[UPDATED 9/10/07 – see below]

Bear-ly enough room for all the tips this week…

• Amazon is again using its Mechanical Turk technology for a search and rescue operation, this time to find aviator Steve Fossett. Fossett, who is the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon, went missing last Monday when his airplane failed to return from a flight over the Nevada desert. You can join the search effort by registering here and looking at satellite photos of the area to try to identify where the plane went down.

• The social entrepreneurship organization Echoing Green has just published a book designed to inspire young people to consider careers in the nonprofit sector. The book, Be Bold, tells the stories of 12 nonprofit leaders who typify the core elements of being bold: experiencing a moment of obligation (committing to what you feel is important), having the gall to think big, trying new and untested approaches to solving problems, and seeing possibilities where others may not. The book has a useful set of worksheets that can help you figure out what being bold means to you, and how to put it into action. I have a copy of the book to give away to the first current or aspiring nonprofit professional to leave a comment here (include your email within the comment and I will contact you for your mailing address).

• Coming in February is the first ever online conference focusing on social marketing in the developing world. The conference is sponsored by the Private Sector Partnerships-One Project and USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health. Participation is free and open to all. If you would like to be a presenter, the abstract submission deadline is September 30.

• An uncontrolled disease outbreak in a virtual world offers lessons in human nature that could apply to real-world pandemic situations. The contagious disease, called Corrupted Blood, was introduced in 2005 to high-level World of Warcraft players and quickly spread to the densely populated capital cities. It caused high rates of mortality and social chaos within the virtual population. Some epidemiologists who happened to learn of the in-game outbreak used the opportunity to identify variables they had not taken into account in their real-world models of human behavior. One of these was the “stupid factor” — people thinking they could just get a quick look and not be affected. They could also see the effects of near-instant international travel and infection by pets. Unfortunately, the game makers reset the game to eliminate the disease and wiped out all the data, but the epidemiologists are working with them to model disease outbreaks in other popular games.

• According to Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, a health-conscious Al Qaeda insisting that Iraqis quit smoking was a big reason why tribes in western Anbar Province decided to support US troops instead. I know a lot of people feel that anti-smoking activists here in the US are extremists, but when a smoking ban is considered as much a factor as blowing people up in losing supporters, that’s a pretty questionable claim.

  UPDATE: Apparently there is more to this than the NY Daily News let on. This smoking ban wasn’t just backed up by a fine of a few dinars and social disapproval, but amputations of fingers or hands, and in some cases by death. So it’s not just a silly statement by Thompson but a very real concern.

• An article in the Nonprofit Times suggests that we should be movement builders, not marketers. Bill Toliver of The Matale Line says, “Awareness is not the answer. Your job is not to get people to act. It is to get them to commit. To commit to things that are not in their obvious best interests.” And some of the suggestions he gives for how to do this goes against a marketer’s instincts (though he makes them sound awfully crass): Don’t group donors into categories, don’t dumb down messages into sound bytes, don’t try to appeal to donors’ basest instincts and simplest wants, or to donors’ knee-jerk emotional responses. I don’t agree that the line between marketing and movement building is an either-or one, nor that his exaggerated prescriptions of what not to do should be avoided entirely. The ideas of segmentation, simplifying the message and appealing to values and emotions should not be dismissed as tools to be used to rally the troops.

• The use of picture boards is spreading, as their effectiveness in assisting with communication with non-English speakers is recognized. These indestructible boards have easily understood graphics that allow health and disaster personnel to communicate with people about their needs. They originated in Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and are starting to be used by hospitals across the country.

• Have you always wished you could be as trendy as I am? Wish no longer. Trendwatching has put out its top five trend watching tips, so you can build your own trendspotting capacity. They even share how to come up with catchy names for the trends you suss out, like their trysumers or infolust.

• The webcasts for the morning plenaries from the CDC’s recent health marketing conference are now available for viewing, and transcripts are available as well. I’m not sure whether the closing plenary will eventually be available as well, but it’s not there right now.

• When you’re trying to get your product accepted by the cool kids, be careful not to let it first catch on with the nerds, geeks and dweebs. Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger and Chip Heath of Stanford (and Made to Stick fame!) looked at how products signal identity and how that can change over time. They watched what happened when the yellow Live Strong rubber bracelets were first adopted by students in one dorm, but quickly abandoned when the residents of the “geek” dorm started wearing them. We geeks get no respect.

• OPC Today had a couple of reports showing that visual cues at “point of purchase” work to generate action. First, that signs at a mall suggesting that people take the stairs instead of the escalator increased traffic on the stairs even after the signs were removed. And second, that product nutrition ratings at supermarkets lead to purchases of healthier foods. It’s all about getting the right message to the right person at the right time and right place. Right?

• Be careful when you are trying to counter myths and misperceptions about your issue. When you publicize false statements, even if you do so in the context of negating myths with facts, people are more likely to remember the false statements as true. So, stay focused on promoting true information and avoid talking about the common misperceptions themselves.

• If you are a healthcare blogger (devoting at least 30% of your blogging time to healthcare), please take a few minutes to respond to the “Taking the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogosphere” survey. Envision Solutions and Trusted.MD Network are co-producing this poll, which is in its second year (see last year’s results). Besides contributing to knowledge about this field, you could be one of five winners of a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate. Click here to take the survey until October 15, 2007.

Photo Credit: arimoore

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