Just another issue for women in politics

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.

Buy PunditMom's book or I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN

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.

What Women Want: The Interview

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:

Want to know what women want? Ask them.

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

Great, no pressure

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

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

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

Members of Congress: Give Up YOUR Act

A number of Members of Congress (and some of the oh-so-serious DC punditry) are aghast at the notion that a comic actor named Stephen Colbert would arrive to testify before a Congressional subcommittee "in character."   As if this somehow diminishes the legislative process or mocks the seriousness of the issues Congress debates.  At the hearing a very senior member of Congress suggested Colbert was wasting everyone's time and said he should leave.  (Obviously he didn't.)

And I will say Colbert's appearance in DC crossed a line today - but it was a line that desperately needed to be crossed years ago.  Any Member of Congress who criticizes Colbert (or Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, who invited him to testify) better realize right quick that they do EXACTLY what Colbert does - only Colbert does it better than they do.

I was a Congressional staffer long enough to know that what politicians say while the cameras are rolling is profoundly different than what they say in private meetings.  Politicians have perfected the art of evading difficult questions and opining on fake issues.   You know, like holding up a defense authorization bill while we're fighting two wars  - not really because it repeals an unconstitutional law discriminating against gay people, but because you're suddenly concerned about the number of amendments you can offer. Or something.

I was a committee staffer long enough to know that hearings are more stagecraft than anything else - the Chairman wants to tell a story, invites witnesses who will tell that story, and works out questions and answers ahead of time. That's standard operating procedure, and it's been the case for Republicans and Democrats alike.

I've sat in on countless focus groups, run by Republican and Democratic pollsters, trying to figure out which words to use - you know, when people don't like what you're doing, just call it something else.  And I've seen Members of Congress go to the floors of the House and Senate and recite those focus-group-approved scripts, complete with spots in the remarks telling the reader when to pause and when to add emphasis, trying to look as if they care and knowing that they don't.

Here's something to keep in mind - if Colbert's presence somehow diminished the issue of immigration, then why did this subcommittee hearing get more attendance from Members of Congress than any other subcommittee hearing this year?  Typically a House Subcommittee hearing is attended by the Chair, the ranking member, and perhaps 2 or three other members.  Look at the video above and check out how many Members and staff were there.  I'm quite certain it wasn't because they were really interested in what the head of an organized group of migrant farm workers had to say.  This "fraud" Colbert did more to get people talking about immigration in five minutes than any ten of his critics did all year.

But here's the most important point - and it's what I have to say to all those Members, staff and pundits who got upset by Colbert's appearance.  You know how upset you feel right now at Colbert?  That's how the American public feels about YOU.  They think you're a fraud.  They think you're a bad joke. They know you're oblivious to real concerns of real people. At least with Colbert, the public is in on the joke.   Most members of Congress don't even know how to be sincere anymore - they only know how to appear sincere.

Stephen Colbert just showed members of Congress how the American public views THEM. And a lot of them didn't like it.

Good.

Outsourcing Disrespect

Every now and then I get an email from a pal in the mom-o-sphere that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.  Today was one such occasion.

A friend passed along a solicitation from a new-sounding company called Tomoson (not interested in linking) asking her to sign up at their website so she could receive free stuff to review on her blog.  To get the free swag -things like wigs, keychains and novelty sauce - she apparently would have to embed some html code in her blog so the company could monitor posts and let the client who makes the tchotchkes high-quality merchandise know what an awesome job they're doing, getting bloggers to write about them essentially for free.

I checked out their website and they had a section for "promoters" with a video that claimed they had "thousands of bloggers" (yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that) ready to opine on the awesomeness of keychains, and that these blog posts would create some kind of SEO juggernaut that would launch your hotsauce or branded nail file or whatever to the upper echelons of the google machine.    They've just created this automated system designed to capitalize on the credibility of human interaction that is peer review - and they've "streamlined" it by taking all the human interaction out of it.

I don't do a ton of consumer marketing, so I don't claim to be the nation's foremost expert, but I'll definitely put my professional reputation and my relationships in the mom-o-sphere against this company any day. (I noticed that the business owners don't put their names on the site.)   And I'm going to be straight - not only do I think this approach runs counter to everything I believe in professionally, I think doing what this company proposes actually does much more harm than good for clients.  I think the brands that use a service like this are being dismissive and disrespectful to bloggers, and will be getting absolutely useless metrics.

Here's the message a company is sending to bloggers by using this service.  Not only are they declining to engage directly with bloggers on a substantive level, not only are they fishing for free advertising, not only are they pawning off cheap crap, not only are they requiring people to “apply” for this cheap crap – they can’t even be bothered to do it themselves and instead outsource it on the cheap.

And before anyone says "well of course he's trashing them, he's a competitor" - not so.  In my business I sometimes hire a subcontractor to help with outreach.  But if I'm reaching out to moms, I tend to hire a mom.  If I'm reaching out to medical professionals, I hire a medical professional.  I work with people who have credibility in their own communities and I build non-transactional relationships.  This automated system is transactional by definition.  It's not even a full step removed from buying followers on Twitter.

And as I said, I don't do a lot of consumer marketing anyway.  I don't foresee developing a strategic communications campaign that asks bloggers to review the comfort of clear bra straps.

The post in which I lose friends

I realize this is slightly off-topic, but a few people have asked my opinion on the "mosque at ground zero" debate, and since I have some experience in "crisis" communications and some in politics, I can sum up my opinion on the issue thusly:

You either support the first amendment or you don't.

So what do you do about it?

My previous post elicited a rather thoughtful response from Wandering Willa:

Given your PR background is it possible that your natural inclination and goals are not necessarily the same as the bloggers in question. If these were your clients, how would you explain what you perceive their goals are and should be? How would you take their concerns for the integrity of their connections in designing a strategy to represent them? Do you offer a valuable service to them considering you expect them to approach someone who can't even do her job? What is accomplished by doing so?

 Why Willa, I'm so glad you asked. 

Of course it's quite likely that my natural inclination and goals are not necessarily the same as members of the science blogging community.  But since my job is part of the discussion now, I should stress my comments on the issue are not related to any client.  I have no material relationships to disclose in any of this nonsense, and I'm not using this as some sort of business development opportunity - though I do think there is professional value in being "the PR guy that science bloggers read."  Science writing has been an interest of mine from some time - you can see the communities I read on my communities and links page. (since the SB exodus I have to update some links, I know.)

Given the current environment I'm a bit hesitant to make generalizations about science bloggers. (Though I admit I've done so before, but hopefully not in a mean way.) I don't think the science blogging community has "goals" in the sense that a company has a PR goal.   The consensus I see among many scientists and science writers is the desire to "win" in policy debates and culture wars on some very basic issues where the science is not in serious doubt, and more generally, to have more respect both individually and as a group. 

The challenge with asserting a community-wide goal is two-fold - first you have to define the community and second you must have a way to measure it.  (I'll let members of this community define it, it's not my place to do so.)  It's easy to say you want to increase public sentiment toward scientists and science bloggers.  The ways you'd measure that may sound surprisingly scientific coming from a PR flack like me - establish a baseline, develop an intervention, and then re-test.  In my line of work you can conduct opinion polls that measure favorable vs. unfavorable attitudes toward certain people or groups.   But any big PR firm in the world can get the percentage of people who agree with the sentence "scientists are nice" to bump up a few points after an ad campaign or something.   Typically the only thing that accomplishes is give some folks at an ad agency a few bucks.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) 

To me the goal should be two-fold - increase the ability of scientists (and science writers) to be influential in a variety of public forums and civic structures, and forge enough meaningful relationships between the community and other elite civic leaders to have a substantive impact on policy in real time.  These goals take quite a long time to accomplish.  I'm putting together some ideas and will have more on that soon.

As for "integrity of connections," it's obviously quite important. One must have standing within one's own community if one claims to speak for it.  I think scientists know this better than most.  But I also think most science bloggers will say there's still a role for industry and commerce here.  Transparency has always been non-negotiable, especially in this community - I'm reasonably certain as long as all relevant material relationships are disclosed this sort of thing is handled rather well among scientists.

Do I offer a valuable service?  All I can say is the "advice" I dole out on this blog is free and you get every penny's worth.  But I am personally committed to the community and want to see it thrive. I also see professional advantage in forging strong relationships in this community.  It's called "social networking." It works.

But as for Ms. Heffernan "not doing her job," I'll simply say this isn't the first time someone who worked for a newspaper got something wrong or said something unfair.  I've seen far worse screw-ups from world-renowned journalists.  And what can be accomplished by converting her into an ally, or at least into someone who understands and respects the community? She works for the New York Times Magazine.  Yes, THAT New York Times.  With all those readers.  With all that influence.  Write her off and call her stupid, and she has an excuse to do it again.

Put together a day for her.  Introduce her to some folks.  Have a drink or two.  Let her discover what she has in common with the people she's covering.    Now do that for a dozen big-league journalists.  Then a couple of mayors. Maybe a member of Congress.  A whole truckload of PTA members.  some local businesses. 

Next thing you know you have a good reputation and good things start happening.

Stupid PR Flack Tricks

Liz Gumbinner wrote again about the morons in my business.  Seems the Cool Mom Picks team put together a comprehensive, four-month advertising proposal for a company, and the company rejected it because, you know, they'd have to pay for the ads.

I'll try to make this simple.  If they're important enough for your brand to be there, buy the damn ad.

If you think you're gonna get a halfway-decent blogger to promote your stuff for nothing more than a link or some free yogurt or something, you sound more stupid and disrespectful than the "chickens for health care" candidate.

One of these days a blogger is going to call you by name.  And once that happens, you're toast.

UPDATE:  Less than 5 minutes after this posted, I got an email from a political blogger pal of mine.  He got an email from a PR flack asking him to write about an online advertising company's new online advertising product.  For free.  And then he got a follow up "reminder" email from them.    That's right - an advertising company with such faith in its ads that it tries to avoid paying for ads.

Seriously, I can't make this stuff up.

Making Science Relevant

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post called Science Has a Serious PR Problem and it got some notice on twitter, mainly thanks to Bora Zivkovic.  I'm very grateful for the feedback I got from science bloggers about it.   While it will no doubt take some time, I'm committed to doing something about it.  In the blog post I tried to convey two major points. First, the nature of the problem:

Science has a serious PR problem, and it's this: Critics of science are searching people out and talking with them in the simplest terms possible. Scientists and "science writers," if they talk at all, are basically talking with each other.

 Second, the beginnings of a solution:

I've heard people say "we need to make science cool" - a lot of that talk was at ScienceOnline 2010 - and that would be nice, but I don't think that's really the answer. "Science" isn't really going to beat out American Idol or the NFL or whatever.

Cool is important, but I think we need to make science relevant. There's a difference.

Since then I've been having some conversations with some science bloggers, some mom bloggers, some people who fit squarely in both camps, and some people who fit in neither camp on a project we could do to help address this.  (More on that later.) But earlier this week I saw an example of what "making science relevant" looks like:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 Yes, that's Rachel Maddow talking with an actual scientist - Dr. Edward Overton at LSU's School of the Coast and Environment - about the goop that's floating around in the Gulf of Mexico right now, what can be done about it, and why that's important.

Without a doubt, Dr. Overton did a tremendous job.   First, he knew his audience and avoided technical jargon, opting for terms like "the consistency of roof tar" and "chocolate mousse."  Second, he did a great job keeping his language moderate and his tone calm when prompted to expound on doomsday scenarios. This is critical. Media types are trained to focus on the controversy and the crisis - "if it bleeds, it leads" is a common mantra in the journalism industry, and cable news takes it to the next level - but Overton stuck to his guns, explaining what was cataclysmic versus what was simply bad and reminding us all to think about both the "possible and the probable."

Most importantly, by doing a good job in the interview he put the role of science in its proper context for an important current event.  You just can't overstate this.  Maddow and Overton flipped the current thinking of science in the media on its head.  Instead of trying to shoehorn a "science story" into the current news stream without context, they took a relevant, salient issue and explained the role scientists play in addressing it.

Think about how it works right now.  On television, sometime after the story about what the President said today and what the stock market did, but before the story about a panda coming to the zoo, you'll sometimes see a story that starts with "A new study was released today by a medical journal that says coleslaw causes cancer in ferrets" or something.  So on top of all the other things you're thinking about you have to remind yourself to not eat coleslaw, you know, because of the ferrets.  (The next day science bloggers will say the  article wasn't the definitive word on the slaw-ferret cancer connection, the methodology was flawed, correlation doesn't mean causation, and the media got it all wrong, and so on.) 

In newspapers, or at least in big newspapers, there's a science-technology section that comes out once a week - all neatly packaged and self-contained, chock full of cool stories about a solar eclipse in Bhutan or the DNA of fruit bats or maybe the dinosaur bone exhibit.

But it's all segregated from the rest of the news, even when there's arguably a strong role for science to play in a major story.  Think fast - what's the first thing you remember in the news reporting about the volcano erupting in Iceland?  Admit it - you remember all the flights in Europe being canceled.  BREAKING NEWS:  ABC News reports Whitney Houston has to take a boat.   Seriously.

I'm not suggesting we should stop publishing science sections in newspapers or talking about new health studies on TV - while the reporting is occasionally flawed, you can still find boatloads of great stories that educate, entertain, provoke, and even inspire you.   I'm suggesting science isn't an "angle" to be exploited in a story.  It's a big part of every day life.  Scientists and those who want science to be a more meaningful part of large discussions have to make the case for relevance and enter those discussions in a non-intimidating way.

The first step in this, I think, falls on scientists and science communicators.  The good news is they have to do something I know they already do well - listen and pay attention, and search for common ground with others.

More soon.

Never Write Off Mom Bloggers, Part 2,953

I first learned about Leah Peterson doing research for a social media client a few years ago. I was trying to find women bloggers who would be interested in participating in a conference call with Gloria Steinem. (Yes, THAT Gloria Steinem. It really wasn't that hard.)

If you read Leah's blog you learn very quickly that she's really up front about her mental illness. She shares a lot of details. And I have to admit I was a little nervous about inviting her to the call. We were putting a high-profile client in a public setting, and we would be giving access to someone who wrote frequently about multiple personalities, drug addiction, and worse.

But here's the thing: it was quite clear the other moms knew her well. They all linked to her blog and said very nice things about her. I remember she featured interviews of other bloggers - and that's where I got the idea for the sidebar on the right. She was a full-fledged, credible member of an online community. She wrote a reasonably prominent blog. The only reason we'd be excluding her was her health status, and that's just wrong. So we invited her.

The conference call went well - the women asked great questions, and Gloria Steinem gave great answers. So, happy little PR flack that I am, I went to the blogs to see if the women would write about it. And I saw a post on every woman's personal blog except one - Leah's.

Turns out Leah published her piece on The Huffington Post. You know, that blog with the millions of visitors. So from a PR perspective, she went from being a "risky" choice to being an absolute no-brainer.

I kept in touch with Leah over the years, as any halfway-decent social media flack would - not as much as I keep in touch with some bloggers, but every now and then. I saw her at BlogHer '07 in Chicago and thanked her for the post she wrote. I wrote about a project she was working on called Real Mental. A couple of months ago she sent me a note out of the blue, asking me to contribute some stuff to her new magazine, LP Creative Humans, so I did.

And now I learn she's a consultant for Showtime's Emmy-winning series, The United States of Tara. She's doing it to help educate people about mental illness, get people talking about it, and reduce stigma. Not too shabby, huh?

Frankly, I Think Sarah Palin Could Take You.

My recent post about the inconsistently applied policies at Facebook prompted an interesting discovery - there's a group called "I Want to Punch Sarah Palin In the Face."

And it has over 1,000 members. Seriously. I did notice this, ahem, disclaimer:

This is in no way a group promoting or condoning violence toward women or anyone, it is simply a repository for unremitting anger and frustration.

Here's a tip - if your group doesn't want to promote or condone violence toward women, you might not want to name the group "I Want to Punch Sarah Palin In the Face." I don't agree with her on much, but she's done nothing - NOTHING - to deserve this.

I don't hide my politics but I'm disgusted when people who may (or may not) share my politics express themselves like this. Recently I've seen people openly ask why no one has dropped a plane on a certain political activist's building.

And I'm not interested in "the other side does it too" garbage. That doesn't matter. You're either against violence or you're not.

And we wonder why our political leaders can't accomplish anything.

We call this "mainstream crossover"

My last post talked about how bloggers are really influential - notice blogger John Aravosis in the video below. Yes, that's CNN. Yes, he's wearing a suit and tie and not pajamas with cheetoh crumbs stuck in them. Note the little back and forth between Howie Kurtz and John Aravosis at the end.



Just a reminder to all of you - a conversation with a group of bloggers is ON THE RECORD. Yes, the White House laid the ground rules for the meeting and said it was on the record, but just sayin' is all.

Bloggers to WH: We're Not Gunga Din

OK, so kudos to the White House for inviting a small handful of progressive political bloggers to meet with Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Vice President Biden. It's not every day that bloggers get to do that - actually, it's not everyday that ANYONE gets to do that - so it's good to see that the Administration has a basic understanding of the important role bloggers play in politics.

But I was more than a bit surprised at the message some of the bloggers came away with from Bernstein - apparently liberal bloggers aren't carrying the Administration's water enough when it comes to talking about the stimulus package they signed into law last year.

I wasn't there - but here's what Erin Kotecki Vest at BlogHer had to say about it:

...I also walked away feeling the message we were supposed to leave with was this: It's our duty as bloggers to help sell YOU on the stimulus. Bernstein wanted to know where the positive blog posts were on the great things the Recovery Act was doing.

This is where I let out a heavy sigh and curse the DC machine that seems to have sucked the souls of many.

How am I supposed to blog these awesome stats (and there really are some good ones) on how we're on the road to recovery when all I have are "seed" projects that don't kick in for years and years and things that haven't, necessarily, trickled down to my family, your family, our lives?

And Americablog's John Aravosis, a longtime friend who supported candidate Obama fairly early in the primaries, had this to say:

...The only reason we're facing a budget constraint is because we gave in on the political constraint. We permitted Republicans to spin the first stimulus as an abysmal failure, when in fact it created or saved up to 2m jobs. Since Democrats didn't adequately defend the stimulus, and didn't sufficiently paint the deficit as the Republicans' doing, we now are not "politically" permitted to have a larger stimulus because the fiscal constraint has become more important than economic recovery.

And whose fault is that?

Apparently ours.

Bernstein said that the progressive blogs (perhaps he said progressive media in general) haven't done enough over the past year to tell the positive side of the stimulus.

Well. Where to start.

First of all, if the Administration isn't happy with the way the stimulus bill has been "sold" to the public, they should probably look in the mirror. But let's just say dressing down a blogger for not cheering hard enough isn't my idea of an effective outreach strategy.

See, John Aravosis isn't just an influential and passionate blogger. John gets invited to appear on television a lot, because he's smart and pithy and aggressive. John has dozens of contacts on Capitol Hill. And John has raised more than $40,000 for the Obama campaign, and thousands upon thousands more for Congressional candidates nationwide. There's simply no way Jared Bernstein would walk up to someone who ISN'T a blogger but has raised tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats and scold him for not being a big enough cheerleader. Bernstein would instead thank the fundraiser for the support and explain, in specific terms, how his boss was going to follow up on the promises he made.

This is the difference people miss about social media, particularly in Democratic politics. Bloggers aren't simply "media," unbiased or otherwise. They're activists. They're fundraisers. They're the base. Remember the "contributions cloud" I put together for Senator Hagan last week?

See that ridiculously big "ActBlue" right there? That's how Democrats finance campaigns today. Through the Internet. It's bloggers like John who direct readers to send big gobs of money to candidates, through ActBlue. All those little dots represent the small amounts of money raised from more "traditional" sources when compared to ActBlue.

I don't know how (or if) Erin Kotecki Vest raised money for candidates, but I know dozens if not hundreds of top-tier commercial brands are constantly knocking on her virtual door, asking her to review products, mention particular names, and so on. She's enormously influential among online moms. She's also part of the Democratic base. And let's be clear: a big chunk of the Democratic base is very disappointed in the Obama Administration right now.

Jared Bernstein needs to understand something. Meetings at the White House are nice, and it's good that he's doing them. But as politics is practiced these days, bloggers don't work for him.

He works for them.

What's Really Important?

I do a lot of work with bloggers, and it's safe to say the majority of bloggers I work with are moms. The bloggers I like working with most are relentlessly entrepreneurial, and exceptionally creative. They bring a passionate positivity to their work. Many of them are fearless - they share an enormous amount of their personal lives online. I think it's almost therapeutic for them.

I've been going through a fairly tumultuous time - selling a house, living in someone else's house for a few weeks, moving a few hundred miles into a new house, and trying to hold down a demanding full-time job. It's been hard watching my wife do the lion's share of the work associated with the move (not to mention the family) while I'm traveling or sitting on a conference call. There hasn't been much sleep.

But then I saw this and it put things in perspective.

Daddy's Tour of Duty Slideshow by Cool Mom Picks

View more presentations from Kristen Chase.

I work a lot with Kristen Chase, mostly for the reasons I listed above, but also because when I work with her and with Julie Marsh (who served in the Air Force as well) I look good to my bosses. She's juggling her job, her other job, her other other job, promoting her sassy new book (which you should definitely buy), traveling all over the place, taking care of three young kids, essentially by herself. And she's trying to explain to her kids that Daddy is on the other side of the world, and he's going to be there for a while, but he's very brave and he misses you very much.

The simple fact is there are moms (and dads) all across America telling similar stories to their own kids. And I can't begin to imagine what they feel when they hear the ridiculous discussions on TV or the radio or the blogosphere about what's happening over there. I can't imagine how resentful they must feel when politicians and radio and cable talk show hosts on either side of the ideological spectrum use what's happening over there as a gimmick to get attention or further a personal agenda.

But I'm guessing they're shouldering the burden much in the same way Kristen is.

Our troops deserve our unyielding and long-lasting thanks for the sacrifices they endure. So do their families.

Yes, Daddy IS very brave. And we're all hoping he comes home soon, and comes home safe.

Sadly, I still get emails like this.

I'm not too keen on writing about blogger relations anymore - I've written about it a lot, as have people I respect like Susan Getgood and Kami Watson Huyse. But I got an email yesterday that was simply a press release. Apparently some band I never heard of is doing something with a charity I never heard of, and you can listen to their music online. Or something. I'm sure it's all very nice and the band is nice and the charity is nice and even the PR person is nice.

But there was no salutation in the email, nothing to indicate why this release was being sent to me. So I wrote back to the PR person - I'm going to leave names of people and companies out of this (even my own) because I'm writing for educational purposes and not to embarrass anyone - plus I don't want to be the cause of a bunch of Google Alerts.

Here's what I wrote back:

Hi [name] - I'm sure this is nice and I'm sure you're a great person but I kinda think you're doing this wrong. Bloggers aren't really journalists who get press releases. But good luck anyway...

And then I got this reply back fairly quickly:

That's crazy- I work with bloggers everyday.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I saw that as an opportunity to shoot back :

With all due respect [name] - and I know you deserve a lot of respect because you're entrepreneurial enough to start your own firm - I know a thing or two about working with bloggers as well. I direct the social media team for [my company], a global public affairs firm based in DC. My clients include Fortune 500 companies and major trade associations. My close pals in the blogosphere are the leaders of sites like Blog With Integrity, Parent Bloggers Network, Global Voices Online, and so on.

And my opinion is not crazy, not in the least.

I get emails from boutique NYC-based PR firms every now and then. Typically they come from entertainment, fashion, or beauty-based clients. I don't write about entertainment, fashion or beauty. The bloggers I work with get a lot more of these emails than I do and they all say the same thing - "this is proof they don't read my blog." Those emails get sent to the spam filter. Sometimes the domain of the sender gets screened. Sometimes they're the victim of a screed on that blog the next day.

There's a difference between blast-emailing press releases to a list based on keywords and seriously targeting and building relationships with online opinion leaders with relevant contributions. Sometimes you have the time and budget to do one, sometimes you have the time and budget to do the other.

I'm more than willing to accept that you may work with entertainment journalist bloggers or people who will reprint a press release that was sent to them cold. In my world, with the opinion leaders on policy issues and business I deal with, what you did was demonstrate that you don't know a thing about me or what I do.

That said, you have the guts to strike out and start your own company, and you don't hesitate to share your opinion. Entrepreneurs - especially outspoken ones - deserve respect, and you have mine.

And then I received:

You should discuss with [PR list software company] then because they have you listed as a blogger who covers music, non-profit and fashion...

At which point I decided to stop bothering with this one. This is a textbook example of how a PR pro tries to replace real intelligence gathering with automated tools and gets burned. But what struck me was the last statement - I don't have to discuss anything with any software company. I didn't ask to be listed and I didn't ask to be put in categories that anyone who reads this blog would see is absurd. (Fashion? I know something about fashion? Seriously?) This person either got a list for free and got what she paid for, or she wasted her money on a list that wasn't accurate. But more importantly, she goofed up and kept shifting the fault somewhere else.

It's the PR pro's responsibility to target the right people and make sure the pitch is well crafted and relevant to the target. Slapping a press release into the body of an email and spamming who knows how many people? Not so much.

Who doesn't like movies?

I have a piece in Business Lexington today that focuses on a new film festival sponsored by the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and Search for Common Ground. I think it's a great partnership and will provide some valuable perspectives on resolving conflict. It's also nice to see the Patterson School doing something for people in Lexington.

My pal Rob Farley let me know about it. The films are all outstanding. Here's the schedule:

• September 24: Osama: Emily Beaulieu
• October 1: Encounter Point
• October 8: Beyond Belief
• October 29: Bam 6.6
• November 5: Bridge over the Wadi
• November 12: My Home, Your War
• December 3: The Band’s Visit

Norman Borlaug

He didn't sell a billion albums, but he saved a billion lives. And most people have never heard of him.

Truly, we celebrate the wrong people in this world.

Jim Cramer would like his testicles back

Umm... wow. John Stewart has really kicked the crap out of CNBC for the past week. And it really came to a head last night. (warning - there are some nasty words in these videos.)

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

I've now read that Jon Stewart is the next coming of Edward R. Murrow.

I think that's the worst statement you could possibly make about the state of journalism.