Curing "The Gay" - Now Available on iTunes

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.

Climate Change and Strategic Communications

This is how scientists prove their critics are wrong - but line graphs don't shift public opinion

The scientific case regarding man-made climate change has never been stronger.  Climate change is real, our actions are prompting it, and the failure to address this will lead to severe consequences.   (here's how it works - we burn oil and coal and gas, which belches a humongous amount of carbon into the air, which traps heat in the atmosphere, causing all sorts of weird weather and other nasty stuff.  It's more complicated than that, but that's basically it.  It's actually pretty intuitive.  Pour enough crap into anything that supports life and eventually bad things happen.)

The political position of those who would fight climate change has never been weaker.  Last year the US House of Representatives (under Democratic control) passed a "climate bill" that was widely regarded by pundits as the absolute most that could be accomplished politically - and widely panned by environmentalists as not nearly enough to turn the tide.  The Senate didn't pass anything.  Last year's UN meeting on climate change - the overblown farce known as COP 15 - saw a lot of speeches that said "the time for talk is over, the time for action is now" but produced an "accord" that basically said climate change is a bad thing and maybe someday someone should think about doing something.  Maybe.  Even though the "scientific" arguments presented by climate change deniers are absolutely pathetic (as outlined in Dr. Gleick's piece at Huffington Post), they're still winning on Capitol Hill.

This year, House committees (now under Republican control) will hold hearings designed to smear climate scientists.  A "climate bill" isn't even under serious consideration in the House or the Senate.  (We will see, however, a debate on abolishing the EPA.)  Companies that profit from burning oil, coal and gas have funded all sorts of "think-tanks" and hired a bunch of PR guys to work together to confuse the issue and make sure John Q. Nascar remains focused on the things he can see, like President Obama's birth certificate from Kenya.  (it's on the internet, you know.) The UN meeting on climate change that took place in December (COP 16) thankfully wasn't overhyped, but didn't really accomplish much more than COP 15. And I'm not the only person who noticed that the words "climate change" mysteriously disappeared from the State of the Union address this year.

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.

So when I see someone like Chris Mooney - someone who is smart and actually trying to fight this battle - point to a form letter written by a group of scientists addressed to every Member of Congress and suggest it "teaches us a thing or two about communication" - I have to sigh.  Chris clearly has an optimistic viewpoint on this and says he wants to encourage more scientists to get involved in the political process.  He's right about that.  However, since the pro-science (and actually pro-business) message on climate change comes in uncoordinated and often random spurts, it has very little impact.  And when scientists make the observation that their valuable time and effort on outreach like this is being wasted, they are less inclined to try it again.

So my advice - start working more closely together and agree on a strategy, a message, and a set of tactics.   And if all you want to do is criticize how others are doing this, or say it's not worth doing because it's not perfect, STFU and go away.   Here's an outline of what I'd do, as promised in an earlier post.

Topline Strategy: Position your side as the solution, the way forward.  Associate supporters of the status quo with the salient problems of the status quo more generally, and position them as opponents of progress.  You saw something resembling this in the most recent State of the Union Address. The President didn't mention the words "climate change" but he did talk a lot about "winning the future" and the economic benefits of clean energy technology.    Then develop a range of strategic and realistic policy goals and attack.

Identify your audience.  "Everybody" is not an audience. "Members of Congress" are an audience, but the way to reach them isn't a letter.  You need to have face-to-face meetings with them and their staffs.  More importantly, you need to have face to face meetings with the people who influence those Members of Congress most.   I think that means the real audience is the media, business leaders, trade associations, and political donors.   As for consumers - and they're also important, because they vote - Mom is unquestionably the household decision maker for basically everything, so you need to develop a coherent message for moms.

Messaging.  Have a backgrounder available for the paleo-clima-anthropomorphi-techno stuff, but scientists and environmentalists aren't losing this fight on the science.  They're losing on the economics. Right now, the message from the other side is simple: capping carbon = less energy use = less economic activity = less profit = fewer jobs for John Q. Nascar.   But to buy into their mindset you have to believe that we won't or can't change the way we use energy, that efficiency doesn't really move the needle, and that wind power is crazy-looking. I think it's time people realized that we don't have cap-and-trade, and the economy sucks anyway.  While messaging should always be in the authentic voice of the person speaking, I think it makes sense for everyone who's speaking on the pro-science side of the topic to assert the following general points:

• The people who deny climate science support a status quo that works for no one but them. High energy prices hurt the entire economy - except maybe a handful of companies and individuals.  We're looking forward but they're clinging to the past.
• Climate science deniers also deny consumer choice.  The technology exists to give us electric cars, energy-efficient appliances, and so on.  Polls show millions of people want them.  But the people who say climate change is a "hoax" also oppose policies that would make it easier for consumers to get them.
• Climate science deniers oppose innovation.  They've gone all-in for a 20th-Century energy strategy that says "dig it out of the ground and set it on fire." They work hard to make sure the rules favor this strategy, and they're holding on to their advantage for as long as they can.

There are other points to make, but if you notice, these general arguments (opposing the status quo, supporting choice and innovation) are largely generic arguments that "test well" with the public and with policy elites across all sorts of issues.  They're also relevant and truthful.  This sort of thing has to be THE message - not "the sky is falling," not something about tree rings, not something that must be measured in parts per billion.  

I'm sure some scientists are thinking "we've said all that already."  Not really, no. These messages haven't been forcefully, clearly, creatively, and repeatedly delivered to the people who matter.  They haven't been built into a coordinated campaign that includes earned media, paid media, social media, and lobbying.  

As for policy issues, there are plenty of options - but what's most important is going on offense.  A really smart political operative once told me "if you're not on offense, you're on defense - and if you're on defense, you're losing."  If you're looking for specifics I recommend my pal the Ecopolitologist for ideas.  Start with battles you have a good chance of winning, build momentum, and keep pushing.  And stop it already with the "it's not for scientists to decide policy, our role is only to share data and analysis."  Everyone has a right to participate completely in the political process. Everyone.

The world hasn't changed that much.

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

At which point they both said, "David, Worldchanging closed its doors this morning."  Which, of course, sucks.  On many levels.   From the note nailed to the door:

Why is this happening? Worldchanging readers were generous over the years and an important part of our ongoing operations, but we were never able to secure major foundation support, so Worldchanging relied most heavily on income generated from Alex Steffen’s speaking engagements (Alex gave more than 400 talks over the past five years) and the Worldchanging book. The strenuous travel schedule it takes to deliver that many talks, though, was unsustainable, both personally for Alex and in terms of the impact it had on Worldchanging’s ability to develop new work. It was clear we needed a new model if we were going to stay in operation.

Early this year a new board was brought on to reshape the organization and pursue a more traditional nonprofit development model (based more on grants, gifts and major fundraising drives), with many new board members recruited in just the last few months to help us re-imagine operations and launch these new plans. Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts (and a successful October event), funding ran out before such a transformation could happen. Given the financial realities we faced, the board and staff have agreed that it is time to bring Worldchanging to a close as gracefully as possible.

I loved the content at Worldchanging, though I clearly didn't read it every day. Alex Steffen is obviously a really smart guy who gets asked to speak at a lot of really smart conferences.  The site featured some outstanding stuff from people I admire.  But sadly, as perhaps begrudgingly admitted above, the large-foundation and NPR crowd can only support so much for so long.   In a down economy, there's even less ability to provide support.  I'm guessing the new board considered some opportunities to partner with the private sector, but it's pretty clear they either didn't want to "soil their hands" or didn't have a compelling enough offering.

A couple of things come to mind here:

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

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

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

The Stimulus Discussion: Anything But Stimulating

Some Republicans think they've found the issue that will finally damage President Obama politically. They're arguing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - known by most as the "Economic Stimulus Package" - hasn't worked. It strikes me as a potentially damaging accusation - if it's true.

I've been following stories in the mainstream media about investments from the stimulus bill. There's been some very good reporting in the Atlanta Journal Constitution by Kristi E. Swartz, a business reporter who has covered media and technology. I asked Ms. Swartz via Twitter direct message if she thought the stimulus bill has had an impact there. Her response: "Frankly I think it's too early to tell." This isn't a surprising response. It makes a great deal of sense to me.

Some Republicans are saying already, however, that the verdict is in and the stimulus bill is a flop. Of course, some GOP stalwarts have gotten a little carried away with their claims, but I think at least one argument from a Republican Congressman merits some attention:



In the social media world, the White House responded quickly to criticism via a blog post from OMB Director Orzag (himself a blogger when he was at GAO).

But has the discussion resonated at all online?

Let's compare online discussions (at least in blogs) about the stimulus package to, say, climate change:

Climate change is a much more popular topic online - two or three times more popular.

OK, but that's all blogs, and climate change is a global issue while the stimulus package is purely a US issue. What if we just look at the people you'd expect to be all over this - the top US political blogs on each side of the ideological spectrum?

I borrowed a page from the Virtual Vantage Points playbook (since I wrote the page I don't think they'll mind) and combined the feeds of six top US-based conservative political blogs and did the same with six of their liberal counterparts. I then ran both feeds through the cloud generator at Wordle to see how prominent the discussion about the stimulus package was.

Here's a graphical depiction of the current discussion from Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Red State, Free Republic, Powerline and Instapundit:

And here's what they're talking about today the Huffington Post (political feed), Daily Kos (front page), Eschaton, Talking Points Memo, MyDD, and Americablog:

Of course these aren't the only bloggers but they're representative of the more popular ones.

Notice what word you DON'T see there? At all?

It seems the messaging the GOP is pushing about the stimulus isn't stimulating discussions online, at least not yet.

SEIU's "Scary Movie"

I think the social media folks at SEIU (hey there, Brad) may be on to something - one way to get your message across online is to mock your opponent for being over the top. So they're pushing out a video that highlights some of the more, umm, colorful comments from the business community on the Employee Free Choice Act:



I think they're distributing this video out rather aggressively. There's been a discussion of the legislation on the merits inside the beltway but to be candid I haven't seen a lot about it here in the Bluegrass beyond snippets of political rhetoric. Of course, the online audience that will be interested in this video probably already understands the merits of the argument. I think if this video is part of a series that includes another video that explains, in simple terms, what the legislation is and what it does for working families SEIU may be able to expand its online base a bit. They could effectively use humor in such a video.

There may already be such a video out there. If not, I think that's something else to keep Brad and his SEIU buddies busy.

Creative Destruction in the Media

Word of the Tribune Company bankruptcy moved fast through my social network, though most weren't surprised by it. I also heard McClatchy was trying to sell off the Miami Herald and closing some regional bureaus.

The other piece of news that moved almost as quickly was that online-only publications were now eligible for the Pulitzer Prize.

Combine that with an ever-increasing number of times that corporate media gets scooped by people using Twitter and I think you're seeing more each day how the people who stick to the old model of delivering news are dying out.

Today we call it "disruptive technology," which I guess sounds a bit better than the term Josef Schumpeter popularized, "creative destruction." While consumers will have many more options to get their news and information, we are definitely going to see fewer newspapers in the near future.

To me the whole thing is more than a bit Darwinian. The Tribune Company would certainly have lasted longer in a better economy. But the simple truth is the corporate media won't survive for long under its current business model.

Corporate media isn't failing simply because there are more choices - they're failing because those choices are competing effectively in terms of accuracy, speed and quality. The journalists who continually rail against social media users with the "they're not journalists" cry and the talk about ethics and standards need to look at how the public views journalists these days. Not the worst, but definitely not the best, and negative attitudes toward journalists have inched up over the last couple of years.

The bottom line: while journalists work relentlessly to be accurate, they make mistakes like the rest of us. There is still plenty of "advocacy journalism" where bias rules or where facts are taken out of context. And as a PR guy who has done his share of crisis communications work, I've found that many journalists don't like it much when the spotlight is shined back on them.

I'm not sure some in the media realize how much trust they surrendered when they failed to be a true check on power in the buildup to the war in Iraq. And I'm not sure they realize how much more trust they surrender when they present "news" in pre-packaged ideological niche formats like the shows you see on Fox and MSNBC. They prompt people to search out information for themselves.

That may be great for consumers; it's not so nice if you're running, say, the Trib.

"New Economy States" are Blue States

This caught my eye:

Massachusetts is the state best positioned for growth when the current economic turmoil recedes, according to the 2008 State New Economy Index released Tuesday.

So sayeth the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank that works with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to produce the "State New Economy Index" each year.

They use 29 variables, grouped in five categories: knowledge jobs, globalization, transformation into a digital economy, "technological innovation capacity," and "economic dynamism." To be honest I don't really know the details of what goes into this, but I worked with people at the Kauffman Foundation when I was on the Hill and I know they're smart on issues of entrepreneurship.

I took a look at the rankings of states and noticed something interesting: the highest-ranking "new economy" states are overwhelmingly blue, while the lowest ranking states are overwhelmingly red.

The top 11 states in the index all voted for Barack Obama this year. So did 17 of the top 20. The bottom 8 states - and 15 of the bottom 20 - voted for John McCain.

The state where I was born, raised and educated ranks first. My current home? 45th.

Here's why I WON'T explain the economy's impact on social media

I'm too busy working.

Manic Monday's "Day After" - Who Drives the Discussion?

I've followed two very distinct discussions online regarding the Wall Street bailout bill. One financial, one political.

An observation - the discussions are remarkably isolated from one another.

There's a small but substantial community of traders on Twitter (you can find a chunk of them at Soren Macbeth's StockTwits) that are really focused on the market, and not surprisingly, they're looking for opportunities to make money (or stem their losses). A big topic of discussion: the recently-imposed rules that curb short-selling. They're highlighting individual stocks and looking for value. Of course, talk about filing for cloture on the motion to proceed in the Senate or the debate of an open or closed rule in the House, and you can hear crickets chirp in this community.

There's obviously a huge pool of political bloggers, doing what they do best - blaming the other party for what's wrong. Hugh Hewitt is ranting about "Pelosivilles" and "Destructocrats" and how the Democratic Party is almost singlehandedly responsible for the next Great Depression. Todd Beeton at MyDD blames the vote on "John McCain's Impotence in Washington." But these political bloggers don't have the chops to know the ins and outs of Wall Street. I've also had some friendly political banter with two of my favorite GOP tweeters, Chip Griffin and Jim Durbin.

So who makes up the very small handful of online opinion leaders who can drive discussions on financial policy? Regardless of ideology, I'm looking at the following.

• Paul Kedrosky has had a really impressive run of it lately, providing analysis and a bit of commentary while not going over the top.
• Brad DeLong is talking a lot more about politics than finance lately, but he clearly knows his stuff in both areas.
• Greg Mankiw is a smart deregulator who knows politics - his arguments are clearly market-focused and his background in the Bush White House serves him well.
• Larry Kudlow is a passionate conservative and obviously has been following this closely, both on CNBC and his blog.
• Mark Thoma takes a more liberal perspective, but he's every bit as smart and has done an impressive job talking about political proposals.

It's Just Another Manic Monday

Following up from last week's Manic Monday post, I'm really struck how well journalists, academics, and even activists are leveraging social media tools to provide consumers with a wealth of information to understand just how the credit crisis started and how we might dig ourselves out of it. I wish I had these resources when I was working on financial services issues for the Senator.

I found it very interesting that a group of conservative political activists has turned to YouTube to lay the blame for the current crisis at the feet of the Community Reinvestment Act, and that video has been viewed more than 700,000 times. (Sorry guys, but as Chairman Frank explains, your argument is flawed.)

Via Open Culture, I've found two excellent podcasts from NPR's Fresh Air - one with Michael Greenberger (A University of Maryland Law Professor and former official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission), the other with the New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson. The interview with Greenberger is the best description I've heard yet about the $62 trillion worth of exposure finanical companies and investors have taken on in the form of unregulated credit default swaps since the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Morgenson talks about the prospects of a web of conflicts of interest as the pending bailout package is implemented. Terry Gross has done an admirable job finding people who can translate finance to English.

Twitter has been a decent source of information. Paul Kedrosky has been pushing out insightful commentary and links. I like his twitter feed even more than his blog. I first got a link to the 110-page discussion draft currently working its way through Congress from someone calling herself Miss Trade.

I'd be remiss if I didn't link to some of the better "bubble blogs" out there that have been warning people about this crisis for years now - Calculated Risk, Bubble Meter, and Professor Pigginton's Econo-Almanac for the Landed Poor are three of my favorites.

(and you guys thought I'd be writing about the debates. The pundits were wrong, the people were right. So there.)

Managing Information on the Markets' Manic Monday

Today would be a very busy day if I were still working for the Senator. Global capital markets have been in a frenzy all weekend, and my old boss would want to know about the macro-economic impacts of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the Bank of America takeover of Merrill Lynch, and the AIG restructuring. He'd want to know the political implications of an amazingly activist Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board. Most importantly, he'd want some bottom-line facts on how all this is affecting everyday folks back home.

Congressional staffers are going to be hard pressed to keep up with everything today. I'd probably be asked to check in with the boss at noon and just before the markets close with updates.

Of course, the staffers of today are more fortunate when it comes to information access than I was a few years back, thanks to an explosion of financial and economic news available through social media channels. In addition to the typical sources you'd expect, and the list of "econo-blogs" from the left and the right I put together last September, Here's some of what the smart and social media savvy staffers will be looking at today:

• The Wall Street Journal Marketbeat blog has been live-blogging the weekend's events.
• Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed noticed mischievous (or worse) changes to the Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch pages on Wikipedia. He's one of the Wall Street guys I follow on Twitter.
• Duncan Black has been snark-blogging the news from his liberal-econo-political post Eschaton.
• StockTwits keeps track of the most-discussed stocks. Soren MacBeth is the CEO. No suprise what today's topics are...

SEC 2.0

Seems the Securities Exchange Commission (which I'm now following on Twitter) has some new ideas:

Washington, D.C., Aug. 19, 2008 — Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox today unveiled the successor to the agency’s 1980s-era EDGAR database, which will give investors far faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds.

The new system is called IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. Based on a completely new architecture being built from the ground up, it will at first supplement and then eventually replace the EDGAR system. The decision to replace EDGAR marks the SEC’s transition from collecting forms and documents to making the information itself freely available to investors to give them better and more up-to-date financial disclosure in a form they can readily use.

The Washington Post is on top of the story, and says the new system will change the way companies report their financials as well as the way journalists cover business news.

While advocates say the new system will eventually save companies money because of the speed and ease of preparing disclosures, some critics complain about the initial expenses of making the transition, a burden that is particularly unwelcome during an economic slowdown.

I'm certainly paying attention to how those regulated by the SEC are reacting, and I think it's fair to say that any such system will have growing pains. But this is certain: We're in a brave new world when it comes to financial communications. The SEC is absolutely correct to look at information technology tools to make sure investors have the clearest picture possible to make educated decisions. Chairman Cox is showing some leadership here, and his staff is thinking ahead.

We interrupt this presidential campaign...

First, many thanks to PunditMom and One Plus Two for naming my most recent rant about Facebook a "just post" for February. It's very rewarding when people from different walks of life can get together in some way and salute ideas.

Speaking of diversity and unity, It's no secret that the Democratic Party is having some serious difficulty speaking with one voice these days. So it's not surprising that this fissure has shown up in the blogs, and that online grassroots activists are having serious disagreements. I see Micah Sifry is on top of it. The online and offline discussions are integrating more each day, and that online discussions have a significant impact on mainstream debates. That's what that other blog examines, but it's an important point to make here as well.

Today, I'm much more interested in what the blogosphere has to say about Bear Stearns. I don't think I'd necessarily call this a "crisis," but it's sure sumthin', ain't it?

That blue line with the huge spike at the end of it represents online discussions about Bear Stearns. The green line is the talk about the Federal Reserve. The yellow/orange line you don't see is the talk about JP Morgan. It's very clear that the big story over the weekend and leading into this morning is the surprise negotiated sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan for less than ten percent of its listed price at the stock market's close on Friday - and the unprecedented action from the Federal Reserve to essentially guarantee the sale and to cut interest rates on a Sunday night.

Of course, the online discussion is mirroring the reporting in the mainstream and business trade media right now, and I think it's only going to pick up more.

I'd bet the blogosphere is pretty low on Bear Stearns' list of priorities right now. But if they ignore it they're ignoring a very important communications channel. Bear Stearns doesn't own its brand, its reputation, or its issues right now. That's not a slam on them - it's just their turn to be the focus of the news cycle. But if they're willing to look they'll find a wealth of opinion leaders and discussion drivers who are already talking about what's happening. If they had the foresight to build relationships with them earlier, they'd have a number of opportunities to get their messages quickly and efficiently into a place that we already know has some influence on the "big league" financial media.

I expect the market bloggers to do most of the writing today to talk about fallout, then the political bloggers will probably weigh in more - assigning blame, which is what they do best - and then the economists will try to explain to everyone what this all means. At each step in this story cycle, Bear Stearns and JP Morgan should be weighing in online. And frankly, so should the Federal Reserve's communications team.