Convergence through gaming

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The study found that the stereotype of the reclusive gamer is outdated; this emerging demographic is social, heavily engaged with the “offline” world, and extremely goal-oriented – with a strong drive to improve themselves and the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.

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

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.

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

“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.

When tech companies become cultural arbiters

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...

Posts I'm Thankful For This Year

I'm obviously thankful for a lot this year - family, friends, a job that gives me flexibility and keeps things interesting, and so on.  I"m very grateful for the opportunity to contribute at some great blogs beyond my own - Science Cheerleader, Earth & Industry, and Global Voices Online.  I thought I'd put together a post with some of my favorite links from the year -all from other people (aside from my participation in one podcast) that help me appreciate the variety of the communities I navigate.  I'll get right to it...

Links to all the posts that reviewed ScienceOnline 2010.  Looking forward to #scio11 as I've gotten to know the organizers a bit more over the past year.

Earth & Industry's Gang of Four Predictions for 2010.  Listen again to this podcast and see how we did. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to collaborate with three real-deal green bloggers.

So I went to the White House today... few posts demonstrate the influence and independence of political bloggers than my pal John Aravosis' summary of his meeting with a few folks at 1600 Pennsylvania.  Since then other contributors to Americablog have met with the President directly.

Three Bad Ideas for Helping Haiti. This was the post that really turned me on to Alanna Shaikh's ideas about global development. I'm very grateful that I had the chance to chat with her - it was the first time I ever spoke with someone in Tajikistan...

The Great Backyard Bird Count.  I admit it - since I moved to NC and have a bigger backyard I've become a bit of a bird nerd.  Identifying birds and bird calls has become a bit of a family thing now, and that's a lot of fun.

Nothing is Going to Change Until We're in the Room.  Joanne Bamberger makes a pretty simple point here.  And she's right.  Her writing reminds me the mom-o-sphere is absolutely the most important online community there is.

Team WhyMommy's Virtual Science Fair.  To me this is one of 2010's best examples of a community coming together to support one of its own.  I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Susan Niebur this year, and watch her bridge communities.  I spent some time this year trying to think of ways to get mom bloggers involved with science bloggers and this remains better than anything I've tried.

Visualizing the BP Oil Spill.  To me the #1 story of the year was the underwater volcano of oil that gushed for three months in the Gulf of Mexico.  A lot of clever people used social media and technology tools to help spread the word and help people understand the magnitude of the crisis. This was just one example.

A Farewell to ScienceBlogs.  To me this post is the science blogging community's equivalent of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the door of All Saints Church.  (OK, that's a stupid analogy for so many reasons, but still, it was a big deal.)  Bora Zivkovic's departure from SEED Media's mothership wasn't the first act of defiance, and it probably wasn't the most impactful from a financial point of view.  But Bora is the heart and soul of this community and he's been at the forefront of a renaissance in science writing.

What is UP With All the Tutus?  Another great example of the mom-o-sphere coming together to help one of its own.  Catherine Connors didn't want to be the Belle of BlogHer, but a comedy (tragedy?) of errors made that happen.  The sad, sweet story of her nephew and how she enlists the support of other mom bloggers to help is enormously touching.

New Media, Old Media.  The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism published an eye-opening report on the differences in coverage between the traditional media companies and the new-skool social media crowd.

Why Veterans Day Deserves To Be Celebrated.  Julie Marsh issues the serious smackdown to Penelope Trunk.  I know Julie pretty well and I think she really took her writing up a notch this year.

Orac, Mockery, and the Absence of Outreach

I'm going to tread carefully here because I love reading Respectful Insolence. The blog's author, who goes by the pseudonym "Orac," is ridonkulous-smart, obviously passionate, and above all, not one to mess with.  I'm also going to stress that the following represents my personal opinion, has nothing to do with work. (I have worked in the past for pharmaceutical company clients; not doing anything with them currently.)

Orac spends a lot of his time mocking the anti-science crowd, as is his right.  He's quite good at it.  He does so from his perch at Scienceblogs, which according to their own marketing data is read mostly by scientists (or at least people with graduate degrees and people who manage scientific projects).  He's apparently gotten some criticism that he's simply talking to other scientists when he makes his arguments - that he's "preaching to the converted" and this helps no one.   I've made a somewhat similar argument, though I've never called out Orac specifically:

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.

So I was interested in his response, which you should read but is summed up like this:

When I hear such charges now, I think I'll just refer the one doing the complaining to this video:

Let me stress Orac is under no obligation to be a Science Ambassador.   It's not his job to move the public opinion needle.  He can write whatever he wants, and I'll probably read it and nod my head and smile.  But given that he made this response, I assume he's at least interested in the issue.

I realize this response wasn't made personally for me. But it oversimplifies the criticism.  First, who assumes there's only "agree and disagree?"  It's precisely because there are so many people in the middle that I think Science's PR problem is so tragic.   (oh, and the little bit in the video making a play on the word "converted" evaporates if you prefer the term I sometimes use, "preaching to the choir.")

This video is a curious defense of homophily.   Of course it's good to have discussions within one's own community.  Of course it's good to galvanize ideas and sentiment and rally the base - it just can't be the only thing you do.  (See "Palin, Sarah.")

The thing that irked me the most about the video (and I realize this isn't Orac's original material) is this idea that posting material online "makes it available" so people can see it when they're ready to change their opinions or accept new information. 

Sorry, this is a cop-out.  Again, no one is forcing Orac or anyone else to be an Ambassador. But if he cares about "moving the needle" in the public, he's smart enough to know this isn't how diplomacy works.  The anti-science cranks of the world aren't waiting around for people to find them.  As Orac points out, they're showing up on Huffington Post and Oprah and daily news shows - you know, where the people are.  And they're listening to people and communicating in terms that resonate.  (And by the way, they're pushing their new book or their new line of organic herb supplements that remove "toxins" or cancer-curing magnets, which could be yours for just 4 easy payments of $29.95 but supplies are limited so ACT NOW!) 

The whole premise of the argument is based on the notion that people outside Orac's circle are either already getting his information, or will actively seek it out and know where to find it in the future.  That's just not how communication and persuasion works.   You don't convince people that a particular treatment for a disease is important simply by publishing an article in JAMA.   It's just the first step.

Calling the other side a bunch of quacks probably feels good.  Using scientific data to show why they're quacks probably feels good too.  And if that's all you want to do, that's fine.  I'll keep reading it.

If you're interested in more, you have to get out and find those people in the middle (we know they're not reading scienceblogs and they're not likely to look for scienceblogs) and listen to their concerns and understand their motivation and explain your position in terms that are relevant and understandable.  You have to get out of your comfort zone a little.

As always, more soon.

Open for Questions... Who's Asking?

I've noticed that scientists are dusting off some decent ideas to gain greater acceptance among the general public - there's a flurry of "ask me" going on.  First, a UK-based group of paleontologists and biologists has relaunched Ask a Scientist, where anyone can submit a question about science, and someone from their rather impressive list of scientists tries to answer it.  In principle, this is an outstanding idea.  Arizona State University has a similar program, designed mainly for kids. Nice, engaging website.

The White House has launched "Ask the President's Science Advisor" that follows roughly the same concept - email a question to OSTP Director John Holdren and, starting tomorrow, he will respond each Friday to one of the questions he gets by writing a brief blog post about it.  It seems to be more casual than technical:

So now is your chance to ask America’s scientist-in-chief for his personal take on anything with an arguably scientific or technological bent: why some wines tickle his fancy more than others (and what are the chemicals that explain those preferences) or what subjects in school left him cold? How about whether he prefers academia or government, or which installment of Star Wars or episode of Star Trek says the most about modern scientific society. We want you to have fun with this and, frankly, ask some of the tough questions about Dr. Holdren that the staff here at OSTP would like to know the answers to but, well, hasn't quite gotten around to asking.

To be honest I think this is important, but I'd rather have the President's science advisor focusing less on telling me what wines he likes or his favorite Star Trek episode and more on, you know, advising the President on science issues.  Still, there is a place for advocating the importance and relevance of science, and I'm pleased that there's at least some attempt by the White House to give it some priority.

Bora Zivkovic wrote about the relaunch of Seed Media's "Ask a Scienceblogger," which also is impressive in principle. Real scientists who like to write, answering real questions from real people.

This is a very important first step.  There's a very important next step, however, and it goes back to what I said about science having a PR 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.

So I asked Bora - a very smart and very thoughtful guy who definitely gets this - a question in the comments:

Bora, how are people who don't necessarily read scienceblogs learning about this? It sounds very VERY cool, but if I don't know about scienceblogs already, how do I know I even have the opportunity to ask?

 And Bora - again, because he really gets this - responded:

Well, this is an internal Scienceblogs.com thing, revived again after about a year or so of silence. It is targeted at regular Sb readers, but there is always hope that our links on social networks and feeds will bring in new readers as well. There is no special effort with this to bring in new readers - it is up to us bloggers to promote within and outside the network as we see fit.

So Bora is definitely out there, actively promoting this effort on his blog and through his social networks - of scientists. But how does one promote outside one's network?  If it's just for existing readers, don't they already know they can ask questions in the comments?  I know I have.  I don't want to sound like I'm dissing this idea - I think it's actually quite awesome.  I'm just saying it's important to let everyone know what you're doing.  And by everyone, I mean EVERYONE.

The people who read the Office of Science and Technology Policy blog are people who probably already know a lot about science and technology policy.  The people who read Scienceblogs - according to their own market research - are far more likely to have graduate degrees in science than the general public.   Where did I learn about Ask A Biologist?  On Scienceblogs.

The science writing community is chock full of talented people who know how to make science engaging, interesting, cool, even relatively simple for the lay audience.  But they're still preaching to the converted - they're really only speaking to people who already have an interest.  Science needs better PR - it needs people who have the ability to find bridge figures to introduce scientists to new communities and find new points of relevance.  It needs people who can identify opportunities to introduce important scientific ideas into ongoing discussions.  It needs people to connect the dots.

I want to be one of those people.

The REAL State of the Media, 2010

CNN's media critic Howie Kurtz has a show called Reliable Sources that now broadcasts online.  Everything about the show's first segment - the topic, the panel, the format - goes directly to the state of journalism today.   Seriously, it's so dead-on it's ironic. It crystallizes where we are in the business of journalism so much it almost becomes a caricature of itself.

It's a panel featuring a pundit, a former managing editor of a newspaper chain that has had severe cuts, and a blogger.   They spend their time essentially saying that journalism has been reduced to a "he-said, she-said" spectacle of political sniping.  They talk about how the news media misses the real story and goes directly to the stupid/crazy show, and even throw in Michael "heckuva job, brownie" Brown.  The money quote, from David Frum:

A conversation that ought to be about how the President has not done a good enough job has turned into how a disgraced former federal official may or may not be insane.

John Aravosis is a long-time pal. All the panelists were great.

What Cable News Looks Like

What Fox News covered this weekend

A few years ago my friend Brad Levinson and I were talking about how one might use text clouds as an analysis tool rather than an organizing tool.  Social media in public relations and issues management was a relatively new concept at the time, and we felt strongly that companies in our industry focused far too much on things like "your company needs to build a blog" and not nearly enough on online communities and the opinion leaders in them.  So when we set about developing the ideas for Virtual Vantage Points, the blog at our company, we thought it was important to put the focus on what other communities were talking about, and we came up with the "community cloud" idea.

All we did was mash up the RSS feeds of leading blogs in specific communities - environmentalism, medicine, education, and so on - and pushed the combined feeds through a cloud generator that we had one of the developers at our company build.  We paid particular attention to political blogs - liberal blogs and conservative blogs in the US, and four communities of political blogs in the UK - Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens.

What MSNBC covered this weekend

After a few months we weren't surprised to see that the various online political communities used very different terminology to discuss things - but we were a bit surprised to see how little the discussions changed over time.  While there are a few exceptions, the most prominent American political bloggers generally talk about their adversaries more than anything else.  Even when the topic is a particular issue, that issue isn't described in depth nearly as much as the outrageous thing someone on the other side said or did.  Using our company's blog to say "bloggers are talking about the other side again today" grew old quickly, so we decided to expand the roster of contributors there and focus on more substantive things.

Now we live in the world of increasing "media convergence." Bloggers are more involved in the news as pundits, reporters, and sources, and news networks are using social media tools more often.  Nowhere is this more obvious than on cable news - the 24 hour news cycle forces networks to leverage the blogosphere and social networks for content.   And of course, politics (and political viewpoints) dominates cable news.

So are cable news networks acting like political bloggers?  Are they just talking about their perceived adversaries?

What CNN covered this weekend

I've pulled the "top news" rss feeds from Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN and pushed them through Wordle's cloud generator.  The pictures in this post represent the "top stories" each network covered over the weekend.  I'll be checking the clouds from time to time to see what kind of news they're reporting from the 30,000 foot viewpoint to see if convergence has bled into perspectives as well as tools.   I have some technical kinks to work out (notice "undefined" and other silly words in the clouds right now), but this could be interesting.

yes, I'm still here

Work has really picked up in the past couple of weeks, so posting has been light and will probably continue to be light for a little while, but I have some big things brewing with some science and mom blogging pals. Meantime, here are some places to go to get some brain food:

NYT has a piece on anonymous posting of comments to news stories. Seems they're just figuring this out.

I can't begin to explain how disappointed I am in the way the Catholic Church has addressed the issue of shielding abusive priests. Or rather, how they've failed to address this issue. Take it from a PR guy - the worst possible way to address a problem is to think about the PR first and the problem second. Now they're stuck in the position of opposing legislation like this.

Congratulations to Walter Jessen on his new position - computational biologist at Covance in Indianapolis. I'll bet 99 people out of 100 don't know what a computational biologist does, but it's important. (Actually, I'm kind of hoping he'll explain it on his blog - you know, for the lay public.)

I met Jessen at ScienceOnline 2010. Smart guy.

"Bloggers vs. Journalists," a.k.a. The Great Distraction

A colleague of mine forwarded an interesting piece from Tech Crunch with the headline "Study: 52 Percent Of Bloggers Consider Themselves Journalists." The study (link to the social media release) is a survey of "1,568 traditional and non-traditional media and, for the first time, 1,670 PR practitioners." The survey was sponsored by PR Newswire.

Set aside the fact that if companies and PR folks REALLY thought bloggers were journalists, they'd never send emails like this.

I think the survey is helpful, though I'm curious to see the actual questions asked, full results etc. For example, I'd like to know if any of the bloggers they surveyed were already full-time professional journalists who have started blogs. I'm not saying you should exclude journalists-who-blog, but I'd like to know if the survey sample was randomized.

I raise it because the online communities where I do the most work have very different stories. The editorial team at Global Voices Online? Sure, they're journalists. However, among online moms, I'd be shocked if more than 10 percent of them consider themselves journalists. Science bloggers generally self-identify as scientists. I think the green bloggers with whom I work generally consider themselves "journalists" of one stripe or another, though they don't seem to discuss the tools of the trade much - there isn't much talk about "on the record" versus "off the record" versus "on background," or about respecting embargoes, etc. There's also not much of an attempt to hide personal opinions or bias. As for political bloggers, some may say they are journalists but many professional journalists clearly disagree.

But here's the point: the "bloggers versus journalists" debate is nothing more than a distraction. It's a time-sucking discussion about nomenclature. It's the bizarre need to make sure round pegs fit in round holes and square pegs in square holes and make all the colors match.

More importantly, among PR professionals, I really think it's about laziness. PR pros are used to working with journalists, and want desperately to make this relatively new phenomenon of personal online publishing fit their pre-existing methods and rules. While it's appropriate and valuable to learn as much as we can about the media, We can't let this lull us into thinking that it's the bloggers who need to adapt to our methods and not vice versa.

Entrepreneurial Journalism and Rebuilding Trust

My boss has asked me to take a long look at media convergence issues - you know, how the Internet changes the way people consume news and how journalists report it - and I'm incorporating much of it into some social media training materials for the company. More and more I'm realizing this isn't a story about technology, and it really isn't a story about journalism.

"Media convergence" is really just one of countless stories about entrepreneurship. It's nothing new. It's about large companies clinging to the methods and products that made them successful 20 years ago, and remaining steadfast in the belief that any effort spent doing something other than selling that product or using that method is a wasteful distraction. (For example, television news has become formulaic, almost rote in its delivery.) It's about smaller companies and individuals trying something new, most of them failing, and trying again.

The Pew Project's State of the News Media 2010 Report came out last week. I found it via Tom Johnson's post on Media Convergence Matters. Johnson cites one of the report's conclusions:

For online news to become a profitable enterprise, either consumer attitudes need to change or the industry must do more. That more could be developing new better-targeted products that people are willing to pay for; new forms of advertising that work better, including local search; or new forms of revenue other than display advertising, including perhaps online retailing.

The "consumer attitudes need to change" is a reference to consumers not being willing to pay for a lot of content or clicking ads. In truth, consumer attitudes are constantly evolving. The report includes a lot about how news needs to move online, and it has. It includes a lot about aggregating and curating content to better fit the needs of the consumer. This is all good, but to me it doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

Sadly, it doesn't have a lot about improving the quality of journalism generally or helping people understand why the news is relevant to them. In America at least, I think people have developed a significant detachment from what we commonly refer to as "the news." I think there's a strong mistrust of the news industry. People want to know who's paying for it.

At the source of it, I think, is the news industry's oft-repeated "if it bleeds, it leads" mantra has devolved into the basic formula "conflict = news," and if information doesn't have loud, competing sides, it really isn't newsworthy. I see science bloggers express some version of this sentiment on a regular basis.

The most important recent example of this is the coverage of health care reform over the last year. Some conservatives had legitimate disagreements with the Democrats' proposals, and other people decided to equate reform with genocide. The media made its choice early on what to cover - and so we heard wild tales about socialism and death panels. And once that decision was made, conservatives realized that the only way they could get their message out to the general public was to push the rhetoric further and further out, past the fringes of sanity.

As a result, people still don't know what actually passed in the health care reform law, after a year of debate.

Of course there are people in journalism who do a great job and should get more attention. But ask yourself - is that where the media industry is as a whole?

So yes, innovation in how news is developed, curated, and delivered is a must. (I like the idea of a business incubator for journalism.) But so is quality control - and that's the hard part.

Media Convergence Done Right

Global Voices Online and BBC News team up.

Congratulations to Ivan, Solana, and everyone at Global Voices - and to BBC News for having the courage to try something new.