It's Not a Lecture

My surprisingly conflicted take on #scio12

2012-01-24T15:37:00.000-05:00

ScienceOnline 2012 has concluded, and the snap reviews are glowing and well deserved. It was great to reconnect with acquaintances, and to meet people whose work I've been reading and admiring for some time. I'm very grateful for the well-developed program, the brilliant speakers and attendees, and the spectacular organizers.

However, #scio12 also left me surprisingly conflicted and frustrated.

To me, science is hope. It's the process by which we discover our origins, try to understand our present, and help shape our future. It holds the promise for addressing humanity's greatest challenges. And it's even more than that - it's what lets me watch my little boy's eyes light up when I tell him birds are, in a very real sense, dinosaurs. It's what makes every make-believe launch of a rocket ship into outer space just a little more fun. It's what makes every moment in the backyard an opportunity for discovery. The people who pursue science and who share it with the rest of us are among my most valued heroes. It's really that big a deal to me.

And yet, scientists continue to feel the effects of a withering, coordinated attack in our politics and in our culture. This is nothing new, of course - but the attack is increasingly well-financed, sophisticated and diverse. The strategy is to associate many scientists with something foreign, conspiratorial, and nefarious. To create just enough public doubt over well-established scientific consensus that certain people avoid accountability. To create an atmosphere that prompts everything from government censorship to death threats, and compels scientists to think twice about speaking up. Failing that, to marginalize scientists to the point where excluding them from important policy decisions is commonplace. The success of this strategy, of course, relies on a relatively uninformed and fairly disinterested population.

I think most #scio12 attendees agree generally on the political and cultural challenge. I also think there are a good number of individual people there who do their own part to address a small piece of it. But collectively, I don't think this community has anything resembling the sense of urgency or the strategic consensus required to overcome it.

There were plenty of panels that focused on particular pieces of this. One focused on science literacy. Another on outreach. A couple more focused on politics. And a very important one focused on interacting with the media. And from the panels I attended (and others I read about via twitter etc) I was struck by how reluctant so many scientists are to engage beyond their own community. They talked about the inherent and legitimate risks scientists (and especially non-tenured scientists) take just by talking to reporters and all the things that could go wrong. There was very little about what could go right. There was skepticism that anything could be accomplished by "framing issues" or PR campaigns. There were many examples of politics encroaching on sound science, but very little about scientists organizing or fundraising or running for office or developing strategic communications campaigns.

From my perspective, #scio12 was an amazingly deep dive into the details and tactics of science communication, up to and including the differences in brain chemistry between liberals and conservatives. But all I could keep thinking of was what an unnamed George W. Bush Administration aide (long rumored to be Karl Rove) told Ron Suskind in 2004:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

And I can't help but think that's what science is up against today. Seriously.

What's even more frustrating is the individual elements of a strategic plan to win this fight - and believe me, it is a fight - were everywhere at #scio12. I wish more people could have seen Matt Shipman tremble when he described to me the righteous fury he feels over injustices in his community - and then how he channels it positively through his First Step Project. I wish more people could summon the measured dignity and good humor Josh Rosenau constantly displays when he peacefully confronts his adversaries on the issue of teaching evolution. And I wish someone would just give Danielle Lee a microphone, stick her in front of a television camera, and tell her to just say whatever comes to mind - because, well, see for yourself:

(One take, people. ONE TAKE. Unscripted. Imagine what this would be if I didn't suck so bad at recording video.)

I realize, of course, that it's not #scio12's responsibility to stimulate a grassroots effort to make science more popular and relevant, or compel politicians and business leaders to see a huge downside to censoring or otherwise obfuscating science. And I also realize that there are dozens - maybe hundreds - more examples of people doing the right thing among the attendees. And yes, it's very important to have sessions about literacy and outreach and dealing with the media and what makes a conservative's brain tick.

But I for one am tired of analyzing the contour and measuring the force of the fist punching "science" in the face. The other side has a strategy, and they are committed to action more than analysis. They're always on offense. It's time to develop an overarching strategy that positions science and scientists as the good guys and critics as the bad guys. It's time to move the needle of public opinion, and it starts by increasing the number of people who actually know a living scientist. It's time to coordinate efforts, develop a real commitment to outreach, and then just go out and git'er done.

I think what pisses me off most of all is that I haven't thought it all through, and I don't have the time to do it myself. But despite this rant, I am hopeful - if for no other reason than the amazing people who put on and attend #scio12.

Some important questions for NCSE

2012-01-17T17:27:00.002-05:00

I was very pleased to learn (via John Timmer's piece at Ars Technica) that the National Center for Science Education (a.k.a., those nice folks who defend the teaching of evolution in classrooms) is broadening its mission a bit:

NCSE is proud to announce the launch of its new initiative aimed at defending the teaching of climate change. Like evolution, climate change is accepted by the scientific community but controversial among the public. As a result, educators trying to teach climate change, like their counterparts trying to teach evolution, are often likewise pressured to compromise the scientific and pedagogical integrity of their instruction. But there was no NCSE for climate — no organization, that is, specializing in providing advice and support to those facing challenges to climate change education.

With the launching of the initiative, NCSE itself becomes that organization.

NCSE and others have seen the parallels emerging among those who oppose teaching evolution in schools and those who try to deny the sound science behind climate change. While I'm not sure how often schools teach "climate change" as much as they teach the basic scientific disciplines (chemistry, physics, etc.) that play a role in researching the issue, I think it's great that this group is stepping up here.

But then.... I read this.

..."We've always argued 'do what's best for the kids, teach good science.' The nice thing about evolution is that we can also say 'and by the way, if you try to teach creationism/intelligent design, you will be sued and you will lose, because all the case law is against you,'" Scott said. "There's nothing comparable with climate change. There's no constitutional protection against bad science. What we have to do is persuade people, help them understand what is good science, and why their kids should learn good science."

To help get the organization ready for the challenge of persuading people, the NCSE has hired Mark McCaffrey, a scientist that has focused on climate literacy. They've also placed the Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick on their board.

Persuading people.

NCSE is chock full of brainy people. I mean SMART. Their staff and board consists of biologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and geologists. And I'm really not trying to be flip here. I admire and respect NCSE and its leaders a great deal, and I want to see them succeed. So as a communications strategist, I really do have to ask a few questions:

Who specifically does NCSE want to persuade?
Has NCSE established a benchmark of sentiment on the issue that they want to change? If so, how much?
Who at NCSE has ever developed and led a coordinated, national communications campaign?
Has NCSE established criteria to help them determine if they're being successful?
Has NCSE ever worked with a public relations company, big or small?
Has NCSE developed messages on the issue of climate change?
Has NCSE ever tested messages through focus groups, polling, or other means?
Has NCSE developed a budget for this initiative?
Is NCSE planning to spend any money on advertising?
How does NCSE plan to "earn media" through creative opportunities and events?
How will NCSE integrate social media into its strategic communications plan?

I hope NCSE has good answers to these (and other) questions. Maybe they don't see themselves as the organization that leads a national campaign - maybe they're the folks who give individual teachers some basic information in a single, convenient spot. And that's cool. But when I see the words "what we have to do is persuade people," these are the questions I immediately ask.

Persuading people isn't just about compiling data and having a great website. It's not just about writing press releases and pushing them to the few remaining science reporters left at major daily newspapers. It's not about giving a talk to the local science club. It's not even about debating an anti-science crank on television. It's not about simply responding to the latest outrage from the other side. All of these things are nice. None of them really persuade people - not in the numbers I think are necessary.

Persuading people is about having a strategy. It's about developing messaging you know will be effective because you've tested it - you know, like a scientist does. It's about identifying your audience and connecting your audience with your messages everywhere they are, as assertively and proactively and creatively and efficiently as possible. It's about knowing where opinion currently is, and knowing what specifically you want to change, and knowing if you've accomplished your goal.

NCSE has launched this initiative. And I think it's great. It really does beg the question, though: now what?

Again, not trying to be flip. I really want the answers.

The evolution of that evolution video

2012-01-03T12:47:00.000-05:00

So you and about 36,000 of your friends have seen the video some pals and I put together that features women scientists explaining why teaching evolution is so important. That pales in comparison to the million-plus views of the Miss USA contestants sharing their thoughts on the topic, but it's a small step in the right direction.

Before the holiday break, our group started to share some initial thoughts on the next step. I don't think we've reached a clear consensus yet, but I do know we will all be at ScienceOnline 2012, we will be talking with a lot of scientists and science communicators, and we will try to grab some video. I'm really looking forward to it for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is obvious. Of the entire team of "producers" - Matt Shipman, Kevin Zelnio, Andrea Kuszewski, Jamie Vernon, and our video editor - I think I've only spoken in person with two of them. (Funny how the Internet works.) Of the sixteen scientists featured in the video, I've only spoken in person with three of them. I know at least a few of them will be at ScienceOnline, and I'd like to meet and thank them if possible.

The next reason is also obvious - to figure out how to build on our success. This video was about evolution, but there are other important science/culture topics. When it comes to this project or others like it, I have my own "big picture" goals that are by no means unique or original. For example, I want:

more popular support and respect for science and scientists generally.
policy makers to perceive a serious political downside to censoring sound science or attacking scientists.
companies or organized groups to find it much harder to obfuscate science.
more people (including scientists) to view science and science careers as accessible to anyone.

I suspect the others in the group share basically the same goals, though they obviously have different perspectives and add different wrinkles of awesomeness to them. There are plenty of science communicators working toward these goals, doing some amazing things, achieving far more success than I could hope to accomplish. I'm just trying to do my part, and I'm so grateful to the others in the group for letting me spitfire with them.

To make more progress, I'd like to see more collaborators and I'd like to really try more outreach beyond the science community. Our group made a video, and we all liked it, and so did a lot of our friends and colleagues. But to be candid, I think we did much more "content development" than "strategic outreach." Most of the people we "reached" were through our own social networks - people who, almost by definition, shared our opinions and ideas on the topic.

Don't get me wrong - I love that sites like Boing Boing, Scientific American, and Guardian science blogs shared the video. That's very, very important. We need scientists to get excited about communication, about being ambassadors. We need them to understand this can be effective and even fun. But you don't change attitudes simply by talking with people who already agree with you.

So I'm even happier that Matt Shipman shared the video with the pop culture blog Jezebel. I'm quite certain that single post reached more non-scientists than anything else we did. Matt also got Feminist Philosophers to share it. Through that kind of outreach, Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan used Carin Bondar's line from the video as his Quote For the Day on December 4.

To take the next step, I think we have to be more creative, more engaging, more accessible. I think that means leaving the comfort zone a little more. My participation in things like this has evolved, and I've learned a lot by leaving my comfortable world of PR - from Science Cheerleader, to #scimom, to the video. I hope some of the scientists, writers, and others I meet at ScienceOnline 2012 will take a small step toward my world as well. I'm really looking forward to what's next.

Smithsonian's rebrand idea is SO four years ago.

2011-12-19T14:03:00.000-05:00

Thea Joselow pointed this out to me. It's a story in the Washington Post about the Smithsonian Institution's rebranding campaign. LOVE:

The sprawling institution aims to be, in the words of Secretary G. Wayne Clough, a “conversation, not a lecture.”

Thea noted this sounded familiar. So I checked to see how long I've been writing under the "It's Not a Lecture" title - about four and a half years now. For kicks, I decided to post an archive.I'm a huge fan of the Smithsonian Institution. They have some outstanding writers and bloggers (like Thea) working with them. And I'm excited that they want to be more engaging and interactive. Happy to spread the word...

a snapshot of the evolution discussion

2011-12-12T16:29:00.003-05:00

It's been a really busy few weeks since we introduced the video featuring women scientists explaining why evolution should be taught in schools. More than 33,000 views, 492 likes, 19 dislikes, and 238 comments later, this is what the discussion on YouTube looks like - it's the text from the comments (minus names and dates/times) pushed through the word cloud generator at Wordle. I don't know that we can glean much from a single word cloud, but I like to look at it.

Further, I don't really think YouTube comments are anything more than, well, YouTube comments. But I do think the video has had an impact - not necessarily the one I expected or intended, but an impact nonetheless.

I'll share more thoughts on that soon. But I really liked Jamie Vernon's presentation at Science Online New York City, and wish to associate myself with the comments of the distinguished gentleman. I'm looking forward to the next conversation with Jamie and the rest of the team - Matt Shimpan, Andrea Kuszewski, Kevin Zelnio, and our video editor.

We interrupt this blog for something truly historic

2011-12-06T22:11:00.001-05:00

Sorry, flash keeps crashing for this video so I removed it.

Full text here. Background briefing here. Fact sheet here.

Should evolution be taught in schools?

2011-11-22T11:58:00.000-05:00

The answer is yes, and the reasons are these:

This video is the result of an ongoing discussion among a small handful of scientists and science communicators - Matt Shipman, Jamie Vernon, Andrea Kuszewski, Kevin Zelnio, an amazing video editor who wishes to remain nameless - and me.

The discussion started shortly after a video of the the Miss USA 2011 Pageant interview competition appeared on YouTube. The contestants were asked that simple question - should evolution be taught in schools - and most of the answers were very disappointing for advocates of science. The discussion continued as evolution again became a salient topic in the presidential campaign. Everyone in our group had their own perspective and reasons for doing this, but here's what I saw as the question kept coming up:

conservative politicians saying "no" (without facts to back it up)
pageant contestants saying either "no" or "teach evolution and creationism and let kids decide"
prominent supporters of teaching evolution calling these other people idiots or otherwise mocking them

The only thing I didn't see: prominent people explaining why evolution actually should be taught in schools.

That's not to say people aren't trying - there are organizations which have been at the forefront of this discussion for some time now, such as the National Center for Science Education, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association, and so many others. They do great work.

But here were prominent role models - and as Matt wrote, mostly female role models - talking about teaching evolution. It just seemed like a good time to add more voices of smart female role models with more to say than "you suck." So we reached out to a bunch of female scientists, asked them to record a video about teaching evolution, and a lot of them responded. Our editor put it all together and the montage above is what we got.

Our informal group is under no illusions that this will fix everything. It took several months just to pull this video together, with zero budget. If anything this gives me a greater appreciation for groups like NCSE, AAAS, and NSTA. But if enough people do enough things to make science more relevant and accessible to everyone - projects like SciStarter or ScienceDebate or even the #scimom discussion - we will continue to make progress, and society will continue to, erm... evolve.

And that's where you come in. It's also important for YOUR voice to be heard. Leave a comment - or even better, a video response at the YouTube page - answering the same question - why should evolution be taught in schools? All it takes is a laptop, a webcam, and a YouTube account. Be a constructive and positive voice. Your feedback is encouraged and appreciated.

By the way, I submitted the above video as a "response" the the original Miss USA 2011 video. The owner of that channel needs to give permission to have it posted there as a response. We'll see what happens.

When Irish Eyes are Hiring

2011-11-21T10:22:00.001-05:00

Four years ago I wrote a column in Business Lexington that compared the Kentucky Thoroughbred to the Celtic Tiger. The Irish Economy has obviously had some challenges along with the rest of the world since then, but they can point to some recent successes. More importantly, they have a real plan that focuses a lot on foreign direct investment, strong workforce training, and affordable higher education.

I recently had a chance to talk with Shane Nolan, VP of Content, Consumer and Cleantech of IDA Ireland. He walked me through some of the things Ireland is doing to attract US business - it's not all about taxes. It was nice to learn about what Ireland has done since I last took a look.

It's worth a listen - less than 20 minutes of your time.

Clearly a threat to national security

2011-11-21T09:42:00.001-05:00

Unbelievable.

Accountability and crisis PR at Penn State, final entry

2011-11-11T12:06:00.001-05:00

I've said a lot about this but I'll just sum it up this way:

Penn State's PR strategy so far appears to be a balance of avoiding those "spectacle" moments when obviously disgraced employees are in the public eye, while accommodating the local football-obsessed culture as much as possible. In my opinion, the strategy should be focused on asserting a set of core principles and consistently reinforcing those assertions through its decisions and actions.

Reputations are re-built based on actions more than statements. The university leadership's actions have been inconsistent so far.

To me it's quite simple - you either have a zero-tolerance policy for raping children or you don't. If you think someone you work with might be raping children (or if you see that taking place), you should do as much as humanly possible to find out and stop it immediately. The University has terminated the employment of some people who obviously aren't child rapists, but don't appear to share this zero-tolerance policy. But the University hasn't terminated all of them. One current employee has said under oath that he witnessed such an unspeakable act, then only informed his head coach the next day. It's unfathomable to me, based on everything that has been reported so far, that other members of the coaching staff knew nothing about what was happening there.

When it comes to the University's reputation, everything else is just noise.

Accountability and crisis PR at Penn State, continued...

2011-11-10T07:35:00.001-05:00

The leadership at Penn State (or more accurately, what's left of it) tried to stop the proverbial bleeding last night. They held a 10pm press conference announcing the immediate departure of the university's president and its legendary head football coach. However, from this vantage point, the press conference is little more than a marginally effective tourniquet. It's going to get much, much worse for Penn State before it gets better.

First, it's clear that several very important details haven't been made public yet. That's the only explanation for the Board of Trustees' decision to keep an assistant coach who witnessed an alleged rape of a minor and did nothing more than tell the head coach the next day. One of the reasons the head coach was dismissed was to avoid the spectacle of him on the field on Saturday - yet by retaining the implicated assistant coach, the enduring image of this game won't be a tackle or a touchdown, but a picture of the assistant coach on the sidelines.

By retaining the rest of the staff - especially the witness - the Board looks like they're taking actions based on PR rather than principle. Some of the more responsible members of the media are asking the "what did they know and when did they know it" questions of a lot of people - it's just a matter of time before they start asking those questions of the rest of the coaching staff. The new interim head coach has been on the Penn State football staff for 33 years - is it even remotely possible that he knew nothing of this? Six members of the coaching staff have been there 15 years or more - no doubt working closely with the alleged rapist for years. Were they all completely in the dark, even though two members of the staff have already admitted knowing? If the true criteria for dismissal is knowledge of the problem and inadequate response, why are these men still working? Absolutely none of this information is a surprise. And based on this, I'm quite confident the Board is seriously considering forfeiting the rest of the season. Yes, it's unfair to the athletes - but honestly, what other choice does the board have if it claims to hold this principle?

Further, one core component of crisis communications is understanding the dynamics of speaking to different audiences. It's clear that there are two audiences in this case - Happy Valley and everyone else. Last night's press conference was obviously aimed at a national audience, but the first to respond was a local one. Before the vice chair of the Board of Trustees could even take breath after his statement, two members of the local media shouted a question in unison - "Who is coaching on Saturday?" For the rest of us, that question couldn't be further from our minds. But by failing to understand both audiences, and more specifically failing to understand what the entirely predictable reaction by locals would mean to the alleged victims - they actually added insult to injury. They should have kept the alleged victims in the loop. It's just the latest example of how the alleged victims are still not the top priority.

This is the downside of (pardon the pun) lionizing a person and a program as an infallible "institution" for so long. In the Middle East, college kids are protesting (and risking their lives) because they want democracy and human rights. In Happy Valley, college kids are rioting because they think the old man should get a pass for shielding an alleged serial rapist. And then they're mugging for the cameras. (The Internet is forever, idiots.)

Sadly, the Board can't do much more right now to address its reputation - because, as I said yesterday, the lack of courage demonstrated over the years has tied their hands today.

And now what was eight alleged victims swells to seventeen and counting.

Accountability and crisis PR at Penn State

2011-11-08T13:31:00.000-05:00

You learn a lot about a person, and an organization, when times are tough. We are certainly learning a lot about the leadership and the culture at Penn State this week.

You may already know about the epic scandal that has engulfed the university and more specifically the football program. A one-time top assistant coach is arrested for sexual assaults or advances on several young boys over several years on Penn State's campus - some while he was on the job, some after he retired but still had full access to the football program. Two top university administrators are arrested for perjury and failing to notify authorities of the alleged crimes. Transcripts from a three-year grand jury investigation become public, and the details are horrifying. A graduate assistant saw a particularly disturbing event involving the assistant coach and a young boy in the shower - he didn't intervene, but chose to inform the legendary head coach about the incident the next day. That head coach called the athletic director on a Sunday, and then did little if anything else. Apparently, no one checked on the victim, or even tried to find out who he was.

I won't get into how this makes me feel as the father of a young boy - it would degrade into a lot of profanity really, really fast. But as a PR guy I can give some observations on how they're handling it now - not well.

If this saga isn't surreal enough, we see only a small trickle of fairly predictable, vanilla, approved-by-legal-counsel statements, complete with "thoughts and prayers going out to the victims" that they never chose to contact. That is, until the head coach's regularly-scheduled Tuesday press conference intended to promote next week's game. Reporters received these instructions the night before:

Media planning to attend Tuesday's Penn State Football weekly teleconference are advised that that primary focus of the teleconference is to answer questions related to Penn State's Senior Day game with Nebraska this Saturday. Head coach Joe Paterno and any Penn State Football student-athletes in attendance will be answering questions about the Nebraska game, Penn State's season thus far and other topics related to the current college football season.

And when it became apparent that this profoundly tone-deaf statement wasn't going to prevent several questions about the obvious issue, media received this announcement:

Due to the on-going legal circumstances surrounding the recent allegations and charges, we have determined that today's press conference cannot be held and will not be rescheduled.

From a crisis PR standpoint, canceling may actually be the right move, at least for now. You can't put a spokesperson out there who isn't prepared to deal with tough questions or defend the indefensible. But it does show how feeble the program's position is. These charges were NOT a surprise to those involved, and the leadership could have had something prepared for this. In short, their lack of courage as the crisis unfolded - you know, to "protect the reputation of the program" - has limited their options today and has harmed their reputation even more.

What a shame the leadership of this fine institution lacks the courage of, say, young boys from disadvantaged families who were allegedly sexually abused by a popular authority figure - but spoke up anyway, knowing how their stories would be received in that community.

Because, as one of the victims put it, "I just don't want this to happen to anyone else."

So here's a bit of free PR advice to the good folks in Happy Valley - if you're not in the mood to talk anyway, just keep your mouths shut. I don't want to hear any talk of rallying around your coach like he's some kind of victim here. I don't want to hear any cliches about "overcoming adversity" or "circling the wagons" or "us against the world" or whatever. Tell your coach and everyone else involved that it's time for a fresh start. Right now. Write some checks with a lot of zeroes to the victims' families. Encourage other victims to come forward and get them help. Remember - this is not about Penn State Football's future, or the coach's future, or even the university's future - this is about a group of young kids who were horribly victimized and then had the courage to report the truth. THEY and their families are the heroes.

You'll never be able to make this right. But you can make it better - start by holding people truly accountable, asking for forgiveness, and working to make sure this never happens again.

The fastest field ever?

2011-11-04T13:53:00.005-04:00

"Every single one of the men in this lineup has run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds." The race is 2 years old but I still remember it.

Female Role Models V

2011-11-04T10:52:00.002-04:00

send in the college girls!

Sometimes I get emails:

Hi,I thought you might appreciate this befitting Wódka Vodka ad campaign: "escort quality, hooker pricing". In short, it's high quality like an escort, low cost like a prostitute... but drunk college girls are free!

Yep, this is from the nice people at Stuntman PR, who obviously bought one of those "blogger lists" that has me down as a marketing/PR/advertising blogger, and they just sent this out. Who has time to read blogs to check for relevance? Who even has time to insert names into emails? THERE'S FREE PUBLICITY TO BE HAD! (OK, not exactly free - they offered to send me some of their cheap vodka.) This is my third form-letter email from them - one was about some random b-list celebrity endorsement, another had a new slogan or something. I ignored them like I do most of the irrelevant pitches I get. But hey, third time's the charm.

I'm no prude. I'm in the PR game too, and I understand the need to be funny and edgy, especially in social media. But this isn't edgy, it's just gross. And they should have looked at the blogs they wanted to pitch ahead of time.

Do me a favor - go to Google.com and type in "female role models." You should find my blog, currently number 3 in the search results, just ahead of Huffington Post. That's because whenever I see something that demeans women, I try to share positive examples and perspectives of women that we can celebrate. Here are installments one, two, three, and four. My criteria, once again:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

So here's the latest list:

Jenny Lawson. You know it was just a matter of time before The Bloggess showed up on this list. She's developed a huge following through her sheer wit and emotional writing, and she's embraced a cause that seems relevant - ridiculing PR flacks who send stupid pitches. For those of us who reach out to bloggers for a living, and try to do it the right way, she's actually doing us a favor.

Kristen Chase. Kristen is proof that you can be edgy and sexy without crossing that line into gross and sexist. She's as hard-working an entrepreneur as you'll find - Cool Mom Picks may be her signature venture, but she works on homeschooling stuff and her new "4 kids or more" site as well.

Krystal D'Costa. Krystal is an anthropologist who works in digital media in NYC and writes a blog for Scientific American. She has a panel coming up at ScienceOnline in January that focuses on "Broadening the Participation of Underrepresented Populations in Online Science Communication and Communities." How cool is that?

Rachael Herrscher. "Robo-entrepreneur." That's how I describe Rachel, founder of Today's Mama. Years ago she built a business that put coupon inserts into newspapers, and when newspapers went online, so did she. She's also the creative force behind the Evolution of Women in Social Media conference. (maybe Stuntman should think about going next year.)

So thanks Stuntman. Keep the vodka, or better yet send it to Jenny. Maybe I took the bait and gave you the free PR you wanted. But your ad campaign still sucks.

OK, so this is kinda funny. And sad.

2011-10-28T11:27:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Note to self: your emails are public

2011-10-27T09:38:00.001-04:00

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the Bloggess called out a PR firm for some pretty pathetic pitching and some serious rudeness. Some famous people did too. It was awesome.

What Gawker just did (with its millions of readers) is even more impactful - they may have put a company out of business or at least cost someone his job.

We've probably all seen the websites that have links on random words in the text - those links generally go to sites you wouldn't necessarily expect the writer to direct a reader. But there are usually ads already on the site you're reading, and often there's no disclosure that this is a sponsored link, so it's easy to assume the link is simply something the author suggests is worth your time.

Many bloggers have also gotten pitches from companies who offer you money to insert these links. Typically there's nothing in the pitch that says you have to disclose payment. I've gotten my share of these pitches. Maybe they just assume you're above board and disclosure is your responsibility. But that's not what "Bryan Clark" did. Read the post I linked to above (I wasn't paid to link). Clark is proposing that Hamilton Nolan (the Gawker writer) insert sponsored links without disclosure to his editor or anyone else and pocket the cash. And Clark lists several companies and popular websites by name as his current clients. Nolan sums it up:

There's the plan: get paid under the table to insert links to advertisers in editorial content; if you're caught, just remove the links without a word; if not, continue to get "paid handsomely." According to Mr. Clark, this is already happening at some of the most popular media sites on the internet—with or without the boss's knowledge.

Two things come to mind. First, and this is obvious: most bloggers are not journalists, but Nolan certainly is and the websites Clark mentions certainly consider themselves homes of journalism. You simply can't hide a financial relationship if you're claiming to be a journalist.

Second: Clark and people in his business are taking advantage of a culture where contributors to big websites like Huffington Post aren't paid. (yes, I know HuffPo pays a handful of people, but the overwhelming majority of contributors don't see dime one for their content.) People generally deserve to be compensated for their time and effort, and the "exposure" you get for writing on these big sites isn't worth what some say it is. Business models that rely - indeed, insist - on free labor are not sustainable. We should expect more people like Bryan and more random links popping up where we'd least expect them as long as the market price for good writing is zero.

Unleashing my inner broad

2011-10-24T22:43:00.000-04:00

I'm pleased to announce that I'm now a contributor to The Broad Side, a new online project led by the PunditMom herself, Joanne Bamberger. As I've written before Joanne is the author of the book Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America and she's an amazing female role model. From the founder's welcome:

The mission of The Broad Side is to gather women who are writing about the most-discussed and important issues of the day from a fresh perspective, not in that stale, wonky, inside-the-Washington, D.C.-beltway kind of narrative.

While The Broad Side will mostly be a place to showcase all the women’s commentary that those talking head shows and op-ed pages are missing, we’ll definitely invite some men to contribute, as well.

Joanne's project is a critical and long overdue addition to the American political discussion. She features intelligent and articulate voices who haven't been corrupted by the beltway culture - people who care much more about policy options than political brinksmanship. Joanne also refuses to let Washington continue to ignore a simple truth - women's voices simply aren't heard in politics as much as they should. (by the way, you can hear Joanne's voice, talking politics with me here.)

I'm very pleased and proud to be one of Joanne's first contributors and I'm also pleased that my first Broad Side post focuses on another impressive female role model - Darlene Cavalier, the Science Cheerleader. I'm looking forward to watching Joanne's continued success and I'll be heading over to The Broad Side often - I hope you will too.

#BAD11 - Thank you Norman Borlaug

2011-10-16T05:50:00.000-04:00

If you care about food, you should know Norman Borlaug. Learn about "the man who saved a billion people."

Arguably no single person has done more to further the cause of humanity than this man. Yet most people don't know him. His advances in crop science blunted devastating famines in the third world for decades, and his work remains the basis for a lot of research today. A lot of my friends in today's environmental movement who bristle at terms like "genetically modified" or who lament the building of roads in rural areas for fear of things like runoff should consider the alternative.

But the thing about Borlaug that impresses me so much is something my scienceblogging pals should note - he did science communication the right way:

Graduating in the middle of World War II, Dr. Borlaug went to work for the DuPont Corporation. But he was soon approached about joining a fledgling research project being initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation in rural Mexico. After completing his obligatory wartime service at DuPont, he accepted the offer. There, he first saw the plight of poverty-stricken wheat farmers barely able to sustain themselves due to repeatedly poor harvests. Once again, Borlaug found a wide chasm to be bridged. There was an instinctive hesitation to adopt untried new technologies on the part of most subsistence farmers. And, there was an understandable reluctance to trust the word of an expatriate American college boy who didn’t even speak their language.

Borlaug admits to being extremely discouraged in this initial venture into the developing world. But his commitment to learn the language, a healthy dose of the determination he learned in high school sports, and his willingness to get his hands dirty working in the fields eventually enabled him to connect with some farmers who tried his new approach to wheat production.

That's right - Borlaug learned THEIR language. He took the extra step to make sure he could communicate on THEIR terms. If Borlaug couldn't bridge that cultural and linguistic gap, his scientific knowledge wouldn't have done much in Mexico.

I also find it interesting that Borlaug credits the lessons he learned playing sports in school as the things that helped him persevere in Mexico and elsewhere. I guess jocks ain't all bad either.

"A jaw-dropping mixture of ignorance and arrogance"

2011-10-13T12:11:00.002-04:00

I was going to craft a rant about this piece in the Guardian entitled "Scientists should be allowed to check stories on their work before publication" - something that David Kroll brought to my attention and later summarized - but then I read this reaction from Seth Mnookin and he said basically what I would only much, much better. The quote I used for the title of this blogpost is his.

It was even better than the opposing viewpoint that the Guardian, to their credit, also published. Emily Willingham (one of the #scimom crowd!) wrote a brilliant piece as well. There were also two very good pieces at Deep Sea News (here and here).

For those who don't want to click through the links - because, you know we lay folk just aren't smart enough to understand all that really complicated sciencey stuff - here's my neanderthal interpretation of what the original Guardian piece said:

Scientists should have final say over what is written in newspapers about their work because science is harder than anything else and other scientists look at the work before results are published in academic journals.

Other people have already rightfully asserted that while science is "hard" it isn't any more complex than countless other fields such as global finance, politics, or even (in some cases) sports. But the one point I could probably add to this discussion, as a guy who works with people in so many different backgrounds, is that scientists are by no means alone in their lament.

My entire INDUSTRY is grounded mainly in the notion that clients aren't happy with the way they're being portrayed in the media, and in turn the general public. A big part of my job is helping clients come to grips with the notion that the journalists who cover them won't ever truly know the intricacy and the nuance, and -- of course -- the profound importance of whatever their business is. I've worked with energy companies, banks, food companies, transportation companies, religious organizations, health care and pharmaceutical companies, media companies, and universities.

But the one thing I've never seen - the one place none of even my most audacious clients ever dare tread - is an assertion that their field is so complex and important that they have a right to the final word on how their work is described in the media.

Not until now, anyway.

Just go read the bloggess already.

2011-10-07T15:44:00.002-04:00

it's here.

Personally I think the first FAIL is pitching the idea of a pseudo-celeb in "pantyhose." but I'm really glad Jenny called the PR firm out by name - that's the only thing that will get some folks to change.

Science, politics and PR: I'm a broken record

2011-09-27T17:22:00.000-04:00

My science communication posts as a text cloud

I'm going to be away from the blog for a bit, but I saw a great piece from Christie Wilcox at Science Sushi (via the Scientific American blog network) about scientists and social media. She struck some themes I know I've mentioned here before... a lot. Of course, since she's a scientist, she has enormous credibility. But here's a compilation of what this flack has had to say about this issue, and I think it boils down to this: scientists need to do more and better outreach to non-scientists. I hope you'll take a look at one or two of these inane rants.

Science has a serious PR problem
Science bloggers discussing scientists discussing science blogs
Orac, mockery, and the absence of outreach
Making science relevant
Science, politics, PR, and social media
Science PR... missing the point
Science needs a strategy
BREAKING: bloggers are misunderstood
So what do you do about it?
My free PR advice to scientists: it's not just about media training
Why science blogs give me hope
Bonnie Tyler's words live on
Ending isolationism in politics, science and social media: the battle for mom
When "rapid response" isn't enough
Science Cheerleader and the brouhaha
Getting serious about climate PR
#scio11: what's next for science online?
Climate change and strategic communications
The Science-to-English dictionary doesn't include the words "fuck off"
#scimom reflections
Beauty pageant contestants vs. science advocates: this isn't helpful
Evolutionary diplomacy
Science has a politics problem
Science has a politics problem, continued
FIRST: "Science is accessible for me."

FIRST: "Science is accessible for me."

2011-09-26T10:28:00.000-04:00

If you're a fan of the science blogosphere as I am, you've probably heard about FIRST, a not-for-profit founded by inventor Dean Kamen that inspires young people to get involved with science, technology, engineering and mathematics through participation in robotics competitions. I first learned about FIRST when I read Sheril Kirshenbaum's interview with Dean Kamen. There was also an ABC television special about FIRST featuring will.i.am, front man for the Black Eyed Peas. (will.i.am is popular in my house, albeit for a somewhat different reason.)

More than 21,000 high-school-age kids are participating in FIRST this year. Kids join teams in their hometowns and those teams build working robots that are designed to carry out specific tasks the FIRST leadership develops. The teams score points based on how well the robots meet their tasks, and winning teams get all sorts of perks, such as visiting the White House.

The good folks at FIRST gave me the opportunity to talk with one of those teams who went to DC last year - First Tech Challenge team #3489, a group of four smart, ambitious and engaging students from Coatesville PA and who call themselves "Minds In Gear." While I thoroughly enjoyed talking with the team about what they were learning, it quickly occurred to me that these young leaders are teaching us all a few things as well. This interview with the team is well worth the 16 minutes and 15 seconds you'll spend listening to it.

I was immediately struck by two things in this interview. First, Sasha Wall discussed the complementary nature FIRST has with her classes:

I use a lot of the leadership skills that I gained in first tech challenge and I apply them in in my classes when we’re doing projects… and I’m able to take my math skills and apply them to building a robot.

Second, as I noted that the team had three young women and one young man, Alex McCabe took a question I asked about female role models in science and just knocked it out of the park.

Establishing female role models in science is so important because you turn on the TV and you see a few poor role models, and if you just pay attention to the media you don’t really get the idea “oh, science is so wonderful, science is ACCESSIBLE for me, and I think that’s really important.

I could try to elaborate on this, but it seems to me Sasha and Alex do quite well speaking for themselves. After the interview the team gave me a live video demonstration of their robot from last year - and I'll just put the rest of the FIRST teams on notice - Minds In Gear will be tough to beat. They invited me to chat with them again once this year's competition is over. I'm already looking forward to it.

So I wrote a piece in PR News...

2011-09-13T13:47:00.000-04:00

If you have a subscription you can read it here.

I compared the work of Honda and Toyota as they used social media to launch their most popular models in 2012 - the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry. Both companies have had challenges in recent years, and 2012 is an important year for both models.

In comparing the two I used data from Social EQ, a model developed by my company, APCO Worldwide. Social EQ's model uses opinion research to help determine what "Social Informants" - that's the name we give to those uber-users of social media who influence the online discussions the rest of us have all the time - consider to be an effective social media presence for a company or organization. Since the Social EQ team already reviewed the 40 "Most Admired" companies as rated by Fortune Magazine, we already had a good snapshot of Honda and Toyota.

Both companies basically got middling reviews when compared to the other most admired companies. They both have decent, easy-to-find online content, but Social Informants want more direct access to the people who work there when they have questions or feedback. I notice that both companies are trying to do just that, but in different ways. Honda is trying to strengthen its reputation with its customers by starting a grassroots-y YouTube-driven original music video contest. Toyota is rolling out the model - quite literally - via webcast and trying more direct outreach to leading voices in different online communities, like my good pal Tim Hurst at Earth & Industry.

The Social Informants initially gave Honda a slight edge over Toyota when the Social EQ team did their research, but I have to say I like what Toyota did with the Camry a bit more than what Honda did. Honda was creative and fun, but Toyota was more direct and did a good job identifying online community leaders. Bottom line I think both companies deserve credit for trying new things but I think Toyota closed their social media gap with Honda a bit here.

The Jobs Speech

2011-09-08T21:26:00.001-04:00

It was too long, but it was clear, simple, and with a direct message. The bill is bipartisan, it's all about jobs - solid name "American Jobs Act" - and Congress should pass it now. Not bad.

And thanks again to Wordle, which comes through when even Cliff's Notes is too much...

Science has a politics problem, continued

2011-09-08T08:49:00.001-04:00

Gerty-Z and Blue in Texas have some great comments on my previous post. They ask the most important question about the "politics problem" facing science today - what do you do about it? Scientists, like the rest of us, are extraordinarily busy and can't always just drop what they're doing to jump into politics. Blue suggested I augment the post to include links to jobs in "science and public policy."

Well, Sheril has those links at her blog. But I'm not talking about policy; I'm talking about politics. The two terms are related, but definitely not the same thing. I've said this before about particular scientific issues:

The problem is simple: those who support the status quo have a coherent, coordinated, and well-funded communications strategy. Those who support real change (and sound science) do not.

The model for political success is out there. Scientists, collectively, need to do what other special interests do - unite, pool resources, and develop a coordinated, long-term strategic campaign that includes lobbying, contributing to political campaigns, grassroots organizing, and media relations. That's what the energy industry does. That's what the health care industry does. That's what the financial services industry does. These industries achieve success despite having countless members who are simply too busy with their real lives to lobby or go on television or knock on doors.

They succeed because they delegate communications and political strategy to experts in THOSE fields. They don't simply leave it to their "professional" organizations. They retain PR and lobbying shops like my company or my competitors. We develop strategies and test messages. We leverage our relationships in politics and media to get our clients' priorities in front of the right people. We build alliances with other influential groups and people. We do real outreach to both "opinion elites" and the general public through advertising, social media, and PR. We keep clients focused and disciplined.

And we win. It doesn't happen overnight, but we win.

And so advocates of science face another set of challenges. The first is coming to some kind of consensus that this is actually a worthwhile approach. The second is developing a comprehensive strategy that acknowledges there is no "silver bullet" but many steps are necessary. The third is marshaling the resources - money, time, leadership. The fourth is maintaining enough discipline to stay "on message" and remain united in a goal.

I know there are a lot of groups out there already working on this sort of thing - AAAS, NCSE, UCC, and so on. Those are good organizations run by good, smart people. But they don't coordinate efforts enough, they don't work a lot with firms like mine, and they don't spend the money it takes to be successful.

I read about a new "science PAC" being formed, and that's a good start, but the only organization I actually saw referred to as a "PAC" wasn't a PAC at all - it was a 501c3 non-profit. Those organizations have significant restrictions on lobbying activity and don't contribute to campaigns.

I know this isn't easy. But I also know that without a coordinated strategy that combines all these elements we get the status quo - a relatively small group of smart, committed people working hard trying good ideas that don't endure on their own. We get things like Science Debate. Or a letter signed by a bunch of very smart academics that is good for maybe a news article and won't get far in Congress. We get Chris Mooney media-training scientists whenever he can, but basically in a defensive posture - "responding" to "crazy questions" as opposed to developing and framing story ideas and firing FIRST, not firing back. We get phone calls or emails to legislators that get nothing but a "thank you for your comment" response. We get small-dollar contributions that lack the political impact of "bundling" into recognizable groups.

Meanwhile, the interests who spend money change the rules to preserve their advantage. They push for laws to create "SuperPAC's" and new organizations that allow them to conceal their true identity. They write loopholes into ethics laws. In many cases, they draft legislative language for members of Congress and watch those members file that language verbatim. They hold more fundraisers.

Bottom line: if something is important enough, you spend money and time on it. If it's not, you just talk about it.

Science has a politics problem

2011-09-07T12:27:00.000-04:00

Scientists are understandably upset that presidential candidates (and the President himself) see a political upside to ignoring their work. And, as scientists often do, they're analyzing this. Stuff like comparing the brains of liberals and conservatives.

Sure, some liberals are scared of things like genetically modified foods or animal testing, as John Timmer points out. But to me this is largely a GOP phenomena. Normally I don't get all that wrapped up in the crazy statements that political candidates make early in the presidential primary; generally these statements are designed simply to get attention and then walked back once the cameras are rolling. You know, like "social security is a ponzi scheme." Whatever.

But I hope my scientist friends also look at the "meta-analysis" of this issue coming from noteworthy people in the GOP. Mike Lofgren, until recently a veteran GOP congressional staffer, wrote a stunningly candid piece for Truth Out that explains how the current "lunatics" leading his party prompted his retirement. This in particular struck me:

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

Get that? Lofgren, a Republican, is claiming that the GOP strategy is to destroy the government so they can rule it. And that strategy relies on an ignorant public full of "low information voters."

Of course, implicit in this self-destruct strategy is the willful attacks on any expertise that might save us. Jonah Goldberg, one of the leading "intellectuals" of the right from his perch at National Review wrote a recent article called "Seduced by the Cult of Experts" where he proudly asserts:

The cult of experts has acolytes in all ideological camps, but its most institutionalized following is on the left. The Left needs to believe in the authority of experts because without that authority, almost no economic intervention can be justified. If you concede that you have no idea whether your remedy will work, it’s going to be hard to sell it to the patient. Market-based ideologies don’t have that problem because markets expect events in ways experts never can.

Outstanding, isn't it? "The Left" has to believe not in the merits of any argument being put forward but in the authority of those making the arguments, because if the rest of us pay attention to things like education or experience we might actually have to accept expensive things like, say, taking the lead out of paint. Thank Heavens markets don't have to worry about such silly things.

Ironically the folks at The Economist have the audacity to suggest otherwise:

...markets reward expertise handsomely. Unemployment rates fall and compensation rises as one obtains more education. Holders of advanced degrees do best in the labour market. Mr Goldberg may not value expertise, but markets do.That doesn't mean, of course, that we should turn over governance of a country and its economy to a Council of Learned Citizens. It does mean, however, that when elected officials are carrying out the important business of government it is a very good idea for those officials to rely on the analysis of experts. It's what the market would do.

To me this is a very simple issue. There's currently a political upside to ignoring science. If you want politicians to accept science, you have to show them the political downside of disregarding it. Scientists don't do that very well. They don't speak the language politicians understand. They don't donate money in large amounts. They don't work with politically-savvy PR firms to develop real strategies and test messages. They don't conduct outreach on a large scale in the way that critics of science do - ways that would address that "low-information voter" thing.

In this way scientists are no different than any other "special interest." Most special interests claim not to be "special" at all - rather they feel they are integral to our success as a nation or more. Scientists could certainly make that claim. But inside the Beltway, there's a long line of interests all claiming to be central to our mutual prosperity. Science is at a huge disadvantage because by definition it speaks with several voices, not one.

Why we should go to SXSW 2012

2011-08-29T12:34:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks back I was invited to participate on a proposed panel for SXSW Interactive. For those of you who don't know about this annual, Austin-based conference, here's the quick description:

Featuring five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging media and scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders, SXSW Interactive offers an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, digital projects, wireless applications, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis, SXSW Interactive has become the place to preview what is unfolding in the world of creative technology.

It's basically the biggest techie conference that shows off all the "new cool stuff" and what it does and discusses the "next cool stuff" and what it may do.

Heather Barmore of No Pasa Nada and Joanne Bamberger of PunditMom are the ones who asked me to join their panel. The title: "We Are the Ones You Want: Women Online and Politics."

If you're wondering why a women & politics panel would be proposed at a techie conference, you're probably not alone. It's not as if there are technology tools specific to women who are active in politics. This submission has a lot to do with SXSW's past, the role that women have played in technology and design, and the parallels we see in other fields. Whether it's gender politics or office politics or industry politics or just plain politics, it's all politics. It's all about power and influence and money. It's about how those in power try to rig the rules to stay in power. These concepts are all too familiar to the tech industry, and they're all too familiar to women in politics. It's uncanny how closely the two stories align.

Emma Persky wrote a provocative report called "Changing the Ratio at SXSW" that is well worth a read. The takeaways, at least for me: the number of women who attend the conference and the number of proposed panels that have some focus on women specifically have increased dramatically, but the proportion of women speakers has remained relatively constant - roughly 3 men for every woman. The panels that do focus on women seem to be focused more on marketing and branding than panels generally. Does everything have to be 50-50? Of course not. But these numbers certainly suggest that so far, women aren't getting the spotlight at SXSW, and it's not from lack of trying.

I obviously realize this is a tech conference, not a gender equity conference. And I'm not accusing the organizers of SXSW are "the man" trying to keep women down. But let's not have any illusions about how male-dominated the tech industry is, and what that means for the industry. Let's not deny that most "professional" discussions about women and social media focus on convincing women to give us their money And let's not deny that SXSW has become a focal point for the industry. Remember - SXSW Interactive claims to focus on creativity as much as technology - and diverse perspectives enhance creativity.

The tech industry can learn from the experiences women face when they're trying to break into politics. The lessons learned aren't unique to one community. The fact that Joanne and Heather are active advocates and leaders in social media provides more than enough relevance to this community. I'm not saying our panel should be selected because SXSW hasn't met some kind of quota. I'm saying it should be selected because the lessons learned in one field apply well to another, and that merits a thoughtful discussion.

Convergence through gaming

2011-08-26T10:33:00.004-04:00

A while back I wrote a post about media convergence and a study from Latitude. They've just published another report on gaming (link is to a pdf) and how it's driving new online technology. From the release:

The study found that the stereotype of the reclusive gamer is outdated; this emerging demographic is social, heavily engaged with the “offline” world, and extremely goal-oriented – with a strong drive to improve themselves and the world around them. The new gamers are not constrained to any single platform, and have many different motivations for gaming in addition to just having fun. Moreover, they expect that online games will continue to move out of the traditional screen environment, blending seamlessly with the “offline” world in new and engaging ways that go beyond just “checking in” with apps like Foursquare and SCVNGR.

This isn't shocking news in itself, but it's interesting to see how game developers are thinking about applications for the technology beyond games. That's clearly where I want to go too. Latitude produced a video that's a bit long, but worth watching:

The Future of Gaming: a Portrait of the New Gamers from latddotcom on Vimeo.

The "money" quote to me: "Who wouldn't want to paint the Prudential Building pink and put an elephant on top of it?" Well, I'm not sure I'd be into that.

But I would geotag a power plant and add current air quality data and send it to EPA. I'd also geotag a river or stream down from a coal mine and add water quality data. Or potholes or graffiti with date stamps to see how responsive the local DPW is. Or a Congressman's office with a voting record on the issues I care about or the campaign contributor data. (or I'd tag the Congressman himself with image recognition technology.)

Governments are starting to figure out there are channels beyond the traditional ones, and it involves bringing the physical and the virtual together with large groups of people. A science blogger I know found a story about NASA using online fundraiser Kickstarter to help fund their "official" massively-multiplayer online game. This voluntary funding method might become a model for programs that conceivably have a public benefit but is hard to justify significant taxpayer investment. Of course "Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond" probably isn't something that will merge the physical and the virtual all that much, but NASA has plenty of Earth-based research and legions of fans. Games will be the laboratories to work out the technology, and help the rest of us develop strategic applications beyond "World of Warcraft."

I hope the merger of physical and virtual will break down barriers of homophily and bridge communities. I noted to the folks at Latitude that everyone in the video above were white Americans, and asked if there were other more global examples. To their credit, they were aware of the observation and they've been thinking along those lines as well, pointing to some ideas from the World Bank and a game called Virtual Street Corners.

While there's a long way to go, we've made amazing progress and I'm looking forward to more from the braintastic crowd at Latitude.

Evolutionary Diplomacy

2011-08-23T10:43:00.001-04:00

So it seems Texas Governor Richard Perry, a front-runner for the GOP nomination for President, isn't a big fan of the "theory" of evolution:

"Here your mom was asking about evolution, and you know it's a theory that's out there, and it's got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationsim and evolution in our public schools," Perry said. "Because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Of course, this happens in the electoral silly season - an ongoing narrative that includes promises to cut the price of gasoline in half, assertions that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is borderline treasonous, claims that corporations are people, and so on. It's a big part of the reason most Americans don't pay attention to elections until after Labor Day.

It seems that noted evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is taking this rather seriously, however. But he defends evolution ("Darwin's idea is arguably the most powerful ever to occur to a human mind") only after after a four-paragraph-long rebuke of not simply Governor Perry but also Republican voters:

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

I realize Dr. Dawkins is a brilliant man, and of course evolution is sound science that should be taught in our schools without religious overtones. But I fail to see how insulting the membership of a political party does anything other than further entrench both sides in an unnecessarily polarized political argument. If Republicans are as stridently anti-intellectual as Dr. Dawkins claims, he must realize they wear his scorn as a badge of honor. All he's done is shown his critics how to annoy him. And so the drumbeat continues.

"You're godless."
"You're an idiot."
"You're godless."
"You're an idiot."

Meanwhile, nobody steps forward to provide a positive, assertive and accessible message to explain WHY evolution must be taught in schools - at least not in a way that can resist hurling insults (and convincing the persuadable moderate to leave) beforehand.

I do, however, think that is about to change. More soon...

Female Role Models IV

2011-08-18T11:36:00.000-04:00

There's nothing wrong with Michele Bachman that two solid weeks of orgasms couldn't cure.

That's from Andy Richter, via twitter on August 15, 2011. But hey, it's a joke and he's a comedian, so you should get over it. But rather than go off on some political correctness rant about how this is exquisite sleazebaggery, I think it's time to dust off a theme I've featured before - Female Role Models. here are links to installments one, two and three. To refresh your memory, the criteria I use for selecting people is simple. I look for:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

This time around I got some input from Joanne Bamberger and Heather Barmore - they've invited me to be on a proposed panel on women in politics for SXSW 2012. (I hope you will consider voting for it.) The original inspiration for this "series" came from a related news item, and given their interest and expertise it made sense. So here are a few people who are active in social media and have already done more in their lives than Richter can ever hope to.

Kelli Best Oliver. Lots of people homeschool their kids because they're not happy with the state of their community's education options. Kelli had similar concerns, and as a former teacher, one might think she'd do that as well. But she took a different approach - she helped found a public charter school in St. Louis. South City Preparatory Academy opened its doors earlier this year. Like a lot of schools, South City Prep has a motto written in Latin on its crest, but theirs is "Veni. vidi. vici." - I came. I saw. I conquered. Kelli was also captain of the women's soccer team at Truman State (excuse me, I meant three-time conference champion Truman State) and works with a local non-profit to help reduce the impact of sexual assault and relationship violence. She's also a pretty cool food critic, and knows all the best burgers in the St. Louis area.

Jeanne Garbarino. She's the honorary captain of the #scimom team. Try to say this sentence out loud in one breath - I got it from her bio at The Incubator: "When not changing diapers and playing princess, Jeanne is researching the process of intracellular cholesterol transport as it relates to human health and disease in the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism at The Rockefeller University." What I find really appealing about Jeanne is she's trying to build bridges between mom bloggers and science bloggers - she hosts a new feature at her blog called "Momday" where mom bloggers guest post and get exposure to her audience. I've been trying to build that bridge for some time now, but she's better at it - you know, because she actually is a mom and she actually is a scientist, while I'm just some PR dude.

Karen Walrond. Photographers can be role models too. Especially those who work tirelessly to find beauty in everyone. And their work inspires the Own Your Beauty Campaign at BlogHer. And those who go to Kenya to help raise awareness about the challenges moms face there. And those who happen to be an engineer and an attorney, but right now happen to find more value and meaning in this kind of work.

Leah Peterson. I look at Leah's writing and the word that comes to my mind is "courageous." Mental illness remains a stubborn and difficult topic for so many people, but Leah shares a lot of her personal experiences with it to help break down stigma. She founded realmental.org - to help others share their experiences and draw support from friends as well. She has also helped bring issues about mental illness to a more mainstream audience, as a consultant to the Showtime series United States of Tara. Leah is also an accomplished photographer and artist as well as an author and magazine publisher. When things get tough Leah takes a breath and moves on. We could all learn from her.

Emily Zaler. She's the entrepreneur on the list. I learned about Emily from her brother, a former colleague of mine. Emily was a Division 1 Women's soccer player until a knee injury ended her collegiate athletic career. That kind of abrupt change can really mess with your head, but Emily channeled her competitive spirit into business and is now a successful personal trainer and fitness model with her own product line, cookbook, and feature in Oxygen Magazine. She uses a lot of social media tools to build her business, and she's positioned herself as an industry leader - in her early 20's.

Maybe Andy Richter could do something useful and give these women a shout-out on Twitter.

Protecting yourself vs. owning your words

2011-08-11T11:05:00.000-04:00

Much has been said recently about the Google+ "purge" of accounts that don't include real names and the similar Facebook policy and statements to that effect. As a PR guy and political wonk, I may have a slightly different take than many on this issue - while I certainly see the value and importance of protecting one's privacy, I think we must consider the (perhaps unintended) consequences of trumpeting the freedom of anonymity. Specifically we have to be careful about insisting on transparency from some while preserving anonymity for others - particularly when the identity in question has the goal of influencing the behavior of others.

First, the case against the "real names" policy. Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic says bluntly,

The kind of naming policy that Facebook and Google Plus have is actually a radical departure from the way identity and speech interact in the real world.

You should read the whole thing. The most compelling defense of anonymity or pseudonymity on the web that I found came from Danah Boyd:

The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people. These ideas and issues aren’t new (and I’ve even talked about this before), but what is new is that marginalized people are banding together and speaking out loudly. And thank goodness.

Emphasis hers, and also worth a read. So there are certainly times when masking one's identity provides a certain amount of comfort, or security, or freedom. Mandating your identity strikes many as akin to "papers, please."

But what if the person who wants to be anonymous is actually someone working for Facebook, trying to pitch a story that criticizes Google? Or the CEO of Whole Foods posing as someone else on the Yahoo Finance message boards to criticize a competitor (and hopefully talk down its stock price) before trying to buy it? Or some random white American guy living in Scotland, pretending to be a lesbian blogger in Syria who gets arrested after protesting the government? It seems to me that in these instances anonymity is, in Boyd's words, an assertion of power over vulnerable people.

Again, I'm not so comfortable with "transparency for you, anonymity for me." Because while the examples above are reasonably obvious, it's not always clear who has power and who doesn't. I really ruffled the feathers of some anonymity advocates when I saw some bashing Darlene Cavalier's attempts to bring science mainstream:

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.

I felt somewhat vindicated a month later when journalist Steve Silberman said in a ScienceOnline 2011 panel discussion "you can't call bullshit if you're anonymous." He clearly meant it as a journalist, but I think he also believes "unnamed sources" often deserve a stricter level of scrutiny.

Are Google and Facebook imposing "real name" policies because they suit their commercial interests? Of course they are. Can anonymity protect the abused from the abuser? Of course it can, and people have a right to publish under a pseudonym. I'm not suggesting you be required to give your real name to anyone. Let's just remember that a certain amount of credibility comes with full disclosure and sometimes it's very, very important to know the names behind the words.

Just another issue for women in politics

2011-08-09T11:54:00.008-04:00

Flake

So Newsweek decides to publish the latest in the "cheap-shot unflattering pictures of political women" saga. And the media now plasters it all over the place because this is somehow a story now, and the Newsweek Daily Beast team gets free advertising for lowering our political discourse just a bit more. And this, of course, sparks another silly partisan sideshow that no one really cares about. Fox News asks aloud "what does Newsweek have against conservative women?" - you know, because that network would never do anything sexist or insulting to Congresswoman Bachmann or publish any less-than-ideal pictures of a political woman. And sadly, we all miss the point. Again.

Weak

Because this is nothing new. If a political woman dares to raise her voice, she can expect stories that cite anonymous snipers whining about her "abrasive personal style," which is the worst euphemism for "bitch" I've ever seen. Put Secretary Clinton in the situation room during the attack on Osama bin Laden's compound and suddenly a picture that includes her hand over her mouth becomes a national story. I put my hand over my mouth all the time. I look at that picture and I still don't get it. But whatever I'm missing is apparently such a big deal that one newspaper in Israel actually photoshopped her out of the picture altogether. You know, because a woman shouldn't be in that room or something. The paper apologized after the fact but shouldn't it make you wonder why someone felt the need to edit the picture in the first place?

Ditsy

Pictures show up all the time that take cheap shots at women who dare to lead. The editors and others who publish them usually won't have the guts to say what they really want to say - something like "Sarah Palin is ditsy" - but they'll print the one picture in the roll of 50 that shows her eyes a bit wider than normal or in the middle of a gesture that takes a fraction of a second. They won't say "Nancy Pelosi is a lunatic," but we all see the pictures with the wide eyes suddenly appear in news publications.

And that's just the mainstream publications. Just do an image search on google for any leading political woman and you almost immediately see the wonders of photoshop. Heads on the bodies of porn stars. Faces planted on the backside of a horse. I've even seen an editorial cartoon of Secretary Rice pregnant with a monkey. The original cartoon came from a Palestinian paper - and then it was quickly republished online by several American news sites.

Of course, what happens if the woman dares to complain? She can't take the heat. She doesn't belong in politics. She's easily distracted. But nobody really thinks much about what happens when that woman's children see the pictures. Some might even blame the woman - "you had to be prepared for that."

Scary

Do we see unflattering pictures of political men? Sure. Newsweek just took a cheap shot at Mitt Romney too. Bloggers have posted photoshopped pics of Presidents and Prime Ministers. But be honest- they don't get the reaction that pictures of women do, and I'm fairly certain the frequency for women is disproportionately large.

And pictures are just one aspect of the larger cultural problem. I remember when John McCain told a joke at a Republican fundraiser - to great laughs - "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." Some papers censored the joke, but others, like the Arizona Republic, didn't. McCain apologized (after his press secretary initially denied he ever told the joke), but again - what makes anyone think it's even remotely ok to say things like this? Why weren't there huge consequences to this?

Angry

A couple of weeks ago I recorded a discussion with Joanne Bamberger - the blogger known as PunditMom and the author of the new book Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media Are Revolutionizing Politics in America. We talked a bit about this phenomenon and I asked her how she thought women should respond to cheap shots like Congresswoman Bachmann being asked point blank, "Are you a flake?" The conversation should be available on her blog in the near future, and I think she lays out the issues really well and gives some thoughts on how things might change. I hope she posts the interview soon.

There's one approach to addressing this issue that I'd like feedback from women. I remember a while back a running bit on Saturday Night Live called "Janet Reno Dance Party," where the Attorney General was played by Will Ferrell in drag. It ran a few times, and at the end of the Clinton Administration, it had a "final episode" that actually featured Janet Reno. She was essentially saying "I'm in on the joke," but the joke is really "Janet Reno is an ugly man."

Is this how women should handle this? What do you think?

To me, the response to things like this should be to celebrate female role models. I've done this a few times on this blog before - I think it might be time for another installment.

Earth and Industry: the Gang of Four reunion tour

2011-08-06T07:49:00.001-04:00

After a very quick trip to San Diego I'm looking at a rather busy week but I'm glad I got the chance to sneak in a 15-minute chat with some old pals - Tim Hurst, Maria Surma Manka and Jeff McIntire-Strasburg - just before I left. We're the "Gang of Four" for Earth and Industry Radio.

We discussed the implications the new debt ceiling deal have on environmental policy - I hope you tune in and comment.

Clever girl, that Stefania.

2011-08-02T09:56:00.002-04:00

I'm heading to San Diego this week. The annual BlogHer conference is kicking off, but rather than attending the panel discussions etc I'll be at the I'm With the Brand party hosted by Clever Girls Collective. Fresh & Easy (a client) is a sponsor. I'm stepping up my involvement with this client, and I'm very happy about that.

But there's another reason why I'm excited to travel 3000 miles for a 3-hour party. I'm really looking forward to witnessing the success of Clever Girls Collective - and specifically one of its founders, Stefania Pomponi Butler - first-hand.

I'm very fortunate to be able to point to specific moments in my social media career where I built relationships with entrepreneurial bloggers, or learned an important lesson from the community of online moms. The first touchpoint, I'll readily acknowledge, was dumb luck - I was tasked with connecting bloggers to a new radio network that featured Gloria Steinem on its Board of Directors, and I thought it might be a good idea for Ms. Steinem to actually talk with some of those bloggers. But the year was 2006. Bloggers (and especially mom-bloggers) were still regarded by mainstream media as insignificant and DEFINITELY NOT journalists. Marketers were only beginning to realize the potential of the mom-o-sphere. The idea of someone with the fame and gravitas of Gloria Steinem talking with a dozen "regular people" was questionable at best. It took a lot of convincing. I had to write memos titled, "What is a blog?" because nobody really knew what I was doing. (Neither did I.) But of course, Gloria Steinem isn't afraid of anyone, and she agreed to do it without a fuss.

So Ms. Steinem talked with regular people like Liz Gumbinner. And Kristen Chase. And Catherine Connors. And Leah Peterson. And a bunch of other women. And they loved it. And then some bloggers met Ms. Steinem at the network's launch party. And they loved that too. The radio network wound up folding, but I became "the guy who did the Gloria Steinem thing" and rode that wave into the "State of the Mom-o-Sphere" panel at BlogHer 2007 in Chicago, and I really thought I was this amazing PR hot-shot and everyone would love me.

Yeah, not so much.

By July 2007, a lot of bloggers were getting slammed with emails from PR and marketing flacks basically asking them to write about how awesome their products were. It didn't matter what the product was, or if the mom actually wrote about anything relevant to the product. And the moms were sick of it. And they let me know it. Loudly. So even though I never really spammed anyone like that, I felt compelled to apologize on behalf of the industry and wrote a manifesto of sorts and I became "the PR guy who gets it."

But another very important thing happened at that panel discussion, and it was an idea led by Kelly Wickham and by Stefania. They noticed the moms getting all these pitches from PR flacks happened to be white, and that blogs written by people of color were being ignored - even though they had comparable levels of popularity - and they wanted to know why. So I tried to give an explanation - it's basically because, when it comes to diversity, often the PR industry just plain sucks. And I became "the PR guy who gets it" all over again.

Of course that answer didn't settle the matter for Stefania or Kelly, nor should it. They've led several panel discussions at subsequent BlogHer conferences and beyond on the issue of diversity in the blogosphere. And Stefania and her partners founded Clever Girls Collective. They started out by showing brands that they could reach out to online moms - and particularly moms of color - much more effectively than big PR firms. They've grown dramatically over the past couple of years because they take their job very seriously, they always work with integrity, and they deliver results.

I've learned a lot by watching and talking with Stefania and these other dynamic women. I've learned that you can achieve much greater success by engaging bloggers not as ersatz journalists or outreach targets, but as entrepreneurs or partners. I've learned how important a mom blogger's integrity and fidelity to the greater community of online moms is, and you should support that community without necessarily asking for anything in return. I've learned that in this community, bloggers support each other relentlessly and find true friendship and build amazingly strong bonds over great distances.

I've learned this and more and I'm very, very grateful.

The mysterious story of Scienceblogs and Freethoughtblogs

2011-08-01T19:35:00.000-04:00

PZ without his makeup?

So I read the news, and pardon the pun, but at first I thought PZ Myers just read Scienceblogs.com its last rites:

A new blog network is hitting the web on August 1. Led by two of the most prominent and widely read secular-minded blogs in the country - PZ Myers' Pharyngula and Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars - Freethoughtblogs.com will, we hope, quickly become and important gathering place for atheists, humanists, skeptics and freethinkers in the blogosphere.

Freethoughtblogs will be more than just a place for people to read the opinions of their favorite bloggers. It will be a community of like-minded people exchanging ideas and joining forces to advocate for a more secular and rational world.

That's right - Scienceblogs.com's (now owned by National Geographic) most popular blogger - and the guy responsible for maybe half of its web traffic - is taking his "hottest" content to another site, and he's taking another Scibling with him. Perhaps adding insult to injury, Dr. Myers even used his perch at Scienceblogs as a tool to acquire technical support for Scienceblog's newest competitor after the new site crashed:

...What you can do to help is give us concrete recommendations for a better situation, either a Virtual Private Server or a dedicated host. Leave info, links, phone numbers, whatever in the comments, or email me so we can work out a deal fast...

So I'm thinking there isn't a non-compete clause in his contract. But here's what really made me say hmmm - an entry from Myers on Google+:

I will still be maintaining my relationship with Scienceblogs and National Geographic, but only select content will appear there: that is, science, anti-creationism, that sort of thing...the openly anti-religious material will be on FtB only. So if you're a Christian, you'll now be able to read Sb Pharyngula without crying (but don't fool yourself, I'll still be despising your foolish belief system); if you're a teacher, you'll be able to tell your students to read Sb Pharyngula without fearing the wrath of the PTA.

I'm sorry, I can't understand why National Geographic, the new owners of Scienceblogs.com, didn't just ask for a clean break. It's clear they want to control content to fit their squeaky-clean brand, and it's clear Myers makes them very nervous. But if you worry about these things, Myers is simply "radioactive." This isn't the same thing as an actor who appears in movies rated "R" and then shows up in a Disney flick - You simply can't separate PZ Myers' content from his personal brand.

It creates issues for Myers too - it raises the perception that he agreed to be censored for a buck. He's announced he's only going to put "science" content on SB - can he link to his other blog? Can he mention it? Will content that was previously published on SB that no longer meets NatGeo's brand standards be removed?

SEED Media's sad history of unresponsiveness to its bloggers' concerns, its hesitancy and dumbfounding silence in the aftermath of Pepsigate, and the slow pace of public transition to National Geographic has really set this network back. SB still has a handful of good writers - Greg Laden, the ever-angry Orac, Isis, Mike the Mad Biologist, Sharon Astyk, to name a few - but now the network can't sell web traffic to advertisers, and that creates a new set of problems.

What she said

2011-07-29T07:46:00.001-04:00

I've tried twice to explain how the big tech companies have disproportionate (and often morally questionable) influence over our culture and our commerce. Rebecca MacKinnon comes from a different perspective but she did a much better job explaining it than I did.

Off the Cuff visits Raleigh Denim: social media at its best

2011-07-28T11:38:00.000-04:00

Victor Lytvinenko of Raleigh Denim (L) and Chris Hogan

Last week my family got a visit from Chris Hogan's family. We have known each other for years and I'm fortunate to call them great friends.

Chris is also founder and editor of Off the Cuff, one of the most prominent men's fashion blogs you'll find. He's often featured in mainstream publications as an expert. His work in social media is a well-recognized case study of best practices. So as one might expect, when we firmed up the details of his visit Chris sent out a tweet to his followers:

"Heading to Raleigh, NC, in a few weeks. Looking for some stores/brands to check out, visit. Suggestions?"

Not surprisingly, he got a number of people suggesting he visit the proprietors of Raleigh Denim, one of the last places in America where jeans (and some other items) are made by hand, all under one roof. You can find their clothes in elite stores like Barneys New York. They're not cheap, but they're not cheap, if you know what I mean. So Chris reached out to the owners and arranged a visit, and (after burgers and beers) he let me tag along.

When we arrived on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, founders/owners Victor and Sarah Lytvinenko were busy putting together denim bags for shipment. Victor took us around the shop and I assumed "fly on the wall" status as Chris talked with him about his approach to making clothes and the company's story.

And it's a great story. Victor is a rare blend of artist and entrepreneur. He loved that schools in the Raleigh area were producing students with great ideas about textiles but lamented the fact that very few of those students were ever able to bring ideas to market.

He also talked about trying to start the business in late 2009 and early 2010, one of the worst economic environments in our history. Family members were pitching in and they were working around the clock, making samples and trying to convince stores to carry their product. After finally managing to send a small order to Barneys, he received a request for a larger order, but didn't have the capital to buy raw materials or tools to accommodate them. Since the economy was in the depths of the credit crunch, no bank would lend him the money. Then President Obama's stimulus package became law - and Victor soon after got a call from the bank, telling him he could get that loan. Now Victor and Sarah aren't worrying about growing their business - they're worrying about growing it too quickly.

Most of the afternoon, however, was spent talking about the craftsmanship, history, and philosophy that goes into making clothes at Raleigh Denim. It was clear from the outset that Victor and Chris were of the same mind on this - other than jotting down a few numbers, Chris didn't really have to take notes because it was all obvious to him. Once Chris got home he wrote and published a great blog post that summarizes his takeaways from the visit. He also sent out a tweet that suggested a potential new partner and opportunity:

Someone please explain why @jcrew_insider isn't knocking on @raleighdenim 's door? Amazing jeans, made like we used to make 'em in America.

This is how social media often works best - a person reaches out to a network for ideas, acts on those ideas, and develops more ideas that can benefit more people. The fact that Chris used specific tools was secondary to the experience - what really mattered is that Chris reached out to people who were part of a community, and that he leveraged online relationships to accomplish a goal.

That's why he's better than you at this.

What does the debt limit fight look like?

2011-07-26T10:42:00.002-04:00

If you ever thought you needed a Cliff's Notes version of the Cliff's Notes, Wordle is the tool for you. It makes those attractive "word clouds" I've published here before. You submit text, and it counts the number of times a particular word appears. The more instances of the word, the larger it appears in the cloud.

I sometimes use it to analyze a conversation or compare viewpoints and then develop more questions. Last night we saw an interesting example of this- President Obama and Speaker Boehner each "took their case to the American people" on the fight over raising the national debt limit. So I compared the "word clouds" of the speeches from President Obama and Speaker Boehner to see if we could learn anything about what they're really trying to say.

Here's what the President's speech looks like:

And here's what the Speaker's speech looks like:

As I read it, the President is presenting a book report and the Speaker is telling you who he thinks is to blame for the mess we're in. Looking at the clouds, I also think the Speaker's remarks were "message tested" for his natural constituency while the President's really wasn't.

The Speaker keeps using words like "bipartisan" (whether you think he's bipartisan or not) and the words "spending" and "debt," but doesn't mention his preferred cuts (no mention of cutting Medicare or Social Security) and above all positions the President as the problem. He's clearly on the attack. Further, I think it was a very smart political move from the GOP to put the Speaker out there immediately after the speech - they didn't give the President even a minute to "own" the news cycle.

I think the President was just putting it out there, just explaining what's going on - "here are the approaches we're looking at right now." He's doubled down on being the conciliatory centrist - it's a gamble because there's a fine line between "being the adult in the room" and coming off as just another aloof, arrogant intellectual.

We'll see who's right - it remains possible they'll meet somewhere in the middle, but I don't think these speeches brought us any closer to a compromise.

Norway: when the news doesn't fit the narrative

2011-07-25T11:36:00.003-04:00

When confronted with events like what happened in Norway last week - events that shock the system and leave people yearning for answers and explanations that will likely never come - many people often rush to the familiar albeit profoundly disturbing memories that help us come to terms. So to many Americans, this event had elements of some of our worst and all-too-real nightmares: Columbine, Oklahoma City, and 9/11. This is the experiential lens through which many Americans view domestic and global terror.

But this isn't Columbine. It isn't Oklahoma City or 9/11. This tragedy is unique. And while many Americans (and others) may have some understanding of the grief and anguish many Norwegians are feeling today, we must resist the urge to define this event simply in the terms we understand - and we must also resist the urge to define the perpetrator of this horrible crime in terms that suit our ideology or political interests.

We haven't done very well with that lately.

When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John Roll and 17 other people were shot at a supermarket in Arizona in January, within hours people were suggesting that the gunman was motivated by conservative political rhetoric, including Governor Palin's now-infamous graphic of the Congresswoman's district in a gun's crosshairs. As facts emerged, it became more evident that the alleged assassin was motivated more from illness than ideology. The facts didn't prevent the discussion about rhetoric from spiraling out of control - the attacks on Governor Palin and her poorly-chosen words in response to the criticism only entrenched interests further. We are now to the point where she can misspeak about something as innocent as the story of Paul Revere's "midnight ride" and her supporters flock to wikipedia, attempting to "correct the record" by including her obvious misstatements as fact.

Now of course we have the lightning-fast editorializing (and actual coverage) wrongly tying the Norway attacks to Islamic extremists. Ujala Sehgal at The Atlantic Wire has a thorough description of how quickly so many of our top publications embraced the "Muslims did it" narrative and how they even took steps to maintain that narrative once the facts came to light. One notable offender was the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin who quickly asserted the "jihadist" link, only to walk it back a day later, but still insisting that "there are many more jihadists than blonde Norwegians out to kill Americans" and this is really about a domestic political fight between conservatives and liberals over spending priorities. As if this somehow matters to grieving parents in Oslo.

Now information is beginning to emerge that suggests the alleged killer in Norway may be the type of right-wing ideologue swayed by violent political rhetoric that people were too quick to assert was at work in Arizona. Let the blame game begin again.

To me, the real culprit is (again) homophily - the phenomenon that we describe sometimes with the cliche "birds of a feather flock together." Increasingly, we only read the news sources that reflect our interests and ideology. We only speak with people of the same ilk. There's a growing body of research that discusses this - for example, the British Psychological Society recently reported a study that we even choose to sit next to people who look like us. In PR we call this community of people who just agree with and repeat each other it the "echo chamber," and its effects are intensified through online social media.

As I wrote last week, our common experiences enrich our lives but they also limit our perspectives if we fail to explore. We develop deeper relationships with the people who share our values and our interests, but we grow more polarized in our politics and our consuming behavior. Homophily manifests itself through our unwillingness or inability to compromise on important issues. It results in litmus tests - religious or otherwise - for our political leaders. It leads some to define those who are different as somehow less human. We combat homophily by meeting new people, different people. As we get to know different people more, we accept them and tend to support their basic rights, and we grow more tolerant and creative and we solve more problems. For example, even polls dating back to 2005 and earlier suggest the more gay people we know the more supportive of their civil rights we become and the more likely we are to solve the unique issues facing gay families.

So to those whose voices are amplified because their names sit next to headlines or because they currently reside in seats of power, I have some simple advice: you need to get out more.

And a little child shall lead them: the future of media convergence

2011-07-13T16:25:00.005-04:00

“I’d like to paint and draw right on the computer screen
and have it show up.”
- 8-year-old girl, Ogden, Utah, USA

We often joke that if we want to understand the latest new techno-gadget, we just ask our kids. Turns out we might want to ask our kids about the next new techno-gadget and quite a bit more. If we listen to the youngest among us we will hopefully understand that "media convergence" isn't simply when TV stations use Twitter or how Craigslist has replaced old-school classified ads. True convergence will take place when the virtual merges with the physical in almost everything we do. And it will be here sooner than you think.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Kim Gaskins, Director of Content Development at Latitude, an international research consultancy based in Massachusetts. We discussed a new study she helped write called Children's Future Requests for Computers and the Internet. From the release:

Latitude asked kids across the world to draw the answer to this question: “What would you like your computer or the Internet to do that it can’t do right now?” The goal of the study was to catch a glimpse into possible futures for technology as seen by digital natives, and to highlight actionable opportunities for new content, user experience (UX), and technology offerings...

More than 200 kid-innovators, ages 12 and under, from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, India, Mexico, The Netherlands, Panama, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States participated and submitted drawings of their imagined technologies.

Overall, the drawings demonstrated that kids wanted their technology to be more interactive and human, better integrated with their physical lives, and empowering to users by assisting new knowledge or abilities. Several study participants imagined technologies that are just beginning to appear in tech-forward circles, such as Google’s revamped image search, announced on June 14th 2011, which allows users to place images, rather than text, in Google's search box to perform a query.

Kim and her colleagues didn't set out to prove the "social media guru" crowd is no better than a bunch of 8-year-olds. (That's actually old news.) They were trying to demonstrate something about the sources of creativity and they were clearly suggesting that the Internet isn't going to be limited to something with a screen for much longer.

Having worked in a pediatrics department and for a brief time on children's policy issues in Washington, the idea that Latitude sought out children for guidance really resonated with me. To be honest I hadn't thought of them as a focus group for user experience brainstorming before, but it really makes sense. "Kids are important when you're searching for ideas because they're not as concerned with what’s practical or possible," Kim told me. "They have a great freedom of thought and they're great problem solvers."

That was a great point. Think about it - the people trying to come up with the next big idea on the Internet are largely cut from the same thirty-something technophile cloth. Our common experiences enrich our lives but they also limit our perspectives if we fail to explore. (Ethan Zuckerman wrote a great piece on this in 2008.) I've written about this before in my attempts to find bridge figures for distinct online communities.

So what did the kids teach us? There were a number of excellent takeaways, but Kim did a good job summarizing the one I found most interesting - "The experience of content shouldn't end at the computer." Nearly 40 percent of the children talked about the bridging of the physical and virtual spaces. Like the girl from Utah who wanted to "paint" on a screen and then the painting showed up in her room. Or taking actions in the physical world - exercising, recycling, you name it - that also manifest themselves online.

We're obviously not here yet. Kim says our current attempts to open this door look a bit like bells and whistles (think the QR codes at Central Park idea) right now and "no one has figured out the transmedia thing yet." But Kim echoed a relevant question she gleaned from the kids' insights - "why can't the Internet surround me?"

We're already developing the ability to look at an object through a smartphone lens and gain information about that object. For example, I can take a picture of a tree and my phone will tell me what species of tree it is. I'm also immediately able to catalog that tree and work with others to determine how unique it is to its area, and if we need more of them. We can arrive at a specific address and through GPS get certain information about it. (If it's a restaurant, I can get the menu as well as those of its nearby competitors.) We're almost to the point where it's just a matter of building a big enough database to just look at an object and have every bit of information about it right in front of you. You know, like the digital readout in the Terminator's eye but probably without the "killing everything in sight" part. The ramifications of this massive expansion of accessible information are amazing.

We discussed other ideas and I may explore them further on this blog. For example, I found it quite interesting that Latitude partnered with the Lego Learning Institute on this project and released the results with Radical Parenting's Vanessa Van Petten. Meantime, check out the report and learn something.

What a game!

2011-07-13T15:07:00.000-04:00

Stolen footage from a recent pitch

2011-07-08T07:34:00.000-04:00

So realistic it's scary.

The #AskObama experiment: democracy or distraction?

2011-07-07T11:15:00.000-04:00

I read a very interesting piece from Umair Haque at the Harvard Business Review Blog about the recent "Twitter Town Hall" held at the White House. Equal parts political cynicism and technological utopianism, Haque asserts the one-time nature of the event demonstrates the Administration isn't truly interested in the truly participatory democracy that social media technology can help create. From the piece:

The promise of social technologies is to fundamentally reimagine and reboot yesterday's crumbling institutions (and disempower the bumbling beancounters who run them). In political terms? They should be used — right now, right here, right this very second — to build a deeper democracy, one where via deliberation, citizens have a bottom-up impact on policy-making, which as it stands today is totally disconnected from and unresponsive to the general populace and unable to do much of anything about anything. They should be used to help ignite an authentic prosperity, by redrawing the boundaries of political freedom for the underprivileged and the powerless — and to blow apart a polity that protects and props up the privileged and the powerful.

Emphasis his. Sadly, I agree with much of Haque's cynicism though I think it's nothing new. For me the worst moment was two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, when President Bush was getting hammered with criticism over his inadequate response. That political brain trust decided to have the President give a speech in Jackson Square in New Orleans - and for some reason to do it at night. Of course, power had not been restored to that area yet, so the federal government flew in with an arsenal of lights and generators to create an amazing visual backdrop so the President could promise we would "rebuild" but not offer anything in terms of a strategy. Then the speech ended, and the political advance team made a swift exit - and took the lights and generators with them.

I suspect many people think the country is increasingly frustrated by a real and perceived growing separation between the government and the governed, that the government listens only to the privileged few, and the rest of us are paid lip service at best. I think people also feel let down by the fourth estate - perhaps the one valuable tidbit from this White House event was the observation that "regular folks" on Twitter seem to have different priorities than the White House Press Corps.

I was struck by one other quote from the piece, where Haque adds a geopolitical element to this disconnect:

And what you're really telling me is this: in some parts of the world, social tools can fuel the revolutions that topple dictators. Here, in the nation that invented them? They're used for marketing stunts.

This is where I disagree somewhat with Haque. He's right that the beltway crowd still largely views social media as a gimmick to exploit - we focus too much on the word "Twitter" and not enough on the words "Town Hall." But as important as they clearly are, I don't think social tools "fuel revolutions." People do. Ideas do.

In August 2009 I interviewed Hamid Tehrani, Iran editor for Global Voices Online. We spoke just after the controversial presidential elections in Iran - an event that some say led to the great "Arab Spring" of 2011. Hamid's coverage - and his courage in contradicting and defying state-run media there - was amazing. Here's what I wrote then, and it's still valid today:

So much of the "social media coverage" of these protests has been about the tools, and they're no doubt important. But I still think this story is still about the people, the messages, the stories, and what's at stake. Hamid made some excellent points about how social classes have come together in protests, something you wouldn't expect to see in Iran. And for all the talk about Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, I loved his point about history. In 1978 the Ayahtolla distributed audio cassettes to spread his message and people climbed to their rooftops to yell "God is great" in protest. Today, they're using social media tools, but the protesters are still going to the rooftops and they're still chanting "God is great."

Of course, the issue that Haque and so many communicators in Washington and beyond are dancing around with this Twitter event is commonly referred to as "media convergence." It's a term coined by marketing and PR gurus to encompass the "3C's" - computing, content, and communication - and the discussion typically focuses on how you can read a newspaper on your mobile phone now or we don't do classified ads the same way anymore. To me, however, the "C's" (some people add a fourth C, consumers) are ancillary to the conversation. Media convergence is, and always has been, a story about power.

I'll write about this more in the future.

All you sucka sci blog networks better REALIZE you play for second place

2011-07-05T10:33:00.002-04:00

Bora launched his blog network at Scientific American. He took his time, did it right.

Don't get me wrong - I love the writing at Wired Science, ScienceBlogs.com, Discover, Scientopia, Guardian Science Blogs, Nature Network, PLoS Blogs, and so on - but Bora was really smart about this. He saw the growth in the niche, looked at what was working best, saw what could improve, and just plain NAILED IT:

Another thing I was particularly interested in was to find bloggers who in some way connect the “Two Cultures” as described by C.P.Snow. Some connect science to history, philosophy, sociology or ethics. Many are very interested in science education, communication and outreach. Some make connections between science and popular culture, music, art, illustration, photography, cartoons/comic strips, poetry, literature, books, movies, TV, video, etc. Several produce such cross-discipline and cross-cultural material themselves – at least two are musicians, two are professional photographers, several produce videos, two are professional artists, a couple are authors of multiple books, some produce their own blog illustrations. But there are also commonalities – they all have strong knowledge of their topic, they strictly adhere to the standards of scientific evidence, they are all very strong writers, and they are all enthusiastic to share their work with a broader audience.

When I put together this group, with such diverse interests and styles, it was not surprising to discover that, without really having to try hard to make it so, they also display diversity in many other areas: geography, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, personal/professional/scientific background and more. This is something that is important for science, and is important in the science blogging world.

This is brilliant for two big reasons: first, diversity is a source of enormous strength in science and pretty much everything else. It's the right thing to do. Second because it makes science immediately relevant to people with diverse interests - music, art, history, pop-culture, sports, education, and so on - the network has the capacity to grow its readership much more than other science blog networks.

My initial reaction is that SciAm's emergence with a large, smart roster may thin the herd of networks a little bit. I notice some writers have left their networks to join SciAm's, and since there are only so many blog posts you can read in a day, readers will go for the quality content first.

I may flesh this thinking out a bit more but here's one prediction/caution for those writing for another network. If you start to get several emails from your editors or managers providing "guidelines" on how to write in ways that generate more traffic like throwing celebrity references in the titles or providing more posts with repetitive phrases, your network is following an unsustainable strategy. Your editors care more about Google search terms than you. They want your words but not necessarily your thoughts. The first network to do this will probably be the first one to go.

UPDATE: PZ Myers is already declaring ScienceBlogs.com "dead" and hinting that he's leaving. Pharyngula is basically half of SEED/SB's traffic and I notice that the new SciAm network has at least a couple of SB peeps on it. I'm guessing the folks at National Geographic aren't pleased. Leave it to an evolutionary biologist to tell us what happens when something doesn't adapt to a changing environment...

AMA vs. Photoshop: think of the children

2011-06-30T09:56:00.000-04:00

This pic is everywhere now

Last week the American Medical Association officially condemned the "photoshopping" of models in fashion advertisements and magazines to make those models appear unrealistically thin. While the "models are too skinny" debate has gone on for decades, this is a rare and important step. Their stance is obviously more of a statement on our runaway culture of beauty than our use of technology, but it also should send a clear message to those of us in the communications business (marketing, advertising, or PR) - just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should. Earlier this month I warned against pretending to be someone you're not. This is a similar principle - don't use deceptive images to promote your products. This example demonstrates the consequences can extend beyond looking like a creep.

I'm not going to pretend to be the moral authority on these issues and I'm not going to say it's wrong to retouch a photo or get a nip and/or tuck if you want. However, it seems the AMA believes things are getting worse, not better - and it's clear that technological advancements have enabled some people to take things to the extreme.

This issue reminds me of two other issues where some segments of the medical community have already weighed in but I wish the AMA would add its rather hefty and credible voice - promotion of breastfeeding and reducing the influence of pro-anorexia groups on social networks. I've written about this before. People who freak out over nipples on breastfeeding pictures in Facebook profiles aren't simply advocating for more modesty, they're reducing our ability to promote breastfeeding - and that has negative health consequences. Social networks like Facebook have made some progress on cleaning up pro-ana sites, but they're still around - and this is also a threat to public health.

Don't take my word for it - take my wife's. She's the health researcher at the big-time university, and she wrote about both issues several years ago. Discouraging breastfeeding is bad. Facilitating the harmful practices of people with anorexia is also bad. Of course, I look at the Facebook terms of service and I don't see anything in there that would address these issues. I'm not sure if other social networks have different terms.

Bottom line, there's an opportunity here for the AMA to get more involved in the online space. There's no question that our culture affects our behavior, and our behavior affects our health. While we should be mindful of protecting free speech rights, we should be giving the medical community a larger voice here.

Beauty pageant contestants vs. science advocates: this isn't helpful

2011-06-29T16:22:00.000-04:00

As a science fan and a PR guy, when I see something like this video - where contestants from the Miss USA 2011 pageant answer the question "should evolution be taught in schools?" - I really cringe.

If you are a science fan and you sat through this entire video then kudos to you. (Actually the answer from Miss Vermont was rather good.)

Let's get something clear from the get-go here. Evolution is real. It's sound science and it must be taught in public schools. Myriad advances in health and science derive directly from evolutionary biology. It's not a secular alternative to the Bible. You don't "believe" in evolution any more than you "believe" in gravity. If you're reading this and you're a person of a particular faith and you're offended by this, I'm sorry - but you're wrong. The sound science of evolution isn't encroaching on your faith, your faith is encroaching on sound, provable, evidence-based science and when you try to take evolution out of classrooms you're only making things worse.

But let me make something else clear: I think the Miss USA contestants were set up for failure. As I understand it, the goal of a contestant in a preliminary interview competition isn't to advocate for science or religion or anything else - it's to sound reasonably pleasant and articulate and avoid offending the judges. I don't think it's fair to expect a woman in her early- to mid-20's to speak competently and at length to the pedagogic merits of evolutionary biology if that isn't something she's studied. If you were in your early twenties, and you were put on the spot about a controversial issue you hadn't studied in depth, and you assumed you were talking to a group of people who had different opinions, chances are you'd come out where most of these women did - "present both sides fairly and let people decide."

As someone in PR, that's a very recognizable phrase. Nearly everyone agrees with that blanket statement. Give people the right to choose. Present both sides fairly. If you're against those statements on just about any issue, you're typically seen as an elitist or worse. You're positioned as the person who doesn't want people to have their views heard and you're not interested in a fair debate. PR folks like me recommend taking this tack in a messaging strategy for clients all the time.

This is where many scientists see themselves today on important issues like evolution, climate change, and vaccination. Scientists point to the data and say the debate is over - those with interests on the other side take advantage of the fact that the issues are still not well known to everyone, and align themselves with consensus-claiming, PR-driven statements. They're just trying to be heard and they want a fair shake.

So scientists and science communicators find themselves right on the facts but wrong in the eyes of the public. So they sometimes resort to mocking:

Personally I think it's pretty funny. And it probably wasn't produced for the purpose of changing minds. But mocking beauty pageant contestants - as good as that may feel for some - doesn't really help. A lot of people think pageants are silly, but a lot of other people really like them. And we're trying to reach everyone.

Perhaps it makes sense to do some outreach to the contestants, give them some education, help them understand the issue, and then let them be great messengers and advocates for science?

I've heard cheerleaders are pretty good at that...

"Closed" networks and cultural arbitration

2011-06-28T15:16:00.002-04:00

Last week we saw the latest pothole in the road to Utopia for iTunes:

Apple Inc. says it has removed an application called "ThirdIntifada" from its App Store following complaints that it glorified violence against Israel.

Of course, when they say "removed" they could just as easily have said "approved and then had to be told this was one of the stupidest things imaginable."

I've already written how the "big four" tech companies - Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook - have made our lives amazingly easier and they have connected people in ways we could barely imagine just a few years ago. But because those companies have understandably placed limits on those markets and marketplaces, and have tried to create some rules for entry, they've had to make a host of judgment calls about what gets in and what doesn't. By fate or by design, we're now at a rather alarming point. Middle-managers at tech companies are regularly policing free speech and global commerce, and occasionally wielding more power in a single mouse click than some foreign ministers could hope to wield in a term of office.

It's hard to define social networks and commerce platforms with hundreds of millions of users as "closed" - especially when the administrators of them want as many users as possible. But they do want to be the gatekeepers of speech and commerce, insisting on approving the software that appears on their platforms. They are now they are forced to make judgment calls I'm certain they never anticipated. The folks at Facebook did not intend to be the folks who determine "obscene" content, yet here they are, establishing the "visible aerola" standard for breastfeeding pictures. Apple never intended to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict or promote the idea of "praying away the gay" or help drivers avoid sobriety checkpoints.

There's no doubt in my mind that the more apps they approve, the more mistakes they'll make, and the more likely regulation with plenty of unintended consequences will appear.

Vancouver riots: the Internet is forever, idiots

2011-06-16T21:11:00.122-04:00

Mom must be so proud

Full disclosure: I grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts - home to Mike Eruzione (captain of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team) and a boatload of Boston Bruins fans. I'm not a huge hockey fan - I'm more of a baseball guy - but I've been to my share of games and I'm happy the home team won.

However, this isn't a post about hockey. This is about those absolute morons in Vancouver the other night.

No, not the real Canucks fans. They showed some class when the Bruins held the Stanley Cup on Vancouver's home ice. And not the vast majority of Vancouver residents. And not even the anarchists who clearly came to Vancouver prepared to torch the place, win or lose.

This is about the idiots who took pictures of themselves standing in front of wrecked or burning cars. This is about the ridiculous posers who wanted to immortalize their "I was there" moment - maybe they thought it was funny, maybe they thought it was cool, but all of them wanted to be seen. Flashing gang signs. (And probably not even knowing what those gang signs mean.)

Make sure you get the flames in the background...

Real anarchists generally don't pose for pictures. They hide their faces and wear disguises. They infiltrate drunken crowds, stir up trouble, then retreat to the back to watch it grow out of control. If they get caught, they resist arrest, and view it as a badge of honor or a reasonable price to pay for what they've "accomplished."

But these morons - the ones who probably don't have the guts to commit these crimes but want to look like they do - would probably cry hysterically at the first sign of accountability. Frankly, I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of anything more pathetic than a faux anarchist.

And of course, here's what makes them such chuckleheads - their pictures are now all over the Internet and will never, ever be removed. People are already using social media to help police track down the real culprits, but it's just a matter of time before someone starts collecting these pictures and videos too. Now since Facebook has launched that creepy facial recognition "feature" and made it opt-out, all it takes is for someone to post a picture they took from the riot and you're identified automatically. Google has similar technology, too. And they own YouTube.

Attach this pic to their resumes

So when these kids apply for jobs - many no doubt in the Vancouver area, and maybe even for companies on Georgia Avenue - they'll probably be subject to Google searches and watch potential employers ask to "friend" them on Facebook. And employers will learn these kids were posing in front of their office's shattered windows. And they'll know that these kids bragged about it not simply to a small group of friends, but to everyone they could think of and more. And they'll know these kids aren't simply classless - they're amazingly, staggeringly, profoundly, outrageously stupid.

I grabbed these screen shots of YouTube videos. But of course, these kids have already posted pics of themselves to their Facebook accounts, or left status messages bragging about it. There's already a website called Identify the Vancouver Rioters that helps us all say "hey - I know that guy."

Can't wait to see their resumes.

Note to self: don't pretend to be a lesbian blogger in Syria.

2011-06-13T10:27:00.090-04:00

One of the more prominent and unfortunate global news stories circulating today is the hoax perpetrated by Tom MacMaster, an American student currently living in Scotland. For months he's published a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus" and assumed a fictional identity named Amina Abdallah Araf al Omani.

The blog included fascinating stories of politics, culture and intrigue. There were breathless accounts of going into hiding, standing up to police, demonstrating in the streets, and assuming the voice of the opposition in one of the world's most closed off countries in the midst of this historic "Arab Spring." There were detailed personal accounts of coming out as a lesbian in a highly conservative, highly religious country. Then there was the gripping note that Amina had been captured. The stories rallied thousands and Amina became a heroine.

And it was all fake.

Of course, while he seems to think he hasn't really done much wrong, smarter people like Ethan Zuckerman beg to differ with him. Zuckerman is the founder of Global Voices Online, one of my favorite sites on the 'net and a global aggregator of citizen-journalist-generated content. Zuckerman's take is a thorough smackdown and well worth reading, and here's just one of his points:

MacMaster’s project is going to complicate the work of anyone who tries to bring marginal voices into the dialog through citizen media. The question I’ve been most often asked since founding Global Voices is a question about authenticity: “How can we know that any of these people blogging and tweeting are real people?”

As a PR guy, my inclination is often to spin the upside - MacMaster has managed to do one thing no one else has. The downside, of course, is that "one thing" is "add credibility to the government of Syria," as they denied ever holding Amina.

Perhaps it shouldn't amaze me that people still ignore or forget a very basic rule of public relations - don't pretend to be someone you're not. Doing so essentially guarantees that whatever message you're trying to send gets lost. This example is perhaps a bit more colorful, and a bit more tragic, but it's not even the only incident in recent memory. In my business we see companies all the time who want certain messages or facts to "get out there" but don't feel confident speaking in their own voice, often with good reason. All I can say is it's not often you can be successful making a point without telling people who you are.

What upsets me most right now is MacMaster's protestations that coverage of his hoax is drawing attention from real people facing real crises in Syria. That he fails to understand he was the one drawing attention from the real conflict by hijacking Syrians' voices is beyond ironic.

When tech companies become cultural arbiters

2011-06-08T17:48:00.283-04:00

Confronting the threat of "visible areolas" on Facebook

Facebook imposed another creepy "feature" - facial recognition technology - on its users without saying much about it. It was another relatively quiet encroachment on personal privacy in the name of providing more value to marketers. An (ironically) anonymous Facebook spokesperson apologized for "the way it was rolled out," but three days later everyone was pretty much back to business.

To me it was the latest warning signal that we're ceding too much of our lives to people whose values work exceptionally well for a successful company but create significant problems in other facets of our lives.

There's no question that companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft have changed the way millions (if not billions) of people live their lives. Many of the innovative products and services they've created (or acquired) have made profound improvements to our quality of life. We've gotten to the point where fast and easy access to the services provided by these and similar companies is a social justice issue.

These companies create a relatively minuscule amount of original content - instead they make it easier for others to create, find, consume, organize, enhance, and share that content. As millions upon millions of people use their networks and their services, these companies aren't simply helping us create an "online version" of our culture, they're an integral and increasingly significant portion of our actual culture. And in doing so, these four companies have become our cultural arbiters by default.

They decide who can find your content and how. They decide if you can earn a living in an online business and how. They decide if you can share certain information and how. And arguably they sometimes even decide if you can OWN your own content and how.

I think it's fair to say for the most part they've done an amazing job. Every day millions of people create and share trillions of pieces of information across the platforms these four companies have created, and it's a fast and easy process. Every day millions of people move billions if not trillions of dollars across the commerce platforms they've created, creating economic opportunities for people who had no chance of profiting from their ideas just a few years ago. I wouldn't be able to write this blog post and you wouldn't be able to read it, comment, or share it without these companies.

Further, I look at the values these companies promote and it looks like a recipe for success. Things like:

Pursuing relentless, even dogmatic, measures to protect intellectual property rights.
Demonstrating passionate loyalty to customers, and always striving to do more for them.
Creating products and platforms that are so good they become the standard everyone uses.
Innovating at breakneck speed - get the it to market first, and fix it later.
Embracing the "social" - err on the side of sharing and let users tell you if they don't want something.
Automating solutions to complicated problems - save time and money.

But while Facebook embraces the social they reject the personal. It's clear that the privacy of Facebook users takes a distant back seat to the revenue potential of their marketing data. Facebook is constantly thinking of ways to serve its customers - the companies who want to know what you do so they can sell more effectively. So Facebook develops ideas that provide marketers with knowledge about you without your knowledge or specific consent. They'll apologize afterward, but they'll never stop imposing "features" that sometimes blow up in their faces (remember Beacon?) and forcing users to opt-out rather than opt-in because that would limit their value to customers. Resultingly, we've seen the emergence of a new form of moral hazard. Since users aren't the actual customers of Facebook and they have incomplete knowledge of the consequences of their actions, they make decisions they may not otherwise make.

And ask Ars Technica what it thinks about Facebook's approach to intellectual property - all you have to do is claim a site has taken your content and that site is suspended. You apparently don't even have to reveal your own identity. The burden of proof is on the accused, not the accuser. That's not how it works in our courtrooms, but that's apparently how it works on Facebook, and possibly on Google's YouTube. It appears the suspension is automatic - kill the site and then review the situation when the company's amazingly small and no doubt overburdened staff has a chance to get to it.

Of course there are the many times Facebook has automatically suspended accounts for posting "obscene" pictures of breastfeeding moms. Years ago I noted the irony of scrapping those accounts while protecting the "free speech" rights of pro-anorexia Facebook groups that claimed the disease was a lifestyle choice and offered tips on which drugs to take to stave off hunger. My wife told me that just last week Facebook did it again - closing down an account simply over an incorrect claim of obscenity. I loved this line from a spokesperson (again apparently anonymous) the reporter quoted from 2008 - "we've made a visible areola the determining factor." Actually, they've made the claim of a visible areola the determining factor. Perhaps those who wanted to shut down pro-ana groups should have told Facebook they saw a nipple there.

I think Apple has handled this a bit better but has had its own challenges here as well - like when they allowed a religious organization access to their iTunes platform to distribute an app that promoted "ex-gay" conversion therapy. Medical organizations have suggested conversion therapy is ineffective at best and harmful at worst. Gay advocates noted the irony of placing age restrictions on some apps geared toward gay people but this was widely available to anyone. It took a petition with 150,000 signatures to get Apple to reverse course.

Apple's issue really has been access to its commerce platform and the types of technology it will allow on its devices. Developers crow about how long it takes to get their applications accepted on iTunes. Personally I don't have a huge problem with this - it means someone is actually looking at what's being presented on their platform. Their house, their rules. The problem comes when they want to be the "standard" - standards should offer the most choice possible, and iTunes doesn't. Resultingly there are other, more open platforms that developers are increasingly choosing. What I don't understand is Apple's take on "flash" animation technology. Apparently using this technology in websites and the like places a greater burden on processors and drains the battery more quickly. So Apple won't support technology that reduces the performance level of iPhones and iPads. They're essentially trying to dictate what developers and website designers do on sites that have nothing to do with Apple. As a consumer, I think I'm more than capable of monitoring battery life, and I'm not sure how limiting the number of websites I can fully utilize helps Apple. It's also arguably a restraint of trade issue - leveraging their dominance in one market (devices) to dictate the terms or channels of distribution of other markets. Microsoft had those criticisms years ago.

The real risk is that one of these companies will (unintentionally) do something so stupid, so brazen, so outrageous that it will result in an enormous backlash and we'll see social networks and platforms regulated in ways that begin to resemble regulation of utilities. Regulation can create as many unintended consequences as arbitrary and automated terms of service.

There's no silver bullet but there's one option I can think of that would be a good start - require anyone bringing a complaint such as copyright infringement or obscenity or anything else to confirm their identity and contact information. That shouldn't be too hard to implement, and it has worked in our justice system. It would also likely reduce the number of embarrassing news stories we've seen over the years.

If you've read all the way to the end of this, I'd love to know what you think...

Mornings

2011-06-07T12:10:00.000-04:00

Rinse. Repeat.

Buy PunditMom's book or I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN

2011-06-02T09:53:00.000-04:00

Joanne "PunditMom" Bamberger has a book coming out called Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America. You should buy it. And then you should read it. And then you should do whatever Joanne tells you to do, because she's going to rule the world someday and you probably want to be on her good side now. (OK, kidding.) (But not really.)

This book is important - and not simply because Joanne is more than qualified to write this book as an online mom with an impressive background in government and politics. (She was deputy director of communications at the Securities Exchange Commission, you know.) It's important because she uses the book to amplify the voices of people the beltway chattering class too often ignore - "everyday" women from different walks of life in America. Seriously - read the essays Joanne compiled in the book and then think about what you see on cable "news" shows or hear on talk radio.

I've spent some time in DC myself, so I'm a bit cynical. I hope the beltway crowd won't view this book and the perspectives of the women in it as an "I care about politics too" human interest story. I hope they will take this book as a wake-up call. I think Joanne and her contributors are telling the politicians (and their sycophants) that while the jobs they have are important, they're wasting everyone's time on irrelevant and potentially harmful flights of fancy. Moms are life's true decision makers, and they don't have time to waste on distractions. If moms have more input in political decisions, our politics will be more substantive and our policies will be more effective.

I hope you read this book - not simply because Joanne is someone I've known for years, or because she's helped me out with work from time to time. I hope you read this book because we all need to do better at understanding what women want and what they care about - and not just for the purposes of selling moms stuff. Finally, I hope you read this book because for me it's personal. I was raised by a "pundit mom." I'm married to another "pundit mom." For years they've spoken up to help their families, and for as long as I can remember, strong political forces have been aligned against them. Their actions have helped shape who I am. In a very real sense, Joanne is speaking up for them and for all the pundit moms out there.

Oh, and the writers she features in the book are pretty amazing too.

Crisis Communications and Social Media

2011-05-24T07:41:00.000-04:00

I read a piece by Chris Syme called "Five Social Media Must-Haves for Crisis." Nothing about it seemed wrong to me - she listed 5 tools you should have if your company faces a crisis. She included a dark website (i.e. a page you can make public in the event of a crisis), a Facebook page, a Twitter account, some monitoring systems, and a policy for your company on social media. All good things, all useful, all important.

I think she left the most important one out - so important that she'd probably suggest it goes without saying, but in my experience I've had to say it - you need relationships.

Companies who are bracing themselves or preparing for a crisis need to take stock of the people who might rush to their aid (or at least provide a kind word) online. I've been harping on this for some time now:

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.

Emphasis mine. Again.

What Women Want: The Interview

2011-05-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned I'm speaking Monday at the Alltech Game Changers Symposium. (Alltech is a longstanding client.) They initially asked me to talk about marketing to women online, but someone there (I still don't know who) decided to change the name of my presentation to "What Women Want." Then they booked me on a radio talk show. For an hour. I didn't know the audio could be recorded, but here it is - WVLK's Kruser and Krew talked with me and we got a couple of great callers. Sorry - this audio player apparently requires flash.

Please be gentle.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Cultural disconnects: how do you define beauty?

2011-05-20T09:25:00.002-04:00

We start with Exhibit A:

Student groups at the London School of Economics are calling for the dismissal of a social scientist who has become embroiled in a racism row after claiming that a study showed black women to be less attractive than women of other races.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the institution, published his comments on a blog and claimed he had analysed data from an online study of physical attractiveness.

In his article for Psychology Today, Kanazawa wrote: "Black women are … far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women." The piece drew a barrage of complaints from readers and has since been removed from the site.

So a researcher known for his penchant for controversy (he once wrote a piece suggesting liberals are smarter than conservatives) writes something stupid but it potentially starts a rather interesting, potentially cross-cultural conversation around an important question: "how do you define beauty?"

I looked at two of the online communities I review most - scientists and moms. I found a mixed bag.

Hank Campbell at Science 2.0 issued a thorough smackdown of the Kanazawa piece (seriously, read it), but went a step further to slam Kanazawa's field of study:

But the real problem is not Kanazawa. Every discipline has someone who creates a goofy study. Others criticize it, science moves on. The problem is evolutionary psychology is chock full of this stuff and virtually no one inside the field is willing to police their own. Marc Hauser just got suspended for questionable practices. And now they have taken to fuzzy epigenetics to make the picture of the human condition even murkier.

He then lists a bunch of posts that illustrate his point.

Another reaction from a different community came from Karen Walrond at Chookooloonks. She offered a more emotional (and in my view very impactful) response:

But here's the thing: Walrond's response is one that Campbell dismisses.

I tried to look around for other perspectives, basically one that is not an old white guy like me or some shrill, lefty do-gooder reflexively saying how awesomely beautiful all women are...

And when I decided to try a little outreach here by linking to Walrond's video in Campbell's comments, he responded:

Saying all women are beautiful is saying none are, and that is just not the case. The great thing about diversity is that attraction and beauty are subjective. Anyone attempting to homogenize beauty into generic 'we all are' psychobabble for the other side - and cynically marketing themselves in their video in the process - isn't really any better than Kanazawa.

This comment illustrated the enormous gap between the two communities. First, Campbell clearly doesn't know Walrond. She is adored in her community. She is a powerful and positive force. Those who know her best say she's essentially the opposite of cynical. And she very clearly has a much different view of "beauty." I asked Karen if she wanted to respond, and she was characteristically graceful in a series of tweets to me:

My response wasn't intended to be scientific - b/c (a) I'm not a scientist & (b) I don't think beauty is a science. I think beauty is an emotion. So arguing with a scientist about beauty at all is ridiculous. Besides, he's entitled to his own opinion on his own personal blog, I wager. ;) The underlying point of my response was to tell women not to buy into Kanazawa's crap. That's all.

So two very smart and accomplished people who essentially agree that Kanazawa's piece was lousy have profoundly different responses that reflect their respective communities and cultures. Campbell's post strikes me as aggressive, confrontational, data-driven, dismissive of emotional reactions and even willing to question the motives of people who have them. He views "beauty" as a term that can be measured empirically. He's standing up for what he sees as scientific integrity. Walrond's video is positive, supportive and above all emotional. To her, reducing "beauty" to scientific nomenclature is insulting. And she finds the idea of arguing this topic with a scientist to be "ridiculous."

There's nothing wrong with people who have different backgrounds having different takes on the same subject. Clearly both viewpoints have some merit. But for those of us who want science and scientists to have more influence and credibility with people in other communities, it shows we have more work to do.

Want to know what women want? Ask them.

2011-05-19T13:19:00.000-04:00

On Monday I'll be back in Lexington KY at the Alltech Game Changers Symposium, giving a presentation on "What Women Want." You may recall I did some "research" on this issue via Twitter and wound up getting a lot of feedback from some of the most influential women on the Internet.

More than one person has noted the irony of a man giving this presentation. But in candor it's very easy to tell you what women want - in the words of a brilliant advertising exec, author, entrepreneur and mom - "women want to be understood."

But here's the hard part - all women are different. And despite what some people in marketing may say, I'm convinced the moment you try to label a woman you've lost her. Sure, many women may share common interests, perspectives, ideas, and values. But that doesn't mean you can treat them the same way.

I'll be talking in greater detail about what this means for people in communications, but if you can't make it to Lexington I'd recommend you start actually paying attention to what women have to say. The good news is a lot of them don't hide their thoughts. Here's a partial list of the women whose blogs I try to read regularly. I think if you look at the blogs in this list you'll realize very quickly that they're all quite different people with different situations. No one message is likely to appeal to all of them, but they may all appreciate a sincere effort to understand each of them.

Liz Gumbinner, Mom 101
Kristen Chase, Motherhood Uncensored
Julie Marsh, JulieMarsh.net
Joanne Bamberger, PunditMom
Stefania Pomponi Butler, CityMama
Joanne Manaster, Joanne Loves Science
Catherine Connors, Her Bad Mother
Christina McMenemy, A Mommy Story
Kelly Wickham, Mocha Momma
Catherine Holecko, Mayberry Mom
Rachael Herrscher, Today's Mama
Heather Armstrong, Dooce
Susan Niebur, Toddler Planet
Tanis Miller, Attack of the Redneck Mommy
Veronica Arreola, Viva La Feminista
Sarah Braesch, Sarah and the Goon Squad
Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess
Mir Kamin, Woulda Coulda Shoulda
Christine Koh, Boston Mamas
Heather Barmore, No Pasa Nada
Thea Joselow, Nutgraf
Carin Bondar, CarinBondar.com
Carmen Staicer, Mom to the Screaming Masses
Heather Chapman, The Mother Tongue

Welcome, Convergence...

2011-05-18T09:59:00.001-04:00

Wired Science launched a new blog today called Convergence. It's written by Sheril Kirshenbaum, an accomplished author and researcher and someone whose career I've followed for some time now. Here's what we can expect:

Convergence is a forum to explore all sorts of topics, but the primary focus will be the interdisciplinary nature of understanding our world. For example, if we aspire to protect biodiversity, we must address social issues. Boosting fisheries requires economics. Tackling our tremendous energy problem involves a great deal of policy. That’s what this blog is all about: people, science, decision-making, and more. It’s where seemingly unrelated fields overlap, boundaries blur, and practical solutions are sought.

Sheril is perfectly positioned to provide this valuable perspective. She has a diverse background in policy, science, advocacy, and communications. She's one of those "bridge figures" I talk about - someone with the potential to engage people in different communities and bring people together. She's also committed to helping young women and girls pursue careers in science. I'm looking forward to reading her thoughts at Wired (and in her new column at Bloomberg View) and I hope you will too.

I strongly oppose my recent behavior: Facebook, Burson, and digital PR

2011-05-13T16:19:00.000-04:00

(Before I begin let me say this blog post reflects my own, personal opinions and no one else's. I'm by no means perfect, personally or professionally.)

The big story in the tech media this week (other than a blogger outage) is Facebook's botched clandestine PR efforts against Google. For those who don't follow all things Facebook so closely here's the skinny from The Daily Beast, which broke the story. Other people can talk about the business/legal/tech/whatever ramifications. I have two thoughts.

First, I find it interesting that Burson threw its (now former) client under the bus, never an easy decision. They acknowledged that they ignored their own "policies" on transparency, but this was the work that was presented to them and "the assignment under these terms should have been declined" - i.e., this was Facebook's idea and the only mistake we made was not realizing it sooner. Facebook sort of pushes back, suggesting "no 'smear' campaign was authorized or intended," but they go on to say they wanted third parties to speak publicly while sidestepping the assertion that they wanted to hide their own identity in recruiting those third parties. Burson is a legendary PR firm with a tradition of success - they wouldn't be where they are if they used these tactics all the time. Facebook's record also speaks for itself. Both companies are acknowledging what they did was wrong, yet both companies are hinting the other company is responsible. Awkward.

My second observation has to do with the exchange between PR guy and blogger. Looking at the emails it doesn't seem that the Burson exec has a relationship with the blogger he contacted. Set aside for the moment the enormous issue of transparency. Is there ever a situation when an out-of-the-blue request to by-line a ghostwritten op-ed in the Washington Post is an appropriate or effective way to introduce yourself?

Building relationships with bloggers BEFORE your clients need them is not an easy thing to do. It's time consuming. It's uncomfortable. It's hard to justify to clients sometimes. But if the people at either company had real, strong relationships with the bloggers they clearly needed to know ahead of time, they would have been able to deliver the message directly and transparently. That's why I'm constantly telling my colleagues to always reach out to bloggers, whether you have something to pitch or not. It's why I advocate for bloggers to the point of annoying colleagues. It's why I'm still talking about the 3 R's of "blogger relations."

speaking of #scimom...

2011-05-10T10:39:00.000-04:00

The Wandering Scientist reads my "reflections" post and says I left out #scimom's who don't work in academia. It's a valid point. And she's been paying attention to this a lot longer than I have - and not just because she's actually a #scimom. Back in 2009 she put together perhaps the first #scimom list.

She says academic #scimoms can be more visible in the blogosphere and are more able to write about their work. And she says being a mom prompts some to take you less seriously at work. I think perspectives vary a bit on this (the CEO of the company where I work is a proud mom and grandmother), though I understand her point.

I'm curious to know what #scimoms think. The impression I get is a lot of #scimoms write under a pseudonym whether they're academic or not. Again just my impression but I get the feeling that anonymity has declined in the mom-o-sphere generally as it's grown more commercialized, but #scimom's still see a significant downside to sharing their names.

I know this topic has been the subject of much discussion at ScienceOnline and elsewhere. I come from a different online community - public relations and issues management - where transparency is paramount and hiding your identity means hiding your true interests. So it's hard for me to accept. But that doesn't make this any less real. Again, curious to know more about what others think.

#scimom reflections

2011-05-09T15:20:00.002-04:00

The #scimom posts as a text cloud

When I introduced the #scimom meme I thought of it primarily as an outreach strategy.

I'm a firm believer in what Ethan Zuckerman has called "imaginary cosmopolitansim." People think the Internet exists as this profoundly diverse information exchange that breaks down countless cultural barriers - but in practice it serves as a force for homophily, strengthening bonds among people with similar interests while excluding people with other backgrounds or viewpoints. Members of specific communities feel increasingly close kinship to each other - but those communities also tend to grow isolated, and view those in other online communities as more "foreign."

While Zuckerman and his colleagues at Global Voices address cultural distinctions based geographic and political barriers, I thought #scimom might look at two communities that are isolated from one another for other reasons - mom bloggers and science bloggers. I've long held the view that moms are life's decision makers and scientists are the people who solve the world's most pressing problems, so mingling might be a good idea. I looked at the different rankings and listings of mom blogs and I didn't see a lot of scientists there. I looked at the large and growing lists of science blogs and science blogging networks and saw they very clearly skew male - and those written by women focus mainly on, not surprisingly, science. I also quickly realized that as a non-scientist and a non-mom, I wasn't going to start a dialogue on my own.

So I began to do what I think Zuckerman and the Global Voices folks would do - I searched for "bridge figures." Bridge figures are people whose experiences help them fit into more than one community and can help build lines of communication across cultures. I had already been to my share of mom blog conferences, and I signed up for Science Online in 2010. That's where I met Darlene Cavalier, the founder of Science for Citizens, an outstanding web portal that promotes and facilitates citizen science projects and collaborations between academics and non-academics. It looked like (and it is) a great resource for parents who want to make science a part of their family's everyday life, and a great home for #scimom. However, while Darlene is a great advocate, she isn't a scientist either.

I also gave an ignite-style talk at the conference where I tried to outline the need for these bridge figures - but it was clear I didn't connect with everyone, and for very good reason. I was essentially opining on the need for more mom-scientists to speak up in a room where dozens of mom-scientists were listening to me in disbelief, no doubt thinking, "then read my blog, you idiot." So I figured I'd just ask the science bloggers and mom bloggers I knew to write about, umm... you know, stuff. And then read each other's posts. And maybe that would start getting people in the different communities talking.

So #scimom started out as the pre-planned mingling of communities - a few non-scientist moms kicked in some posts, and a few non-mom scientists did so as well, and they were all amazing - but as it grew it evolved into this amazing virtual rock anthem for moms who work in academia. Janet Stemwedel on bass. Jeanne Garabino on drums. Gerty-Z on guitar. Joanne Manaster on keyboards. Emily Willingham and Carin Bondar blowing horns. And Kate Clancy on lead vocals:

I am going to tell you a secret. I do this job, I am this kind of person, because I want to be a role model for other young women, that they can have jobs and have kids and still have other things going on in their lives.
But really, most of all, I do this for my own daughter, far more than for any of you reading today.

So the #scimom bridge figures are here, they're proud, and they're great writers. I'm thrilled that this idea may have gotten them talking a bit more about the issues they face as professional women and as scientists. I'm touched at how they've incorporated their interest in science into their parenting. I'm gratified that maybe they've gotten a few more readers as a result of this meme. I'm tickled that #scimom got a plug in the Chronicle of Higher Education's website for Mother's Day. And I'm enormously thankful to all of the people who contributed posts, passed the word on Facebook and Twitter, and read or commented.

But I don't think #scimom has been an especially effective outreach tool, at least not yet. I look at the #scimom posts and I see similarities with the discussions led by people like Liz Gumbinner, Catherine Connors, Joanne Bamberger, Julie Marsh, Kristen Chase, Susan Niebur and so many other mom bloggers I read regularly. My gut tells me the scientist #scimoms identify more readily with science bloggers, not mom bloggers. Or maybe they're a community to their own. Still, I don't see the interaction in ways that I can readily quantify - public discussions and/or links between recognized leaders of the two communities.

Of course I didn't expect this idea to suddenly open floodgates of discussions between online communities. But I wonder how many people read the posts from bloggers in that "other" community and then poked around a bit. So I hope that #scimom will continue to grow and evolve and move in whatever direction the #scimom participants want it to go. But I also hope that people in both online communities will occasionally step out of their comfort zone and do a little exploring in an online community that feels foreign to them.

That's what I try to do every day, and I'd like to think I'm better for it. And I'll continue to dream up goofy ways to make it happen. Maybe someday it will work.

Bring Science Home by Scientific American

2011-05-06T09:58:00.000-04:00

I think this is great.

The #scimom cloud

2011-05-04T12:15:00.000-04:00

This is the text from all the #scimom posts represented as a Wordle text cloud. Thanks so much to everyone who participated. I'm going to offer some thoughts on this as soon as my workload relaxes a bit.

Today on WVLK: what women want

2011-05-03T09:10:00.002-04:00

Today I'm scheduled to appear on WVLK's Kruser and Krew show at 1pm ET to share the findings of my exhaustive research on what women want. You should be able to listen in by clicking this link.

I'm grateful to my client, Alltech, for asking me to conduct this "research" and to the women who answered my questions on this topic. If you're wondering, yes I do see the irony in a man explaining what women want.

I did most of the work for this on Twitter. And here's a sample of who responded to my inquiries - it's not everybody but it's a pretty impressive group. Most, though not all, are moms:

Liz Gumbinner, advertising exec, entrepreneur, and co-author of Booty Food
Sheril Kirshenbaum, researcher, columnist at Bloomberg View, and author of The Science of Kissing
Kristen Chase, entrepreneur, music therapist and author of The Mominatrix
Susan Getgood, VP of Sales & Marketing, BlogHer
Kelly Wickham, educator, writer
Heather Chapman, journalist
Susan Niebur, astrophysicist, writer, 4-time cancer survivor
Joanne Bamberger, attorney, entrepreneur, author of Mothers of Intention
Alma Klein, marketing executive
Cecily Kellogg, writer, SEO expert and social media strategist
Thea Joselow, copywriter, entrepreneur
Heather Barmore, education advocate, writer
Dawn Crawford, social media strategist
Carin Bondar, biologist, filmmaker
Stefania Pomponi Butler, entrepreneur
Andrea Kuszewski, researcher, therapist, writer
Sarah Braesch, entrepreneur, sports fan
Jenny Lawson, author, columnist for the Houston Chronicle
Julie Marsh, entrepreneur, former military officer, triathlete
Catherine Holecko, journalist
Pam Slim, entrepreneur, author and business coach
Catherine Connors, entrepreneur, writer, philanthropist
Tanis Miller, advocate for persons with disabilities, writer
Susan Davis, freelance writer
Amanda Eamich, online communications specialist for a government agency
Jaelithe Judy, writer, SEO consultant
Leigh Ann Simmons, researcher, entrepreneur, my wife

So tune in and offer a question or a thought or two. I'm @dwescott1 on Twitter.

(gulp.)

Justice

2011-05-02T08:59:00.000-04:00

Feelin' green today.

2011-04-29T10:15:00.001-04:00

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?

2011-04-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

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:

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),
Any blog reference whatsoever to the term "Social Security," and
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

2011-04-26T13:24:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-26T12:20:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-20T12:56:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-19T10:01:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-14T17:28:00.002-04:00

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

2011-04-08T11:48:00.034-04:00

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...

2011-04-07T09:10:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-04T12:23:00.003-04:00

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

2011-04-01T15:56:00.002-04:00

Project Gutenberg + Wordle = nerdy fun.

There are so many things wrong with this I barely know where to start

2011-03-29T17:45:00.001-04:00

OK, not a social media thing but I saw this in Tuesday's Washington Post and I'm flabbergasted:

When a drug to prevent babies from being born too early won federal approval in February, many doctors, pregnant women and others cheered the step as a major advance against a heartbreaking tragedy.

Then they saw the price tag.

The list price for the drug, Makena, turned out to be a stunning $1,500 per dose. That’s for a drug that must be injected every week for about 20 weeks, meaning it will cost about $30,000 per at-risk pregnancy. If every eligible American woman were to get Makena, the nation’s bloated annual health-care tab would swell by more than $4 billion.

What really infuriates patients and doctors is that the same compound has been available for years at a fraction of the cost — about $10 or $20 a shot.

Oh, it gets worse. I've probably pushed the bounds of fair use here so I'll just let you go to their website to read the whole thing. But please read it, because it's as profound an indictment of our system as anything I've ever seen. SO, let me see if I have all of the factoids from this story straight:

There's a drug that the FDA just "approved" to help prevent premature births. That's the good news.
A full course of the drug costs $30,000. And most moms in at-risk pregnancies don't have that.
A full course of "the compound" (i.e., the same drug) has been available for about $200 to $400.
Along with FDA approval, the company also got a patent and sole rights to manufacture "the compound."
Which means it's now no longer available for $200 to $400.
The company that now owns the patent says it's charging that amount to recoup the costs for FDA-mandated clinical trials.
The leading advocacy groups and medical specialists were apparently surprised by the new price. Seriously.
The "main study" to prove the drug's effectiveness was apparently an NIH (i.e. taxpayer) funded study, but the taxpayers receive no return on this investment.

Again, from the article (sorry):

A form of progesterone known as 17P was used for years to reduce the risk of preterm birth, but it fell out of favor after the manufacturing company stopped making it. In 2003, the NIH study showed that 17P could cut the risk of preterm delivery if given in the first 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. That led to a resurgence in the use of 17P. Because no companies marketed the drug, women obtained it cheaply from “compounding” pharmacies, which produced individual batches for them.

Doctors and regulators had long worried about the purity and consistency of the drug and were pleased when KV won FDA’s imprimatur for a well-studied version, which the company is selling as Makena.

So this company basically did some research to verify the safety and efficacy of a drug that people were already using but either did or didn't already have FDA approval. And here is where it REALLY gets weird:

In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, an FDA official said that, if requested, the agency could approve a lower-priced generic version of the drug for another use that doctors could prescribe “off label.”

In addition, the official said the agency would not prevent compounding pharmacies from continuing to provide 17P unless patient safety is thought to be at risk.

“We have our hands full pursuing our enforcement priorities,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. “And it’s not illegal for a physician to write a prescription for a compounded drug or for a patient to take a compounded drug. We certainly are concerned about access of patients to medication.”

So an unnamed FDA official is telling the Washington Post that they could approve a generic drug that would be prescribed off-label? And they won't enforce the company's right to market the drug as the sole provider - a right that FDA itself granted - because they're too busy?

If by the FDA's own admission it's ok to prescribe drugs off-label, then why do we have an FDA in the first place?

So, to sum up: our systems of drug approval, intellectual property and taxpayer-funded research have taken a relatively well-known and commonly-used drug that cost about $300 and made it $30,000 for the next 7 years. It costs that much because now we really know it's safe and effective - after all, this company and the taxpayers have invested millions to make sure.

Of course the company gets a financial return on its investment but the taxpayers don't. But then again, the company loses too - because the company that invested its own money and time in creating this drug will now have to compete with a gray market that the FDA tacitly condones. And that's because the FDA has anonymously suggested to the Washington Post that patients and providers ignore the very reason we created the FDA in the first place - making sure drugs aren't marketed or prescribed "off label."

SO....

Compounding pharmacies can look forward to lawsuits from the company that actually got FDA approval.
The company that got approval can look forward to ridiculously bad publicity - even though it played by the rules.
Moms with at-risk pregnancies now get to choose between: a) that worry in the back of their mind that the medicine they're getting isn't really FDA approved or b) a $30,000 price tag
Someone at the FDA gets to explain to his or her boss why they just undermined the mission of the FDA in the Washington Post.

But hey, lawyers and PR guys are probably gonna get paid, so it all works out.

Thanks Bora

2011-03-26T15:17:00.000-04:00

Bora Zivkovic was kind enough to post an email interview with me. Here and here.

What I'm Reading This Week

2011-03-23T10:06:00.000-04:00

Or more specifically, what I'm trying to read because work has gotten busy again. Hey, I haven't done a "link post" in a while so cut me some slack.

Where Do Bad Moods Come From? by Jonah Lehrer at Wired Science Blogs' The Frontal Cortex
In Defense of the Selfish Parent by Catherine Connors at Her Bad Mother
Grid-based Energy Storage: Widely Misunderstood Challenges and Opportunities by John Petersen at Alt Energy Stocks
Why the Quest for Social Media ROI Will Never Die! And Why It Shouldn't by Kami Huyse at Communication Overtones
Pre-Tax Purchase of OTC Drugs: A Prescription for Compromise by William Pewen at Health Affairs Blog
Where All That Wine Is Going by Alder Yarrow at Vinography

I hope to have the time very soon for more podcasts with smart people. Stay tuned.

Media Overhype and the Profound Wisdom of the Warlock Assassin

2011-03-18T10:44:00.001-04:00

Over the past week I've watched with everyone else the nightmare that's happening in Japan. I've seen the surreal videos, the ongoing drama of the situation at Fukushima, and the incessant commentary on it.

The team at Global Voices Online asked me to provide a summary of what science bloggers were saying about the whole mess, and I have two posts there now - one that provides explanations of earthquakes and tsunamis, and one that looks at what's being said about the partial nuclear meltdown.

I'm really struck by two things, however. First, the panic the US media has instilled in everyone through their horror-movie graphics and end-of-days tone. Earlier this week I heard Eliot Spitzer teasing upcoming segments on CNN by saying things like "is the situation as bad as the pictures tell us, or is it even worse?" and then peppering people on his show with questions like "so what is the worst-case scenario for us here." Never mind that the worst-case scenario isn't close to being the most likely scenario, but hey, if it bleeds it leads.

The next morning CNN reports that people in the United States are stocking up on iodine pills, despite the fact that they're not even remotely necessary here and these pills have some side effects. And I do note the irony that the media reports on the frenzy it helped create.

The second thing that strikes me is how amazingly polarized the discussion about energy is becoming, and how that is affecting our willingness and ability to plan. Rita King wrote a great piece at the Scientific American Guest Blog and summed it up thusly:

Opinions around nuclear energy tend to be binary, with industry proponents acting as if nothing could possibly go wrong while critics, terrified of nuclear apocalypse, remain convinced that old nuclear plants are time bombs.

She's right. A very significant portion (though not all) of the environmental movement is now NO NUKES- NO WAY. Make it 100 percent safe before you do it. But the truth is there's no such thing as a 100 percent safe anything - particularly when it comes to energy. Coal mines will cave in from time to time. Oil rigs will explode. Hurricanes will hit refineries. Even windmills have their issues (though not nearly on the same scope). And we sometimes forget that we have enormous energy needs and the only way we can meet those needs right now is through those high-yield, high-emission fossil fuels.

What's worse to me, though, is the PR position of the energy industry - perhaps in reaction to the environmentalists, but I think more likely in reaction to the regulatory environment - the idea that so many things that could go wrong are simply not possible. The messaging apparently became part of the culture at BP and other companies. It's why you submit a disaster response plan for the Gulf of Mexico that's simply cut and pasted from your disaster response plan for Alaska. It's not like anything's going to happen anyway, so who cares?

We have moved forward on energy siting and building decisions with an incomplete notion of contingencies. And of course, this isn't isolated only to the energy sector - essentially any company or government or NGO that has anything that serves as a potential risk is vulnerable.

Shockingly, so much of this can be resolved by following the advice of Charlie Sheen, the self-described warlock assassin with tiger blood coursing through his veins - PLAN BETTER. Seriously, suck it up and acknowledge that crazy stuff can and eventually will happen and you should be ready for it. Embracing this notion will make companies more, not less credible with their neighbors, customers and the media. The evidence that we don't do enough of this is staring us in the face in the Gulf of Mexico, in coal mines in West Virginia, and in Fukushima.

News on the iPad - Zite is the early winner

2011-03-14T09:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not much of a tech gadget guy, but as a self-confessed news junkie, Zite at first blush seems to be the iPad app I've been looking for. I've been trying to mold my iPad into a super-news device, and Zite is a big piece.

Basically it's a smart RSS reader that attempts to customize the news you receive based on your preferences and feedback. The format is crisp and easy on the eye, similar (though not identical) to Flipboard. I'm surprised at how good the news sources are and I'm stunned that they are offering the app for free. As they keep learning more about my "preferences" it will be interesting to see what kind of marketing profile I generate, and what they'll actually do with that information, but from a usability and performance standpoint I'm quite impressed.

I'm still looking for a top-notch "breaking news" tool. That's considerably harder to pull off, though I'm sure it will involve some combination of Global Voices Online people (like Amira Al Hussaini, who just got a great writeup in NYT from Jen Preston), the major journalism-industry sources of breaking news (i.e., the wires, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, etc.) and Twitter. The challenge comes in curating this tool - once news "breaks," you have to identify the most credible sources of information and ping them often for updates. You also have to be flexible enough to accommodate multiple stories and then manage multiple streams of content with an effective visual interface. I'm also looking for something that can add radio streams in the background.

By the way, I would pay for these apps and for subscriptions to content. So there's a business model to be won here.

Twitter Influence Update - U Can't Touch This

2011-03-10T17:45:00.003-05:00

Part of my ongoing series that examines the number of twitter followers as a gauge of "influence." As of today...

White House Official Twitter Account: 1,993,684 followers

MC Hammer Official Twitter Account: 2,052,022 followers

Curing "The Gay" - Now Available on iTunes

2011-03-09T10:30:00.001-05:00

Old pal John Aravosis reports that Exodus International now has its very own iPhone app - one that tells kids they can relieve their burdens of homosexuality through prayer:

Pardon my French, but WTF? Why does Apple require you to click some "yes I'm old enough" button when downloading gay apps on the iPhone, but when downloading "ex-gay" apps - i.e., apps built by hateful anti-gay bigots who falsely tell young impressionable children that they can pray away the gay - Apple has no restrictions at all on that app. In spite of the fact that federal statistics show 1 in 3 gay kids tries to commit suicide. In spite of the fact that the very first thing in the FAQ of the app is focused at kids.

Apple would be wise to be very, very cautious here. I'm sure the argument they'll make is on first amendment and restraint of trade grounds - people of faith have as much right to their marketplace as anyone else, and they can't be denying apps simply because their content is controversial. But they clearly are, and want to be, the dominant (if not the only) online marketplace for mobile applications. They undeniably exercise their market power to influence other market forces to their advantage - look at the fight over flash versus HTML5. And they review and approve any application that will be available for download - and quite often deny or restrict apps based on their content. This makes them first amendment traffic cops by default.

So they're in a similar situation to what Facebook was in back in 2007 - banning pictures of breastfeeding while allowing pro-anorexia groups to grow and thrive on their massive-but-closed network.

And let's be clear about one thing - there is absolutely no valid scientific evidence whatsoever that so-called "reparative therapy" or "conversion therapy" or whatever Exodus International wants to call it will turn people from gay to straight. None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero. There is evidence, however, that this kind of "therapy" is harmful.

From a PR perspective, I think Apple just dropped a turd in the collective lap of its gay and lesbian employees, not to mention loyal customers like John. I understand the free-speech argument, but I don't envy Apple's position now as the arbiter of what's appropriate and what's not. Because as John points out, their position is already precarious.

Of course, they could open up the iTunes store, creating even more choice for consumers, allowing for more innovation and creativity... oh, right.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's mortal sin in online PR

2011-03-08T10:55:00.001-05:00

Dr. Tyson (h/t: Wikipedia)

I recently listened to a Point of Inquiry Podcast - Chris Mooney interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson. Dr. Tyson is an astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of the NOVA ScienceNOW tv show, and probably the best science communicator in the United States right now.

He's also an agnostic - not an atheist. And while he says the public "God debate" is really not something he chooses to engage in much, he seems willing to disobey a rule so well-established in social media PR these days you might even call it one of PR's Ten Commandments - "thou shalt not edit thine own Wikipedia page."

About 36 minutes or so into the podcast, Dr. Tyson talks with Mooney about how he feels mislabeled as an atheist, and then makes an admission that makes an online PR flack like me raise an eyebrow:

It was funny – I don’t know who created my wiki page – but in there, a few years ago it said “Neil deGrasse Tyson is an atheist who is an astrophysicist” and I said “what… that’s not really..” so I said, so I put in there, “Neil deGrasse Tyson is agnostic” and then three days later or so it was back to “atheist.” So there’s an urge to claim me in that community. So then I had to – So I had to put it - word it in a way that would survive an edit so I said, “widely claimed by atheists, Tyson is actually an agnostic” so that managed to stick. I haven’t checked it lately but that’s how I left it off.

(Note: the edits to which Dr. Tyson refers don't appear on his Wikipedia page today.) Let me be clear about something: I don't think what Dr. Tyson did is "wrong" - he took steps to correct the record as he sees it, and protect his own reputation. After all, this is essentially what I do for clients. When people write things about you, you have a right and an obligation to ask that those people get the "facts" right. And in a forum as public and influential as Wikipedia, Dr. Tyson is quite right to be paying attention.

But let's be clear about something else - this sort of edit runs counter to Wikipedia's guidelines about conflict of interest and "neutral point of view"edits. Dr. Tyson may view his action as simply correcting a minor point, but there is a clear public relations interest in a popular science communicator avoiding the unpopular, often misunderstood label of "atheist." It has been argued that Dr. Tyson's use of the word "agnostic" rather than "atheist" represents a distinction without a difference. And there's also a public relations interest in avoiding getting sucked into a debate over religious nomenclature.

Put it this way - If I, a public relations professional, were working for Dr. Tyson or the Hayden Planetarium or NOVA, and made exactly the same edits at exactly the same time, I'd be absolutely slaughtered for it. Companies and PR firms have been called out publicly for making far less substantive edits to their own or their client's Wikipedia pages.

The problem here isn't with anything Dr. Tyson did - the problem is with Wikipedia's guidelines. Wikipedia's relatively inflexible guidelines have created a situation where "neutral" third parties can purposely or inadvertently post inaccurate or misleading information about a person or company - and that person or company is essentially "forbidden" (or at the least strongly discouraged) from responding quickly on the same forum. No, Wikipedia should not be a place for people to post their CV's or companies to plant marketing materials and press releases. However, just as Dr. Tyson has a right to weigh in on what's being said about him without fear of being labeled as a whitewasher, companies and PR flacks have a right to do so as well.

I do think we should disclose when we're making edits or additions. Frankly, I have no problem with some special kind of citation that an edit to a page was made by the subject of that page or one of its agents. We should be using legitimate sources and follow the same rules as everyone else on this platform.

Wikipedia's popularity (and search engine optimization) has unquestionably positioned it as an unbiased and authoritative resource. It's increasingly cited in other publications. But even the "outs" you can find in Wikipedia's guidelines - things like "if a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, then break the rule" or "use common sense" - haven't made it acceptable for the subjects of pages to correct the record. We're left with contacting the Wikipedians and hoping that they'll get back to us before they deal with any of the 738 gazillion other pages on the site, and even then there's no guarantee that the matter will be dealt with appropriately.

This is crap. And it should change.

The Science-to-English Dictionary Doesn't Include the Words "Fuck Off"

2011-03-07T06:58:00.007-05:00

Some interesting discussions in the field of science communications in the past few weeks. First, Chris Mooney interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson and writes about it at the Intersection. He also included this somewhat noteworthy exchange between Tyson and Richard Dawkins:

While quite funny (and a bit salty at the end there), it illustrates a growing tension among scientists - whether they should take the time and effort to persuade those less science literate than themselves, or whether they should essentially "speak truth to power" in debates where sides are growingly intractable - climate change, evolution, vaccines, and so on.

I realize it doesn't have to be an either-or thing, and there may be a time and place for each approach, but in general I count myself squarely in Tyson's camp on this. On the very important debates where the goal is to encourage or change behavior, I've never found the words "fuck off" to be especially effective. There really is a better way.

To me the answer lies in creating a groundswell of support on the pro-science side of these arguments, and that means establishing a large, deep reservoir of goodwill between scientists and the general public. Doing so aligns the incentives of policymakers (who respond to the public) and scientists more directly.

That's why I was so impressed with Maggie Koerth-Baker's presentation at the SAGE Weston Lecture Series at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Koerth-Baker is the science editor at Boing Boing, and I thought her advice to scientists about being more persuasive with the general public was outstanding:

I think the best recommendation that I have is to go to presentations and go to public lectures on subjects that you know absolutely nothing about. Step outside your expertise and start thinking like somebody who doesn’t know about this. And when you do you are going to find questions that you’re not asking about your own work. And you are going to find sources of skepticism that you aren’t applying to your own work. And you can kind of turn around and start doing that. One of the things I think you are going to run into if you do this is the issue of how long it takes for basic science to find its way to the commercial sector. This is really, really, really poorly understood. And neither journalists nor scientists do a very good job of giving the public what it needs to understand.

Of course, understanding others by listening to what they have to say is only part of the task. When you're speaking, Koerth-Baker says you have to do so on the most basic of terms:

Sacrificing storytelling and understandability for extreme accuracy is often just as bad as sacrificing accuracy for the sake of storytelling. To start off with that what I mean is dumbing down is OK. I hear lots and lots of people, even journalists, making fun of USA Today because it is written at a 6th-grade reading level. It should be. We should write more at a 6th-grade reading level. If you are not writing about your science at a 6th-grade reading level you are probably doing something wrong. And not enough people are understanding what you’re talking about.

And finally, her advice to science communicators sounds quite a bit like PR or marketing counsel to me:

Basically everything that I have told you here boils down to two basic lessons. First: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. And Second: KNOW YOUR MESSAGE. And finally, be able to match the correct audience and the correct message so that people really understand what you’re saying.

It goes back to what I was saying about climate change and strategic communications a while back. Scientists really have a choice: lift people up or put people down. One approach will bring people closer to your understanding of the nature of the world around us, while the other will push people away. With the issues we face, the stakes are far too high to settle for the smug satisfaction of knowing you're right.