Blog Therapy

by | Aug 6, 2007 | Blog, Social Media

While looking at headlines on Reddit, I came upon a link to a post from a blogger and talented writer named Jeff Harrell of The Shape of Days blog. In this post, Jeff reveals that he has borderline personality disorder. While he has apparently alluded to having some type of mental problem in previous posts, it has not been a focus of the blog, and this announcement is the first time he has publicly talked about the issue besides to a couple of his friends.

The post is dead honest, heart-breakingly open and was probably incredibly scary to write. In it, he shares what borderline personality disorder is and how it affects him. It’s also a plea for help:

So why am I doing this? Why am I “coming out” like this? The honest answer is that I don’t know what else to do any more. I’ve tried everything I’ve ever known how to try. I’ve gone to the emergency room seeking admission as a psychiatric inpatient. (I do not recommend this, by the way, unless you think spending twelve hours handcuffed to a chair next to a drooling meth addict is lots-o-laffs.) I’ve attempted to confide in friends. I’ve been on drugs — the prescription kind, I mean. I’ve seen therapists. I’ve even prayed, back before the Almighty — if He even exists — stopped taking my calls.

So now I’m screaming in the dark.

Maybe there’s somebody out there. Maybe there’s somebody out there who’s like me. Somebody who’s learned to live and function with this … ugh. This handicap, for lack of a better word. Maybe that person will send me an e-mail with a magic incantation for surviving with this.

Or maybe I’ll be that person for somebody else. Maybe some twenty-year-old girl is sitting out there right now, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, crying in her dorm room and wondering why she can’t be like everyone else. To that person, whomever and wherever you are, I don’t have any answers. I’m sorry. I don’t really believe, deep down, that anyone does. I probably can’t be your friend, just like you can’t be mine. People like us can’t really have friends, not in the long run. But understand that you are not alone. I’m in this too. Right there with you.

The comments that he received from the post were a mix of support and “me toos.” This one was particularly touching:

So, I’m that 20 year old girl you were talking about…though not in her dorm room, but her apt. Something about your article just hit home. I feel the same way you do a lot. I go through numerous mood swings for no apparent reason and I know they’re going on, but I cannot control them. So many people say “just be happy” but that’s impossible when you can’t control yourself. Oh what I would give to be able to just snap out of this. To feel the love that everyone DOES have for me. To feel like I’m actually worth something would be amazing! But there’s something that does not allow it. I know it’s there, but there’s no way to get rid of it. I try to overcome it, but it can’t be overcome.

So thank you for letting me know I am not alone in this world, and I hope you know you are not either…

Blogging is an incredibly powerful way to connect with other people — whether you are the blogger or the reader. When a blogger has built a following of people who read his or her words regularly, a bond can form that goes beyond the content of the blog posts, providing an instant support group. Others who have never heard of the problem get to learn about it vicariously and perhaps realize that someone they know might be affected, and those who suffer from it themselves can see that they are not alone. One blog post could change someone’s life. I hope that it’s changed Jeff’s for the better.

The Tip Jar – 8/6/07

by | Aug 5, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Social marketing-related tips from across the planet converge in this very spot…

  • Use walkscore.com to rate the “walkability” of your home or work. The site looks at how many places like restaurants, grocery stores and shopping centers are within walking distance, based on information found in Google Maps. Hungry Girl (a fun newsletter geared toward people watching their weight) points out that the average resident of a walkable neighborhood is seven pounds lighter than someone who lives in an inconvenient neighborhood. I checked my old and new addresses, and found that my new neighborhood in the city scored a 60, while the old house in the suburbs only scored a 37. Living in walking distance to places I would have driven to previously is definitely making a difference in my activity level.
  • Lest I feel too good about my newly walkable state, a report has come out from environmentalist Chris Goodall, author of “How to Live a Low-Carbon Life,” that walking does more damage to the environment than if I were to drive the same distance. He says that the increased physical activity would require more calories from food that creates more carbon emissions to produce than driving a car emits. If you are not a vegan, apparently the ideal is to just sit at home without moving, though preferably not in front of the TV. Hmmm…I wonder how much carbon is emitted during coronary bypass surgery.
  • And in other related news, television’s Jack Bauer will be fighting global warming on the next season of 24. And while he’s fighting terrorists threatening to walk to the store rather than drive a Prius, the Fox network will also be taking steps to reduce and offset the carbon emissions of the show’s production. They will be switching to a biodiesel blend in the show’s vehicles and generators, purchasing renewable-energy credits as part of its electricity bills and sending scripts and other documents via e-mail rather than hand-delivering them by car. The show’s website features a PSA by star Kiefer Sutherland and tips for how viewers can take action.
  • Bibliomulas are a very old instrument of very new change in Venezuela. The “book mules” are essentially four-legged libraries that take books into remote communities, coordinated by the University of Momboy. Schoolchildren and farmers are learning to read as a result, and the mules are also bringing technology to the villages they visit. Though the villages are isolated, they are becoming connected to the world around them through the efforts of the university and its book-mule-biles.
  • Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab put together a list of seven categories of how mobile texting can be used to promote health that I think are useful to get your mind thinking about how you could use it for your issue. They are:
    1. Remind you to do health behavior
    2. Collect data from you
    3. Offer you words of inspiration
    4. Keep you on schedule/routine
    5. Alert you to health issue or crisis
    6. Send you lab results
    7. Give you health info on demand
  • Pachelbel as police aid? The city of Tacoma, Washington has started to pipe classical music into its transit center to keep away criminals who make drug deals at the bus stop or use public transportation to go cause trouble. They are trying to change the environment to make it inhospitable to the people who are engaging in undesirable behaviors. Whether hearing the soaring strains of orchestral music will be so grating to criminal ears that they decide to stay home is yet to be seen. I have a feeling it will not be as effective as playing rap music would be in keeping classical music lovers away from a particular place. Though perhaps an increased level of music appreciation will emerge and serve to soothe the savage breast.
  • The nonprofit presence in Second Life continues to flourish even as the hype and hoopla about the virtual world continues to fade. I think this means that those who came into SL for the right reasons (i.e., collaboration, learning, connection) are still there, while those who jumped into the world expecting that this latest shiny object would automatically sell more of their widgets (the old-fashioned kind) were disappointed. Nonprofits now have a brand-new dedicated space in the Nonprofit Commons, where 32 organizations have virtual offices. They will be having a grand opening celebration on Tuesday, August 14 at 5:30 pm PT/SLT at the new virtual location as well as live in San Francisco and at participating nonprofits. Attire is “avatar fabulous.”

Until next time…

Photo Credit: nicolemperle

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Change the Environment, Change the Behaviors

by | Aug 2, 2007 | Behavior Change, Blog, Social Marketing

Often, people want to take healthy actions, but don’t have the ability or opportunity to do so. Public health professionals trying to prevent obesity in the inner city have long lamented poor neighborhoods’ lack of availability of fresh produce and healthy food choices at reasonable prices. When there is nowhere nearby to buy healthy food, it often doesn’t get bought.

People are very receptive to suggestions. That is a fact and people who have spent so much time in marketing knows this. Even CEOs of companies give themselves daily reminders like canvas prints on the wall (visit PrintSuccess for this) to keep the motivation going and keeping the focus towards the goal.

Public radio show Marketplace had a story today about how British supermarket chain Tesco plans to open a hundred stores in the Western U.S, many of them in low income neighborhoods that the local supermarkets have stayed away from. The piece highlighted the dire state of food shopping in a Downtown Los Angeles market:

The market’s single aisle is too narrow for us to walk side by side. We squeezed past a display of lettuce greens turning sickly shades of brown.

The refrigerators are stocked with sugary yogurt, lard, packets of American cheese slices, and gallons of milk — just about to expire — for $4.

Tesco will be opening a dozen “Fresh and Easy” markets in the LA area, which will offer fresh produce, meats and prepared meals. Fresh and Easy’s marketing director, Simon Uwans, found that

almost irrespective of the type of household we went into, people were telling us what they wanted was fresh wholesome food and they wanted it to be affordable and they wanted it to be in their neighborhood.

Local health educator Rosa Giron is quoted as saying, “This community is an emergency for obesity and diabetes for childrens, because they don’t eat right.” And based on the infrastructure, a communication program telling people the benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables would not get very far.

Had Tesco not decided that this was a commercial marketing opportunity, perhaps social marketers could have figured out a way to change the shopping environment to facilitate the purchase and consumption of healthy food. Farmers markets are one approach that have been used successfully. Perhaps community produce co-ops would work. Elementary school-based community vegetable gardens, partnerships with local stores that start to offer healthier choices, portable “root cellars” that keep veggies fresher longer… all of these are ways of changing the environment, which would in turn make healthy behavior changes more likely.

Communications are not always the answer. See how you can change the environment itself to make it more conducive to the behavior you want to promote.

Photo Credit: mleak

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Rule Number One: The Product Must Work

by | Jul 31, 2007 | Blog, Marketing


I drink a lot of water, partly because I like it and partly on doctor’s orders. I’m not a water snob, and am perfectly happy to drink tap water when at home, but I always try to grab a bottle or two of water before leaving the house. To me, the advantage of bottled water is the convenience factor, and not the quality of the water itself (especially with the recent revelations that brands like Aquafina and Dasani are simply filtered tap water).

I bought a case of Arrowhead water bottles (a brand sold in the Western US) when they were on sale last week. The profile of the bottle looked more ergonomic, and copy on the packaging said that the new “Eco-shape” bottle uses 15% less plastic. Great idea! The narrow “waist” felt really good in my hand, but the plastic walls of the bottle were noticeably thinner and more flimsy. I wouldn’t have minded that, except that whenever I set the bottle down it tipped over or came close to doing so. This happened nearly every time I drank from one of the bottles.(See the picture I took above of the full bottle precariously tilting and the other that wouldn’t even stand up.) Sometimes when twisting off the cap, the bottle itself got twisted and would not open correctly.

So, as much as it’s commendable for the company to reduce its packaging and try to appeal to the eco-consumer, this change has ended up looking more like a cost-cutting measure than a customer-friendly feature. If the product doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do (i.e., provide a convenient way to drink water), this consumer at least will not buy it again.

When commercial products don’t work, they lose customers. Many people, including close friends of mine, have gone through Dell Hell and will never buy their products again. My husband recently had flight cancellation nightmares with United Airlines and has resolved not to fly with them when he has a choice.

It took a long time for electric cars to become widely adopted because, until hybrids came along, they were seen as less powerful than gas-fueled cars. Many have grumbled about the difference in quality of compact fluorescent lightbulbs while still replacing them throughout their homes. People may be tolerant of a slight degradation in quality in exchange for other perceived benefits, like eco-friendliness, but when the product itself just doesn’t work, the trade-off isn’t worth it.

Many of our social marketing products also either do not work the way they are supposed to, or are perceived by the consumer as being ineffective. When that’s the case, people may try it once and decide it’s not worth the effort. The person who gets a flu shot and has a mild flu-like reaction to the vaccine may decide that it didn’t work and therefore they will not bother getting the shot in the future. Exercise does not always live up to its billing as making you feel great and helping you lose weight, though over time it likely will.

If the product either does not work some of the time or for everyone, or if it is perceived as being ineffective, there are two choices: either change the product or change the expectations. Because we often do not have any control over the actual product we are “selling,” we need to be careful of the benefits we promise or we risk losing credibility with the audience. Condoms were initially touted as the answer to HIV prevention, but the fact that they are not 100% effective against HIV and STDs led to somewhat of a backlash. A more realistic understanding of the place of condoms in HIV prevention has emerged over time.

Change the product or change the perception, but remember that if the product doesn’t work you may as well pour your marketing money down the drain.

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The Tip Jar – 7/29/07

by | Jul 29, 2007 | Blog, Resources

The Tip Jar makes its triumphant return after a hiatus of almost a month. Here are some of the latest finds from the world of social marketing…

  • If you are a health educator inspired by my or others’ recent pandemic flu-blogging, take advantage of this free training opportunity. The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) is partnering with CDC and DHHS to host a 1-1/2 day workshop for health educators on Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication for Pandemic Influenza, on September 20-21, 2007 in Chicago, IL. Up to 100 travel scholarships will be awarded to health educators to participate in the workshop, covering the cost of travel, lodging, and registration for the workshop. You don’t have to be a SOPHE member to participate. The catch is that the deadline to apply is this Tuesday, July 31st. Get the application form and more information on the SOPHE website.
  • ChangeFan is a new Digg-like web community that offers a place to share information about “changing the world.” Recent featured links include articles on plug-in hybrids, poverty & education, and philanthropy. It’s similar to CThings and I’m not entirely clear on how much they differ from each other. But they are both good places to find interesting news stories.
  • Changemakers, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is sponsoring a competition for solutions that merge computer and video games with health and health care. You can read the competition entries as they come in, and consider submitting your own entry by September 26. If you need inspiration, the latest issue of the Drum Beat focuses on Games for Change, with related case studies and resources.
  • Though the website is in sore need of some explanatory information, the Netroots Network provides an interesting way of viewing various issues on a map. You can view the distribution of things like alleged voter fraud, anti-war protests, and incidents of corruption in Texas. The display is crude, but holds promise as a way of helping to provide context to issues and identify trends.
  • Robert Marshall, a Fullbright scholar from Rhode Island spending 6 weeks in England, is documenting his experiences at and exchanges with the UK’s National Social Marketing Centre on a blog. He gives an American perspective on how social marketing is being practiced in the UK, as well as insights he gleans from his colleagues there about what can be learned from the state of social marketing in the US. He also provides an enjoyable travelogue, including his encounter with the Broad Street Pump, considered the birthplace of modern epidemiology.
  • The Ad Council and Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a forum called The Digital Opportunity: Using New Media for Public Education Campaigns. Speakers included Dan Solomon of Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, Tina Hoff of Kaiser and its Entertainment Media Partnerships, and Jeff Berman of MySpace. The webcast and a transcript can be downloaded from the site.
  • From the “And you thought your social marketing program had tough opponents” file… Staff at Green Star Social Marketing, an NGO in Peshawar, Pakistan that does work in family planning and maternal and child health, were the intended victims of an explosive device planted in the NGO’s vehicle. Luckily, the defused device was found not to be capable of exploding, but it came with a pamphlet that said, in part, “The next time nobody will stop us and we will plant a real bomb instead of this small sample.” The terrorists identified themselves as members of Jihad-e-Islami and said that family planning was the equivalent of genocide of Muslims. We shouldn’t forget that social marketing can be powerful, and because of that may provoke powerful detractors.
  • Social marketer Bob Belinoff has a thought-provoking article in LA Yoga magazine in which he advocates that sometimes it’s better to do nothing than to jump in to try to solve major social problems. While that idea goes against many of our initial instincts, he likens the approach to Ayurveda and other types of natural medicine in which you do very little but remove the blocks to letting the problem solve itself. It’s an idea worth exploring. Or maybe just watching to see what happens.
  • Thanks to Chris Forbes for the pointer to a great roundup of articles and resources about marketing with Facebook. I’m still finding that Facebook doesn’t hold much attraction for me the way a professionally-oriented social network like LinkedIn does. Perhaps it’s because I feel a need to have a specific purpose rather than a more open-ended place to hang out. But just because I don’t personally spend time on my Facebook page doesn’t mean that the target audiences I may need to reach feel the same way. Marketers definitely need to get up-to-speed on using this and other social networks.
  • On the off-chance that you didn’t see the recent study showing that obesity is contagious, this concept of behaviors as contagioמ is intriguing. When the people around you are engaging in a particular behavior, it becomes more acceptable to you and increases the likelihood of you doing it as well. This has been well-known regarding youth who smoke, and it makes a lot of sense in regards to obesity and its related behaviors of overeating and a sedentary lifestyle. Craig and Seth had the most interesting takes on the report, with Craig looking at it as confirming the power of social networks and Seth discussing how to get your ideas to spread contagiously.
  • And another study of interest recently found that the more exposure middle school students have to certain anti-smoking ads, the more likely they are to smoke. The ads causing this opposite effect tended to use an authoritarian “just say no” type of message. The researchers found that messages most effective in preventing smoking were those that gave the perception that their peers were not smoking — changing the social norms made avoiding tobacco contagious, in effect.

Photo Credit: BrittneyBush

Social Marketing University – October in LA

by | Jul 27, 2007 | Blog, Professional Development, Social Marketing

I will be offering another Social Marketing University training this fall in Los Angeles. This is a great introduction to using social marketing to bring about health and social change.

The training lasts 2-1/2 days, with the last half-day focusing on Next Generation Social Marketing. If you are a social marketer who already knows the basics and are interested in expanding your bag of tricks to include newer marketing methods using social media and other technologies — many of the things I write about on this blog — you can register just for the last day.

Here’s all the important information:

Social Marketing University
October 15-17, 2007
UCLA Conference Center
University of California, Los Angeles

Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar
October 17, 2007, 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
included in registration for SMU
OR register separately for seminar only

Complete information about the topics to be covered, hotel reservations, registration fees and what past participants have said can be found on the Social Marketing University information page.

If you register before August 31st, you will receive $100 off the regular price. There are also discounts for additional participants coming from the same organization (send your team to be trained!) and a student discount. Seats are limited, so reserve your spot soon; the last training in Washington DC sold out.

And, as a special bonus just for my blog readers, use this discount code to get an additional $50 off the registration cost of the full Social Marketing University tuition: SMU50.

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