I have been ruminating about this post for over a week, and when I give that much time to think, I try to offer a post that is more than my typical rant, firm grasp of the obvious or take on social media.  I try to offer something that, well, says something.

This is one of those times.

I have learned a lot more than I thought I knew about social networks the past couple of weeks.  No, not the movie that trashes Mark Zuckerberg, but what is at the heart of social media.  The magic is not in the technology, it’s in those who use it and what is in their hearts.  So forget Klout (barf), Empire Avenue and the latest toy that is all the rage and dangling IPOs to Wall Street.  The people who offer messages that convey intentions, intense feelings and wishes are prime example of social networking.

As I have mentioned in the past, an unfortunate driving force in my life has been cancer – its insidious nature and even in treatment, it’s horrific impact on the patients, families and caregivers.  For this reason, I have been vocal (and probably annoying) in my support of The Jimmy Fund, St. Baldrick’s, Doug Haslam’s Pan Mass Challenge and now Jennifer Stauss Windrum’s WTF (Where’s the Funding? – as in, for lung cancer). Author’s note: if you have not already, donated, you cheap bastards.

Jennifer has written a moving post about this, so I’ll keep the summary short and sweet.  Her mom, who is suffering from stage 4 inoperable cancer, has endured years of treatment.  Through and eloquence and bravery that I could not have summoned during my own experience with this, she has chronicled the journey and used her energy to advocate for more funding for lung cancer (her mom never smoked, as she often rightfully points out).  She and in her mom were in a bad place (literally, stuck in Denver) and those of us in a Facebook group saw that she was hurting – hurting and exhausted.  When you are not sitting next to someone, you still have the opportunity to use a social network to impact someone’s life – the emotions are real, but the vehicle is just that – it’s used to transport an emotion from one person to another – or to a group of people.

Jennifer brought along two sock monkeys that her daughters gave her to help cheer up her mom.  It was then that an idea germinated – elegant in its simplicity, yet – what we had hoped – powerful in its impact.  And apparently it was.

On Saturday, many of us in the Facebook group decided to change our profile pics to sock monkeys to show Jennifer, her mom and others involved in this fight that, although miles separated many of us, we were right there with her.  Although the idea surfaced on a Saturday morning, by the end of the weekend, an overwhelming number of people had changed their profile pics to sock monkeys to demonstrate our support.  Jennifer was tied up most of the weekend, but when she discovered our efforts, she emailed me the following:

“I am overwhelmed and blessed…Please tell everyone how touched my mom and I are.”

And in her blog post, she said:

OMG. OMG. I was literally speechless…and crying even more. I showed one of my friends what was going on. She started crying too. It was just so touching (you know, in a punk way). MORE than touching…and hilarious at the same time.”

The wonderful news about this – and I believe that some good always emerges from tragedy – is that so many people took advantage of a social networking platform to touch Jennifer and her mom in what we presumed to be a low point in their battle against cancer.

My main point is it’s not about the zeros and ones and the ridiculous new, shiny social media objects that seem to show up daily.  It’s about the bonds, the shared experiences, the pain, support, happiness and sorrow that are felt, conveyed and delivered.  They are delivered by social media, but where all of this is generated is in someone’s heart – and delivered via a keyboard and Internet connection.

Know how those ridiculous car ads say that although the car might say “Toyota” or “Nissan,” it’s “made with pride in the U.S.A?”  Well, this something was made through compassion and delivered through support via zeros and ones.  And punks – and you know who you are – you are the best.

And I know you really know this now, but we love you Jennifer.

Mark

Disclosure:  the basis of this article is a philanthropic effort on the part of Custom Scoop.  I have been a paid contributor to their publication, Media Bullseye, as well as a guest host (unpaid) of their podcast.

I have been giving a whole lot of thought lately to disasters, both personal and those that mother nature conjures up.  I have also been thinking a lot about the tireless efforts that many of my friends have made  – more like personal crusades – to try to bring to an end many of the sad chapters that impact so many lives.

Examples include what I have written about before, such as Shonali Burke’s #Bluekey effort.  She has worked tirelessly of late, to:

…support the USA for UNHCR, which is a US-based 501c3 that supports UNHCR’s work.. [and to] to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees.  People who are forced to flee their homes or face death is a human disaster.

Next, my friend Doug Haslam is doing his annual Pan-Mass Challenge bike ride, a grueling effort in which Doug rides through 46 (this is not a typo) towns through Massachusetts and solicits contributions that are donated directly to the Jimmy Fund. Not one cent of each dollar raised through riders’ sweat and determination was used for administrative and organizational expenses.  This year is different for Doug.  On May 14 of this year, Doug’s dad passed away from pancreatic cancer.  Losing a parent to cancer (I have as well) is a family tragedy and what many consider to be a personal disaster.

Finally, one of my new pals and someone whom I admire greatly is Jennifer Stauss Windrum whose mom has Stage 4 inoperable lung cancer.  And has never smoked a day in her life.  Rather than curl up in a ball and feel badly for herself, her family and her mom, Jennifer has taken on the establishment by putting together a movement called “WTF,” as in “Where’s the Funding?”  Jennifer has fought, lobbied and garnered quite a bit of media coverage to raise awareness of a funding to fight lung cancer. And as usual, Jennifer nails it with a simple statement on her Web site:

It’s time to bring attention to the THE #1 cancer killer in the U.S and the LEAST funded.

But I am burying the headline.  There are personal disasters and man made disasters.  It seems that Mother Nature has decided to mess with us of late with a spate of tornados, among the worst hitting Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  I am also privileged to know Ike Piggot.  After working 17 hours the day at his job at Alabama Power after the tornado hit, Ike found time to make a short YouTube video, holding up a simple piece of paper with a URL of how people can get involved.  He has also written about the topic that I will (finally) get around to.

My pals at Custom Scoop have not just stood on the sidelines, watching many of these man-made disasters.  They have decided to do something to help with their flagship product:

“…CustomScoop will provide free accounts for one year to the first 100 local chapters of the Red Cross or other bona fide relief organizations that qualify after filling out a short online form. We hope that these services, valued at approximately $600,000, will help these groups that face enormous financial challenges and find their human resources stretched thin.

Why is this important?  In ANY disaster, lives depend upon the speed with which first responders receive and react to information.  And when you think about disasters like the Tuscaloosa tornado, there was information pouring in from the media, bloggers, the Red Cross, the media, state, local and federal government agencies and others.  Somewhere in that fire hose of info are nuggets of information that the first responders need.  If bloggers are helping raise money, the Red Cross and others need to connect to know how to get the money there.  If there are offers of assistance from disaster relief organizations, they need to know what if being offered and how to accept it.  Same with efforts organized by well-known social media experts like Ike. Phones may or may not work after a tornado, but with a laptop, air card and someone who has access to a platform that can help like Custom Scoop this can, at the least, help the lines of communication, and at best, help save lives.

So think about this offer and if you know of someone who is in a position to be a first responder, please pass on this link: http://www.customscoop.com/relief.

I wish more than anything that I could have helped Doug and help Jennifer.  I have done a small part to help Shonali’s effort.  But in a time of nasty corporate scandals, it makes me proud to be associated with the Custom Scoop family – Chip, Jen and others who have been part of the company for many, many years.

And if you can, tweet this (icon up top) to let others know that when tragedy strikes, there is a company ready and able to help.  And just to pimp a little, you can:

• Join Shonali’s #bluekey campaign for a measly five bucks;
• Donate to Doug’s Pan Mass Challenge ride;
• Join Jen’s WTF effort; and
• Pass around the Custom Scoop offer of help

It’s one thing to face tragedy and disaster, and another thing to do something about it. All of the above put the “social” in social media.

Mark

Mark Story

First of all, I love the music of the Spin Doctors.  Too bad they went away.  But other references, like those listed below, just piss me off.

As background, I read a recent study in the Columbia Journalism Review and co-published in the Alaska Dispatch (I sort of scratched my head on the choice of this outlet) entitled “PR industry fills vacuum left by shrinking newsrooms.”  The premise of this pretty long article/study (so settle in with a cup of coffee if you plan to read the whole thing) is that traditional (read: print, TV and radio) journalism is on the decline and the void is being filled by public relations people.  No argument there.

The article lays out a stark contrast between a shrinking industry and one that is growing substantially:

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they [the researchers] found that the number of journalists has fallen drastically while public relations people have multiplied at an even faster rate. In 1980, there were about .45 PR workers per 100,000 population compared with .36 journalists. In 2008, there were .90 PR people per 100,000 compared to .25 journalists. That’s a ratio of more than three-to-one, better equipped, better financed.”

Hmm.  I smell some bias coming on from words like “better equipped” and “better financed.”  And “multiplied,” like a virus.

But fair enough, but these facts remind me of the old saying that I am pretty sure was invented in Washington, DC of “lies, damned lies and statistics.”  Here is where the true slant of the article appears (on page two of eight, no less):

“I don’t know anyone who can look at that calculus and see a very good outcome,” said Professor McChesney, a communications professor at the University of Illinois. The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. “What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda,” McChesney said. “We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country.”

Newsflash to Professor McChesney:  this practice has been going on since the time of Edward Bernays, who is widely recognized one of the founding fathers of public relations.  The nephew of Sigmund Freud, he openly admitted that he employed techniques that would appeal to one’s subconscious to encourage interest in a product or a cause.   And I don’t know the statistics about journalists to public relations people in Bernays’ time, but I am pretty sure that he was outnumbered and outgunned. Oh, and Bernays and Arthur Page (whose “Page Principles” for good public relations ethics and practices are not even mentioned in this article/study.

The bias continues:

It’s also getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story. In 2005 and 2006, the New York Times and the advocacy group PR Watch did separate reports detailing how television news was airing video news releases prepared by corporate or government PR offices, working them into stories as part of their newscasts. PR Watch listed 77 stations which aired the reports, some of them broadcast nearly verbatim.

First, even with news organizations that are strapped for resources, facing a 24 hour news cycle and processing hundreds of pitches a day, it is still incumbent upon the journalist to check out the story. Or, when interested, FACT CHECK the story.  If all of those stations ran the story verbatim, they were either video news releases or represent really sloppy journalism.  And 77 newsrooms out of how many studied?

The thing that frosts me the most about this whole piece is the depiction of the encroaching menace of the practice of public relations as journalism retreats. One of the more frequent criticisms of public relations and public affairs groups is the creation and promotion of “front groups,” meaning that they recruit, organize and sometimes direct the activities of a group of people to impact a political or regulatory outcome – and carry out propaganda on behalf of clients with “Big” in their monikers like “Big Oil” and “Big Tobacco.”  Think Working Families for Wal*Mart as a group that was not transparent about its intended outcome nor sources of funding and got busted – big time.

But here’s a newsflash to those who slam the industry for things like “propaganda” or “front groups”:  what the hell is political organizing and what are political campaigns? Political parties actively seek out, recruit and try to convince voters of a point of view.  Hell, they even throw a big party every four years called a “convention.”  And after debates, the place where the media and public relations professionals is called the SPIN ROOM, for Christ’s sake. This is embraced as part of our democratic process, yet if you compare the accusations in this article like “spin” and “propaganda,” why are these widely accepted practices and dearly held beliefs when organizing for another cause is scorned?

Three caveats:

• Not all PR practitioners are good guys.  Some of them really suck.
• To avoid being called “front group” or practicing “astroturf,” you need to have complete transparency about who you are and who supports you.  This is the same thing as the annoying thing at the end of political commercials like “I’m Karl Marx, and I approve this message” – or worse yet, the impossible to read fine print at the bottom of the screen that appears for about .1 seconds describing who paid for the ad.
• Never, ever lie.  If you lie, you get busted, especially in the rough and tumble world of public relations, public affairs and politics.  If you are engaged in a fight and have opposition, someone will find you out and bust you – publicly.

The point that I am trying to make is that the indignation and fear-mongering practiced by Professor McChesney is at best, disingenuous, and at worst – and here is his favorite word – “spin.”

And that pisses me off.

Mark