by Nedra Weinreich | Nov 1, 2006 | Blog, Social Marketing, Technology
There’s nothing very unusual about two red-headed women chatting in the headquarters of a Federal agency…unless one of the women is actually a man, and the headquarters actually exists on a server somewhere in Linden Lab. That man is John Anderton, who is responsible for bringing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into Second Life. I met John’s avatar, Hygeia Philo (pictured on left talking to my avatar, Sheva Weeks), when I happened to see an announcement of a CDC Health Fair listed in New World Notes and decided to find out more about what the CDC is up to in Second Life.
John first started exploring Second Life last March, and by July he had convinced the powers-that-be at the CDC to let him establish an agency outpost there, which he built with his own virtual hands. John seems to be the CDC’s go-to guy for their health communications “Special Forces” missions, having been detailed to work on public health crises like the CDC’s response to the anthrax scares, the flu vaccine shortage and setting up new communications offices in various parts of the agency. He currently (at least until next week) is working in the Office of the CDC Director with the charge of exploring how social media can be used to promote public health, and he plans to continue to serve as the CDC’s virtual face in Second Life.
When we met, John graciously agreed to do an interview, which we conducted by e-mail, phone and in Second Life.
Can you tell me about the Center at the CDC where you work, and what your role is there?
I am presently on detail to the Office of the CDC Director, Office of Enterprise Communications. I am the lead for Project Fulcrum; an initiative to advance public health using new media, to recruit new persons into public health careers, and to reinvigorate old public health brands that have fallen by the wayside. Before this assignment, I have served for the last five years as Associate Director for Communications Science in the Center at CDC that deals with HIV, STDs and TB (called NCHSTP, for short). In that role, I was charged with lead responsibility for managing campaigns, media, special projects, contracts, issues management, exhibits, and clearance of communications products and materials for the Center. I have worked at CDC in a variety of communications positions, in several areas. I have a PhD in Health Promotion and Behavior, and a Masters degree in Public Administration.
How widespread within the CDC is knowledge and interest in internet-based applications like Second Life and other social media?
CDC is always looking into better ways to understand its audiences and the public, and to communicate its messages in timely, credible, and relevant ways. An internal blog was started recently, and podcasts began last month for outside audiences. The internal newswebsite is in its second year of daily publication, and it featured a story about CDC in Second Life a few weeks ago, so I think the knowledge of what we are doing internally is growing. I have presented on it a dozen times to various internal constituencies to build inertia around expanding our presence in world. I started looking into Second Life (SL) last March, when only 175,000 persons were in-world, as a way to advance the CDC mission using this new medium, for this specialized audience. We acquired our avatar formally in July, and introduced the space in August. The SL presence has been continuously evolving since that time.
How did you personally become involved as a CDC representative within Second Life? Are there others who are doing work in-world from your Center or other divisions of the CDC?
I began exploring YouTube as a means of disseminating CDC health content, and ran across a machinima presentation on Second Life, in March, 2006. Intrigued, I wrote a white paper to make the case to management for CDC to enter SL, and was authorized to explore and begin involvement. I created an avatar with purpose; Hygeia was the Greek muse of health, and the last name of Philo means ‘lover of,’ thus a CDC av with the metaphoric moniker of Hygeia Philo (lover of health) seemed perfectly appropriate. I waited until July 13 (CDC’s 60th anniversary) for her to formally enter Second Life for the reason that birthdays are rites of passage (drivers license, voting, etc.) and her birthday into the new world, as CDC celebrated maturity in the real world, also seemed appropriate. Everyone I meet has been congenial and both surprised and pleased to see CDC in the SL space. I have been working in SL on a daily basis, part time, for almost 8 months now. As far as others at CDC – the National Center for Environmental Health is exploring how to educate about toxic waste in SL, and the Strategic National Stockpile is exploring training issues in SL. The Injury Center is also thinking about how to get involved, too.
I love the thinking behind Hygeia’s name. If it’s not too personal a question, how does it feel to be a man in real life but use a female avatar?
I think of working with the CDC space and Hygeia Philo like hosting a trade show booth with a colleague. I am there to represent CDC in the best way possible, professionally and personally. The Juwangsan address [the location in Second Life] and the avatar in SL are both parts of that image. The gender discrepancy between myself and my role in SL doesn’t bother me, and I don’t get much grief at CDC either, as I tend to thoroughly explain why the avatar was chosen before explaining my role. I don’t see Hygeia Philo as an alternate John Anderton, rather I see her more as the face of the Agency that I am working with to disseminate health information. More of a partner than a puppet, and I do not hide my true identity when asked, interviewed by the press, or during discussions. When I attended the Second Life Community Conference in San Francisco this past August, the distinction between myself and Hygeia caused a little amusement for a few people, but no apparent consternation.
Please tell me about how the CDC’s presence in Second Life came about. How much resistance did you encounter from others at the CDC to the idea of building a virtual office?
I met with Randy Moss, at the American Cancer Society to learn about how the ACS was raising money with the in world Relay for Life, and then attended the Second Life Community Conference in San Francisco to continue studying how people were playing, interacting, transacting, and studying the possibilities of SL. Both contact experiences were transformative; I came to see this as neither a fad nor a game, but as a social movement and a glimpse into the future of social interaction, learning, and even being. The blended reality aspect of real and virtual worlds is fascinating to me. I wanted to build a space that could both educate and foster/enable dialogue. I routinely change up what is offered, based on interactions with residents who stop by, or whom I meet when I am exploring. The transience of the space is also marvelous; one can change on a dime, if something new presents itself. The day the E. coli scare occurred, I posted a “Real Life Health Alert” in the space for persons to learn about what was going on, and what to do about it. To those who saw it, it was very favorably commented upon; as a bridge builder between real life health threats and virtual education opportunities.
Everyone at CDC has been saying “Go go go!” there is not internal resistance; rather a chorus of support that is also a little agitated that I cannot go even faster! In world, after an interview with the Metaverse Messenger [a Second Life-focused newspaper downloaded by almost 50,000 people each month], the Editor responded favorably to my request to publish health info in her pub, so I have contributed a weekly column to this news outlet for the last 5 weeks. That has been great too, as a learning tool about virtual media, and the intersection with real world media.
I found out about the CDC in Second Life during a “health fair” you were offering there. How often do you do those, and are there any other virtual activities in which the CDC is involved?
You came on the first day of the first CDC health fair. Events drive interest among SL residents, and I had marveled at how concerts and fashion shows rivaled presentations by the Lindens [the staff of Linden Labs] as both entertainment and information dissemination opportunities. Rather than a big press conference (which we will do later, when we expand), I decided to go the highly localized route of a community health fair. In the real world this is a nice, local platform to display health information, to educate on specific issues while building community and establishing credibility of source. I was delighted at the attendance, and content of discussions. It was surprising to me to be at the top of the list in Rik’s Picks, in New World Notes, and kind of exciting to receive coverage from the Second Life News Network on the Fair. I’m not sure if that is due to the novelty of the event, an interest in what CDC is doing, or some other factor, but the interest has been wonderful. CDC is ramping up a variety of offerings, and will require us to expand and complicate the space a bit, but I don’t have a timetable for these upcoming developments.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing’s director Jay Bernhardt is one of the first I know of in a Federal health agency to write a blog. While it is not updated very often, I think it is still a significant milestone and an indicator of the CDC’s desire to use the latest tools to communicate with its audience. Are there any other examples of how the CDC is using newer internet/social media or other tools (e.g., mobile phones) to reach its audiences beyond just offering a static website?
I would suggest that you contact Jay with that question – I’m not in a place to be able to answer that effectively.
What has been the response of SL residents to the CDC’s outreach in-world?
Almost without exception, I have been warmly greeted by old and new SL residents. People are kind of amazed that CDC would treat it seriously, and that we are not there for profit. I hope that CDC can continue to grow and evolve in the SL space, as it grows and changes itself. With such rapid development, it forces us to stay on our toes!
Are there specific health issues that you tend to focus on that are more prevalent among Second Life residents because of their demographics and behavioral risk factors?
I would like to gradually introduce the topic of sexual health into the space, as a way to promote discussion about the links between what one says and does in Second Life, and then one’s actions in real life. Liaisons in real life, foreshadowed and even pre-enacted though virtual spaces have led to documented disease transmission, and discussion about this seems generally absent from SL. On the demographic side, there are all kinds of opportunities to introduce topics relevant to persons in their 30s about screenings, health and emergency preparedness, childhood milestones, and other topics. On the behavioral side, there is also plenty of room for talk about good eating, active lifestyles, eye strain, and other health topics relevant to persons who spend significant amounts of time sedentary in front of a monitor. The possibilities are hard to count, there are so many.
How do you see Second Life fitting into an organization’s overall social marketing strategy?
Second Life joins the list of audiences, interests, and channels that link the American public with their public health infrastructure. Given that half of residents are international, it also broadens and deepens the CDC communications portfolio into addressing wider audience needs and concerns. I suppose that it is a tactic, and not a strategy in itself, but one that suggests that attention to new media requires constant vigilance, and willingness to experiment. If SL fails, for some reason, the movement of persons into online congregate social settings will probably continue to expand, and understanding how to reach these audiences will continue to be important.
For people at other agencies or organizations who may be considering establishing a presence in Second Life, what advice would you offer?
Do it. Now. In my career at CDC, which spans a short 15 years, four new technologies have emerged and merged with mainstream communications. My first business card had my name, title, address and phone number on it. Then came a fax machine number, then an email address, a website, and most recently, a metaverse designation and avatar. These are all ways that I can receive contact from the world and matriculate therein. They have gone from slow, to fast, to real time. One must be in all of these modes to communicate effectively with the audiences with whom we participate, and to understand the places they inhabit. Galileo reminded us that one sees farther if one stands on the shoulders of giants. There are plenty of giants out there to partner with, in this new medium, and most of them are friendly. Also, and importantly, establish excellent relationships with the IT department; with all of the updates coming from Linden, internal firewalls, network up and downtime, and corporate/governmental IT security issues will cause frequent calls for assistance.
Have you hooked up with any groups of nonprofits that are working on how best to integrate their causes into SL like TechSoup.org?
No, other than the American Cancer Society and some exchanges with the New Media folks, I have not begun to run with the big dogs. I am still studying how to best interact with persons, groups, and constituencies to best participate in this wondrous landscape. I hope to continue to learn, evolve and adapt to the space in fruitful ways, and if it goes really well, to lead trends.
Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t touched on yet?
Second Life is part of one’s first life; not separate from it. Even the immersionists have to sleep, eat, and interact with the Real World. If one can merge good health practices in real life with the fun and play of Second Life, then physical and psychological realms can be enlightened and good habits enacted, to personal benefit. If this happens collectively, then public benefits are achieved, and public health becomes a reality, in virtual and actual ways. Thanks for the chance to talk about these issues.
Thank you to John for providing such an insightful and compelling glimpse into the process he has gone through to keep the CDC in the position of leading trends among Federal agencies. I hope that when other organizations and agencies see that even the CDC, with all its bureaucracy and generally slow uptake of new technology, is taking Second Life and other social media seriously, that they should too. I predict that the CDC’s entry into SL will open the floodgates for other people working on health and social issues.
If you are in Second Life and would like to visit the CDC’s virtual offices, you can click here to teleport directly. If you are not already in Second Life, you can first download the software and get a free account.
Technorati Tags: cdc, second life, public health, npsl
by Nedra Weinreich | Oct 30, 2006 | Blog, Social Media
Social media has changed the face of healthcare communications. No longer is online health and medical information coming only in a one-way direction from “official and approved” gatekeeper institutions to consumers. Technology and new online tools are facilitating the sharing of information between health providers and consumers, consumers and consumers, and providers and providers (got that?). This creates a new set of concerns about the accuracy of information being shared and privacy issues, but it also offers new opportunities to reach people in ways that was not possible before the advent of blogs, social networking sites, podcasts, wikis, message boards, videocasts and other peer-to-peer services.
Dmitriy Kruglyak of the Medical Blog Network and the upcoming Healthcare Blogging Summit has coordinated a large scale collaborative initiative to propagate a vision for how internet communication can change and improve the healthcare system. This HealthTrain Manifesto (based on the model of the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto) seeks to begin a conversation within the healthcare industry on how to best take advantage of the new opportunities these tools represent and how to minimize any potentially negative effects of this “open healthcare” approach.
Some of the key questions to be explored, from the Manifesto, include:
How will consumers find and act upon health information? How will professionals incorporate the latest scientific advances into their practice? How will healthcare institutions respond to increasing demands for transparency? How will the entire healthcare delivery and financing system be transformed by grassroots action?
The purpose of the Manifesto is perhaps best summed up here:
This Manifesto proposes principles under which open media could become a force of positive change in public health and healthcare system. It steers clear of issues that may favor any stakeholder group over another, aside from promoting greater empowerment of individual healthcare consumers and professionals. The goal of this effort is not to offer specific prescriptions for improving healthcare, as different people and groups have different ideas. The objective is to propose general principles under which open expression and discussion can force system change for the better. This is work in progress that will benefit from constructive criticism.
The Manifesto lays out 18 Theses, or principles, that will eventually be used to develop standards to guide the application of open health media. The document goes into more depth on each one, but briefly they are:
- Openness
- Empowerment
- Conversation
- Empathy
- Trust
- Critical Thinking
- Guidance
- Control
- Credentials
- Transparency
- Privacy
- Anonymity
- Scientific Validity
- Conflicts of Interest
- Sponsorship
- Promotion
- Controversy
- Civility and Respect
I participated in the pre-public drafting of the document, and there is now a long list of other supporters of this initative, including bloggers and prominent healthcare industry people. Now that the HealthTrain Manifesto is out in the public domain, we hope that the conversation among all stakeholders will move forward on how we can best promote individual and public health via these new technologies.
The implications of the “open healthcare” movement for social marketing are clear. We — the producers and disseminators of health information — are no longer able to function solely under what Fard Johnmar calls the Command and Control marketing paradigm. We can put our messages out there, but what is actually done with them once in the hands of our audience is not under our control. We must begin to figure out new ways to engage a community of people interested in a particular issue, and empower them to make the information relevant and connected to their lives. We cannot rely on a 30-second TV spot to reach and impress the growing numbers of people who routinely use social media as part of their lifestyle and create content themselves.
Download and read the HealthTrain Manifesto (pdf). If you have a blog, write about it there. Leave comments on the central Manifesto page. Add your endorsement to the list. Let’s figure out this brave new world together because the HealthTrain is speeding down the track and picking up steam.
photo credit: Christian Carollo
Technorati Tags: healthtrain manifesto, open healthcare, cluetrain, health, social media
by Nedra Weinreich | Oct 30, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment
When I was a kid, I wanted to be the Bionic Woman. Jaime Sommers to me embodied everything a woman should be – smart, competent, strong, compassionate. I never missed a week, collected Bionic Woman trading cards and had an autographed picture of Lindsay Wagner on my wall.
While this show was not specifically a kids’ show, parents back then did not need to worry too much about prime time showing inappropriate content (the raciest thing I remember was Charlie’s Angels in bikinis or people kissing on the Love Boat). Today there’s not much on TV or in the movies I would let my kids watch — even those made for kids — because the characters are often modeling inappropriate behavior.
Watching television and the movies is one of the ways that children (and adults too) learn about their world and what the expectations are for their social behavior. This is why the content of entertainment programming is so important. Aside from issues of snarky, jaded children and hypersexualized preteens, children’s TV and movies have more fundamental problems in how they portray girls and boys, which I recently learned.
Last week I attended a meeting at which Crystal Allene Cook from the organization See Jane presented their research on how males and females are portrayed in children’s media. See Jane is a project founded by actress Geena Davis, who realized that girls were not seen on the screen as much as boys, and that boys and girls were shown in very different ways.
In a separate conversation, Crystal related the story of when Geena was working on the movie Stuart Little, one of the scenes was a perfect example of the discrepancy. In the scene in which Stuart is in a boat race on a pond, on one side were the boys, who were given the remote controls for the boats in the race. On the other side were the girls, who were cheering them on. Geena (or it could have been someone else – I don’t remember) noticed this and suggested that by giving some of the girls the remote controls as well and having some boys cheering, the scene would be much improved. It’s just a small change, but it subtly affects the message about who is expected to be active vs. passive.
I am not someone who jumps on the bandwagon about how us poor women have it so hard and that we haven’t gotten ahead because the Man is keeping us down. So I have to say that initially when I found out about this project, I almost dismissed it as more of the same whining. But when I heard the statistics and read the research, I was convinced that this is a serious problem. It’s critical that girls see themselves as more than big-eyed Disney princesses and that boys know that it’s accepted and expected that they will be nonviolent and socially engaged.
The study, conducted by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, included the 101 top-grossing G-rated films released between 1990 and 2004 and analyzed 4,249 speaking characters appearing across all the films in the sample. Among the key findings released so far are:
- There are three male characters for every one female character.
- Only 28 percent of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female.
- Fewer than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.
- Male characters are only half as likely (34.6%) as females (66.3%) to be parents.
- Only 34.6% of male characters of color are parents, while 53.1% of white male characters are parents.
- 62% of male characters of color are shown as physically aggressive or violent while 37.6% of white males are portrayed that way.
Crystal is working from within the entertainment industry to try to raise awareness of this issue and offers what should be relatively easy solutions to this problem. So far she has been receiving positive interest. It seems that when most of the writers, producers and directors are male, they focus on what they know — boys — without even realizing this bias. For example, in the Animation Guild, which hosted a forum featuring See Jane’s recent research, only 10.8% of the writers are female, 8% of the producers, 14.9% of the directors, and so on down the job description line. Now that the issue has been raised, hopefully this will lead to more awareness and a conscious effort on the part of the writers and others to include female characters — rather than the one girl in the story who has to be all things to all people.
See Jane’s research is available in these pdf reports:
And another report will be coming soon on body image and hypersexuality.
We need Jaime Sommers! We need lots of her.
Technorati Tags: see jane, gender, girls, boys, television, movies, children, geena davis
by Nedra Weinreich | Oct 24, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment, Social Media
I love science fiction. Given a choice between any other type of book (especially touchy-feely chick lit) and a sci-fi book, I will choose the sci-fi almost every time.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how two sci-fi books I’ve read presaged the existence of blogging and its culture. The first, and one of my favorite books of all time, is Ender’s Game
by Orson Scott Card, written in 1985. Quick synopsis: Genius children are bred and enter military training at a young age to save the Earth from another invasion by the Buggers, an alien civilization that has been fought off twice but threatens to return. Ender Wiggin is the best and brightest student at the Battle School, and believed to be the last hope for humanity.
Ender’s older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are also hyperintelligent but were not deemed suitable as military commanders. They take it upon themselves to foment political change and eventually unite the world’s governments under Peter’s rule.
How do they bring about this change? Basically, by blogging on the “nets,” though in 1985 when this book was written, blog was still just a typo for blob. Here’s how they started:
Her main identity on the nets was Demosthenes — Peter chose the name. He called himself Locke. They were obvious pseudonyms, but that was part of the plan. “With any luck, they’ll start trying to guess who we are.”
“If we get famous enough, the government can always get access and find out who we really are.”
“When that happens, we’ll be too entrenched to suffer much loss. People might be shocked that Demosthenes and Locke are two kids, but they’ll already be used to listening to us.”
They began composing debates for their characters. Valentine would prepare an opening statement, and Peter would invent a throwaway name to answer her. His answer would be intelligent and the debate would be lively, lots of clever invective and good political rhetoric…Then they would enter the debate into the network, separated by a reasonable amount of time, as if they were actually making them up on the spot. Sometimes a few other netters would interpose comments, but Peter and Val would usually ignore them or change their own comments only slightly to accommodate what had been said.
Peter took careful note of all their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. “We’re being read,” Peter said. “The ideas are seeping out.”
“The phrases, anyway.”
“That’s just the measure. Look, we’re having some influence. Nobody quotes us by name, yet, but they’re discussing the points we raise. We’re helping set the agenda.”
Sound familiar? I remember when I first read this book about 10 years ago, I thought it seemed pretty unrealistic that someone could just start anonymously writing and posting their thoughts on the internet, and that people would pay so much attention to it when there are so many other posts by so many other people getting in the way. Card turned out to be prescient.
More recently (perhaps a couple of years ago), I read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (who is now more than a little familiar with blogging). The plot is not so important for my point, but the story basically revolves around people in the 22nd century who live at Walt Disney World, which is no longer owned by Disney and is more of an open source project. In a post-scarcity economy, where people are immortal and have everything they need, the currency is not dollars, but something called Whuffie. Whuffie is essentially the respect and esteem that other people hold you in; you get more Whuffie when you do good things for other people and contribute to society postively, and you lose Whuffie when you treat others poorly or screw up in some way. Using digital implants in their eyes, people can track how much Whuffie they and other people have accumulated.
This was a good fight, one we could have a thousand times without resolving. I’d get him to concede that Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money; in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn’t starve; contrariwise if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented — your personal capital with your friends and neighbors — you more accurately gauged your success.
This book came out in 2003, so blogs were already in existence, but I don’t think that blogs were mentioned anywhere in the book. So how does this concept relate to blogging?
Most bloggers do not get paid for their posts. Why do we do it? To establish ourselves as industry thought leaders, to gain influence for our ideas, to get noticed. Yes, with the ultimate hope that it will lead to paying gigs or positions of power, but in the short term we get paid with Whuffie. When one blogger links to another, that is a form of Whuffie. As our Technorati or Alexa rank rises, that’s blog Whuffie. A blogger is only as good as her peers and audience think she is, and if she does not continue to perform, the Whuffie will eventually sink. I guess for most bloggers who don’t have ads on their blogs, it comes down to ego boosts, because we can’t actually buy anything with the blog Whuffie, but at some point for the best bloggers, the prestige translates into monetary compensation.
Does anyone have any good sci-fi books to recommend?
Technorati Tags: blogging, science fiction, sci-fi, orson scott card, enders game, cory doctorow, whuffie
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
