“Meet ups” and Collaborations

Darned if I remember how I first heard about Daniel Johnson Jr.’s New Media Cincinnati group. But I’m very glad I did.

New Media Cincinnati is a group of Social Media enthusiasts who meet informally on the second Saturday of each month.  Here the bloggers, designers, photographers, videographers, podcasters all emerge from their dens of technology to confab and connect with each other.  This is not where I first learned about Twitter – but this is where I learned how best to use it.  And groups like this have sprung up in areas around the country – fellow technology enthusiasts gathering to show off the new Droid or discuss the FTC blogging rules or the latest and greatest SEO tool.

2009 November New Media Cincinnati

New Media Cincinnati is not unique – in fact, in Cincinnati alone I know of at least three groups who meet monthly for the same general purpose. But it struck me this week that they function as an amazingly effective personal learning network (PLN) filled with answers to questions you didn’t even know to ask. Intellectually processing new information which may or may not have current application in your life or business – but which you know will surely come in to play at some point – is part of the breathless pace of technology inserting itself into our work and our lives. At these meetings there are no Power Point presentations, no white boards, no handouts. Groups of people ordering food, milling about, light agendas, getting excited about the latest twist or newest take on something. Barely containing themselves from sharing and becoming a part of the live U-Stream and permanent archive. When we look at learning from this angle it is highly charged, deeply and intricately entwined with our passion to create or innovate – not hampered by the constraints of formal software. It is a living breathing pulsating architecture logically and conceptually organized only by leaping trains of thought. You can almost hear the wheels a churning. This living, breathing PLN meets elsewhere too – on each other’s blogs and on Twitter and, most recently, on Google Wave where we are learning the basics and exploring possibilities.

Where best to find a PLN in your area? Again, I wish I could remember how I stumbled across this group last year. I think it may have been through LinkedIn and that would probably be the best place to find one near you. If you want to leap onto the technology bandwagon you couldn’t find a faster and more pleasant way to get up to speed than by joining a group with the focus of exploring new media.

Promoting Your Cause Through Social Media

Digital space has opened a vast and expanding platform for dedicated individuals and organizations who are driven by causes they believe in. It’s a much more friendly environment than the old, traditional media because professional standards of journalism dictated that reporters and editors should not take sides, or champion causes (such as charities) beyond those, ahem, favored by the publisher. These days, anyone with a cause can find a voice — and support and even contributions — online.

But where? Using the example of a cause I believe in, abolishing modern forms of slavery in the world, I’ve found that of the social media I am most familiar with, Twitter offers the best platform to find, recruit and energize fellow believers.

Facebook often is the first name in social media, but it may not be the most efficient channel for causes. I say this even though Facebook offers cause pages (which I have used). It just seems more and more that Facebook is a vehicle to stay up with your friends and family, with an emphasis on the personal details of daily life. It’s about who you are.

Twitter, on the other hand, increasingly is about what you think, and that’s precisely fertile territory for causes. Case in point: human trafficking (which is generally a synonym for contemporary slavery). I’m not an active “tweeter,” and when I do post on Twitter, it’s almost exclusively on something related to #human trafficking (the hashtag is like a keyword in the Twitter universe). I am now being followed by some fairly knowledgeable individuals around the world who are interested in anti-trafficking causes. And Twitter has helped expand my world by leading me (through tweets) to websites and organizations I have never heard of, yet which I’m glad to have found. In just a few short months, as a result, I’ve become engaged with a small but growing cadre of people and organizations that share an interest — really, a strong belief — in combating modern slavery. Perhaps most important, I am learning new things about human trafficking through Twitter, and that’s huge in this day of message overkill.

I hear a lot of people saying they either joined Twitter and then stopped or don’t know how to take full advantage of what it has to offer. It could be that Facebook is the better choice for staying in touch. However, for building a digital corps of true believers in whatever cause is most important to you, Twitter is home base.

Independent Journalism

Mashable recently posted an excellent article by Maria Schneider called:  “How To Launch Your Own Indie Journalism Site” following five mainstream reporters as they reinvent themselves – and journalism – on the web. Key points included: 1) the elephant in the living room (that ad money earned on indie sites might taint the unassailable virtue of journalism as we once knew it) and, 2) the opportunity to write about what you care most about – finding that market niche you can call your own and becoming a stand-out in it.

At the Digital Hub Cincinnati (Non) Conference today, John Battelle, Chairman of Federated Media, delivered the keynote speech: “We’re All Media Companies Now: How To Thrive In The Conversation Economy.” Main point I took away? That growth in digital media will be in the conversation. It’s about language – the essence of communication. Battelle took us back to our Fortran roots and DOS and brought us up to new voice command Google search capabilities. Digital media is about good, well researched and written content – but it’s success also depends on community engagement and identifying leaders and change makers and engaging them in the conversation. In a way, it’s not unlike the authentic learning educators insist is essential in our schools: where rote memorization is replaced with hands-on learning. In this case, static reading of news is replaced by interaction and engagement about the news. Interesting.

Putting Yourself Out There

Last month I posted an article link to a column written by Judith Warner on my Facebook page. It garnered an immediate and, if I might say, over-the-top response from someone on my “friends” list. After several replies and warnings I eventually “unfriended” this person – not because I don’t like a good argument – I do enjoy well reasoned debate – but because I don’t want to have to defend each link I post – and I do not want to get in the habit of censoring myself to avoid confrontation.

I have always enjoyed forwarding news clips and tidbits to friends and family – posting links to news items on Facebook is the digital equivalent. I may only agree with one or two salient points in the linked article – so the mere act of posting it is not an absolute reflection of my beliefs but is simply my way of saying: “Hey – I found this interesting or thought provoking and you might, too.” So why would posting a link to any article warrant a full bore attack on my Facebook page? Another Facebook friend, Wendy Davis, said it best: “The thing about these social networks are that we are putting ourselves out there. What I have been told by my kids is that we older users do not understand the nuances of the network. For example, they post lyrics etc. that I find provocative and or inappropriate. They assume that: either no one is making a judgement, or that everyone understands it is just a post. We (being boomers) seem to take it to another level. Maybe we take it too seriously.”

Perhaps it is the casualness of social media that best captures the differences between generational users. Some social media savvy Boomers “get it” – but many simply are using social media to self-promote (which quickly becomes tiresome) or sell a product or service without building an authentic community. It can be intense and serious when Boomers use social media to judge or condemn or troll for confrontation. But most of the Boomers I interact with use social media to build communities and/or reconnect with people they have lost touch with. Posting a YouTube link to an 80’s rock concert clip is just, well, typical. Scanning in photos from younger days – a gentle walk through the past. But Davis is right – most of the younger (and I’m talking about the 18 – 25 crowd) users of social media are having quick conversations in a unique social code, using it differently, less seriously and in a more random fashion.

Give Us An Arrest And We’ll Do A Story

The release of a year-long study of human trafficking in Cincinnati received widespread local media coverage, yet because the report lacked specific data about numbers of trafficking arrests or convictions, it was met with much skepticism by traditional media outlets.

This should not surprise anyone who knows or follows the method by which the traditional media gathers and reports the news. For starters, it is drilled into reporters throughout their careers that news is synonymous with fact, and that facts require hard data and eyewitness testimony. The report released by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURFC) lacked that specific data: 1) because human trafficking has, strangely, not yet been criminalized in Ohio (it has in both Kentucky and Indiana and 38 other states) and therefore there are no prosecutions; and, 2) because human trafficking is intentionally an “underground” activity, its existence is not obvious – it has to be looked for.

Nearly 140 police officers, attorneys and prosecutors, judges, emergency room personnel and social service providers in Greater Cincinnati were interviewed for the survey, so if there is any assemblage of people who ought to know about trafficking, it would be this group. 91% of these interviewees are familiar with cases of human trafficking, and 41% believe that they or their organizations have encountered trafficking situations.

Yet reporters still expressed doubts about how serious the issue is locally. They pointed out that nowhere in the report’s 37 pages was there one instance cited of anyone being arrested (much less prosecuted) for the crime of trafficking human beings. Absent hard facts, the reporters said, the report lacked credibility. Absent a visible victim, the reporters said, there was no crime.

It’s a close-minded position that reflects the built-in blinders that often obscure the media’s vision. Case in point: spousal abuse, like human trafficking, was an invisible crime for millennia. Wives (and some husbands) have been assaulted, beaten and tortured behind closed doors for generations. In spite of its common occurrence, spousal abuse was rarely prosecuted. It took years of advocacy by women and human rights groups before legislation and protections were put in place and prosecution and conviction numbers began to be compiled and tracked as data. A parallel situation exists today with human trafficking.

Which points to a rather large limitation confronting the economically perilous traditional media. With smaller staffs and little original investigative journalism to speak of, journalists will be even more reliant upon official sources — court dockets, police blotters, prosecutors and defense attorneys — to ferret out crime stories. If there aren’t any human trafficking cases to report in Ohio (because state statutes don’t recognize it as a crime) the media finds itself boxed into the classic chicken-and-egg conundrum: give us an arrest and then we can do a story.

A related limitation of the traditional media has to do with sources. Plenty of people know about human trafficking in Cincinnati, but for a variety of reasons, they have to carefully guard what they can reveal. For example, there are at least five suspected human trafficking incidents in the area currently being looked into by law enforcement investigators. That’s about as far as anyone in the know is willing to go, for fear of compromising their work. Others in the community who are aware of trafficking, such as emergency room personnel and social service providers, also are creditable sources, as long as they have assurances that the identities of trafficking victims are protected. The problem is that the traditional media is reluctant to go to press without hard facts, names and sources identified; as a result, a growing incidence of trafficking locally goes unreported.

Let’s hope that in the midst of the media’s search for a new model of immediacy and relevance, it will begin looking at the “facts” with a more open mind. Human trafficking is a rapidly expanding crime, global in scale, that is being felt in every city in the United States, including Cincinnati. Just because no one’s yet been booked on a trafficking charge, as the Freedom Center report makes amply clear, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening right in our own back yard.

Gannett’s Retreat

This past week the readership of The Cincinnati Enquirer learned via social media sites like Twitter and Facebook of an imminent staff reduction taking place on Wednesday and Thursday before the newspaper even reported the carnage. The impact of the Enquirer’s decision to eliminate more than 100 positions will be felt far beyond the households of the affected staffers who got their pink slips. Journalistically, the cutbacks signal yet another publisher’s (in this case, Gannett’s) retreat from the traditional practice of reporting and writing the news. The paper’s space available for articles was already in steep decline; now, with fewer reporters and editors, there will be even less news content available. And with its “watchdog” role weakened, there will be one less critical eye reporting on and evaluating the decisions of local government.

The most stunning part of the paper’s announcement was the makeover of the Enquirer editorial pages with the elimination of long-time editorial page editor David Wells’ position and columnist Peter Bronson. According to a statement by Executive Editor Tom Callinan, the editorial pages will now be devoted to encouraging more “community dialogue,” which apparently means that the paper’s editorial function will be turned over to the general public — or whichever part of the general public desires to use the Enquirer to promote a cause or vent a frustration. I don’t know about you, but when I read the “readers comments” under news stories I cringe at the self-serving meanness of narcissistic posters. Better to eliminate the Op-Ed pages altogether than allow them to sink to the depths of unfiltered effluvia already evident in the comment section of the on-line edition.

Whatever else you can say about them, Wells and Bronson are experienced professionals who used their positions and contacts within the community to help readers assess the daily interactions of life in the Queen City. This role — the informed observer — is the essence of the editorial page function. To offer up that function to the general public is, in my opinion, a colossal mistake because it is not the general public who will take advantage of the free ink. It will be the public relations specialist, the well paid lobbyist and the disenfranchised voter who will fill the void of “informed observer” — only this time with a concealed mission or private (versus a community) purpose. No, it would be infinitely better to eliminate the opinion process entirely if it can’t be done well or professionally and focus on reporting the news without spin or commentary.

New Media and the Common Man

I returned this week from a short summer hiatus to discover that several friends and family members had forwarded to me the same obituary published by the Plain Dealer for Nancy Lee HIXSON (nee Wood). The death notice reflected the rather remarkable life of a woman in Northeast Ohio who died after a 10 year battle with lymphoma. Neither maudlin nor formulaic – the notice itself was a welcome sign of great things to come for new media.

If you have even been in the unfortunate position of having to write a death notice – and I have written many – it is a sobering process. With each word you try to distill a lifetime of love and bravery and honor, accomplishments and successes and failures, survivors and legacies and beloveds. It is the last and greatest thing to do for a loved one as you work the clean up detail of their life. And as a social formality, death notices have a certain structure and style in keeping with the journalistic tenets of honoring the dead. The Who, What, Where and When are evident – the Why can often be ignored. Enough details are given in the typical death notice so the reader can identify – “oh, that’s the John Smith who belonged to St. Christopher’s and graduated the year after me in high school.”

So for one (Nancy) Lee HIXSON in Northeastern Ohio to pen a clever obituary about herself and her life – and for her son to honor her by having it published at her passing – was for me a delightful diversion. As writers we find a certain comfort in the ritual of style and form. The measure of our success is based on how we use words within that form to connote a feeling while keeping the meaning clear and correct. The end result is a tightly constrained box of information. When you lift that restraint and open the door to innovation in expression you arrive at a new destination. Not only are we delivered a death notice of relevant information on (Nancy) Lee HIXSON – but we are introduced to her. We read about her and say – “Oh, what an interesting woman,” or “how delightful a tribute.” No formal portrait – but a barefooted (Nancy) Lee HIXSON sitting on the ground with her dogs – present for inspection.

The time constraints alone in journalism preclude that sort of thing from happening on behalf of the Common Man or Woman – unless, of course, the family or deceased provide it themselves. Those faceless souls who depart this earth may have one last shot at greatness in the final chapter they write or that are written on their behalf. Would this notice have been published 10 years ago? I doubt it. The casualness of new media discards the old formulas we once sought comfort behind. In this case I think it is a good and wonderful thing.

Being Golden

To be successful in the social media environment, you need a carefully thought-out strategy — a plan that addresses everything from the images of yourself that you post – to the (online) company you keep.  I’m calling this the “Golden Retriever Rule” of social networking, and here’s what I mean: People using social media to expand their worlds have already learned that sometimes, in the process of following or being followed,  you crash into an alien world populated by people who think very differently from you.   Let’s say, for instance, that I am a fan of Golden Retrievers and I follow, friend and become fans of anyone who blogs, comments or coos about them.  One of the Facebook Friends I follow also loves Goldens and writes about them often – but he also happens to be very involved in local politics in a branded/conservative/ideological way.  Since we are *friends* because of our love of Golden Retrievers, he can see my friend list and I can see his. And this is where it gets complicated: I am also *friended* by ideologically conservative followers because of my association with this Golden-loving politician — because in their zeal to build an on-line community of like-minded individuals, they “friend,” “follow” or “Tweet” anyone remotely connected to this politician. In the blink of a golden eye I am getting news feeds and YouTube links to nasty Nancy Pelosi jokes and tasteless Obama allusions. Suddenly, and without effort on my part, I am moving in the circles of a political domain I would normally not be associated with.

Of course you can “unfriend” or “unfollow” or “hide feeds” – any number of options exist to make undesirable posters go away.   But what if you are using social media to build a circle of supporters for a local political or advocacy campaign?  Say you already have locked in the conservative vote but are now trying to appeal to a wider variety of constituents and want to reach out to moderates within your community.  How can you manage to not be linked, philosophically or politically, to the fringe members of your party so that all voters have an opportunity to know you and your position without being prejudged by the company you keep?  In part, do you let your followers define who you are?

Social media is all about building communities and I have enjoyed some success in advocacy circles doing just that.  The beauty and fluidity of Twitter lends itself to opening new doors and experiencing differing points of view.  When I describe Twitter to someone I have them visualize a boolean logic set of circles – with intersecting shaded segments where interests overlap.  The large circle in the middle is the persona, or public face, with other smaller circles representing the anima, or the different hats or masks we wear.   My Twitter community contains people who comment on many different areas I find interesting. Sometimes (but rarely) the worlds of the anima overlap.   On Facebook, however, the connection for people is more intimate.  It is not unlike the social circles you moved in throughout high school or college… people with similar interests who know where you live and what your major is.  Like Linkedin, Facebook is a very different tool in the Social Media sandbox.  If you are trying to build a community of people outside of your own comfort zone, Facebook and Linkedin are ideal tools for expanding your connections within a defined area of interest. But entering those Social Media sites without a clear plan can backfire – as it did for my Golden Retriever fan-cum-politician friend. With the intent of appealing to a broader political base the revelation of likes and dislikes in great detail painted a picture of a true branded/conservative/ideological. The fact that he is a fan of Rush Limbaugh, for example, would alienate otherwise moderate voters who find that radio talk show host offensive. Those moderate voters, given an opportunity to read about this politicians’ position, might have given him a chance. Now they have written his candidacy off as too “far right.” And, although that wouldn’t matter to some, for a politician trying to appeal to a larger audience, it can be deadly.

I think that anyone using Social Media to expand their community for politics, advocacy or business needs to tread very carefully and understand the scrutiny by which others will comb through a profile. And I think it is more important to focus on defining yourself or your mission rather than aligning yourself with others who may damage your image by mere association. Really, there is no need to take that risk.

When a Golden (and I am talking about a well-adjusted normal dog here) will enter a room crowded with people, mouth slightly open in a sloppy grin, head held high and tail wagging. They will bump into person after person until someone delivers a pet or treat. Contrast that to a terrier that announces itself with barks and snaps at the intruders and has to be locked away in the laundry room for the party. Be the Golden.

Excuse Me, But I’m Having a Gutenberg Moment

Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 – 1468) is remembered for the invention of moveable type printing and the production of the Gutenberg Bible. Considered to be the key factor in the launch of the Renaissance, the Gutenberg moveable type printer spread books beyond the scribes and the elite and into the hands of the public, spreading knowledge and the ability to learn beyond our own experiences. It also gave mankind a reason to read and a thirst for literacy.

My “Gutenberg Moment” occurred a few months ago when I pondered the demise of newspapers and the proliferation of new media. I wondered if the combination of a truly free press and virtually unlimited and ridiculously inexpensive distribution channels might unleash a renaissance of creativity in writing not seen since the end of the Dark Ages. No longer tethered to the formulaic “he said, she said” monotony of news show repartee, or “fair and balanced” commentary of typical news stories (where opposing views on say, the tragedy of a house fire, are often irrelevant and almost always annoying), creative genius could blossom.

Moving beyond the petty hyper-local or politically motivated reporting – new media writers could tackle issues of national or international significance. A more worldly view of the world. And they could do it with wit and aplomb and personality and style and not be constrained by more than our complex rules of grammar. Truth in media would become a matter of personal pride and an unassailable virtue of the best and brightest. With the coveted byline placed within reach of “every man” regardless of station or nation a true democratization of media is within our reach. The power of capitalism is its only check and in true Darwinistic theory, only the strong will survive.

Johannes would be proud.

Social Media Marketing Personal/Public Relations Salesperson Wanted

I love it when Twitter makes its way into the broader media limelight as it again did in the New York Times article by Laura M. Holson called “Tweeting Your Way to a Job.”   The article is largely about the efforts of job seekers to land a dream job in social media working for the Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County.  What rocked my world was the assertion that:

“the position of social media specialist, introduced by companies like Comcast, General Motors and JetBlue Airways, has become the hottest new corporate job among the Twitterati.  To marketers, it seems, personal relations have become the new public relations.”  

Social Media may be the hottest new corporate job among the Twitterati – and it should become the hottest new communications job for forward thinking companies – but replacing the public relations function?

I think companies interested in a successful external communications programs would have both.
 
Managing the image of the winemaker and channeling the message through different media in different voices is not a task for the faint of heart. Hiring someone to broaden the reach of your product through social media channels is a critical component of public relations and, in some instances, investor relations as well. In many ways the professional communicators’ worlds meet here. And that is why it has the potential to be very powerful.