Digital Influence Mapping Project

We Media 08: Using Media to Innovate and Make the World a Little Better

What do you do in a world where "media" is no longer defined by newspapers, magazines, television and other 'traditional,' organizations who still know what the term "4th estate" means?

For Andrew and Dale at ifocos.org (The Insitute For The Connected Society) they collect some of the most interesting people wrestling with the impact of the digital media explosion and all its fallout, bring them together online and in person at We Media 08 in Miami from February 26-28.

They trigger dozens of conversations amongst these unlikely colleagues about what is media today and how we can use it to innovate our respective businesses while at the same time serving the world. Sound familiar? It shouldn't unless you remember the Thomas Carlyle's meaning behind the "fourth estate." Even still, things have changed. The whole fourth estate thing was a nod to the political power of the press. I would argue that WeMedia is less focused on political power or the impact within anyone country of a new, exploded view of media than it is with the global reach of a very public 'media' defined by the BBC, as well as,  a momblogger in New Mexico. This new media has the potential to transcend political and social boundaries. The idea behind the "fourth estate" comment was that the press at that time had a not-so-soft power equal to, or sometimes, surpassing the assigned leaders in power.

If anything has the potential to let global people get to know each other better, reduce our human fear of the unknown and help us connect over new affinities and ideas, it is this new media fueled by the connectivity of the Internet.

I will admit that one of my strongest attractions to Andrew and Dale's vision is how it plays into my hopelessly romantic and, I'm sure, naive belief that a global social network (the meta-network that is the Internet) can help make us global citizens working together to solve problems for other people regardless of political, ethnic and social boundaries.

The WeMedia 08 conference will have sessions like:

• The Power To Change The World
• Political World | Hype vs. Reality in Campaign 08
• Search World | Trust, relevance and rights
• Activist World | Social networks for social good
  and my personal favorite (and the one I am moderating):
• Informed World | The citizen’s guide to media literacy

The event will pull traditional media leaders, social media proponents, academics, tech start-ups, VCs, social activists and much, much more. It's a weird collection of people many of who will come based on a faith that they will discover new affinities and ideas from being social and alert with people unlike themselves in so many ways.

If you can make it - you should come. It may just be the most impactful conference you partiucipate in all year long as it is likely to touch your business side and your personal side.

Andrew and Dale have created an organization that we can all belong to and participate throughout the year. Join us now (and find out more about the group)>

Pandora's Social Good Co-creation

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I love Pandora. I kinow many people do. It is one of those brands that engender grass roots support. Not least of which they seem to be the underdog in the chaotic melee of traditional(?) radio, music publishers, satellite radio, not to mention the taxaholics.

They are also a little disorganized which tells me they are human. They have been running an interesting crowd-sourcing poster contest in league with GlobalGiving, an online clearing house of social good issues. The organization was started by ex-World bank staffers and connects donors more directly with causes. The implication is that more money will get to where it is needed. (They could use a statement about how much, if any, money GlobalGiving takes for this matchmaking service).

They received 750 entries and have closed submissions. Now they - we - vote on the top 10. You can see my vote above - with a caveat. This is where the charming clumsiness of Pandora comes into play.

Pandora's contribution to the whle promotion is really unclear. there is nothing suggesting they will donate money nor even cover the cost of the poster. (The winning poster will become a donor premium for GlobalGiving). That leaves promotion. Well, I am an avid Pandora user (and fan - did I say that already?). But I learned about it via Kristen Nicole's article on Mashable.

Pandora is doing something interesting and good. But they may not be making the most out of it either for them or for GlobalGiving. It is hard to find mention of it within the service. It is mentioned in their blog, but I had to do some digging to actually get to the Votigo voting site.

The posters are great - really some nice designs. I am not sure how they narrowed 750 to 10 - that would be good to know. It also might be interesting to maintain the galleries of those that didn't make it. If nothing else it would give some pride of ownership to those that entered (generating word of mouth) and populate some additional search engine results.

They could have been clearer about the content fo the posters. Many promote Pandora when I believe the real goal is to spread the word about GlobalGiving's efforts and focus. GG actually made it easy on their pages to download logo artwork but judging from the top 10, many thought the goal was to make a Pandora poster. Perhaps that can be tweaked once a winner is chosen.

I have learned to trust Pandora. Therefore I assume these little things are just that - little things, coming from an organization that saw a neat, simple way to help out.

Go vote>

Media Literacy 2.0: Facebook

Back in the 1980's when I was a wee lad, there was a program on NYC public access TV produced by Paper Tiger Television. They would examine a media institution like the NY Times and reveal it's ownership and management structure down to the board members and their own leanings - left or right. Here's what the TV Museum says about them:

"In 1981, the Paper Tiger Television Collective formed--a changing group of people that came together to produce cable programming for the public access channel in New York City. Drawing upon the traditions of radical video, Paper Tiger Television invented its own home-grown studio aesthetic using rather modest resources to make revolutionary television. Many of Paper Tiger's half-hour programs are live studio "events," faintly reminiscent of 1960s video "happenings." The show's hosts are articulate critics of mainstream American media who examine the corporate ownership, hidden agendas, and information biases of the communications industry via the media in all of their forms."

Now, we need the same thing. Not just a broad knowledge of how Wikipedia works (and Encyclopedia Brittanica) so we know what kind of trust to bestow upon it, but the new emergent Web 2.0 landscape. We all know Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace (and we seem to be okay with that). What about Facebook?

This video from Vishal Agarwala looks at the VC trail behind Facebook along with the terms of use statements to paint a pretty suspicious picture. Should we be worried?  And who is Vishal and what is her agenda? She seems to be a Use Interface designer in Florida.  The video has had almost 40,000 views up until now. It seems to be driven by information discussed in 2005 within the CommonGroundCommonSense progressive community. Okay but who are they? (I hate it when sites that have a clear agenda don't have an about us page that names names - makes me wonder) 

Even if I presume the information is all true and accurate, I am not sure if there is enough to draw a significant conclusion. In the incestuous world of VCs, someone involved in government-driven venture capital is invested in Facebook?

Paper Tiger had a track record or built one. And they associated with some of the better known critics of that generation. That gave them credibility. Without that, this well-produced video is just a shot in the dark.

Judge for yourself.

Event: Measuring Social Media in DC

On May 31st, top brands in DC will come together to share insights from measuring the perfomance of social media programs. We will be sharing real cases, real metrics, how we are demonstrating that social media can positively impact business. 

How Do You Measure the Success of Social Media?

As the second part of a 2-part series with Julie Perlmuttter's Web Manager's Roundtable, I will be presenting with Pierre Wielezynski, Communications Officer-Online Outreach - The World Bank. We will be hosting a group of Internet professionals from local businesses and organizations in a rapid fire review of how we are all masuring our social media programs.

We have presenters - 7 stories in 7 minutes (used to be 5x5) - who will each share a real case from their experience. In addition, many people have already taken the social media score so that we can compare notes.

• National Geographic
• The Nature Conservancy
• Library of Congress
• Humane Society
• EdWeek
• World Bank
• Ogilvy Public Realtions Worldwide

Here's the write up:

"No matter how new the world of social media is, business leaders must know the measurable benefits of getting involved. How can new strategies around blogs, search, wikis, social networks and new Web 2.0 services pay off for the organization? And what is the distinction between these digital strategies and the larger field of word-of-mouth marketing?

New and old models for measurement exist .There are measurement models from"simple" web metrics to the Net Promoter Score. A collection of promising monitoring services help collect useful data from the deluge. And can we measure "engagement" vs. impressions?

Blog "conversations" can be monitored for share-of-voice, tonality, brand mentions and more. Third party content supportive of your brand or issue can strengthen Google search results. Clever Web 2.0 applications allow you to create new, relevant services for customers and constituents engaging them deeper. And at the end of the day, we need to report success.

In this session, you will leave with practical answers for:

• What are the options for measuring the success of social media initiatives?
• What's in the works?
• What are some simple (low cost) things you can do to see what people are saying?
• What can you do now to benchmark, monitor and report performance of blogs, blog outreach, Web 2.0 applications?
• How can Word-of-mouth be measured?
• How can you assess the impact of your social media efforts when trying to influence policy?
• Where is that one page report the CEO/Director/President needs?"

Julie's Web Manager's Rountable is a great forum of top area executives running the Internet parts of their businesses. It pulls equally from government, non-profit and corporations. This session will be really interactive as we have this lively speed-presenting thing happening. We wanted to hear from a group of brands and put the "roundtable" back into WMRT.

You can track these events via justshowup.com (usually, our event isn't posted as of today, but we'll fix that.

Social Media and the World Bank

Pierre Wielezynski, a Communications Officer at The World Bank, and I presented to a great group of Internet pros from all over DC - government, non-profit, and commercial companies. Pierre offered tons of insight about what it means to be a social media evangelist inside an organization bolted as tight as The World Bank.

He has really accomplished a tremendous amount. Just last month he was in his Japan office training folks on some of the fundamentals that will help them in their jobs. (Our Japan Digital Influence team stopped in to share our POV and experiences).

He started by pointing out how other advocacy organizations were making big ripples or great starts including:

• One: the cause to allocate 1% of the US budget to fight AIDS and extreme poverty
• Greenpeace: primarily how they offer easy-to-tag 'Tag This Campaign' features
• Change.org: their feature that allows you to type in the plights you would like to solve in the world. The tag cloud generated by this simple tool inventories a lot of the issues the bank is focused on from "Sustainable food sources" to "ending global poverty"
• Good Search: every search can send pennies to a worthy cause.
• Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger: where use of the instant messenger delivers ad revenue to causes
• Kiva: allowing each of us to participate in micro-lending

His point? All this is going without the World Bank. Personally, I don't think he gives himself enough credit. His evangelism, his willingness to do a preso like this in front of 150 people from all sorts of agencies with his boss in the front row, and his willingness to be frank and open about what the Bank is and is not doing will likely do a lot to push the organization along.

700 vs. 20,000 Outlets

He made a terrific point with his slides showing their traditional communications effort (press realeases et al) over 4 months which generated 13,000 news mentions from 700 outlets - mostly traditional media.

Compare that with over 32,000 mentions from 20,000 blogs many of which were critiquing (okay, lambasting) the Bank. The Long Tail meets lack of control.

Ultimately his point is that we have to move from the Communications 1.0 model  - "disseminate polished messages to people" - towards a new model where our job is to "help staff communicate"

The World Bank Blog Makes Little "Bangs"

Yes, they have one. It is the Private Sector Development Blog which is gaining popularity. And there are real people behind it who readers can get to know and trust. This small effort is a giant step in the right direction. The direction? As he put it, we need to move away from the Big Bang theory of communications  - where we are trying to get that colossal clip (we here that all the time - "get us on The Today Show, Oprah, WSJ"). And we should move towards lots of little bangs like the ones created by this blog. 

Here's how the blog describes itself:

"The Private Sector Development Blog (PSD Blog) gathers together news, resources and ideas about the role of private enterprise in fighting poverty. The blog is informal and represents the quirks and opinions of the bloggers, not the World Bank Group."

The authors are all introduced on the same page.

There were many other agencies in the audience from The State Department to Homeland Security to the White House. They would all be lucky to have a smart enthusiast like Pierre pushing them forward into a participatory approach to communications vs. command-and-control. The fact that they were all there for our session on developing social media strategy was a good sign in and of itself.

ChefsRightsNow.org launches!

Okay, it actually launched last week. But they're getting riled up this week. The chefs of NYC have had enough! Some fabulously wonderful packaged food (insert my client here) is soooo good that people are staying at home and eating. Italian restaurants (hint) in NYC are seeing a huge drop-off in business :-)

What will happen next? Look to the site tomorrow. More videos of the "activists" in action.

And if you are in NYC - wander over to Times Square around noon and you might see the movement of chefs "acting up".

See this VIDEO - very funny!

Can you guess who it is? Think "wine-worthy" meals.....

Get Involved in the Video Storytelling

Last week, I was talking with Todd Herman, GM Media Strategy at MSN, at a Video on the Web roundtable. He gave a great talk at the front end of the meeting which then segued into a discussion about different storytelling paradigms. He raised the question or challenge - will innovation happen all the way to the root of the 7 or so storytelling paradigms. 

I would argue that Have Money Will Vlog is a fresh storytelling paradigm. I posted on the first installment and now there is a new one. This time Maria Gomez, a vlogger and trained ethnographer will augment her interviews of Columbian expats in this country with a project shot in Columbia that tries to unvover the issues surrounding this exceptional migration. Here's how the Have Money Will Vlog site describes the project:

"Maria Gomez, a Colombian resident of New York City, has begun a video documentary project interviewing other Colombian people affected by this period of social upheaval and change.

Maria, who is trained in ethnographic data collection for anthropological research, has already interviewed many in the Colombian immigrant community of New York. She needs financial backing for a 4 month trip through Colombia gathering the stories of those still waiting to make the journey North."

All she needs is $2100 to pull the trigger on the trip. This kind of crowdfunding is infectious. The one thing they are not doing this time is the wiki that collected donors ideas about what or how to shoot. This may have been more an attribute of the first two projects:

1. Seven Maps
2. Sustainable Route

But I miss the wiki. I want to doate and I want to make suggestions. I perfectly bow to the vlogger or advisory team ("Filters") to assess and include or reject those suggestions. It just felt good 'cause i was able to express my interest and passion for their project beyond just donating. Still Have Money Will Vlog is a great idea.

26 Steps to Analog Voting in the Digital Age

This past Tuesday was, of course, the primary elections in Maryland and DC (and the rest of the country). I love to vote. It feels like the least that I can do and I always try to do the least that I can do....

So here's how it went:

1. I get up early to get to the polls when they open - 7am
2. I arrive at the Middle School which is lined with last-minute campaign workers extolling the virtues of all the candidates. They seem to be obeying the invisible no-fly zone by the doors.
3. I cross through the bushes and get intercepted by my friend Nina who hands me a 6x8" card listing out all of the progressive candidates. Very well designed, we both comment. This will come in handy later on...
4. The line to get to the first table is already out the door. I'm thinking 20 minutes to step one.
5. 10 minutes later, people start trickling out: "they don't have the electronic voting cards and don't know when they will." Well, this turns out to be the story all over Montgomery County. And in the computing trades.
6. The man in front of me laments, "I can't come back. I got here early 'cause that's the only time..."
7. I bolt. No way I am waiting until the cards may or may not show up. I find out later they didn't arrive until at least an hour later.
8. Long day at work. Prepping a viral video campaign. Tweaks on an issue ad campaign. Adjustments to our momblogger project. The usual.
9. I hear that the polls will be open an hour later - 9pm - due to the flub. I leave work in time to get back to the polling place at 7:50pm.
10. Same campaign workers hovering like tired bees outside the doors to the school. Same line-length.
11. I get in line figuring the 15 minutes or so but it's not moving. Rumours are spread by a campaign worker that they will stop using the electronic voting machines at 8pm.She says everyone in line by 8pm will get to vote on the machines.
12. A poll worker comes along the line and, sure enough, the voting machines are being shut down promptly at 8pm. Everyone will now have to use provisional voting (paper ballots). I like the machines and am severly bummed. I also realize that the process will now take longer. I am determined to vote. I ask her why the machines must go off. "I am under orders to turn them off. I don't know why."
13. The man in front of me asks if he would be shunned if he just walked away. because we are in Takoma Park , I tell him "yes."
14. Okay, so here's the overview of the new process (which I only learned a little at a time): Line #1 takes you to three poll workers who take your name verifying your identity by asking DOB, address. You get a little printout thingee. Line #2 leads to a table with 2 poll workers: the only two who know how to do proviisonal voting. This is clearly going to be the giant sphincter.
15. I make it through line one and join the end of line two. About 14 people ahead of me. I keep examining what the two poll workers are doing - filling out yellow forms, giving voters multi-page voting forms. Some people peel off to fill out the forms on the multipurpose tables (which have been multiplying as a tired custodian opens them reluctantly)
16. The man behind me grabs a folding chair: smart move.
17. NOW THE WHOPPER: They have just run out of Democratic voting forms (of course they are fine on the Republican ones). They have requested more from Rockville (1 hour away). It is now 8:30pm.
18. The poll worker quiets everyone to make an announcement. Someone keeps talking and she threatens to have them removed. Someone in the line says, "leave her alone." I am thinking mob revolt. There are about 50 voters in the room in one line or another.
19. ANNOUNCEMENT: 'yes, there are no forms. we want you to write your votes on a scrap of paper.' A SCRAP OF PAPER. She hands out scraps from some pad of voting instructions which no longer have any relevance. 
20. A voter offers to read off the candidates from some form she got in the mail so that people know the choices. Everyone scrambles for a bench at the tables. I don't have a pen. A tired poll worker hands me one. I remaiin standing hoping that gets me to the giant sphincter sooner.
21. Remember that list of progressive candidates (Step 3)? I pull that out. I think for a moment of just putting my name on that and handing it in. But that's got to be wrong.
22. I copy all the names onto the scrap of paper. I put my name on the top not sure if am supposed to or not. Maybe I am nominating myself.
23. The scene is chaos. Many of us are taking it for the existentialist test that it is. Some are angry. Jamie Raskin, candidate for State Senate comes in. I watch as he tries to understand what is going on. He shakes his head like trying to clear cobwebs. Soon he is on the cell phone talking with a judge or the governor-to-be.
24. I get to the table while the bingo game call-out is till going on. The very tired poll worker slides a foirm to me to fill out.
25. I bust through the form and am back at the table before they finish calling out candidates for judges in the background. He fills out a pink form. I seal the SCRAP OF PAPER in the envelope. He throws it all in a pile.
26. I am out of there - 9:30-ish. 30 people remain trying to fill out their self-drawn bingo cards.

No way my vote or any of the others in the room is being counted - ever. They say they have ten days to count the provisionals but the election was finally called on Thursday morning. My vote was meaningless. I love how everyone kept going through the motions as if they might matter.  Still, I will do it again next time. I am certain others will not.

How come election days are not work holidays?

Second Life This, Second Life That...Enough Already

With about 350,000 "users" and old-school game-style graphics, Second Life is second only to 100 million-member MySpace for popularity in the trades these days. I have posted on the emergence of social advocacy in this virtual space. Every other day somebody is releasing a press release about establishing a beachhead in SecondLife - American Apparel, that boxy car, some PR firm, you name it. Why do they do it? It's the press releases. For now anyway.

And now?

Mark Warner, future candidate for President, is creating a virtual persona in anticipation of holding a virtual town hall meeting. (I learn about this from FutureLab which is a great site). Is this the equivalent of Bill Clinton going on MTV? Of course not. But sort of. If a candidate wanted to truly embrace the new, why not create an avatar in a very popular online world. Now, can someone create a clone avatar of Mark Warner and have him do all sorts of silly things in SL? Is that within the virtual law?

Of course, now I realize that this story is on BoingBoing and that Cory Doctorow interviewed the avatar two hours ago in SL. Sorry I missed it.

The Power of Angry Moms

We are deeply respectful of the power of moms in the new personal media space. We have been paying a lot of attention to how moms are using blogs and other personal media.

[tidbit: when we asked our panel of mombloggers about whether they used any of the message board-centric services such as ParentCenter/BabyCenter, they all seemed to have used message boards and in particular at least one of the two brand sites mentioned but all had stopped their message board activity in favor of blogging]

Take a look at the online efforts of Two Angry Moms. They are pretty much what their label suggests: two moms who are sick and tired of the unhealthy food choices in the public school system. They are actually creating an online documentary in installments. Here's how they describe the situation:

"Are you sick and tired of making your kids a brown bag lunch everyday because lunch at their school is unfit for human consumption? Do you feel guilty when your children “buy” instead of “bring”? Are you annoyed that the healthy school lunch you pack your kid is undermined by a barrage of birthday cupcakes, candy rewards, holiday treats and vending machine cuisine?"

The two women behind this are seasoned pros. Amy Kalafa is a TV poducer. Dr. Susan Rubin is, well, a doctor who has wrestled with food and nutrition issues in schools for years. While they must struggle with causing change from within the local school board/government system, they will develop a large grassroots following on the Web that will add power to their effort. The unfolding of the documentary in segments, as it is produced is a great way to keep people connected to the issue.