Clever girl, that Stefania.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, not so much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it was all fake.

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

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

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

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

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

Arizona: what we've really lost and what we must do

By know everyone knows what happened to Congresswoman Giffords, Judge Roll, and the other victims in Tuscon. But I can't stop thinking about this.

Aspiring politician Christina-Taylor Green was born in the midst of tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, and died Saturday morning while trying to meet Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The strong-willed 9-year-old third-grader had gone to meet Giffords with a neighbor when she was shot. She died later at University Medical Center.

And not surprisingly, this:

Jittery members of the U.S. House of Representatives concerned about security jammed telephone lines Sunday during a rare bipartisan conference call a day after a gunman tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a supermarket near Tucson.

A bipartisan group of House leaders took the unusual step of inviting spouses and staffers to dial into the conference call held to update members about Giffords, brief them about the shooting and discuss steps being taken to tighten security.

I want to show some restraint in commenting on this because there was no initial "proof" that this (alleged) assassin's actions had any groundings in politics.  And frankly I found it disturbing at how quickly the punditry on both ends of the political spectrum absorbed this news and once again used it as proof they have been right about the other side all along. As usual, I won't hide my politics - the punditry on the right has gotten so defensive about this and the tone their rhetoric has taken it almost begs the Shakespearean retort, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Before we delve into the depravity of today's political discourse, it's important to take stock of what we've really lost.

• We have, of course, the unfathomable tragedy of the loss of life - not only a vital public servant in the form of a federal judge, but also five other innocent people, including a nine-year-old girl.  And we have those who were badly wounded, and those who were traumatized by witnessing the event.
• We will likely see further physical separation of the government and the governed.  We will have fewer public events, more security and isolation for Members of Congress and this Administration, less access for the taxpayers and even the media.  This means that more government will be done in private, among only those privileged and moneyed enough to have access to those in power.
• We will see even less incentive to go into public service.  If I run for Congress I already know I'll spend most of my time asking lobbyists for money, I'll have a grueling travel schedule, I'll have to maintain two residences,  and I'll spend the majority of my "floor" time talking about symbolic things that have very little impact on the daily lives of people.  Now I get to wear kevlar while I do it. This is not a line of work I'd ever want my son to enter - not right now, anyway.  We used to worry about our children getting hurt if they joined the military.  Now we have to worry if they run for Congress.

I can think of two major changes we need immediately.  While we don't know for sure if the accused was listening to the political rhetoric of the right or saw the now scrubbed image of Congresswoman Giffords' district in the cross hairs of a rifle sight, we need to understand the status quo is not sustainable.

First, the news media needs to understand its own responsibility here and act accordingly - stop giving rhetorical bomb-throwers air time. We all know who they are.  We all know what networks put them on television. And sadly, we also know they drive ratings.  But you know what - it's really not news.  We've reached the point in our politics where you're rewarded not by working hard with people across the aisle but by calling those people un-American or worse.  It's time for our professional media to be the grown-ups in the room and say no, you don't get to go on TV if all you have are thinly-veiled references to guns, boldface lies  or asinine suggestions that people aren't citizens.  And don't give me guff about the first amendment.  Remember Daniel Webster: "liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint."  Editors edit.  Start doing your jobs.

Second, transparency in government just got a whole lot more important.  If we further restrict access to members of Congress and others in the government, we must know immediately who DOES have access  and where campaigns are getting money. Further, front-groups that don't disclose their funding sources - the groups that have fueled so much of the "vitriol" we've heard about without a shred of accountability to anyone - are a cancer on our democracy.  OWN YOUR WORDS.

One final point - there are moneyed interests who have contributed to the current state of political depravity.   I can't stop thinking about what I wrote in August 2009, when corporate interests were instructing angry, ignorant mobs to storm town meetings much like the one Congresswoman Giffords held this weekend.

There can be no doubt that people in my profession are organizing this sort of thing, stirring up fear and hatred and dehumanizing an enemy, in the name of "freedom," going on television and telling outright lies. They are actively trying to suppress discussion and debate. They are telling unstable people some unstable things, then they're pointing at someone and calling them "Hitler." And they're hiding their true identities (and their funding) by setting up "non-profit" groups that have names with words like "freedom" in them.

They are undoubtedly aware that the more they do this, the more likely someone is going to commit even greater acts of violence. They know this and they do it anyway.

Now those same interests find themselves more able to hide their funding, and actually have more access to government leaders as public meetings become more restrictive.  And of course, no one is accountable. 

My personal history with "the gay"

Col. Cammermeyer

Tomorrow President Obama will sign legislation to eventually repeal a series of rules at the Department of Defense known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  For the past 13 years, it's been OK to BE gay and serve in the military, as long as you don't ever let anyone actually KNOW that you're gay. (Of course, if someone outs you, you're discharged.)  And theoretically, the DoD isn't supposed to care who you sleep with - i.e., for 13 years or so they haven't asked people who enlist about their sexual preferences. Of course that hasn't stopped them from discharging 14,000 people under this rule in that time.

It's always been an important issue to me, one I've always followed very closely - not just on the merits, and not just because I've always known a lot of gay people.

(No, this is not where I tell everyone I'm gay.  Sorry.)

This issue (then referred to as "gays in the military") was the first item I ever worked on as a paid Senate staffer.  It was 1993, I was fresh out of college (and a stint in Connecticut on the presidential campaign), and I had just scored a job as a staff assistant on Senator Kennedy's Labor and Human Resources Committee.   My boss was responsible for "gay issues" (among many other things) for the Senator and I was basically the guy who help his small office run - answered the phones, hired and fired interns, wrote the speeches/letters/memos he was too busy to write, do some help with research on this or that.

Politically, I don't think this was an issue any of us really expected to address at that time.  President Clinton had just entered office, the new session of Congress was just starting. The economy was top on everyone's agenda, and while candidate Clinton mentioned his support for lifting the ban on gays in the military, it was never considered a top-5 issue at the time.  But opportunists saw a wedge issue that played on people's fears and made the President look weak.  Republicans quickly tried to codify a ban and dared Democrats to oppose them.  The Senate Armed Services Committee, then led by Sam Nunn (a conservative Democrat from Georgia), almost immediately called for hearings. And this is when I started learning about how politics works in the big leagues.

On the merits, this was never a complicated issue to me.  Granted, I've always had a bias in favor of advancing civil rights and protecting minorities.  But to me, the merits have always gone something like this:

General: A lot of soldiers think gay people have cooties, so we can't have them in our military.  I need my soldiers to focus on killing enemies, not avoiding cooties.
Liberal guy: But gay people really don't have cooties.  You're just condoning prejudice.
General: I don't have the luxury of adopting your Utopian world view.  I have wars to fight, and I can't take on every social issue you want me to.
Liberal: But gay people are already in the military, you just don't know they're gay.  Gay people aren't the source of the cooties, it's the perception of gay people that brings the cooties.
General: Hmm... never thought about it that way.  OK, from now on, nobody is ever allowed to think about gay people.  I'm not going to bring it up, and you're not allowed to say you're gay.   Anyone who talks about the gay is out.   There - problem solved.
Liberal: Wait, that's not what I meant...
General: LA LA LA LA LA!!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! NO GAYS HERE! LA LA LA!

Of course, there was much more to the debate than this.  I saw a lot of nasty, nasty stuff.  I watched Senators tell gay people directly they had an affliction and they needed medical help.  I watched people tell decorated veterans they were condemned or unnatural.  I heard the same arguments that racists made against integration and that nazis made against Jewish people - things like gays spread disease, they hurt morale generally, they can't control themselves, they are all part of some big conspiracy.

I also saw what I thought to be cowardice but what was probably political reality - Senator Kennedy spoke up strongly in favor of lifting the ban in 1993 while most other Democrats were largely silent.  Today we see he was truly ahead of his time.  The political "compromise" that was struck represented little more than an accommodation for a new president who couldn't afford a total loss.  In substance, DADT wasn't a compromise at all.  Before 1993, the military began the discharge process as soon as it learned a person was gay.  That's still the policy today.  DADT was, however, a tacit acknowledgement that being gay wasn't the problem.  It took 13 years for that logical concession to result in a real change.

But what I'm struck by most is the courage I saw from so many people.  "Coming out" is a difficult thing to today, let alone 13 years ago.  I watched my boss, an openly gay man, stare down hate and work closely with people who had no bones about telling him he was an abomination.   I watched another young man, then in the closet while working for a Republican senator, risk his job by coming by the office after hours to provide strategic counsel and intelligence.  (That man eventually became one of the most influential liberal political bloggers in America.) And I watched a host of veterans who served in our military with distinction come through our office and tell their story - knowing the consequences would be significant.

One of those veterans was Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer, a decorated army nurse who acknowledged she was a lesbian during a security clearance interview in 1989  About 3 years later (military bureaucracy being what it is) she was "separated" from the military and quickly filed suit.  Her story was the one that really catapulted the issue to the forefront - she wrote a book, the book turned into a movie (Glenn Close played her character), and she testified at the Congressional hearing, where I remember Senator Strom Thurmond openly questioned her mental health.  I never spoke with her that much but she came by the office a few times and I remember her as personable, courageous, engaging, and smart.  Eventually she won her lawsuit, was reinstated in the military, and retired in 1997.

Earlier this year the Undersecretary of Defense issued a press release without much fanfare, announcing some additions to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, "an independent advisory committee that provides the department with advice and recommendations on matters and policies relating to the recruitment and retention, treatment, employment, integration, and well-being of highly qualified professional women in the armed forces." Tucked in a list of ten names was Col. Cammermeyer.

These changes have come far too slowly.  And more changes are still needed.  But tomorrow I'll be thinking of all the brave people I met and all the lessons I learned and I'll smile.

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.

Whither ScienceBlogs?

UPDATE:  Bora's leaving.  He's my favorite.  Wow.

I've watched the science blogging community blow its collective stack about "Pepsi-gate," the quickly-canceled sponsored content blog hosted at Seed Media's ScienceBlogs called "Food Frontiers" that featured scientists (and, perhaps, their lawyer-approved ghostwriters) from Pepsi writing about nutrition issues.

The folks at SB made two big mistakes - they botched the disclosure of the sponsorship, and they did a less-than-stellar job telling the other SB contributors that the sponsored blog was coming.   These mistakes, along with some issues that may have been percolating for a while there, prompted at least a dozen bloggers to leave the SB community. (Bora kept a decent list of reactions to it here.)

Shortly after the pepsipocalypse, The CEO of Seed Media started his own blog on SB.  His introductory post said he'd be addressing the issue, but in the two weeks following none of the posts he's published ever addressed the substance of it.   I'd argue that's mistake number three - but the fact that the management addressed the issue a bit in a pair of posts at Page 3.14 mitigates this somewhat.  This is the most important passage in a post there, written by the CEO: 

We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.

I've worked in the public affairs industry for some time now, and I've done my share of crisis communications work.  I've done work for more than one major, multi-national beverage company - though I've never worked for Pepsi, and I'm not doing any work for beverage companies now.  I'm also a longtime fan of science blogs and science writing generally.  I've had discussions with people who write for SB, people who read SB, and people who follow the PR issues around SB.   So I hope I have something of value to contribute here.

From a crisis PR perspective, what SB should do is relatively simple - it's basically a by-the-book response.  Acknowledge the mistake, apologize for it, and explain how you won't let it happen again. (the post I linked to above is a decent start, but not close to sufficient.)  Do this emphatically and repeatedly for a while.  Avoid the passive voice, or qualifiers to your apology or explanation. Embrace the bottom line - you screwed up, you're sorry, you won't do it again, and you're implementing substantive changes.  Let the aggrieved parties know that you really care about them.  Then shut up and listen for a while. Make at least some of the changes those aggrieved parties recommend.

Having gone through this process with clients a few times, I know it's a lot harder than it looks.  People have pride. They may feel that not all the facts are getting out there.  They may be worried about liability, and they retreat to a bunker, thinking they should remain silent until the whole thing blows over.  Sometimes they feel they really haven't done anything wrong, even if the wrongdoing is obvious to everyone else.  When it's your company, or your organization, or your reputation, these are all understandable reactions. The actions these reactions prompt, however, typically make matters much worse.

From an issues management perspective, the desire to partner with SB is a no-brainer.  SB's brand is enormously credible, thanks to the contributions of the bloggers there. Of course Pepsi would want a space there. When making soft drinks is your core business, you're going to have challenges to your reputation on health, environment and science grounds. You have to be creative to address those challenges, and building relationships with "validating third parties" is one of the things you do.

Further, it's not like Pepsi is some fly-by-night operation.  Their communications team isn't a bunch of idiots. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt they had any intention of hiding the fact that this was sponsored content, written by Pepsi employees.   Frankly I don't think SB had any intention of hiding that relationship either.  I think the mistakes about disclosure are more likely the result of poor management of the relationship or poor communication between the parties involved.

That said, I don't question the decisions the now-former SB bloggers made to leave. For many of them, particularly the science journalists, objectivity is paramount. Sharing a blog platform with a network that has even the appearance of a conflict may be too much to risk. 

But it's as a fan of ScienceBlogs that I hope and expect the network will endure this, develop better internal systems of communication (particularly between management and the bloggers), and rebuild and strengthen their reputation and their credibility.  I've talked with enough people close to the situation to know the mistakes were unintentional and there are efforts underway to improve lines of communication there.  I hope they'll continue to apologize, and I hope they'll make the substantive changes necessary to survive.  They're a big part of a vibrant and important community.

Let's not forget why the sponsored blog came about in the first place.  The current business models for online publications don't work very well. The management is trying to find new revenue streams, and they're bound to make mistakes along the way.  I hope the people who protested this arrangement will be just as assertive and vocal about developing new ideas to sustain the community.

You can't compromise your integrity or your credibility, but I would think science bloggers understand this better than most: you have to adapt and evolve to survive.