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.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

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.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

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

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

What a Thank You!

by | Jun 6, 2007 | Blog, Cause Marketing, Communication

My favorite Israeli blogger Jameel shared a letter and certificate that his young daughter received after cutting off her long hair and donating it to an organization called Zichron Menachem – The Israeli Association for the Support and Assistance of Children with Cancer and their Families. The organization provides wigs to children undergoing chemotherapy who have lost their hair (similar to Locks of Love here in the US).

Soon after she sent in her donation, she received this letter back (translated from the Hebrew):

Dear [name],

Yes, yes, I mean you. You, who faithfully grew your hair for a long time and then cut it short (and sometimes, even shorter than you would have liked), just so your hair would meet the criteria of Zichron Menachem, just so you could donate it to sick children. You just wanted to aid children that were in a bad way.

When their hair started to fall out, in a bad way.

That is the first actual sign which proves to them that they are sick — with the terrible disease known as cancer, and breaks them emotionally.

And not only that, but when they suddenly see large faces looking back at them in the mirror. Too large. Missing too much. And at that critical moment, what is missing has a tremendous impact.

That is the point where they meet your hair. Your noble act returns their faces to them. Their self respect. Their self-confidence that everything “will be ok” and “I’m still myself despite everything.”

Your valiance is noble!

I want to thank you for your partnership with Zichron Menachem — for helping make a very difficult time, a bit easier. And I want you to know that how successful your effort is, every time I see a bashful smile from those mirrors, trying to love what they see. And they succeed.

There are other ways to contribute to Zichron Menachem. Visit our internet site: zichron.org

Sincerely,

Efrat Luxenberg
Public Relations
efrat@zichron.org

What kid (or adult, for that matter) wouldn’t be beaming after reading that letter? Who wouldn’t be pulling out the ruler to see how long it might be until her hair grew enough to send in another donation?

The letter is so effective for several reasons. It lets donors emotionally experience the impact of their donation with vivid details and a compelling story. It shows that the organization understands the sacrifice the donor made with their investment of time and effort in growing the hair, and then the potentially traumatic step of cutting it off. And a little flattery will get you pretty far, when it is sincere and well-deserved.

Kudos to Zichron Menachem for its marketing savvy, and yasher koach (loosely translated as “more power to you” or “way to go!”) to Jameel’s daughter for deciding on her own to participate in this worthy program.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Nonprofit TV Opportunity

by | Jun 6, 2007 | Blog, Miscellaneous

My colleague Melissa Havard just sent me this note that I’m posting with her permission, in case any you who work for or with nonprofits is able to take advantage of this great opportunity:

Please let me know if you work with any non profits who might be interested in getting some amazing exposure. Feel free to forward to colleagues. NOTE: this is not a “Pay for the production costs scam”…it’s for real.

Profiles in Caring (501c3) is a half hour professionally produced television program highlighting amazing non profits who make profound differences in the lives of others. Their focus is on the mid to small non profit organization, that make great impact with minimum staff and dollars. The stories are mini documentaries, with a personal “behind the scenes” emphasis that reveals the essence of the organization and the people involved.

THEY ARE REQUESTING SUBMISSIONS FOR FALL PROGRAMMING. It’s a simple application process online, period. I’m encouraging my friends and colleagues to help get the word out! They are interested in US and International organizations.

PIC currently broadcasts nationally and internationally on the following outlets:

American Life TV
The Altitude Network
America One TV
Voice of America
Comcast on Demand
KJZZ TV Salt Lake City
KHIZ TV Los Angeles
WHBG TV Harrisburg
The STARFISH Network (dish TV)

There are several benefits to filling out an application for submission. If selected,

(1) Profiles in Caring pays ALL production costs. There may be minor travel (coach) expense for cameraman’s travel , but if that presents a problem, sometimes even this minimal charge is covered. *PIC is structured/funded so that the service they provide is producing the program with little or no cost to organization selected. No bait and switch. This is a really great, cool organization.

(2) The programming can lead to increased visibility and donations.

(3) The non profit can keep the 30 minute documentary and use without restriction however they want (fundraising, b roll for news /media, video streaming on web, cross promotion and branding, board presentations)

(4) PIC simply asks for a link on website site, either prior to or when video is aired.

(5) In addition to producing the video, there is an Ambassadors in Caring 10K grant available for qualified and selected applicants. Profiles awards (4) of these each year.

Profiles in Caring is a non-religious, not-for-profit enterprise, an initiative of DreamWeaver Medical Foundation, a 501(3)(c) organization.

For more information, contact Melissa Havard, Melissa@casablancaconsulting.com.

Technorati Tags: , ,

The Tip Jar – 6/5/07

by | Jun 5, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Here are this week’s odds and ends:

  • When CBS’s New York office was bombarded with tens of thousands of pounds of nuts sent to them by fans upset about its cancellation of the TV series Jericho a couple of weeks ago, the network redeemed itself by donating the peanuts to City Harvest, a hunger relief program and State Island Project Homefront, an organization that sends care packages to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are still 6,388 pounds of nuts sent to the LA office that are unaccounted for. Guess the staff there is nuts for nuts. Kudos also to NutsOnline, the company that is coordinating the nutty assault, for collecting donations and giving a percentage of the nut orders of over $13,500 so far for the Greensburg, Kansas Rebuilding Fund. Jericho is set in Kansas, and during the same week the season finale aired, a tornado hit Greensburg and destroyed 95% of the town. Lots of good is coming out of the series cancellation; hopefully the show’s fans will end up having a reason to be happy as well.
  • Dutch smokers who are thinking about quitting can send an approximation of their smoker’s cough to their friends via email with a note announcing their intention to quit (and nonsmokers can send a hint-hint note to their friends who smoke). A clever way to use social pressure to get it to stick in this promotion for Pfizer’s smoking cessation medicine Champix. The site is in Dutch, but the language is similar enough to English that I was able to figure out what the words meant (een paffer = a smoker (puffer), and among the cough qualities you could choose from were “droog” (dry) or “slijmerig” (slimy?)).
  • Staying in the same part of the world, Danish PhD student Malene Charlotte Larsen lists 25 different perspectives that people take on online social networking, such as the consumer perspective, the youth perspective, the friendship perspective, the identity perspective, the body and sex perspective and more. It’s a very interesting way to look at the how people could see the same tool from different angles. (via Alison Byrne Fields)
  • Ad Age is looking at who is blogging and has a great graphic summary of blogosphere demographics (pdf). Some interesting stats include that 19% of kids age 12-17 have created blogs and 38% read them; 54% of bloggers are younger than 30; and 59% of blog readers floss their teeth daily (a social marketing opportunity to reach the other 41%!). Bloggers are also more racially diverse that the general online population, where 60% of bloggers are white (vs. 74% of all internet users).
  • Roger von Oech shares what designers can do when they put their talent toward solving life and death problems rather than luxury cars, soda cans and cell phones. An exhibit called Design for the Other 90% at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum displays inventions like a circular jerry can that holds 20 gallons of water and rolls so easily that a child can pull it behind her, and the Lifestraw, which contains a drinking filter that kills bacteria as water is sucked through it. Think of what amazing strides we could make if the world’s best designers gave some thought to addressing the needs of the poorest instead of the richest.
  • Supply and no demand… Algeria has 10 million condoms to give away to its citizens, but nobody wants them. The government is working with imams to preach about the HIV virus and the risks of unprotected sex, but a combination of misconceptions and negative attitudes is keeping people from choosing to use condoms. Any Algerian social marketers out there?
  • According to MarketingVox, a new “exergaming” gym will offer over 20 videogames and other equipment to get kids moving while having fun. If I were looking for a franchise to open, this would be it — what a great concept.
  • Speaking of exercise, I was flabbergasted when I figured out that this product was for real. Are people really paying $60 for a “ropeless jump rope” (two handles with little attached balls that twirl around when you swing them)? Apparently people who have problems jumping over a real rope have not figured out that you can swing your arms around and jump up and down for free (Look! I can even do it backwards and on one foot!). Do they really need to hold something that makes a fake swishing sound to keep their rhythm? Am I missing something here?
  • And finally, in how many ways is the situation shown in this video just wrong? It’s the Lindsay Lohanization process. No need to wonder why some young women have body image problems and look for the meaning of life in shopping, partying and drugs. The news bulletin that goes across the screen toward the end of the clip is priceless.

Photo Credit: beatnikside

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One Word

by | Jun 3, 2007 | Blog, Marketing

This afternoon I attended a bridal shower for my daughter’s beloved kindergarten teacher, thrown by the moms of the class. In addition to the requisite food and games, one mom led what I found to be a moving and meaningful activity. She had brought a clear glass vase with a “lucky bamboo” plant inside. She gave each person a smooth dark stone and passed around a silver permanent marker. We were instructed to write a single word on the stone, which would serve as a piece of advice or “word of wisdom” for her coming marriage. Each person then explained why she wrote that word, and put the stone into the vase so the word could be seen through the glass. As the roots of the bamboo plant grow and wrap around the stones, so too will her marriage be putting down its roots with those concepts as its foundation.

Some of the words people wrote included “love,” “cherish,” “communication,” “laugh,” “blessings,” “compromise” and “fun.” One person broke the rules and wrote two words — “sex” and “food” — reflecting the advice her own mom had given her when she got married, that all it takes to make a man happy is to walk into the room naked carrying a sandwich (wasn’t that a Seinfeld episode?). My word was her name, “Shannon,” with the wish that she always remember who she is and not lose her sense of identity when she gets married.

This exercise got me thinking about the idea of finding one word that summarizes my most important piece of advice for marketers (social or otherwise). After thinking for a while, I decided that my one word mantra would be “LISTEN.” Listen to your customers, your target audience, the people you are trying to reach. Ask them about their needs, their wants, what’s important to them. Find out what their lives are like, what they are thinking, feeling and doing. If you don’t listen to them, you will have a hard time designing a marketing strategy that will resonate with their lives.

Now it’s your turn to play the game with me. What would be the one word of advice you would write on a stone for a new marketer? Or what would be your one word of wisdom for success in life? Take your pick and leave it in the comments.

Photo Credit: _McConnell_

Technorati Tags: