves to call this "Obama's Katrina," then when that didn't stick they were wondering aloud "where is the oil?" and now thatthe oil is all over marshlands and pelicans and stuff it's the liberals who are all pissed. 

And Gulf Coast fishermen are wondering if they'll ever work again.

What, no Pulitzer? - the evolution of crisis communications

Yesterday the Pulitzer Prizes were awarded, and several people noted that for the first time no award was given in the category of "Breaking News Reporting" in a year filled with major disasters.  The reason given by the selection committee - the entries weren't impressive enough - strikes me as missing the mark.  Sad as it sounds, 2010 was a banner year for crises and crisis communications.  However, this development prompts us to examine how "breaking news" is compiled, processed and shared today.

First, we all know that financial pressures facing media companies have rocked journalism.  Corporate news organizations have cannibalized their news reporting functions for several years now.  Our largest media outlets are closing entire bureaus.  Daily papers and TV stations in mid-sized cities are lucky to have even a handful of news reporters working full-time. Independent reporting in radio (other than public radio) is virtually gone.  As seasoned (and therefore expensive) reporters leave, institutional memory goes with them.  So when a crisis hits, editors throw any and all resources they have at the story - and a huge chunk of the resources left are in the sports department.  So the 25-year old kid who has 2 years of experience quoting cliches from the local basketball coach is suddenly the "man on the scene" and the local weatherman is tabbed as the source of "expert commentary."   Local journalists have had no time to get badly needed background and context and they're immediately playing catch-up.  Product quality definitely suffers.

Second, social media tools have turned us all into breaking news reporters.  Individuals using Twitter broke the stories of Captain Sully's amazing landing in the Hudson, the gunman at the Discovery Channel building, the terror attacks in Mumbai, and even a fire in the Old Executive Office Building.   These tools have given people the ability to "fact check" reports (like the protests in the Middle East) and crowdsource information so you can get an amazingly accurate and fast picture of events - if you know who to follow.  However, I'm not completely comfortable getting my news from "some guy on Twitter."  The core process of journalism is easily lost here.

So if you're an organization in the middle of a crisis, you can't depend on news organizations to bring ample, experienced resources to bear and you can't depend on "some guy on Twitter" to get all the facts, what do you do? I say prepare for your crisis now.   Build up more sophisticated monitoring systems that incorporate social media tools.  Understand how information travels today - for example pay attention to the large and growing network of journalists on Twitter, and create lists of beat and trade reporters and other influentials.   Most importantly - build relationships with those influential people now.  Their learning curve isn't as steep because they already know you and your organization if and when a crisis hits.  They will also be more likely to seek out your opinion or give you the benefit of the doubt.  You're never going to get everything 100 percent right in a crisis, but these steps give you a fighting chance.

Science, Ethics, and SEO

David Kroll alerted me to a local tidbit with some interesting PR applications:

Go ahead and Google Anil Potti.

No longer do the majority of top search results for the former Duke cancer researcher detail allegations that he falsified his resume and produced faulty research that has been retracted from renowned medical journals and led to the termination of three clinical trials. Instead, more than a dozen websites and social media accounts created in the months following Dr. Potti’s November resignation contain solely positive information about his research and medical experience.

For those who don't know, Anil Potti used to be a research scientist at Duke University.  He resigned in November 2010 after he retracted a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and questions were raised about accomplishments listed on his CV.  More retractions from top journals soon followed.  The whole affair caused quite a stink and it remains a reasonably common topic among academics here today.

Now the Duke Chronicle reports Dr. Potti has hired a service to "manage his online reputation."  The service apparently uses some fairly basic search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.  Basically he's just creating a bunch of websites with his name on them so people who enter his name in Google will (hopefully) find the sites he's created before they find anything else.  Dr. Kroll and others wonder if it's ethical.

OK, let's start with the basics.

Dr. Potti has apparently created accounts with the large social networking utilities - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.  Nothing wrong with that.  He's purchased the URL's that spell his name.  Also fine.  He's created some websites that say he's a doctor and that he worked with cancer patients.  As far as I know nothing on the websites is inaccurate.  He just leaves out the whole "retracted my papers and resigned in disgrace" thing.  Which, if you're an academic, is a pretty big deal.

Yet everyone has a right to tell you what they want you to know about them. Potti is under no obligation to volunteer the fact that he got into loads of trouble at Duke. That would be like the guy who launched his campaign for a Senate seat by disclosing his drunk-driving arrest and restraining order from an ex-girlfriend at his kick-off press conference. (Yes, that really happened.)

I'm not going to put myself out there as the authority on ethics.  But I can say this - if this SEO stuff represents the entirety of Dr. Potti's reputation do-over, it's a pretty stupid strategy.

All it does is sweep some significant negative information under a virtual rug - and for whom?  Potti's field is clinical oncology research. This is not a large community.  They all know his story.  Hiring decisions in this field are not based solely on a Google search.  His reputation in this field is most likely beyond repair.

Further, Potti's PR strategy (if this is actually a strategy) lacks what some of my colleagues call an "admit point."   If you want to regain credibility, you have to acknowledge an error in judgment, and explain how that error won't happen again.  This SEO tactic suggests Potti isn't interested in redemption, he's interested in forgetting the whole thing - and he hopes you will too.

Maybe Potti knows his career is over and he just doesn't want the scandals to be the last word on his work.  Or he doesn't want his family to Google his name and read the record.  If that's what this is about, then the SEO tactics are fine.  But let's not fool ourselves into thinking this will repair his professional reputation.

The #scimom Collection

I will  store all the #scimom related posts I find here and a post at Science For Citizens and at delicious.com.  You can find the original introduction to the concept here.  If you don't see your post here just leave a comment or ping me on Twitter @dwescott1 and I'll add it.

• Nerd Love Story: Kind of a fan letter to science by Thea Joselow at Nutgraf
• The call of... booby by Jeanne Garbarino at The Mother Geek
• Scientist, Mom by Anne Peattie at her personal blog 
• Diversity in Science Blogging: a call for action by Elaine Westwick at The stuff of life
• Reflections on biology and motherhood: Where does Homo sapiens fit in? by Carin Bondar at the Scientific American Guest Blog 
• A Hypothesis Is A Wish Your Brain Makes by Catherine Connors at Her Bad Mother
• Affirmations for a Working Mom by Kari Byron at GeekMom
• Why We Love Science by Susan Wells at The Savvy Source
• Motherhood, Science and All That by "Cloud" at Wandering Scientist
• So You Want Your Child to Succeed? Here's How by Sheril Kirshenbaum at Discover Magazine's The Intersection
• Motherhood has made me a slob by Micro Dr. O at The Tightrope
• The "I Drank Water out of a Hose" Meme by Emily Finke at This View of Life
• I'm No Scientist by Carmen Staicer at Mom to the Screaming Masses
• The #scimom project: We are here! by Janet D. Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science
• Health pitfalls of parenting by Catherine Holecko at About.com Family Fitness
• Growing by Cathy Ngo at Frog Monkey 
• Seeing Science by Catherine Holecko at Mayberry Mom
• The mystery of the egg thief by Jennifer at Under the Ponderosas
• The re-education of a science mom by Tracy Z. Turner at Tiny Mantras
• Geek Squared by Christina McMenemy at A Mommy Story
• How Old is the Earth? by Gina Cocking at Super Smart Carbon
• Science and Motherhood by Heather R at I Don't Remember
• On how we need more female STEM celebrities by Jeanne Garbino at The Mother Geek
• Science writing in 5 minutes intervals by "The Febrile Muse"
• The maternity shuffle by Julia James at Science, Upstream
• Backyard science: isotope hydrology style by Anne Jefferson at Highly Allochthonous
• Blaming parents: what I've learned and unlearned as a child psychiatrist by Justine Larson at the Scientific American Guest Blog
• I am #scimom! by gerty-z at Balanced Instability
• #scimom by "Dr. Sneetch" at The Sneetch Blog
• On becoming a #scimom by Micro Dr. O at The Tightrope
• Why I am not a scimom by Jade at Life's a Biotech
• On not being a Supermom by Dr. Girlfriend at Life Beyond the Bench
• Sciparenting and expectations by proflikesubstance at The Spandrel Shop
• On being a mum by Lesley at Lesley's Blog
• Perseverating on Perseverative Error: What Does The "A-not-B Error" Really Tell Us About Infant Cognition? by Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal
• Teen SciMom by XtalGrrl at science and life and a small bucket of crazy...
• #scimom and me by Kate Clancy at Context and variation
• Exploring the earth with kids by PhD Journey: fire, kids, erosion at her personal blog
• Are Infants Born Prepared For Learning? The Case For Natural Pedagogy by Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal
• Sneaking in at the end of the month (#scimom) by The Prodigal Academic at her personal blog
• I've been a #Scimom for 63 years. I know I don't look that old. The kids keep me young! by Joanne Manaster at Joanne Loves Science 
• Why I'm glad I've got Sci-Mom superpowers by Emily Willingham at The Biology Files 
• The Adventures of a Scimom: Conference Edition by Jeanne Garabino at The Mother Geek
• The Adventures of a Scimom: Conference Edition, Part 2 by Jeanne Garabino at The Mother Geek
• Everything I need to know about sea level rise I learned on vacation by Heather Goldstone at Climatide
• The Incidental #Scimom by Kiyomi Deards at the Library Adventures of Kiyomi
• On Motherhood and Bet-Hedging: Part B #scimom by Carin Bondar at her personal blog
• Is Pedagogy Specific to Humans? Teaching in the Animal World by Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal
• The Best Advice I've Recieved as a Woman in Biotech by Mary Canady at Dangerous Experiments
• Lessons in Freeway Calculus by Grace Peng at The Atlantic

The #scimom Posts...

It's been fun watching #scimom start up - a few people have written posts and I know a few more plan to, thanks to the comments in the introduction post here.  I'm creating this post (and one at Science For Citizens) to keep track of all the links.  I also have a tab at my delicious page.  I'll create a link in my sidebar to this post to keep it accessible.  Here are some posts:

• Nerd Love Story: Kind of a fan letter to science by Thea Joselow at Nutgraf
• The call of... booby by Jeanne Garbarino at The Mother Geek
• Scientist, Mom by Anne Peattie at her personal blog 

some other posts that may not be "official" but are in my mind relevant:

• Diversity in Science Blogging: a call for action by Elaine Westwick at The stuff of life.  Anne Peattie put this in her list of #scimom posts.
• Reflections on biology and motherhood: Where does Homo sapiens fit in? by Carin Bondar at the Scientific American Guest Blog.  Carin is one of the bloggers I've been talking with about this idea and she shared this with me - a great piece from February. 
• A Hypothesis Is A Wish Your Brain Makes by Catherine Connors at Her Bad Mother.  Catherine clearly has a lot going on and I'm sure she's not worrying about this idea, but she's also someone I've been talking with and I just thought this post was excellent. 

That's what I've found for now - I know more are coming, so stay tuned...

Introducing #scimom

My Science for Citizens Project!

UPDATE:  Bloggers from both communities are starting to write posts.  The first post came from Thea Joselow - her "Nerd Love Story" is a great read.  Next, Jeanne Garbarino (a science blogging mom) gives us The call of... booby.  As more come in I'll organize them.  I've added a scimom tag to my delicious feed, so that's another way people can find the links.  (As long as delicious exists, anyway.) 

I think this could be cool. It's not a science project, but it may help make science more interesting and acessible to everyone.

Online moms have extraordinary power – far more than most people realize. Companies listen to them. Policy makers listen to them. Moms make the overwhelming majority of decisions in life – what to buy, who to vote for, when to get health care, and so on. They do most of the work. They do most of the child-rearing.  They're the boss. The problem is a lot of online moms feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood. 

Science bloggers push the boundaries of ideas.  They give us facts, and theories, and great stories about discovery.  They celebrate the pursuit of knowledge and help us understand all kinds of important things.  The problem is a lot of science bloggers also feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood. 

I think if moms are making decisions based on the right information and with the right context – the kind of context you can get from science bloggers – the world will be a much better place. And I think if science bloggers understand the perspectives of the REAL influential people in our society, they can help make sure their work has an even bigger impact than it already does. 

Of course I know there are plenty of people who are scientists AND moms.  But even those mom/science bloggers tend to stick to one community or the other.  In my observations over a few years now, these two online communities remain fairly isolated from each other.  So I've been working on an idea to get the two communities talking.  Here it is, plain and simple.

1) if you're a mom blogger, write a post this month that has something to do about science or science blogging.  It could be anything -your love (or hatred) of science or a particular scientist, a hope you have for your child, an appropriate role model, whatever you like.  Just make it personal and relevant to your life. 

2) if you're a science blogger, write a post this month that has something to do with parenting or parent blogging.  Maybe it's something your parent did to get you interested in science.  Maybe it's on the science of parenting.  Maybe it's your love (or skepticism) of something in the mom-o-sphere. Just make it personal and relevant to your life. 

3) if you're a mom AND a scientist, then just write a post this month about how awesome it is to be a mom and a scientist or something like that.  Maybe suggest a role model, or a story about why both roles are important to you.  Just make it personal and relevant to your life. As far as I'm concerned you make an awesome role model and people should know about you.

4) ask another blogger in your online community to participate.  You can call them out in your post like it's a blog meme or you can ask them any way you like. 

5) tag your post #scimom and I will keep track of the posts and link to them at Science for Citizens and here as well.  If you want to tweet a link to your post, just add the hashtag #sci-mom and we'll keep a tally so people can find relevant posts to read. 

6) read a post from a blogger in the OTHER community (i.e. if you're a mom blogger read a participating science blogger's post and vice versa) and leave a comment.

That's it.  At the least I hope it adds some links and traffic to people's blogs, and gets them a few new readers.  Maybe it will spur new conversations, friendships, projects.  I don't know.  I just like to see people interact.  Please let me know if you're in, if you have questions or ideas, or anything else. 

Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince - as a Text Cloud

Project Gutenberg + Wordle = nerdy fun.