The Tip Jar – 6/17/07

by | Jun 17, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Welcome to the Father’s Day edition of the Tip Jar, which is dedicated to all you fathers out there, and especially my own daddy (who is off camping in Glacier National Park) and my kids’ daddy (who spent the day getting showered with homemade gifts, cards and “special recipes”).

  • Though at this point it’s too late for this Father’s Day, Joe at Selfish Giving highlighted what I think is a brilliant product — the DadGear Diaper Vest. Dads of babies certainly don’t want to be seen lugging around a purse-like diaper bag. The diaper vest is essentially a wearable diaper bag, with three pockets for wipes, bottles and diapers, a hidden pocket on the back that holds a changing pad, and smaller pockets for things like phones or keys. If this were out when my kids were babies, I would have snapped it up — know any new parents you have to buy a gift for?
  • The World Bank has created the BuzzMonitor, “an open source application that “listens” to what people are saying about the World Bank across blogs and other sites in order to help the organization understand and engage in social media.” It aggregates content across different languages and platforms and make it easier to make sense of the information. You can download it to use for your organization as well.
  • If you want to learn more about teens’ and/or tweens’ use of technology, or are just interested in seeing how an online focus group works, sign up for the online research webinars from C&R Research’s TeensEyes division (tweens – 6/27, teens – 6/28). This live interactive query research will have a trained youth researcher moderating each session with a panel of tween or teen consumers who will be talking about the technology they’re using, where they go online and what they do there. A great opportunity to be a fly on the wall.
  • A study recently published in JAMA shows the counterintuitive results that physicians trying to help patients change more than one behavioral risk factor may be more successful if they address changing several behaviors at once, rather than doing them sequentially. It seems like it would be overwhelming to have to make so many changes at once, but perhaps with more than one message the chances of at least one sticking are increased.
  • We knew that the Los Angeles Fire Department was technologically advanced, but now it seems the the LA Police Department is trying to catch up. The LAPD will be installing a system to accept video, photos and SMS messages sent from 911 callers’ cellphones into the 2 million calls now handled by the emergency dispatchers. Hopefully idiots won’t turn it into a nonstop lolcats photo stream (Im in ur dispatch sistem, cloggn ur lines).
  • Are there some risks we shouldn’t try to prevent? The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the UK says that the normal bumps and bruises of childhood provide kids with lifelong lessons that will help them avoid more serious injuries later in life. By letting children play outside and take reasonable risks, they will learn their own limits and develop their own risk assessment skills. This common sense advice reminds me of the best book on parenting I’ve ever read – Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.

And with that recommendation (and a reminder to myself that I need to reread that book), our Father’s Day feature comes to an end.

Photo Credit: NoNo Joe

HHS Flu Blog Success?

by | Jun 16, 2007 | Blog, Social Media

The preliminary outcomes of the HHS Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog and leadership forum held on June 13 are starting to emerge. While my last take on the situation came at a time when it seemed the blog was acting as a lightning rod for all the frustrations with government inaction felt by flublogia, the comments that emerged from the forum are encouraging. It seems the blog and forum may have somewhat bridged the gap between these two necessary partners in pandemic preparation.

The forum was liveblogged by two tireless unnamed bloggers from Ogilvy who did an amazing job of providing summaries of each speaker and session as soon as possible, uploading pictures of the proceedings and responding to requests from commenters (including passing along a technical question for Flu Wiki’s Greg Dworkin to ask of CDC head Julie Gerberding).

Several of the speakers made it clear that they have been paying attention to the goings-on at the blog, and that they are aware of the efforts of the flubies.

HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt’s remarks included this mention (though I’m not sure I would call posting without responding to comments “interactions”):

We have also launched our first “blog summit” on pandemic preparedness. Many of you have participated in the summit — at blog.pandemicflu.gov. If you haven’t, there’s still time. It will run for another two weeks. I have greatly enjoyed my interactions with you and thousands of other engaged individuals. I am sure you will find the open dialogue on the site very useful.

Stephanie Marshall, the Director of Communications at HHS, said:

Our online research also revealed that there is an online community of “flubies” who are informed and already preparing. And they’re on the Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog.

And Admiral John Ogwunobi, who incurred the most wrath for his blog posts, extended an olive leaf during his closing remarks:

As a noteworthy end to the Pandemic Flu Leadership Forum, Dr. Agwunobi invited others to make closing remarks. (“My handlers are shaking their heads and telling me not to do this – but I’m gonna do it!”) He encouraged Dr. Greg Dworkin of Flu Wiki to share his thoughts. The two have recently become acquainted as contributors on the HHS blog.

– our blog community will appreciate this –

Dr. Dworkin: One of the things we’ve learned today, over the past three weeks, and will continue to learn, is that there are a lot of potential recruits for this effort. . . A lot of people who are already engaged and feel strongly about this want to help.”

Dr. Agwunobi: I didn’t realize until I became an avid reader of the HHS blog that there is an army of people who are already preparing and want to help further this goal of preparedness. (I also learned you have to be completely open and honest and forthcoming in that world or they won’t treat you very nicely!)

Because one of the main criticisms by the commenters on the HHS blog had been that they didn’t think that HHS was listening, having a spotlight shown on the flubie community, particularly with Greg Dworkin as their able spokesman (who was added to on the panel discussion at the last minute and included in the press conference afterward), was empowering. Kudos to whoever at HHS or Ogilvy made the decision to give him a bigger role. Here is Greg’s summary of the results of the day from his perspective.

Michael Coston of Avian Flu Diary offered his take on what had come out of the summit, which was echoed in many of the comments on the HHS blog and on other forums:

While I know many were expecting more out of all of this, I think we maybe got more than we realize. We’ve got a clear clarion call from the Secretary of HHS, to go forth into our communities and spread the pandemic awareness message. We’ve been validated, at least unofficially, as being partners in the national effort to prepare for a pandemic. And our voices, for the first time, have been heard on this issue.

I suspect we may have surprised a few folks with our knowledge, our passion, and our dedication.

The reality is; no one is going to get everything they want out of this leadership summit. Many questions will go unanswered, many policy decisions will be withheld pending consultation and review, and concrete results may yet be months away. This experiment, like all experiments, was conducted without knowing in advance what the end result would be.

The HHS is mixing ingredients, looking for a catalyst that will spark a reaction among previously inert components. Praying for cold fusion in a test tube. We can be that catalyst. Regardless of how we feel about what has, or hasn’t been done to date by government agencies, we can take the lead in our communities and promote pandemic awareness. If enough of us do that, we can start a groundswell around the nation, and hopefully show the rest of the world how it is done.
Despite some early hitches in the process, and a miscommunication or two along the way, I’d have to say the Leadership Summit has advanced the ball down the field a bit. We have recruited a few more community leaders into the fold, and we have engaged in a open, and often spirited conversation with a Federal agency.

So, while there are still many detractors who feel that whatever HHS does is too little, too late, it seems that communication channels have at least been opened. HHS has developed a healthy respect for the knowledge and engagement of the flubies, who in turn are feeling like their efforts are finally being validated. Whether HHS does the right thing and works with this active community as a partner in building the necessary grassroots movement has yet to be seen, but this is a hopeful beginning.

I’ll be posting more soon on the HHS blog about my thoughts on the content of the leadership forum.

UPDATE: From Greg, you know your issue has arrived when it’s the subject of a Dilbert comic.

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It’s All About Me

by | Jun 16, 2007 | Blog, Personal

My blog friend, fellow introvert, baseball coach and real estate agent Derek Burress recently did an interview with me on his website. It’s a wide-ranging discussion on everything from Berkeley to blogging, social marketing to smokeless tobacco, religion to real estate. It’s kind of long, but it was fun to give my two cents on things I don’t usually write about. Read it if you’ve always wondered where the name “Spare Change” came from.

Photo Credit: kelly-bell

Flu-blogging, Week 3 – HHS vs the Flubies

by | Jun 11, 2007 | Blog, Social Media

Watching the goings-on this week at the HHS Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog and the impassioned “behind the scenes” discussions at a couple of pandemic flu message boards (PFI Forum & Flu Wiki Forum) brought to mind the analogy of how residents of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area think about each others’ cities. In my experience living in both regions, I’ve found that people in the Bay Area are somewhat disdainful of LA and feel an intense rivalry with their southern neighbor, while Angelenos don’t give much thought to anywhere north of Santa Barbara. Substitute HHS as the clueless colossus, and the “flubies” (concerned citizens that have been thinking about and preparing for pandemic flu for a long time) as the hypersensitive underdogs.

When the HHS blog began, there was hope on both sides that the process would result in public participation and dialogue about pandemic flu issues. HHS has gotten that in spades, but it might not have been in the form they envisioned. Each of the blog posts by the various government and other sector participants has garnered vast numbers of comments (as many as 152 on a single post, though most are getting somewhere between 20-50). Sounds like a lot of public participation, doesn’t it? It turns out that the vast majority of the commenters are flubies, many of whom are slicing and dicing the blog posts based on their own extensive knowledge of the issues and what they think is necessary for the country to be prepared if a pandemic strikes. They are well-informed and have obviously thought through the key points they want the government to take into account as it sets its pandemic flu policy.

The main point that the flubies are trying to push is that the current government recommendation of stockpiling a 2-week supply of food, water and medical supplies is woefully inadequate based on current knowledge of how infection cycles and supply chain disruptions will likely happen, and should be closer to 8 to 12 weeks worth of supplies. They feel that HHS is downplaying the need to prepare and not taking worst case scenarios into account.

When the HHS blog was announced, many were cautiously optimistic that they now had a seat at the table, and that they would actually be engaging in a conversation with the policymakers. But when HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt did not respond to the comments on his posts, some took it as a sign that he was not listening. And when some moderated comments either did not show up on the blog or took a long time in appearing, elaborate theories as to which words or topics were being censored started coming out. Some tried to read between the lines of others’ comments, wondering if they were HHS plants who were testing how much the flubies knew and how they would react to various communication approaches.

The proverbial straw came in Week 3, when Admiral John O. Agwunobi, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the HHS wrote a blog post reiterating the government’s recommendations for stockpiling that came across to many as patronizing and dismissive. The poor guy didn’t know what hit him, as enraged flubies unleashed their anger, sarcasm and finely reasoned arguments in the comments. Amongst themselves in their own forums, the attacks were even harsher. (Fla_Medic has a good summary of the situation on the Flu Wiki.) Admiral Agunobi later wrote a second post sharing his surprise that his words had sparked such a strong response, and he backpedaled somewhat.

I have a feeling that HHS is getting more than it bargained for with this blog, and the question is what they will be doing with all of these comments. Will they stick with a predetermined set of recommendations, or will they take the valuable input of people who have thought through in painful detail what they need to do to protect their families and communities if and when a pandemic strikes? Tomorrow (June 13) is the HHS Pandemic Flu Leadership Forum, where they will be discussing policy recommendations, and it will be interesting to see the direction the conversation takes. Greg Dworkin, who runs the Flu Wiki and its forum, will be speaking at the event and presenting the flubie community’s concerns. The Forum is supposed to be liveblogged, though I don’t know who will be doing that on site.

While I wasn’t invited to come to DC to participate in person, my contribution to the HHS blog this week came out of my dismay at the fact that these true community leaders have been mostly ignored, when they are the best natural resource the government has in spreading the word at the local level. I’m advocating a dual-pronged approach to building public awareness by combining a government-led education campaign with a program cultivating and supporting the grassroots activists through the social marketing equivalent of a “brand ambassador” or “customer evangelist” program. My strategy seemed to resonate with the flubie community. The worst thing HHS could do would be to ignore, or worse, alienate this network of people who feel passionately about the issue. Read the post and let me know what you think about my recommendations, either here or there.

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The Tip Jar – 6/10/07

by | Jun 10, 2007 | Blog, Resources

After searching the social marketing universe far and wide, here is this week’s Tip Jar…

  • The George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services has just published its first issue of Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing. This online journal is edited by graduate students, and grad students are also the lead authors of the peer-reviewed cases (in partnership with practitioners and their academic advisors). The journal also features commissioned and sponsored cases (not peer-reviewed). A sampler of some of the many cases in this issue include the campaign launch of Donate Life California (an online organ donor registry), using targeted health messages in a state colorectal cancer screening program, process evaluation in the “Be Under Your Own Influence” media campaign and the birth of the “truth” campaign.
  • John Brian at Beaconfire gives some advice on how to use the Facebook Causes application to make your organization stand out from all the other causes on Facebook.
  • How do you help someone wrap their mind around a huge number like the 106,000 aluminum cans that are used in the US every 30 seconds or the 8 million trees harvested in the US each month to make the paper for mail order catalogs? Artist Chris Jordan has created a series of large-scale “statistical art” prints that depict these numbers literally, such as a reproduction of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte comprised of 106,000 cans of Pepsi, Coke, Orange Crush, V-8 and other drinks. It’s a visual form of what media advocates have termed “creative epidemiology.” (via PSFK)
  • Chris Weber, a PhD student at Stony Brook University, is asking for your help in his dissertation research. He says, “Increasingly, Americans are turning to the web for news about politics. This is a survey about online news coverage of the immigration issue. We are interested in your thoughts on this important political controversy. If you decide to participate in our survey, you will start off by answering a few questions about yourself and your political attitudes. Then you will watch a short news clip of an immigration story. After the clip, we will ask you some questions about your position on immigration policy. In total, the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely anonymous and you can skip any questions you do not wish to answer.” Take the survey here:
    http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/crweber/TAKESURVEY/videohuddy.htm. If you have any questions, contact Chris Weber at crweber@notes.cc.sunysb.edu.
  • SAT prep giant Kaplan has joined forces with TOKYOPOP to teach vocabulary to high school students in a manga format. From the release: “This series is the newest trend in teen reading and the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry. Appealing to teens interested in a good read filled with exciting plots, the manga platform represents a fun method of vocabulary review, allowing the reader to decipher the context of the word not only from the surrounding text on the page and the definitions in the margins, but also from the graphic element of the story.” Great idea – now how about some health manga? (via Ypulse)
  • Seth Godin has some ideas for updating the way we elect presidents to fit with our 21st century technology. For example, he suggests six-hour long debates once a week, with the highlights sliced up and disseminated through online and offline channels; voting by ranking all the candidates, which leads to better results; voting at ATM machines; and other ideas that would make the process more interesting and convenient.
  • In Jordan, where weddings are often celebrated with gunfire into the air (yep, real “shotgun weddings”), the law of gravity usually prevails and sometimes results in deaths and injuries of celebrants. A man named Ali Zenat (WSJ subscription required) is working hard to convince family and friends of the bride and groom to forgo the celebratory gunfire. He persuaded printers to include a line in wedding invitations that says “gunfire is forbidden” or “our wedding will be more beautiful without gunfire.” (I think Miss Manners would approve.) Mr. Zenat has distributed posters featuring a young woman who walked into a wedding and left as a paraplegic. He also persuaded about 10,000 influential individuals, including the ranking members of big clans, to sign a pledge to stop this practice. Slowly, he seems to be making progress.
  • Another example of an individual taking on an established cultural custom and prevailing is Cyril Ebie, a young Cameroonian who stood up to his parents and village elders to speak out against the practice of female genital mutilation. Although his two older sisters had already undergone the procedure, when he heard it condemned on a national radio debate, he tried to convince his parents that his younger sister should not have it done. He fled with his sister to a nearby city, and his protest set off a series of events that led to his village putting a stop to the practice. He just won the BBC World Service’s Outlook program’s Stand Up for Your Rights competition. One person can make a big difference.
  • On the other hand, here’s someone who was supposedly making a difference but ended up being part of the problem rather than the solution. Hector Marroquin, who is the founder of the gang-intervention group No Guns, was arrested for selling silencers and weapons to an undercover ATF agent. He had received $1.5 million from the City of Los Angeles for a program to keep youth out of gangs. Marroquin is an alleged associate of the prison-based Mexican Mafia, and police searches of his businesses recovered gang photos and journals. His son, who also worked for No Guns, is an admitted gang member who has been indicted on charges of home invasion robbery. Um… maybe they were just helping the youth dispose of their guns and gang paraphernalia?
  • Text messages on mobile phones can be a good way to warn people of an impending hazard and to coordinate disaster response. But just as inaccurate email messages about cancer-causing antiperspirant can propagate quickly from person to person, not all text messages can be trusted. In Indonesia, a hoax text message warning of an tsunami was widely circulated and resulted in thousands of people fleeing their homes in panic, though the warning had no basis in fact. Looks like we need an SMS-Snopes.

Photo Credit: samk

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Be Reasonable

by | Jun 8, 2007 | Behavior Change, Blog

Growing up in Los Angeles, we got used to going through droughts and being careful about our water consumption. When it was really bad, we had to turn off the shower water while lathering up, put bricks in the toilet tank to use less water, and endure the terrible inconvenience of restaurants not bringing a glass of water unless requested. Record low rainfall (the same this year as the annual equivalent of Death Valley’s) and low snowpack on the mountains from which we get our water, combined with predicted high temperatures this summer, means that we’re gearing up again for drought measures.

Sounds pretty dire, huh? But this time it doesn’t feel so hard to deal with. Our Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, just issued a call to Angelenos to reduce our water use by 10 percent. Not a major lifestyle change, but simply cutting 10 percent from what you would normally use. That sounds pretty reasonable and doable. It just means moving a little faster in the shower or skipping one day a week, watering the lawn every three days instead of two, combining smaller loads of laundry together, not leaving the hose running while you wash the car. The specificity of the request makes it easy to think of ways to implement it.

If the Mayor had just said “Use less water,” it would make me feel like whatever I did would not be enough. I could always use less water than the amount of my current consumption. But a reduction of 10 percent is concrete and achievable. It doesn’t evoke bad memories of putting buckets in the shower to catch the runoff for watering plants.

In your programs, are you asking people to give ’til it hurts and then give some more? Or are you reasonable in your request, asking people to make small changes (at least at first) that will add up over time? Be concrete in your messages rather than exhorting people to a vague call to action.

After a while, people will get used to the “new normal” and you can then work on another small step. You’d have a hard time finding a Los Angeles native over a certain age who keeps the faucet running while brushing his teeth. Now I just need to find a location other than the shower to do my daydreaming.

If you want to join me, here are 100 water-saving tips for different regions of the country.

Photo Credit: diedm

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