Welcome, Convergence...

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

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

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

What I'm Reading This Week

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

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

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

This ONE TIME you can call me a princess

Normally "princess" isn't something you call a guy.  But I'll join in this one.  Just this one time. Go git'em, Susan.  Go ahead, call me a princess.  Find me a damn tiara already. Put me on that LONG list of people calling themselves princesses and supporting you.

Susan Neibur is amazing - astrophysicist (that's "ROCKET SCIENTIST" to you and me), mom, wife, blogger, and cancer survivor.  And she's a damn fine writer.  I've been kicking some ideas around with her on something for almost a year now that I hope will try to bring both of her "worlds" together - science and parenting.  We'll pull it off.

Susan, you're not alone and you never will be.

Congratulations are in order

Nice to see good people find success:

Susan Getgood is now VP, Sales & Marketing at BlogHer.  The best name in social media now has one of the best jobs in social media as well.  A great fit for her.

Liz Gumbinner, Kristen Chase, and Beth Blecherman have officially launched Cool Mom Tech. The right people working on the right stuff for the right community at the right time.  I expect huge success for this project.

Science For Citizens, the company run by Darlene Cavalier and Michael Gold,  graduated from the Good Company Ventures business incubator and won "Best Pitch" at their graduation event.  They have some amazing plans in the works and they're going to accomplish a lot.

Bora Zivkovic is joining Scientific American to be their online community manager.  Keep your eye on this science blog network - my sources tell me the priority will be "fun."

I work with some smart people.

I'm getting sucked into a work vortex this week, so this space will be very quiet.  But I did want to send some shout-outs to some of my colleagues, near and far, for some of the work they're doing in social media.

First, David King and his colleagues in London have done some outstanding work using Twitter to strengthen our company's position as a top-notch political firm.  @UKelection2010 has been an outstanding resource for news and analysis as Britons head to the polls soon.  It's being noticed not simply by a lot of people, but by a lot of INFLUENTIAL people - not many twitter accounts get re-tweets from the Iraqi government.

Second, Virtual Vantage Points got a makeover of sorts and they've added a companion CR blog, Shared Purpose, led by my colleague Tara Greco.  Tara really kept VVP afloat for a long time and it's great to see she's called in some smart and savvy folks to write with her.   I'll be checking it regularly and I hope you will too...

Definitely One To Watch

I'm taking a quick trip up to DC today for the PR News Awards luncheon - it will be good to see colleagues and I'm looking forward to the networking, but I'm most excited about celebrating the success and recognition of one of my cooler colleagues, John Cangany.

John has been named to a list of "15 to Watch for 2009" by PR News Magazine.

I've worked with John for a while now and it's been a privilege to watch this guy in action. The first thing you realize is he never stops. He's not one of those guys who sends you the email at 11pm just to show you he's working late - he's really too busy to care about that stuff. John works hard because he really cares about online communities and technology. It's clear that social media is a passion of his.

John's also one of those guys who just "gets it" - he knows instinctively that social media isn't about tools, it's about communities and relationships and conversations and influence. He's relentless about connecting people with ideas and issues and helping share best practices. (Hence the vid cap specifying his advice when introducing oneself to an online community.)

So bigtime kudos to John and the rest of my colleagues who will be recognized for their efforts today.

But mostly John.

Giving Thanks

Yeah, I'm doing it because all the cool kids are doing it this week. Peer pressure and all. So here's what I'm thankful for this year:

• My family
• My new home
• Sleep
  
• The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
• People who make careers in science cool
• Our armed forces and their families - especially those who won't be able to be together this holiday season
• Schlubs in other PR firms who try to sell potential clients a "Twitter strategy" so I can walk in after them and look brilliant by just describing the obvious
• Spring training
• A company that provides a flexible work environment
• Entrepreneurial bloggers who let me do cool stuff with them
• Clients who let me dream up goofy ideas and don't shoot them down immediately
• Antioxidants
• People who work the third shift
• Pizza
• The ability to work closely with colleagues thousands of miles away
• Both of the people who read this blog

Have a happy and restful Thanksgiving.

PR Blogger of the Year?

When I found out I was a finalist for PR News' PR Blogger of the Year 2009, I emailed my boss and said, "surely there must be some mistake."

He replied, quickly: "I double checked."

Seriously, it's an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence as Brian Solis of FutureWorks and Tim Haran of Usana Health Sciences. Many thanks to the good people at PR News.

Brian has done an outstanding job promoting the profession and I've been reading his blog regularly for some time now. His latest book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, is a valuable tool for people who want to do this right. He was talking about social media as more sociology than technology before it was cool.

To be honest I hadn't read Tim's blog before I learned he was a finalist, but I've taken a look and it's clear his enthusiasm for his company's activities is contagious. He does a great job keeping so many people engaged and excited.

PR News has an interesting group here of three fairly different blogs. Brian is using his blog to talk with fellow communicators. He's relentlessly focused on sharing best practices, identifying trends, and so on. Tim is using his blog to show the personal side of a company and its people, to grow and enhance a social network. I'm using my blog as a tool to engage specific online communities and have issues-based discussions.

It brings me back to a question Karen Russell asked when I was speaking with her class about what division of a company should we place social media - PR, marketing, corporate communications, or somewhere else. I said you shouldn't get tripped up by categorization or nomenclature - social media is what it is, it serves different functions for different people, and may not belong in the same place for every company. Brian, Tim, and I are all practicing public relations at our jobs and with our blogs, yet it's clear we're all doing it very differently. I don't worry about definitions. I do care about communities, relationships, conversations and results.

Warmest congratulations to Brian and Tim, and I hope I get the chance to meet both of you soon.

Goodbye Bluegrass

It seems our house sold sooner than we thought it would, so I'm saying goodbye to Central Kentucky. My wife will be starting a new job at Duke University soon, so we're off to Durham, NC.

The past five years in Kentucky have been personally and professionally rewarding. I had my most surreal professional experience here - coordinating a conference call about a plane crash from the site of a derailed and burning freight train. I also saw my own name in the papers here a lot more than I wanted. However, I also got to see life from a different perspective - slower, more rural, more conservative - and as a result I hope I've learned more about appreciating and respecting other points of view. From my home office in Lexington I helped my company build a social media practice that accounts for seven figures in revenue and assemble a young, talented and dynamic global team. It's a humbling experience, and I'm grateful to Evan Kraus for having confidence in me and tolerance of my wacky ideas.

I can't begin to thank Tom Martin, Chuck Creacy and Chris Eddie at Business Lexington enough for the opportunities to contribute to Business Lexington's success. My sporadic column there gave me the chance to both explore national and global issues while learning more about Kentucky. Tom is a good friend and an accomplished journalist, and I'm looking forward to continuing to collaborate with him on some interesting ideas, albeit from a distance.

There are a couple of local business people I have to specifically mention here. Nancy Victor of All Creatures Inn and Scott Nieves of Beaumont Veterinary Center have consistently gone above and beyond all expectations when it comes to customer service. If dogs are part of your family, and you live in the Lexington area, I'd recommend each of them in a heartbeat.

The transition to Durham will take some time, and things might be a bit spotty here for a few weeks, but I'll try to update as much as I can.

Adding My Voice

It's no secret that I've been singing the praises of Global Voices Online and its advocacy arm for some time now. So when I saw this - even though it's a contest run by organization that's working closely with a competitor - I thought it was important to add my voice to a global chorus in support of Global Voices Advocacy.

Zemanta has a new add-on tool for blogs, and they're trying to promote blogging for a cause. The cause that gets the most blog posts will win $3,000.

I vote for Global Voices Advocacy, because they represent the future of activism and communication in a newly-wired developing world.

There are dozens of great causes participating in this contest, and each deserves support. For at least part of my career I spent time focusing on the developing world and trying to find solutions through trade and intellectual property rules to the enormous public health challenges in the poorest countries. I quickly learned that there are far more urgent priorities than a rulebook and a tariff schedule updated regularly in Geneva, and the top priority can be summed up in a single word: infrastructure.

When most people hear the word "infrastructure" they think roads and bridges and ports. When they hear "communications infrastructure" they usually think about fiber-optic cables or cellphone towers. And they're right. But infrastructure is also about people. It's about people with the right training, in the right place, at the right time. Bridges don't get built without engineers and construction workers. Communications networks don't get utilized without people who know how to use them.

You could make medicines for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria available for free, but they're useless if there isn't a system in place to distribute and administer those medicines. That means you need working ports to unload the vaccines and the medical supplies, but you also need everyone from the person who knows how to drive a truck on rough terrain without tipping over to the person who knows how to give a vaccine to the person who knows how to convince others to come back regularly for care. In too many places that's all the same person, and if anything happens to her or him, the entire infrastructure is gone.

History has shown that the key to preventing disease - as well as addressing any number of injustices - is the free flow of information.

Global Voices Advocacy is providing that channel for information to flow both ways - they're quite literally building and training a network of advocates and communicators where they're needed most, and they're helping those whose voices haven't been heard before share their stories and solutions. They're building the links between those "in the field" and those in the boardrooms and the broadcast booth. Global Voices Advocacy is the human global communications infrastructure of the 21st century. It is the foundation upon which large-scale grassroots campaigns will be built.

On top of that, they're redefining the "business of journalism." The global news network of the future is going to look a lot more like Global Voices than it will BBC or CNN - a loose coalition of smart people leveraging low-cost technology for high-concept results with sound production values. They'll circumvent censorship and oppression with flip-phones and portable solar chargers. They'll download data and conduct research from internet cafes in Ghana. They'll produce compelling, high-definition content with laptops and $200 cameras. Language barriers will be virtually meaningless. Most importantly, they'll be constantly growing their ranks as people understand the value of telling their own stories and learning from others.

How can you raise awareness about a specific disease, or recruit people to address a tragedy, or offer a solution to a problem, if there's no way to tell your story to the world in your own words?

This blog post is part of Zemanta's “Blogging For a Cause” (http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/) campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Speaking of Mom...

A quick pause from the constant World According to Mom talk to give a shout-out to the folks at Moms Rising for their clever and customizable Mother's Day video.

Check it out and send one to your mom. It's really funny.

While some of those poser "pro-family" groups spend nearly all their time obsessed with banning dirty words, abstinence-only clowns, and "the gay," Moms Rising is a pro-family group with serious street cred. They fight for REAL family issues such as improved parental leave, health care coverage and affordable, quality childcare for kids, wage equity, and so on. They're non-partisan and they're inclusive. As the video demonstrates, they have a sense of humor too.

One further thing - they really get it on social media. They shared this video with me and they were remarkably quick to work on some small technical glitches I was having. Really strong blogger relations, folks.

Breather

I'll be traveling on Monday, so updates for The World According To Mom will resume later in the week. I'm almost certain we'll have more than 200 posts by the next update (we may have them by the end of today). Check out the original post from HBM and the Global Voices Online coverage for more.

Meantime, here's a shout out to the guy who writes Digital Metropolis, who told me in confidence that this is his all-time favorite song EVAH, but really likes it a capella...

for bloggers, by bloggers

I'm really excited about Parent Bloggers Network's new series of free webinars that are designed to help bloggers be better bloggers. They will offer all sorts of tips about things like SEO, writing skills, photography, design, and so on. If you're a blogger who would like to get more traffic, attention, prominence, whatever - or if you're just trying to hone your craft - these are for you.

And they're posting them all to vimeo. Here's the first.


PBN Webinar Series "Building Better Blogs" - The ABCs of SEO - March 4, 2009 from Parent Bloggers Network on Vimeo.

Educating the Masses

Egad, I missed working on social media. It's been too long.

Today was great fun and (I hope) a valuable learning experience for my colleagues. In addition to a nuts & bolts presentation on social media to some of my "issues management" and "grassroots" colleagues, I helped arrange and moderated a blogger panel to help my colleagues understand some of the do's and don'ts of social media in practice.

I like to take a community-based approach to social media - it's not about the tools you use, it's about the relationships you build with opinion leaders in online communities. Many online communities, however, are reasonably isolated from one another. So what I really loved about this panel was the participants were not only smart and accomplished, they also arguably had influence in more than one online community. They're the type of people you can't define with a single term. I've described before how these are the people who can help bridge cultural gaps and build broad, diverse coalitions of support around particular issues or causes.

Joanne Bamberger is a mom who's seriously into the meat and potatoes of policy and politics - she's comfortable discussing the horse race of campaigns, but is more interested in the nitty-gritty and discusses the real issues at PunditMom. Dr. Val Jones is doing an incredible job bridging the gap between doctors and parents - she moves about both communities effectively, and they come together on her blog, Better Health. Lynn Anne Miller builds relationships with parents and environmentalists and can even discuss marketing at her blog, Organic Mania. Jerome Armstrong is a legend in the liberal blogosphere and has written MyDD since 2001, and he's also a co-founder of SB Nation, a network of sports blogs.

I thoroughly enjoyed bringing together people from different walks of life to discuss the one thing they had in common - social media. It was clear to me how important community was to each of them and how much we all still have to learn.

I hope we can do it again sometime soon. My sincere thanks to this impressive group.

I'm still working on that traditional communications project, and I think the experience is quite valuable, but I'm also looking forward to resuming my full-time social media gig and to blogging a bit more regularly.

Where's David?

I returned from holiday break and was asked to serve in a temporary spokesperson role for a local client, so the blog will probably be slow for a while. I liked this review of Holy Ground - 30 Passionate Arguments for Faith-Based Environmental Protection. Go read it.

I hope to be back blogging soon...

the weather outside is frightful

seriously, it's REALLY cold.

I'm going to step away from the blog for a while but I will return in 2009. If you haven't yet, I hope you'll resolve to teach a child to read in 2009 and take the pledge at the Hooked on Phonics website. (They're a client and they're really nice people.) They will donate a learn-to-read system to First Book, a cool non-profit that has given more than 60 million new books to at-risk kids since 1992.

Best wishes to all for a joyous holiday, and a peaceful and prosperous new year.

Best Blog EVAH - Health Disparities Blog at Case Western Reserve University

I found David Porter on Twitter one day and noticed he made a lot of comments about health disparities - something my wife studies in earnest. Turns out he's a Research Project Associate and webmaster for Case Western Reserve University's Case Center for Reducing Health Disparities.

And he puts together an impressive blog.

It's not overwhelming or too shiny; it doesn't suck up bandwidth by throwing a bunch of widgets or huge graphics on the page. It does use some of the basic social media tools that you'd look for in a blog - a really strong delicious links page (you'll notice the blog depends rather heavily on it), some aggregator tools, an RSS feed. You can find some multimedia content (podcasts) in the sidebar and a small but adequate blogroll.

The best thing about this blog is the technology doesn't get in the way of the content. This is a strong example of social media supporting a positioning strategy - it collects some of the best thinking on health disparities and presents it in an accessible way, placing it under the "brand" of Case Western Reserve University. CWRU doesn't necessarily have the reputation of an Ivy League school or a huge land grant school, but tools like this help establish its credibility in a very important - and arguably undervalued - niche. I now know one of the best places to go for information about health disparities is Case Western Reserve University, and journalists looking for a source or notable quotable can go there as well.

My wife mentioned she'd like to see more there on rural health disparities, and I'm hopeful that can be remedied...

Dr. Pearse Lyons

Business Lexington TV spotlights the founder of Alltech, the title sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. (Full disclosure: I've done some work for them.)

Social Media: Government Bureaucrats Get It

Or at least Mark Story does.

Kudos to my old pal for being named Director of New Media for the Securities Exchange Commission. We don't work together anymore but I've enjoyed keeping up with him on Twitter and his blog. I don't typically say nice things about Republicans, but here goes:

Under Chairman Cox's leadership, Mark Story has helped usher in a new chapter of communication and accountability to a government agency that is widely perceived to be as "old school" as it gets. Mark is creative and dynamic and I think he's going to help companies make their financial information more clear and accessible.

There. I said it. And I meant it.

Mark also does a great job teaching Georgetown students about social media and has distinguished himself among his peers. I'm proud to call him a friend and I wish him every success in his new position.

He's also a fellow Red Sox fan. 'nuff ced.

I'm traveling for a while so you'll probably be looking at this virtual smooch for a few days. Enjoy.

Best stuff on the interwebs right now, according to ME

I'm on the road so posting is light. Go read some smart people.

Twitter, PIER, and communication technologies during Hurricane Ike by Gerald Baron

Using reading circles in a graduate seminar by Karen Russell

Large Hadron Collider comes online, world fails to end by Jonathan Gitlin

Financial Meltdown: Journalists Ignored the Early and Obvious Signs by Dan Gillmor

Nobody Gave a Crap About the FDIC Until Fairly Recently by Meg Marco