The Tip Jar – 9/9/07

by Nedra Weinreich | Sep 9, 2007 | Blog, Resources

[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

The Tip Jar – 9/2/07

by Nedra Weinreich | Sep 2, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Workin’ for tips on this Labor Day weekend…

• If you live in the UK and don’t have enough people telling you what to do, you can sign up for an online service called The Nag, which will send you an email once a month with a quick and easy thing you can do to help the environment. Companies or community groups can sign up and track the impact made by their collective efforts. Even if you’re not a Brit, visit the site as a good example of a fun web design with attitude. (via PSFK)

• Playing off of George Carlin’s seven dirty words you can’t say on TV, Jordan Ayan came up with 100 dirty words that shouldn’t be used in email subject lines. If it reads like spam, it will get deleted. In addition to anything having to do with sex, viagra and debt consolidation, the list includes innocuous words and phrases like “act now,” “dear friend,” “free offer,” “opportunity,” “teen” and “your family.” And even if someone has actually won something from your organization, don’t use “You’re a winner!” as the subject line. Make sure your email can be identified easily as coming from your organization and be consistent in the wording of your email subject lines.

• As part of the Ad Age Power 150 list of marketing and media blogs, I was recently profiled by creator Todd Andrlik with an interview on his blog. You can find out more about my media consumption habits and favorite social marketing tactics, as well as what celebrity I’ve been told I look like. Interestingly, out of the 150 top marketing bloggers, only 20 are women, a fact that launched something called the W List around the blogosphere (I point this out only as an curious fact – I don’t put much store by the glass ceiling of oppression/celebrate sisterhood mindset.). But if you’re just looking for some new blogs to read, the Power 150 and W List are both good sources to explore.

• Scenarios USA has announced its annual scriptwriting contest for young people ages 12-22 (in New York, NY, Greater Cleveland, OH and the Rio Grande Valley, TX). This year’s theme is “What’s the REAL DEAL about Masculinity?” One winner from each region works with Hollywood filmmakers to turn their stories into professionally-made short films. Last year’s films focused on AIDS prevention. The website offers a useful manual on the basics of making a movie for the young filmmaker (and is a great introduction for the rest of us as well). Look in the box entitled “Resources” on the left side of the linked web page for the pdf links.

• Researchers are studying the health effects of Ramadan on the bodies of those observing the month-long Muslim holiday. Because adherents fast daily between sunrise and sunset, and feast into the night, their circadian rhythms are disrupted. This can lead to sleep problems, hormonal changes and mood impacts. It’s an interesting opportunity to do longitudinal research exploring how these religiously based behaviors affect health and social outcomes.

• The National Cancer Institute is offering paid six-month internships in health communications (presumably including social marketing-specific opportunities) to current and recent graduate students. This program always looked so appealing to me when I was a grad student, but I was in such a hurry to get through school that a 6-month internship didn’t work for me. But were I to do it over again, I think I would reconsider (what do you think, grad students?). And if you’re a German student, consider entering this social marketing competition.

• A couple of interesting health behavior stories here… Human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes most cervical cancers, may also cause mouth and throat cancer. Though the drop in smoking prevalence has slowed the rate of most head and neck cancers, the rate of certain throat and mouth cancers have not changed; researchers suspect they may spread through oral sex. The HPV vaccine may therefore be indicated for males as well as females… A study in Uganda found that men who wash their penis immediately after sex have a greater risk of becoming infected with HIV than those who wait at least 10 minutes – a fascinating counterintuitive result that demonstrates the importance of behavioral research.

• In a bit of good news, the FDA has announced its approval of seconds, with the USDA revising the old food pyramid to reflect the new guidelines. They claim that “an additional plateful of food with every meal can greatly reduce the risk of hunger as well as provide an excellent source of deliciousness.” (hee hee)

• After the big study that showed that obesity spreads through social networks, we find that it may not be solely social after all. A cold virus may actually be a factor in weight gain in some people. Almost one-third of obese people are infected by the virus, compared to about ten percent of lighter people. So a cure for the common cold could also lead to a cure for some types of obesity – potentially huge news.

• Another social networking site for social change has launched called Razoo. They are conducting a contest for nonprofits, with a $10,000 prize to be awarded to an organization that creates a Razoo Group with at least 100 members. On a related note, the Wall Street Journal did an interview with Ben Rattray of Change.org, where you can see behind the scenes of this start-up site.

Last week I was at the CDC’s conference on health communication, marketing and media. I was not able to write up my notes from the sessions I attended, but the presentations are supposed to be posted on the website eventually. And I hope the live webcasts will be available to download, because I missed the opening and closing plenary sessions due to my flight schedule. In any case, I enjoyed meeting lots of you who read my blog, and spending time with old and new friends.

Photo Credit: SimoneDamiani

The Tip Jar – 8/20/07

by Nedra Weinreich | Aug 19, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Loose lips bring tips…

• I’m the proud blogmother of Sandy Beckwith’s new blog, Build Buzz. After guest blogging over here last month, Sandy took the plunge and jumped into her own blog, which offers “tips, observations and advice about publicity for authors, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses.” Obviously a woman of many talents.

• People in NYC are F-I-T. New Yorkers are living longer than those in other US cities — possibly from a combination of their walking lifestyle, city bans on smoking and trans-fats, and a decrease in deaths from homicide, AIDS and drugs. Cancer and cardiac arrest are down too. The average New Yorker is 10 lbs lighter than the average American. And you wondered why they call it the Big Apple?

• Emily Sellars at Buy the Change You Want to See in the World (such a perfect title for what she writes about) makes a good case for cutting food aid to the world’s poor. She explains that donated food from developed countries ends up lowering the food prices in a developing country and hurting local farmers. By undermining the market, the system creates continued dependence on the food aid and inefficiently spent funds, which could be used to instead support the local farmers. It’s the old “give a man a fish vs. teach him to fish” debate.

• It’s all in how you frame it… Two University of Central Florida physics professors, tired of science-deficient students who think the subject is too scary and difficult, have figured out how to get them excited about learning basic physics. They created a course known as “Physics in Film,” now one of the most popular classes on campus. Using movies like Speed, Superman and Spiderman 2 that illustrate or defy key physics concepts, the class dissects the scenes and learn the real laws of physics. Just like in social marketing, it’s all about figuring out what your audience is interested in, and tying your issue to that.

• Seth Godin had an excellent post on defining your competition by figuring out what the opposite of your product is. Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts. Rush Limbaugh vs. Al Franken. So let’s try some social marketing products: fresh fruit vs. Cheetos, vegetables vs. french fries, colonoscopies vs. Pepto Bismol, bike helmets vs. baseball caps, immunizations vs. prayers… It’s not quite so clear cut, is it?

• What would a city without advertising look like? São Paulo is finding out. Since January 1, 2007, the city has been living under a law that bans all advertising, including billboards, fliers, neon signs, and electronic panels. The city is being newly rediscovered as the ubiquitous billboards are taken down and the cityscape emerges. The president of the City Council was quoted as saying, “what we are aiming for is a complete change of culture.” I hope someone is following this case study and will eventually report how the city and its residents were transformed by the change.

• Justice Louis Brandeis said, “There is no great writing, only great rewriting.” With that in mind, I take comfort in the fact that this little video reminded me an awful lot of my own writing process.

• I’ve just added a new widget on the sidebar to the right (RSS subscribers go here) that shows what books I’m reading right now. I’ve joined Shelfari, which is an online social network for readers. It’s such an obvious niche for a social network, given that if you have read some of the same books as someone else, you would probably like the other things they’ve read. So mine will probably tend toward a mix of sci-fi and social marketing, and I will try to keep it updated. If you have books to recommend, please do!

Photo Credit: Celluloid Refuge