Rape threats and DDoS attacks: welcome to the new normal

After reading about what happened to Adria Richards last week, I was struck by a couple of things.

First, I wish we could spend even half as much time educating men on the etiquette of telling really stupid penis jokes in mixed company at professional conferences as, say, the time we spend sending death threats and rape threats to the woman who called out some guys for telling really stupid penis jokes in mixed company at a professional conference.

But that's just me.

Second, what happened to Adria Richards is the new normal.  And our profession is completely unprepared for it.

Cultural conflict has always been a part of business, and social media has intensified some conflicts. Most people in PR have a story about a client who offended a customer and the issue blow up on Twitter or Facebook.  But we're well beyond an angry tweet or a viral video now.  We're at the point where a 15-year-old kid with some basic computer skills and a little audacity can cripple a company or destroy a person's life.

A small group of even amateur hackers (or sometimes a single hacker) can bring down an industry's entire commerce platform for an indefinite time, or steal and share a company's trade secrets, or even publish a person's most private and sensitive information.

So while big companies can afford sophisticated defense systems, the same idiot-proofed digital technology that helps mid-sized and small companies compete on a global scale allows hackers to attack them.  And since startup companies don't have the resources to invest in hacker-proof systems (not that such a thing exists), they're easier targets.  Even tech companies, like, say, SendGrid.

The larger problem, however, is the cultural phenomenon that this same technology has accelerated - homophily. (I've written about homophily before.)

Digital technology has prompted consumers to curate their own news streams and collect the information that fits their interest and their world view.  People organize into groups that reflect those interests and world views - like Facebook groups, boards on Reddit or 4chan, and so on.  When people do this, they form very tight-knit communities that share deep and rich experiences with each other.  The more time they spend with each other and not with anyone else, they also develop skewed perspectives of reality, and they grow more strident in those views, especially when challenged.

Professor Alice Marwick put it really well as she examined the recent controversy: "When people with likeminded beliefs congregate together, they collectively move to a more extreme position."

What's more, online forums often provide a modicum of anonymity to the people who gather there.  Anonymity can certainly provide a safe haven for a whistleblower or a victim - but it also provides an easy out for those who want to avoid accountability. When you don't own your words, you can say anything you want - and push that community to that more extreme position.

And so we get an anonymous comment to Dr. Marwick's piece, calling her an "attention-seeking drama queen with an agenda" and another saying she's an "overly sensitive publicity seeker." Yet somehow techies with aggressively-cultivated personal brands like Robert Scoble, David Winer, CC Chapman, Dave Taylor, Jason Falls, Jason Calcanis, Michael Arrington, or Leo Laporte can make any number of provocative statements or public "call-outs" on "minor" things without receiving a single rape threat.  Tell a woman that they should keep things quiet and polite and many will tell you - without hiding behind a sophomoric pseudonym like "A Canned Ham" - that it doesn't work.

So as people with homophily-enhanced anger issues and reasonable technical skills decide to attack our clients (remember, SendGrid got attacked in this fiasco as well), PR firms and professionals have a lot of work to do.

First, we have to add strong security expertise to our firms and our professional offerings, or at least to our networks, to fight off the basic attacks we can easily predict.  Most of us aren't anywhere close to where we need to be.  We need people who can effectively translate security concepts and practices to the worlds of PR, strategic communications, and marketing.  I think the list starts with Jennifer Leggio, and there are others.

Second, we have to provide the right kind of training for PR professionals to help recognize and address these issues - recognizing that the companies most at risk are the small/mid-sized startup types who, if they have outside PR help at all, tend to use a sole practitioner or a small firm. I can see someone like  Kellye Crane working with experts on this and providing this kind of training to solo PR's as well as big firms.

Third, we have to revolutionize our social media monitoring.  Keyword searches that give you yesterday's Twitter mentions don't cut it.  We need digital explorers who have no fear of joining new and unfamiliar communities to learn what's really happening - so they can provide subjective, predictive counsel to a client and the rest of the team.  I'm not talking about a covert operation here, posing as an activist or lurking in a chat room.  I'm talking about transparent entry with sincere gestures of goodwill and even advocacy when appropriate. (OK, that's pretty much what I like to do.)

Finally - and this is the long-term, big picture, probably-impossible-but-we-still-have-to-try thing - we must work with people like Dr. Marwick to develop strategies that overcome the negative impacts of homophily. We will never resolve certain conflicts and we will have tribalism as long as we have tribes. But if PR firms can't figure out a way to more effectively take what we know about "third party validators"or business diplomacy and apply it to the most provincial online communities, if we can't prod our clients to get out of the bunker when things get tough, if we decide writing off entire communities is less expensive than building allies and understanding, then we've failed our clients and we've failed ourselves.

World Kidney Day

In honor of a brilliant colleague who has been a long-time advocate for kidney health, I'm pleased to recognize World Kidney Day by sharing an infographic from our client, AMAG Pharmaceuticals.  She's been working on a campaign to help educate people with Chronic Kidney Disease on how to recognize the symptoms of iron deficiency anemia and what you can do about it.

I don't typically share items like this on the blog here, but I'll make an exception in this case because the infographic is very well done and I know my friend and colleague would want me to.  Here's hoping everyone can make informed health decisions.

This above all: to thine own self be true

A science communicator friend of mine teaches a class at NC State and asked me to talk with them next week.  His students are a mix of undergrads in different majors - journalism, PR, and so on. He asked me to talk about how the skills or principles we use in PR can translate into other careers.  Here's an outline of what I plan to say.  And yes, this may be on the final exam or something.

It's probably important to explain what Public Relations is - not that my definition of it is any more useful than anyone else's. The Public Relations Society of America says it's "a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics."   I tend to think of it in less fancy terms - PR is how we bridge the gaps between what we say, what we mean, and what we do. 

To me, the first rule in PR - or in any facet of communication, for that matter - is know your audience.  Learn their goals, their preferences, their taboos, their language.  Show them the respect of investing your time into knowing a little bit about them. Discover what you have in common. Persuasion is often about finding shared perspectives and building trust.  Further, a little up-front research can help you avoid the really stupid mistakes. Of course, I think today the word "audience" should probably be replaced with the word "community" - because an audience tends to be more passive and receives information, while today technology helps people talk back. (There's a reason I call this blog It's Not a Lecture.) 

Second, and again, this is nearly universal - tell a good story. Not everybody does this well, and I'm not convinced there's a set formula for success. However, to me the best stories engage quickly, surprise you a bit, and contain an unmistakable element of truth. The more you do it, the better you get at it.  I think the more you know your audience the better chance your story will be good, but there is a creative skill set that goes along with storytelling. Some people have it, some people don't. 

Finally, and this is a bit more important to my field than to others - understand that when your job doesn't let you communicate in the way you'd prefer, you have to stay true to yourself.  

Organizations generally don't hire PR firms because they just can't find enough time to talk about puppies and sunshine. They may hire PR firms because they often do things that are hard to understand - they involve a lot of accounting lingo or policy wonkery or scientific terminology. They may hire PR firms because they actually did the things their critics accuse them of doing. They may hire PR firms because something very, very bad happened. 

If you're in crisis PR, as I sometimes am, a lot of what you do is defense. Sometimes you can't say a lot because there's an ongoing lawsuit or an investigation. Sometimes your client is "in the bunker" and is so risk averse they are hesitant to do anything and hope everything will just blow over.  Sometimes you learn information that you want to share - something that would land on the front page of a newspaper or move a stock price or maybe get someone in trouble - but you realize that sharing it has consequences too.

You have to be able to live with that. You have to be willing to serve the interests of your client. You have to manage your internal conflicts, and figure out a way to make sure you're giving the best advice you can.  

The good news is this - most of the time, the right thing to do is also the best PR move.  These include things like telling the truth, or making a mistreated employee or customer whole, or announcing that the product you made isn't completely safe and should be recalled. And most of the time, the client sees that too. 

For those rare times when the right thing to do isn't the best PR move, only you can decide what you do next. 

A war on moms is a war on evolution

The dude had a point

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

 - Charles Darwin

Some of the people I admire most on the interwebs have had a lot to say lately about how people have a hard time responding to change - specifically the evolution of gender roles, of family needs, and the economy.

Julie Marsh reminded Mashable that they should know better when it comes to talking about moms on Facebook. Doug French, Lance Somerfield, Charlie Capen and a slew of other men have been pushing advertisers to stop portraying fathers as idiots. Kristen Chase and Liz Gumbinner illustrated how the defenders of those unfunny jokes at the Oscars haven't had anything new to say in forever.

And Joanne Bamberger took two of America's top executives to the woodshed in one of the world's largest newspapers. She called their recent actions "the latest salvo in the war on moms." You should read it.

Joanne is brilliant.  She's an excellent writer. She's had personal and professional success. She's dedicated so much time and energy to fighting for the rights of women to have more choices in their life - choices over their own health care, over their own families, their own work.  So I know it was hard for her to criticize two champions of making those choices - Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandberg.  I'm sure she knew she'd be accused of "taking other women down."  If you know Joanne, you know that wasn't what she was doing at all.  Joanne is trying to lift women up.

Further, Joanne and the others are calling people out for denying our social and cultural evolution, or simply refusing to evolve.  Maybe moms were a little clueless to technology they hadn't seen before, but most aren't clueless now.  Maybe there was a time when dads were complete idiots when it came to parenting, but most are not now.  Maybe there was a time when boob jokes and rape jokes and using the c-word to describe an eight-year-old girl were funny to an adult, prime-time audience.

I "get" those jokes just fine.  They're stupid.  Get with the times, people.

Sheryl Sandberg represents all of the things I look for in a female role model - she's smart, she works hard, she overcomes challenges, she shatters stereotypes, and she strives to help others.  I haven't read her book so I won't presume to know what she says in it. I do know this, however - the next generation of Sheryl Sandbergs tend to believe there's a lot more to life than a career, and a lot more to a career than personal advancement.  Generation Y doesn't "lean in" to any one thing. They change jobs almost as quickly as they change underwear.  Businesses must evolve to reflect the values of the next generation of business leaders.  If companies like Facebook don't keep pace, they'll go the way of the dodo. I'd be very interested to know what Sandberg thinks about this and how she plans to address it.

When it comes to Marissa Meyer, here's an experiment.  Type "Marissa Meyer is" into your Google search bar, and let Google suggest how you'd finish that sentence/search.  Here's what I got:

Not "Marissa Meyer is an honors graduate of Stanford." Not "Marissa Meyer is the first female engineer Google ever hired." Not "Marissa Meyer is the CEO of a major tech company." Nope, she's either a sexual object or a moron. And a tardy moron at that. Thanks, Internet.

But Meyer really isn't an idiot.  She knew what would happen.  She didn't take her job to win any popularity contests - she did it to lead a company back to greatness. And she knew she'd have to make some very difficult choices to make it happen.  Given what's up against her, I hope she succeeds.

Meyer knows a heckuva lot more about Yahoo! than pretty much anyone else. But I definitely agree with Joanne that this decision to essentially bar telecommuting at the company is a mistake.  Business Insider has reported on some of the thinking behind the decision: previous leadership fostered a bloated payroll of stay-at-home slackers.  I haven't heard any new initiatives out of the company that increase accountability of employees wherever they are - but I have seen a new policy that eliminates employees based not on their ability or productivity but on their location.

To me this reflects a resistance to a constantly changing global economy and the evolving needs of working families. Many families can't get by with a sole breadwinner. The same technology that sparked Yahoo!'s success makes it possible for people to make meaningful contributions wherever they are.  I don't see how you make your company more competitive by limiting your workforce to those who are willing to live in one of the most expensive locations on the planet. What's more, I think the new policy sends a very clear message - "no parents of children with special needs need apply."  The simple truth for more people than you may think is this: if you can't work from home at least some of the time, you can't work.

It took longer than it should have for our society to understand that stereotypes from the 50's no longer apply, and that the people who make the boob/rape jokes are the jerks - not the people who don't find them funny. But we still have a long way to go.

It took longer than it should have to have a culture and a legal system that helps brilliant and hard-working women like Sandberg and Meyer succeed at the same pace as men. But we still have a long way to go.

It took longer than it should have for businesses to understand that workers value more than just their careers, and that workers can make contributions from virtually anywhere while still meeting the needs of their family.  But we still have a long way to go - and we all need brilliant leaders like Sandberg and Meyer to help.

Female Role Models IX

So there was this great meme on Twitter - TellAFeministThankYou - that trended worldwide for a while. It was a great opportunity for people to send shout-outs to their friends, family, colleagues, and mentors, and thousands of people did exactly that.  Of course, it was also a great opportunity for a few folks to drop some virtual turds in the tweetbowl:

The only way that I would ever #TellAFeministThankYou is if they made me a sandwich, did my laundry, or held the door for ME.
— Beau Diamond (@thebeaudiamond) February 13, 2013

#TellAFeministThankYou get in the kitchen.
— calum mitchell (@calumdmitchell) February 13, 2013

#TellAFeministThankYou how about fuck you
— Riley Olzenak (@ThatKidRileyO) February 13, 2013

Of course, these dopes represented a very small minority of the discussion participants and for the most part they got their butts handed to them pretty good.  But, as is my custom, any time knuckle-draggers like these guys decide to spout off is a good time to introduce and celebrate another group of female role models.  Once again, the criteria I use are pretty basic:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

So here's my latest list, and I hope those chuckleheads keep talking smack. My list of role models is pretty long.

Christine Koh. Dr. Koh spent about a decade in academia and built a very impressive track record of success.  She then decided to change things up a bit and started her own graphic design firm and a parenting online portal and resource for moms and dads in the Boston area.   She's been featured in more mainstream publications than I can mention and continues to be a strong leader in the online parenting community.

Carolina Valencia. If you want to see the the best that social media will offer in the future, I think you should look at Carolina Valencia today.  She's the director of social media for Univision, and did award-winning work at the New York Times before that. The content she curates on her Tumblr demonstrates a sense of continuity - she pays homage to the important people who came before her and she celebrates the current accomplishments of her role models, while she looks to her own future.  She's also a Yankees fan, so I'm trying really hard not to hold that against her.

Kate Clancy. There aren't too many people who are on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign, taught expository writing at Harvard, and compete in roller derby. (Seriously, roller derby.) Dr. Clancy is a teacher, a mentor, a researcher, a communicator, a mother, and an activist. She displays a relentless commitment to diversity and helping everyone find her or his voice.

Stephanie Himel-Nelson. This "recovering attorney" and Air Force brat takes service to others seriously.  She's the community manager at Attain Fertility and she co-founded Blue Star Families in 2008. Since then this organization has grown to 70 chapters around the country, giving military families the resources they need to help other military families.

#scio13: Tweaking Content Isn't Outreach

More of this, please

I thoroughly enjoyed ScienceOnline 2013.  It was great to catch up with acquaintances, meet new people, and address some important topics. I was grateful for the opportunity to co-moderate a panel with Emily Willingham, and to meet many of the editors of the online publication Emily is leading, Double X Science.  And of course, the #scio triumvirate of Bora, Karyn, and Anton deserve so much credit and thanks.

Last year I had a surprisingly conflicted take on the conference.  This year, I'm still a bit frustrated, but now I realize my expectations are inappropriate.  ScienceOnline is a gathering of content creators - brilliant, dynamic, thoughtful and inspirational creators of science writing.  I keep wanting this community to be campaigners.  They're not - at least not here.

I heard and shared the frustration of many who see denialists winning political or cultural fights.  I heard many comments like "we're preaching to the choir" or "we're only talking with each other" in many of the panel sessions I attended.  But when it came to the important question, at least to me - the one asking how we reach more people and win these fights - the answers almost always focused on tweaking the content.  Avoid jargon, use simpler words, but don't "dumb it down."  Incorporate art or other forms of multimedia.  Use more storytelling.

These are all important and valuable ideas, but tweaking content isn't outreach.  And without outreach the most persuasive content in the world is useless.

At the session I moderated with Emily, I challenged the people in the room to develop audacious strategies and provocative tactics. I suggested things like working with state legislators to draft bills, or forming unlikely alliances with business groups, or even staging pithy publicity stunts that put denialists on the defensive.  I got a decent amount of pushback - people were (quite reasonably) concerned about civility and inadequate resources, and some simply didn't think it would work.

But my biggest mistake (a.k.a., "learning opportunity") was not truly knowing my audience.  I was talking with a group of mostly content creators who came to a conference to talk primarily about content creation.  It's not that this group was fundamentally against campaigning - indeed, there were people there who are great at it - but this just wasn't the time or the place. This was a time where people like Ed Yong and Maryn McKenna were celebrated for their great writing.  Where people learned how to embrace narrative or sharpen their skills. Where they found new sources of content and inspiration and ideas.  Full-tilt, door-knocking outreach?  Another time, another place.

So real outreach - real strategic, audacious, effective outreach from science communicators - remains an urgent, unmet need.

Outreach is hard.  It begins with listening to a community and learning as much as you can from it.  It ramps up when you ask people you don't know for something valuable - their time and attention. It often gets really interesting when you ask those people to change or sacrifice something comfortable in their lives.  Outreach fails more often than it succeeds, and those who do it can expect a lot of negative feedback.  To do it well you have to embrace the community you're entering, and focus relentlessly on being relevant and meeting their needs.

But here's the thing that left me more hopeful this year, and credit the conference organizers for this - there was enough time between sessions to follow up with people who shared my goals and opinions, and knew the importance of other conferences like BlogHer or LATISM and other communities.  There were enough really smart, dedicated people to get a sense of what was possible.  And finally, there were enough ideas that got me very, very excited for what comes next.

Here comes #scio13

Tomorrow is the start of the annual ScienceOnline conference.   I can't say enough about the conference leaders - Bora Zivkovic, Anton Zuiker, and Karyn Traphagen. The amount of work they put into this conference - on top of their already ridiculously busy lives - is amazing. I know so many people are so grateful for all they do to bring this community together and help it grow and thrive.

I'm also all about showing the ScienceOnline sponsors a little love - especially my good friends at Alltech. (say it with me: "Bourbon. Barrel. Ale.")

Further, I'm grateful to Emily Wilingham, who is co-moderating the panel "Tackling science denialism with a systematic gameplan." I talk a good game when it comes to addressing those who would deny or obfuscate science for their own ends, but Emily lives it.  Emily and I will share some of our experiences, and we hope others will do the same.  I already wrote a bit about our panel, but I think I'll just repeat the questions I like to have handy when formulating a communications strategy:

• What's your measurable goal - is it a public policy change, a business change, something else?
• Who makes up the specific audience or community you wish to influence?  Who are that community's leaders?
• How will you build or strengthen your relationships with those leaders? 
• Who are some allies that may not be scientists or science communicators? 
• Who are your opponents?
• How will you know you've made progress?
• How are you testing your messages to know that what you're saying persuades people?
• What resources do you have readily available, and what more do you need?
• What is your timeline for success?

Most importantly, I'm grateful to the people who love science and understand its importance, even if they're not scientists or science writers.  People like Cecily Kellogg, Brenna Burke, Thea Joselow, Jason Sperber, Kristen Chase, Catherine Connors, Kelly Wickham, Julie Marsh, Kim Moldofsky, Veronica Arreola, and many more. These are the people - parents and good citizens who think critically and have strong credibility and many relationships in their communities - who will defeat denialism through their everyday decisions and the values they pass on to their kids.  We need more people like them. 

Real dead women are more important than fake dead women

There are definitely other things I could be writing about.  Other things I should be writing about.  But something has been bugging me for a while, it sort of came to a head in the last day or two, and it's time to say so.  So I'll preface with the standard "these thoughts are my own" disclaimer.

Real dead women are more important than fake dead women.

Quick recap for anyone who doesn't pay attention to these things: Monti Te'o, the captain of the Notre Dame football team, had a girlfriend that didn't exist.  She "died" just before Notre Dame's game against Michigan State, and the media went crazy over how Te'o overcame this incredible psychological burden to have a great game.  Te'o and Notre Dame now claim that he was the victim of a "cruel" hoax; however some of the statements Te'o made over the course of the year suggest there may be more to it than that.  The story has been plastered on the front page of newspapers across the country, and has been the big topic of discussion on national cable news for more than a day now.

That's right - some really good football player got duped by an online profile.  It's shocking, you know, because nobody has ever lied on the Internet before, and nothing is more important than the fictional love lives of athletes.

Lizzy Seeberg did exist.  She was allegedly sexually assaulted by a Notre Dame football player in 2010.  She notified police, who didn't even contact the player for several days - though they did investigate Seeberg thoroughly.  Ten days after she reported the assault - after she got text messages from the football player's friend saying "don't do anything you would regret... messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea,"  and knowing that the alleged abuser hadn't even been questioned, Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide.  Not long after, a second woman who was allegedly raped by a Notre Dame football player received several text messages from that player's teammates, warning her not to report it to authorities.  She ultimately decided not to prosecute.

Notre Dame has already held one press conference about Te'o's fictional girlfriend, one in which they announced they were "conducting an investigation" - what University "investigates" a student's fake online girlfriend? - and in which the University's athletic director held back tears.  They have also collaborated with a CBS News story, discussing the fictional girlfriend, after the University already knew about the hoax.  They're apparently going back and scrubbing transcripts that refer to the story at all.

Of course, now the media is attacking this complete nothingburger of a story like it's the Pentagon Papers.  New York Times.  Washington Post. CNN. ABC News. Chicago Tribune. Time Magazine.  They're searching out the alleged perpetrator of the hoax. They're calling up his parents, his neighbors, asking everyone they can think of for comment.

Notre Dame has held no press conferences regarding the alleged rapists on the football team or regarding the student who took her own life after reporting a sexual assault.  The President of the University refused to meet with Lizzy Seeberg's parents - on advice from counsel, of course.  The campus police investigation that opened so slowly was closed very quickly. The player accused by Lizzy Seeberg played in the same national championship game that Manti Te'o did earlier this month, as did many of the players who sent text messages to the second alleged victim.

The amount of coverage Lizzy Seeberg's case got since 2010 is barely a fraction of what we've seen about Manti Te'o in the last 48 hours. A handful of people - mostly women - have noted the difference in how Notre Dame has handled the two cases. Christine Brennan. Irin Carmon. Amanda Marcotte. Katie J.M. Baker. And of course, Melinda Henneberger, a Notre Dame alum who has followed the Seeberg story for years.

It bothers me that the only people who seem to speak up about this disturbing disconnect are feminists, as if you have to hold a particular political ideology to demand zero tolerance for this sort of thing.   It bothers me even more that the national media has basically been let off the hook - why aren't they attacking Lizzy Seeberg's story with the same zeal?  Why aren't they asking Notre Dame's leadership - you know, the big Catholic school - about the Catholic value of standing up for the powerless against the powerful?    At a time when society is supposedly waking up to the issue of rape from Ohio to India, Where is the media on this?

Where are any of us?

What incredible cowardice.  What a disgrace.

#Scio13: bring on the strategy!

ScienceOnline 2013 is quickly approaching and I'm excited to co-moderate a panel called "tackling science denialism with a systematic game plan" with Emily Willingham.  Emily and I clearly bring different perspectives to the table.

Emily has an impressive track record of accomplishment in science and science communication.  She earned a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin, she completed a successful postdoctoral fellowship at UC-San Francisco, and she taught biology to thousands of college-age students in Texas and California.  In addition to writing a successful laypersons' guide to college biology, Emily's work has appeared in Scientific American, Slate, Grist, Forbes, and other noteworthy publications. (She's also a star of the coolest YouTube video on evolution EVAH.) 

When Emily was probably ramping up her graduate studies, I was attaching pizza coupons to my resume and mailing them to Members of Congress.  The cover letters would say things like, "Dear Senator - hire me and get a dollar off your next extra-large pepperoni!"

So yeah, I'm a little intimidated. 

But since then, I've seen some things in politics and public relations that have helped me understand how public opinion evolves and how it affects policy. I've learned the importance of having well-defined goals and meaningful metrics.   I've seen "overmatched" people and organizations win policy and PR fights through tenacity, patience, well-tested messaging, creativity, audacity, and strategic application of finite resources.  I've seen one cliche play out time and time again: "If you're not on offense, you're on defense.  And if you're on defense, you're losing."  In short, I've learned that you need a strategy to "win." And sadly, for all the brilliance that #scio13 brings to bear, I think we're still really short on strategy.

I won't pretend to know how "denialism" starts or how those who hold it think. I also won't pretend to know more about science or science communication than the people participating in the panel discussion.  I'm more interested in developing strategies to win the hearts and minds of those who make decisions for all of us.

I'm hopeful that people will come to the session with items or ideas around which they want to build strategies.  For now, I will share a series of questions I hope people can use to help them develop those ideas:

• What's your measurable goal - is it a public policy change, a business change, something else?
• Who makes up specific audience or community you wish to influence?  Who are that community's leaders?
• How will you build or strengthen your relationships with those leaders? 
• Who are some allies that may not be scientists or science communicators? 
• Who are your opponents?
• How will you know you've made progress?
• How are you testing your messages to know that what you're saying persuades people?
• What resources do you have readily available, and what more do you need?
• What is your timeline for success?

And here are some relevant posts I've written previously:

Informing life's decision makers

My surprisingly conflicted take on #scio12

Reaching Out: Science has a PR solution

Are science writers in denial?

I'm really looking forward to the discussion and the strategies that emerge. 

We're not having a discussion about Newtown. We're having several.

Like so many people, I continue to struggle with my own feelings about the horrible tragedy in Newtown last week.  I've seen several people talk about the need to have that "difficult discussion" about gun control or mental health or our culture of violence or [insert silver bullet here].  I saw Nate Silver's interesting piece about how this discussion is getting framed, and I saw the coverage on the sudden silence of the NRA.

Frankly, I don't think the lack of a discussion is a problem.

The lack of listening is.

I skip around the internet a lot, looking at the discussions in various online communities.  Each community I visit has been talking about this.  However, once again I see the scourge of homophily - the more civil and thoughtful discussions are essentially taking place among like-minded people, while the much-less-frequent discussions between those with differing opinions seem to be taking place in relatively brief, often heated exchanges in comment threads on social networks.

I dusted off my old "discussion clouds" trick to see what the chatter looked like in the various communities I watch a lot. Basically I grabbed a bunch of the more popular blogs in my feeds who covered this issue, and pushed their posts through the cloud generator at Wordle.  It's by no means a scientific analysis, but here's what I got.

The Moms: Liz Gumbinner, Joanne Bamberger, Catherine Connors, Kristen Chase, Erin Kotecki Vest, Julie Marsh, and Rachael Herrscher.

The Science Crowd: Emily Willingham, Daniel Lende, Chad Orzel, John Horgan, Drug Monkey, Keith Kloor, and Mark Hoofnagle.

The liberals: John Aravosis, Josh Micah Marshall, Pam Spaulding, Markos Moulitsas, Oliver Willis, Matthew Dowd, and Dave Brockington.

Conservatives: Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Megan McArdle, Michelle Malkin, Erick Erickson, Eugene Volokh and Peter Tucci.

Notice anything about these?

Moms aren't talking about guns. They're barely mentioning guns.  They're talking about kids. They're putting themselves in the shoes of the parents at Sandy Hook.  They are showing empathy.  Scientists are looking not specifically at guns, but at violence, what may or may not cause it, and what may or may not correlate with it.  Liberals are talking about how easy to get guns - I note my pal John's post asserting it's easier to buy a gun in the United State than real French cheese.  Conservatives are looking much more at the perpetrator of the specific crime in this instance - it's not a gun problem so much as it's that the alleged killer (Lanza) was evil.

But one thing is also clear after looking at all the posts - the communities aren't talking with each other.  (the liberals and conservatives are reading each other and arguing, but in many ways that's a larger "political community.")  And I know Megan McArdle's piece (linked above)wasn't written with an audience of moms in mind:

I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.

Yes, this is an actual suggestion and was NOT intended to be sarcastic.

I don't have the words.

Social media in 2013: nothing will change

blah blah blah

It's mid-December, so it's time for "5 things your company needs to do in social media next year," "what to watch for in social media in 2013" and the rest of the thought leadership posts from the social media ninjas/gurus/rockstars.  They've all been optimized for your googling pleasure.  I tend to ignore them.

Here's all the advice you need to know about social media in 2013 and beyond.

Know who your stakeholders are, go to them, ask them what they want, and give it to them. 

That's it.

Don't believe anyone who tries to sell you a "Twitter strategy" or a "Pinterest utilization model" or anything that measures success in "likes."

Invest heavily in strategies that learn as much as possible about the most important stakeholders you have.  If they're on, say, Facebook, then be on Facebook.  If they're not, then don't worry about Facebook. Just go where they go, listen to what they discuss, and be relentless about serving their needs and being relevant to their interests.

Measure your success in people. As in, "We built a list of 250 people we think are important, and we built relationships with 230 of them."  Define an influential person as someone who can get others to act simply by asking them.  Define degrees of influence by the number and types of people this person can motivate to act. Define a relationship in terms that make sense for the situation - they see you as a resource, or they'll act when you ask them to, etc.  Be very specific in what you want people to do and how you build relationships.

Build relationships with as diverse a group of influential and strategically relevant people as possible.  Don't build relationships with only a collection of people who are very similar - You won't be able to do much with that. Prioritize relationships with people who have influence in more than one community.

If you're looking for thousands and thousands of people to instantly take an action or be informed or directed in some way, create and place a compelling ad.

This is how I've approached online social media since I started doing it in 2006.  It's really all I've ever done.  I've learned new tools along the way because the stakeholders I care about use them.  But it's not about the tools - it's never been about the tools, and it never will be.

Social media has always been about people, influence, and relationships.  It will be in 2013 and beyond.

Are tech companies global sovereigns?

Last week the Internet in Syria disappeared.

The communications shutdown immediately evoked memories of similar action by Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and it sparked fears that President Bashar al-Assad could be preparing to take even harsher action against Syrian opposition forces, which have recently made significant advances in the battle against the government.

It's no surprise that local rebels, pitted against the Syrian government, have used online tools to coordinate their activities. While the Syrian government denies they actually shut down the 'net, they also told an obvious lie at the same time (they said their major airport was open, but it's closed) and most international observers think it was an intentional strike intended to disrupt the opposition or perhaps launch a new attack.

But then something happened - Google and Twitter turned it back on. Or at least some small part of it.

Google and Twitter have announced they have reactivated a voice-tweet program to allow Syrians affected by the shutdown of the Internet to get messages out.

The companies did this before in Egypt, when that country tried to disrupt the organized resistance there.  The US government was apparently prepared for this sort of thing, having sent 2000 "communications kits" to selected people in Syria. (I'm not sure how they did that without significant blowback.)

Since the Syrian government denies they cut the 'net, they can't really protest effectively if tech companies try to fix things.  But if this is what all the national security experts say it is, then I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before countries across the world take the extraordinary step of recalling the ambassador from Google.

Because it seems that's the level these tech companies are playing on.

I've written  on the power companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple have exerted over cultural and some political issues.  But this is different.  This is geopolitical security.  These are issues of sovereignty and war and revolution.   While what they're doing right now may be helpful, I think it's fair to think about how much power we want to give the folks who help us play Angry Birds, find a good local restaurant, or share pictures of our kids.

Read Rebecca McKinnon's Consent of the Networked and check out her blog - she's the most authoritative and clear voice I've heard on the topic. 

Female Role Models VIII

Dudes, zero tolerance for bullshit is a GOOD thing.

Susan Rice is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.  She's a Rhodes Scholar.  Degrees from Stanford and Oxford.  Phi Betta Kappa. Stints at McKinsey and at Brookings.    She's widely regarded as President Obama's first choice to be the next Secretary of State.

However, she's also vewy, vewy mean.  There was even that time she used the bad word that means "poop."

A few Republican Senators have been apoplectic in their opposition to Dr. Rice's potential nomination.  You see, Dr. Rice went on television in October at the White House's request. She recited some talking points about Benghazi that the CIA gave her. The information was recently declassified and incomplete, and Dr. Rice said as much on television.

So just as Dr. Rice's critics realized that we're not all wearing tinfoil hats and this "allegation" is completely meaningless, an article showed up on Reuters suggesting Dr. Rice was "fighting for her political future" and her chances of being the next Secretary of State are "significantly damaged."

The main charge - Dr. Rice apparently has a zero-tolerance policy for, umm... poop.

The antipathy in Washington and elsewhere, though, is based on more than a series of TV interviews. While U.N. diplomats and U.S. officials who have dealt with Rice praise the intellect of the 48-year-old former Rhodes scholar and graduate of Stanford and Oxford, they say she has won few popularity contests during her meteoric rise.

Diplomats on the 15-nation U.N. Security Council privately complain of Rice's aggressive negotiating tactics, describing her with terms like "undiplomatic" and "sometimes rather rude." They attributed some blunt language to Rice - "this is crap," "let's kill this" or "this is bullshit."

"She's got a sort of a cowboy-ish attitude," one Western diplomat said. "She has a tendency to treat other countries as mere (U.S.) subsidiaries."

Two other diplomats - all three were male - supported this view.

"She's not easy," said David Rothkopf, the top manager and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy magazine. "I'm not sure I'd want to take her on a picnic with my family, but if the president wants her to be secretary of state, she'll work hard."

Are you kidding me?  Susan Rice offends your delicate sensibilities?

This is really coming from those "diplomats" - none of whom had the decency to speak on the record - who may prefer paragons of personal restraint like John Bolton.

Contrary to what may be popular belief, the goal of diplomacy is not to blow sunshine up the asses of anonymous pansies who whine to Reuters.  The goal of diplomacy is to influence people and organizations to do things you want without having to shoot anybody.  Henry Kissinger understood that.  James Baker understood that.  Hillary Clinton understands that.

And I'm sorry, but I read this, ahem, bullshit from Reuters and all I can think of is when anonymous staffers whined to Politico that Senator Barbara Boxer had an "abrasive personal style."  So Dr. Rice may be eminently qualified, and she may totally cleared of any wrongdoing in regards to Benghazi, but now she's just a bitch.

So it's time to do what I like to do whenever guys - and in this case, spineless turds who don't have the guts to own their words by sharing their names - say or do something profoundly stupid or hurtful toward women.  It's time to introduce you to some female role models.  These women aren't all necessarily political, but I'm sure they've all experienced challenges in their own fields like what Dr. Rice has had to deal with.   To refresh your memory, here's the criteria I use:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

Here are the latest selections:

Stefania Pomponi Butler. Clever Girl, that Stefania.  She figured she could do online outreach to women, and particularly women of color, better than PR flacks like me. And she was right.  And we've all learned from her tenacity, her decency, and her brilliance.

Cassandra Pye.  OK, so this is a shameless plug for a colleague.  Sue me.  But Cassandra belongs here.  She's brilliant.  Former deputy chief of staff to Governor Schwarzenegger.  Bigwig at the California Chamber of Commerce.  She was a strong advocate for women's entrepreneurship and political leadership before it was cool.  And I can't think of a single person more committed to and passionate about being a mentor to young professionals.

Anne Osterrieder.  I put the call out for female role models on Twitter, and within seconds she came back to me with a bunch of great suggestions - all scientists, science communicators, and science advocates.  And then the people she mentioned insisted she be on this list - and they're right.  Dr. Osterrieder studies plant cell biology at Oxford Brookes University in the UK and spends a lot of time working on faculty outreach projects trying to reach entire families.

Veronica Arreola.  And speaking of science outreach, if you don't know about Veronica you should.  On her personal blog she says she is "trying to understand the intersection between feminism, motherhood, and her Latinadad." She also works at a Chicago university, directing its women in science and engineering program. What I like about Veronica so much is while she's never shy to speak out about injustice, she absolutely defies the stereotype of the "angry" feminist because she's doing so many amazingly positive things for so many young women.

I'm sure we'll see more crap from more whiny guys soon enough.  That's fine.  You whiners keep complaining - although it might be nice if you used your own names once in a while.  We will keep celebrating the best in people and showing everyone what we're about.

I'm not a scientist either, but...

UPDATE: I was wrong about something - seems I may have been snookered by a Slate post and should have done more research.  People I respect in both politics and science appropriately point out that President Obama and Senator Rubio were NOT asked the same question, as I wrongly said below.    So while I still think the GQ question should have been more direct, and I still think politicians will try to be diplomatic and show respect to people who hold different sides of an argument, it's clear that my post is misleading.  Senator Rubio was asked a science question and gave a somewhat evasive answer with religious overtones.  President Obama was asked a religion question and gave a more direct answer, given the context.  Original post is below.
 

Anti-evolution is anti-education, Senator.

So I think this "scoop" from GQ -  Senator Marco Rubio (i.e., "tea-party favorite" and "2016 Presidential contender") says he's not a scientist when asked how old the earth is - isn't a big deal.  The way I read it, he was actually deferring to the scientific consensus while trying not to offend his more religious constituents. "I'm not a scientist, man" sounds a lot like "hey, ask someone who knows the exact number" to me.

At some point you have to understand that diplomacy is an important part of a politician's job.When asked a provocative question, a politician will give due respect to people who occupy different sides of an argument.   My proof: when asked the same question, President Obama said basically the same thing as Senator Rubio.

Senator Rubio's other point - that the age of the earth is irrelevant to many of the large economic challenges we face today - rings true to me as well.  In the years I worked on economic policy for a US Senator, I never heard anyone on either side of the aisle bring up the age of the earth in any of our discussions.  The GQ interviewer, quite frankly, asked a silly question, and in doing so diminished the point I think so many scientists and science advocates are trying to make right now.

The issue at hand is this: our political leaders are ignoring scientific consensus when making policy decisions. They are, at times, rejecting or even censoring scientific reports from legitimate, competent researchers.  They are making stuff up to justify their political positions.  In the short term this may make some people feel better or make some people more financially well-off.  In the longer term, this hurts everyone.

So rather than ask a too-cute question about the age of the earth, maybe we should ask our political leaders why they would place our students at an enormous disadvantage by diluting our science classes with the demonstrably false idea of young-earth creationism.

Senator Rubio is reportedly preparing to announce a new approach to winning over Latino voters - one that focuses on affordable, high-quality education and workforce training.   I think that's a brilliant strategy - it focuses squarely on what working families need.  Our economy is increasingly reliant on workers with training in science, technology, engineering and math.  The jobs that require this training pay good wages.

But many of those jobs need people who understand that evolution happens, regardless of who "believes in it." As Dr. Bondar says, teaching science without evolution is like teaching sentence structure without the alphabet.  If your religious beliefs dictate fealty to the idea that evolution is a "lie from the pit of hell," that the earth isn't 4.5 billion years old but only a few thousand years old, that dinosaurs and people lived together, and the way things are today is pretty much the way they were at the beginning, then you can't really support education and training in a meaningful way.

In other words, if this is the education you want to make sure Latinos get, you really want Latinos to be ignorant and paid less than the rest of us.

Outing of a different kind

Outs racists?

A while back I wrote about Gawker's outing of Michael Brutsch, the infamous "troll" at Reddit who posted obscene material for fun under the pseudonym "ViolentAcrez."

Now Gawker's sister publication is at it - but with a twist.  Jezebel has decided to share some of Election 2012's greatest hits of racism on Twitter from high school-aged kids - and they actually reported the kids to their schools' leadership. (Note - this story link and this story link are still up, but they have some really nasty language.)  If you're concerned about clicking the links, suffice it to say there were a lot of people using "the N-word" to describe our recently re-elected President.  And worse.

Again, there are some differences here.  The people Jezebel pursued made no attempt to hide their identities.   They put their racist epithets right next to their names and pictures of their faces. They made these comments publicly on a Twitter feed they have to know anyone can search.  There is no reasonable expectation of privacy here.  I do note that Jezebel apparently decided not to search for the identities of those who tweeted racist comments under pseudonyms - even though I'm sure it's not that hard for a decent hacker to get that information.  They are on much more solid legal footing when they simply report the obvious facts as opposed to digging for more.

What is reasonable, I think, is to cringe a bit over this.  These kids are old enough to know better, but kids make mistakes sometimes, and now they have been publicly branded as racists.  Just a few years ago statements like these wouldn't be immortalized on the Internet. Millions of people read Jezebel every month.  I know that if anyone applies for work at my company, particularly to work in social media, we'd check them out on the various social platforms. Maybe do a Google search.  Let's just say this wouldn't go over well.

The more I think about it, however, the more I think this is what you have to expect in the digital age.   You have to own your words. And for these kids, it now seems those words own them.

Very curious to know what others think.

What really happened, and what will happen next

This is NOT what America looks like

Here's my election post-mortem.  Do with it what you will.

First of all, Democrats definitely deserve to take a victory lap, but the reports of the GOP's death are greatly exaggerated.  More than 58 million Americans voted for Gov. Romney.  The American economy is NOT in great shape (though it's better than it was 4 years ago). The GOP has a well-defined base, and they completely control large swaths of the country.  Their agenda includes policy arguments that will likely always resonate well - lower taxes, limited government interference, and individual responsibility. Evangelical Republicans didn't stay at home, despite their religious differences with the Republican nominee.

Republicans still control the House of Representatives (despite losing 6 seats), and they have enough Senators to block virtually any piece of legislation or nomination that attempts to move through it. There are currently 29 Republican Governors.

Second, while I stand by everything I wrote in my previous post, the GOP theories on 2012 turnout were not completely outlandish.  Wrong, sure, but not all that crazy.   If one looks at the demographics of voter turnout over the last few decades, minority and youth participation in 2008 is arguably an "outlier."  It's not insane to think there will be a return to the mean if you simply look at plots on a chart. William Frey at the Brookings Institute essentially forecast the relevant election scenarios back in May. It included a scenario in which demographics resembled 2004 turnout.

But here's where the GOP thinking begins to break down, and the cultural isolation of this community really hurts them.  The consensus of professional, independent pollsters said 2008 wasn't an outlier, it was a tipping point.  It appears the GOP discounted the information that didn't align with their theory, and instead let things like larger crowds at rallies instill a sort of confirmation bias.

Further, the GOP has clearly known about demographic shifts for years.  But look at how the two major political parties have reacted to it. In short, Democrats have tried to grow their base, while Republicans have tried to change the rules.

Democrats have developed incredibly sophisticated outreach strategies to communities that reflect America's growing diversity, and more importantly, their agenda has evolved to reflect this diversity.  Democrats now largely support civil rights for the GLBT community, more investments in education and healthcare, and a progressive tax system that also rewards home ownership and investments in predominantly minority areas.  They have leveraged social media and information technology in a way that reflects a bottom-up approach - letting community members organize among their own and contribute to an effort in their own way - all the while grabbing every scrap of information they can get about how that community lives.

Republicans, on the other hand, have taken steps to limit the influence of these diverse communities.  Republican state legislatures and Governors have redrawn congressional district lines to minimize the impact of minority and low-income voters. They have invoked the fiction of a "voter fraud" epidemic to pass laws requiring certain forms of photo ID to vote - knowing that low-income, elderly, minorities, and students (i.e., people more likely to support Democratic positions and candidates) are the least likely to have it.  They have reduced the number of "early voting" hours and limited resources at polling places in minority neighborhoods, forcing people in those precincts to wait for hours - outside, in November - to vote.

More than anything, however, Republicans have tried to limit the influence of minorities through immigration policy.  Their proposals offer no path to citizenship and create situations that would likely force many young people born in the United States (and by definition, citizens) to leave because their parents lack appropriate status.

They haven't invested in research or technology or outreach the way Democrats have, because frankly, they haven't seen the need.  They know their community well, they know what it wants, and they basically trust it to come out to vote.

At least some of these GOP moves have worked.  The proof: while Democratic congressional candidates received more votes than Republican congressional candidates, the GOP still controls the House by a relatively comfortable margin.

But we also learned that the GOP plan isn't sustainable.   Here is the racial demographic breakdown of each Presidential candidate, per Slate:

The Obama coalition of support looks a lot more like America today - and more importantly, looks even more like America 5 or 10 years from now.  Further, look at the age distribution of the two candidates, per CNN:

So what is the Republican strategy for survival?  The easy stuff first:

They will invest in research and technology.  They are light years behind the Democrats - or more specifically, the Obama campaign - in this area.  It's funny - some people I respect told me I should look at a book about President Obama, calling him an amateur.  The only truly amateurish thing I can find in this election is the Romney campaign's approach to technology - it was, according to the most ardent supporters of the Romney campaign, an unmitigated disaster.  This is something the Republicans can and will fix, relatively quickly.

They will try to tweak district lines again. This isn't easy, but the GOP knows how to do this and they will definitely leverage their existing advantage in state legislatures and Governorships.  Redistricting is also one of those really boring and complex issues that the media can't get very excited about, so they can do it without much attention. This is only a short-term solution for them, however; before too long no amount of re-drawing lines will be able to confine population changes.

They will recruit younger candidates. To appeal to a younger population, you need younger voices. The trends aren't going in their direction, but 58 million voters should likely yield a few good young conservatives.  Again, let's not go crazy and suggest the GOP is dead.

They will do more media training for candidates.  Let's face facts: the GOP lost seats it should have won simply because their candidates said some profoundly stupid things, particularly on abortion rights and rape.  I don't think they are going to change their position on these issues, but I do think they will invest heavily in "explaining" their positions better.

The harder stuff:

They will examine their leadership. There is a fight in the GOP right now - do they want the most conservative candidate, or the conservative most likely to win? They don't know.  Once they settle on an approach, they will determine their leaders and their tactics.

They will soften their position on immigration. This won't be easy, but the GOP sees the writing on the wall.  Even the Cuban-American community in Florida- the one Latino community the GOP claimed as their own - sent a Democrat to Congress.  The GOP thinks they can build support among Latinos on social issues and on small business issues.  But to get in the door with this community, they have to relent on immigration.  It's that simple.

And finally:

They will look to bounce back in 2014.  There is little doubt the GOP will anticipate an older, more white turnout in the off-year election.  That's the historic trend.  They will not attempt to reinvent themselves, but they will try to say that the 2014 vote is a "return to normal."

This is your brain on homophily

Dick Morris isn't stupid.  It's just that he gets asked if Governor Romney will win the presidential election, and he says things like this:

We're gonna win by a landslide. It will be the biggest surprise in recent American political history... I base this not on intuition or on smelling the tea leaves. I base it on reading the polls - the exact same polls that say Obama's gonna win.

He's not alone.  Karl Rove, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Barone, and Peggy Noonan headline a list of pundits who predicted something similar using basically the same data. Of course, these are the same people who chat with Morris on television, at conferences and meetings, and at parties. They are his friends, his colleagues, his ideological soulmates.  They are part of his tight-knit community of conservative pundits.

This community is no different than so many others I've described - it's filled with people who customize the news they consume to fit their interests and world view. Even conservative John Ziegler acknowledges this.  It filters out or rationalizes away the information that conflicts with community goals or values, and it reinforces the conclusions they desire. Over time, similar opinions from people you find credible get repeated so many times and opposing viewpoints get filtered out so automatically that perspective is, pardon the pun, skewed.

Photo via Frank Paynter

So of course a prediction of a narrow Obama victory is obviously a Romney landslide. And of course alternate information is inherently "biased" - just ask the "fair and balanced" news source that pulls content verbatim from a conservative "media watchdog" leader and rebrands it.

Of course, thinkers like Conor Friedersdorf are suggesting that more partisan media outlets have an obligation to scale the ideological barriers to information - but as long as the news industry sees what they do in terms of supply and demand, it's very hard to see that happening.

As consumers leverage social media technology more, they are more able to select the information that reflects their interest and world view.  They easily enter communities and can grow more entrenched in them.  What we really need is to encourage more digital exploration of other cultures and viewpoints.  It starts by committing to a more civil discourse.   It won't be easy, but perhaps we can give it another go now that the election is settled.