This is a repost of an entry that I wrote on year ago today.  The emotions are still as raw;  the sadness still as deep.

I am sitting in my nice, comfortable house as I compose this on September 11, 2010.  It troubles me that so many people seem to have forgotten the tragedy that befell our country nine years ago today.  They want to “move on.”  It’s “issue fatigue.”

Bullshit.

My memories of that day nine years ago are as clear as a bell.  I worked in Washington, DC at 1615 L Street, NW.  The part that is important about that is “16,” as in “1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”  I worked two blocks from the White House.

Like many people, I was glued to the television at work and saw the second tower hit.  I saw the both towers burning. My mind could not comprehend what was happening inside of the buildings as people opted to jump out of the windows.  When you choose certain death – a terrifying end to your life – and that is a better option than what is going on inside, it speaks to the unimaginable horror of being in the burning towers.

I remember the Pentagon in flames a mere three miles from my office.

I remember (when we were forced to evacuate Washington, DC) the Humvees and soldiers with assault rifles on many street corners.

I remember the stories of heroes who stayed with co-workers or even strangers to comfort them in what they knew was their impending death.

I remember the heroes of the Pentagon as ordinary people dashed inside a burning, crumbling building to save others.

And I remember Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

You see, the “16″ is important because of the proximity to the White House.  We will never know where the United Air Lines flight 73 , the airplane that was taken back by heroes, was headed.  But if it was the White House, who knows what would have happened to me and my colleagues.  We’ll never know, but the sacrifice of others on that plane made possible my not knowing.

I remember being in New York City a scant two weeks after the towers fell.  I remember putting my not one-year-old son in the stroller and walking to the area of what used to be the World Trade Center.

I remember the desperate pleas reaching out from hand-drawn signs in Penn Station, aching with the pictures of loved ones.  I remember the smell.  Of drywall.  Of fallen buildings.  Of death.

I remember a grieving and angered nation.  I remember wanting revenge.

I remember finally making it home from work late in the afternoon, picking up my baby boy and sobbing.  I was grieving for the others – just like me – who got dressed, went to the office and worked.  Normalcy.  And all they wanted was to come home to their loved ones.

I did.  They didn’t.

I remember.

Mark

Try saying the title of the post three times fast and you’ll see just part of the problem.

Social media used to be about the word “social,” as in interactions between human beings that, for the most part are civil – and made us all better for having been a part of them.  At some point, I think this has changed in many ways.  With the relative anonymity of email, a blog post, Twitter or Facebook, it’s now a whole lot easier to criticize someone.  I often wonder if my own idea of the offline equivalent of social media, a circle of people at a party, would dissolve into name calling over a topic or a person who is not present.  I doubt it because the face-to-face component of “social” means that a certain level of decorum is established and maintained.  But what is increasingly being blurred is genuine criticism based upon solid opinions and some pretty thin skin that misinterprets it as an attack.  And the odd involvement of third parties.

For some reason, perhaps due to the relative anonymity of the interwebs, people have begun not only to take personally what they perceive to be comments about themselves too seriously, but more bizarre, implied or overt criticism of other people. This is where it gets a little weird.

This week, there was a very public disagreement between Gini Dietrich of SpinSucks (among many other pursuits) and Rick Calvert of BlogWorld.  The dispute did not even involve each other, but Chris Brogan of social media fame.  If you are in social media, you know who Chris Brogan is.  ‘Nuff said.

The past week, Chris Brogan was selling a Webinar for $47 about the inner workings of Google+.   We still have some vestiges of capitalism in this country and Chris has every right to make an offering and see if people bite and fork over $47.  But  Gini offered a point of view that Google+ is in its infancy, still not even released to the public yet, so no one could possibly claim to be an expert, including Chris Brogan.  She wrote in her post, Beware the Google Experts:

…But there are still people out there claiming to have all the secrets because they claim to have introduced Twitter to the business world so surely they understand how Google+ is going to affect your daily life. Add to that, they’ve spent 250 hours inside the tool, learning and using.

If that’s the case, I want their jobs because that means they’ve spent 11 hours, every day, for the past three weeks using Google+.

Sure, it’s my job to stay ahead of the trends and to understand them so that you can short cut your education. But it’s been 24 days.

Not everyone agreed.  In fact, Rick Calvert of BlogWorld (respectfully) disagreed with Gini’s point and asked her to publicly apologize to Chris.  Gini refused to and a debate ensued. His comments in the BlogWorld post (ironically, written by a third party) included the following:

Trust me Chris knows more about Google + and how it works today than just about anyone in the world. And yes I would bet other than taking care of his family it is all he has been doing since the day he got in beta.

“What she should not have done was use a good mans [sic] name to drive traffic to her post and associate his name with said snake oil salesmen. I’m sorry Delores but I don’t see how impugning Chris’ integrity is defensible…Gini consistently has, intentionally or not, besmirched Chris’ reputation and ethics. I still fail to see how that is defensible.

“I don’t see anyone who agrees with your opinion saying you did otherwise. You should apologize publicly. That’s my opinion.

So Gini said (and I am paraphrasing) that it was way too early to declare one’s self as a Google+ expert, and to do so was questionable.  Rick countered with the fact that he thought that Gini was singling out Chris as a charlatan or snake oil salesman – and had in the past as well.

The BWE post does not number comments, but there are lot and you should read them.  I did, and I even commented, to which Rick replied.

My point about all of this is that the “kerfuffle” (borrowing a word from Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson) a debate over a third person. So we are criticizing the criticizers and then an “amen chorus” follows in a stream comments?  It’s like a wave of third party regurgitation washing up on the shores of social media island.

Bob LeDrew also weighed in in his own blog post this week:

What concerns me is that there seems to be a feeling that there are people whose actions are beyond criticism in the social media sphere. Criticism not as in someone is gauche, has bad breath, or is stupid. Criticism as in “this is an inappropriate venture”; “you’re wrong”; “The facts don’t bear out your argument”; or “you’re contradicting what you said last week. Which is it?”

I agree with Bob.  There is snarkiness hidden behind a blog post and there is legitimate questioning – and then there is “slander” – a word that Rick used.  They are all different. It’s a fine line that is increasingly being interpreted as open warfare I think that Gini made some legitimate points and that Rick is friends with Chris and felt the need to defend him.  Again, the discourse was, for the most part, civil but I can’t help but wonder what started such a debate about a third party.  I mean, Chris is a big boy and take quite ably take care of himself.

I have felt the wrath of others myself. Oh, boy, have I:

Yeah, I got snarky in March 2009 (post is entitled “Shut Up, Mr. Scoble” when the Scobelizer made comments about the public relations industry – that in which I have worked for more than 15 years, that include the following:

• “PR is dead.  The way that PR is practiced is just..lame.”
• “Most of PR has ’sucked.’  If you think it’s not, just be a blogger for a little while. And watched the thousands of stupid-ass pitches flow through your screen.”
• “Anybody who pitches you on email is stupid.  The chance that I am going to listen to anyone who pitches me email on frikkin’ email is one percent.”
• [Someone] showed me a block of wood…that was better than the stupid-ass pitches I get in email.”
• People who stand up for the PR industry, they just don’t get it.”

I took offense to this – big time – and my major point was the following:

If you become an A-Lister and make a good living (while many of very good public relations people in this country are being laid off, by the way) it is beyond self-absorption to complain about “stupid-ass pitches” that you receive because of the very notoriety that you sought, built and benefit from.  You even mentioned that you get pitches from people who are panicked that their companies are going to go out of business – and call them “lame.”

I’m not enough of a A-Lister (hell, I am probably not a C-Lister) so Mr. Scoble never responded.  But again, like the situation that I described above, a third person took up the cause for Scoble, John Aravosis in his own post, “Robert Scoble is Right“.  Without naming me – I am the “one public relations ‘expert’” (but linking to my blog post – thanks for all of the click-throughs, John):

It was suggested by one public relations ‘”expert,” the one who posted the shirtless picture of Scoble, that Scoble deserved the spam he got because he’s a successful blogger [editors note: I was not the one who took off my shirt and had pictures taken.  He did].

Regardless of whether Scoble, I, or anyone else wanted “the notoriety,” I’m not sure how that excuses a PR expert, who is presumably paid a good deal of money to promote their boss or client, from sending a bad pitch to the wrong guy.

PR Expert: I emailed Scoble and Aravosis the latest pitch about the new floor wax our client is selling.

Client: You asked a tech blogger and a political blogger to write about our floor wax? How does it help us get the message out there about our new product by sending it to people who we know, in advance, don’t even write about products like ours?

PR Expert: They’re A-listers and they wanted the notoriety – they deserve whatever they get!

That’ll be $50,000 up front, and $20,000 a month in retainer.

I am not going to revisit Aravosis’ comments – that I still disagree with – but again, this debate took place over a third person. Has social media devolved into a spitball match with a degree of anonymity in which we are not allowed to lodge what we believe to be honest and insightful criticisms of others without third parties taking us to task, defending their buddies?

I sure hope not, because then through legitimate discourse and criticism, the criticism becomes slander, the defensible becomes the indefensible and the “social” goes out of “social media.”

I sure as hell hope not.

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

Politics is a mean, nasty, filthy business.  Trust me, I know – I have been around it most of my working life.  Much of the process of getting elected is pushing your candidate’s positives while attempting to raise the negatives of your opponent.  But a Cardinal rule is don’t help the person opposing you by doing something stupid (read: don’t be Michael Dukakis riding in a tank).

As I have stated again and again in this space, the first rule of crisis communications is to avoid the crisis to begin with. Anticipate contingencies.  Plan for FUBARs.  Don’t step in it.

And above all, don’t leave yourself open to attack – and don’t shoot yourself in the foot.  And all of this is why Congressional candidate Jane Corwin’s social media person should be waterboarded.

Jane is running for Congress in New York’s 26th district special election.  Good for her.  She has a pretty nice looking Web site that, when you get past the usual campaign-speak is attractive and fairly informative.

Done, right?

Nope.

One of Jane opponents must have did a little background research of his own and discovered that the campaign’s social media person neglected to register all of the possible domains, leaving them exposed to a parody site.  And that’s exactly what happened.  The campaign staffer registered .com, not .org.

Hence, meet the parody site, www.janecorwin.org.  Consider that this URL is just a hair from being the URL of the campaign site – AND – many campaign sites have .org domains because they are not considered companies.

Both sites have a virtually identical look and feel and navigation, so if one is not paying attention, until you carefully read the copy, it’s hard to tell them apart.  Here are some comparisons:

On the campaign site:

• “Challenging the status quo and protecting your tax dollars.”

Parody site:

• “Protecting the status quo and taking your tax dollars.”

And it goes on and on.  You can read all about the real campaign site here, but the embarrassing and (to be honest) gut-bustingly funny items on the parody site include:

• The welcome pop-up screen:  “Together, we can make delicious soup from the bones of the poor. Sign up now to be served by Jane Corwin.”
• The lead campaign news item on the home page: “In response to her heroic support for Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which would end Medicare in favor of an innovative program called ‘widespread human suffering,’ Jane Corwin has been given an award by Pat Boone, spokesman for the 60-Plus association. Boone was a famous singer in the days before it was learned that music could convey human emotions.”
• Instead of “volunteer,” “donate now” and “contact” on the campaign site, the parody site lists “surrender,” “give us your money,” or “get brain implant.”

Finally, the real campaign site does, in fact, integrate Facebook.   As I write this, 809 “like” Jane.  On the parody site, instead of the “like” button, it is replaced by “coronate,” and those who like Jane include Kim Jong Il, Donald Trump and Muamar Gadaffi.

Yes, this is funnier than hell, but it’s serious too.  When someone sent me this article, I got curious to see how much coverage this has gotten beyond Jane’s district.  Jane:  ouch.

No less than the online version of Time magazine wrote about the parody site on May 6, calling it “ruthless,” but nonetheless, quoting some of the funnier lines.    The Atlantic wrote about it, calling it “…in fact, a parody site that rips the state assemblywoman as a corporate shill and hilariously mocks the stock photography and conventional political imagery on her campaign’s actual website, JaneCorwin.com.”

Double ouch.  And the irony is no lost on me that this special election is taking place to replace Rep. Chris Lee (R), who resigned from Congress in February after half-naked photos of him surfaced on Craigslist.

Going back to my original point, the best way to carry out crisis communciations is to avoid the crisis to begin with.  I mean, it’s what, like $39 bucks a year to register a domain?  When I was in the agency world, we once spent about $2,000 registering all possible domains (and I mean ALL) for the company, it’s senior executives, and even those that could represent acronyms.  Any time that a client balked, I would ask if they have business insurance.  The answer was inevitably “yes,” and I would tell them that while they cannot stop web sites that attack them, they can make it harder for people to quickly and easily find the negative information.  That’s your online reputation management insurance.

So dear social media person at Jane Corwin’s campaign:  your mistake to spend maybe an extra $150 bucks got your candidate lampooned online and created an echo chamber in Time magazine, the Atlantic, as well as others.

As for punishment, here’s my idea: there have to be some out-of-work waterboarders just hanging around the faucets at Guantanamo – and – information to whack Osama may have come from one of the enhanced interrogation techniques, so why not waterboard the idiot whose neglect caused this flap?  Negative aqua-reinforcement.  Or have “.com, .org, .net., .info. and .tv” tatooed on his/her forehead.

Just think: we could video it and make it into a parody site.

Mark