Crowdsourcing Platforms Designed For The Mission-Based Community (Part I)
“Crowdsourcing” is the buzzword of the moment (though coined in the ancient world of technology back in 2006) and pertains to making an open appeal or project to a community and having those connected to that community take on the appeal or project and running it amongst themselves. It assumes the existence of a community in close communication (think Twitter, simple messaging services, Google Talk!, etc.), who is also ready to share information among their own micro-communities or constituencies. The challenge is to build one’s community and keep it engaged and ready to receive your organization’s various appeals and requests. Meeting that challenge is what a number of online services and platforms have established themselves to do. We shall review a few of them today.
Popularity: unranked | Category Banking & Finance, Community, Grants and Funding, Marketing, Nonprofit, Software Review, Sustainability, Urban Farming, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Nonprofits Continue To Buck Jobless Trends (But Don’t Pop The Champagne)
Welcome back from what we at MKCREATIVE hope was only a three-day weekend from your work. The political talk around the long weekend was the hold on the jobless number at 9.6%, despite production and sales numbers that continue to suggest an expanding economy. The reason the numbers for July-August are being treated as especially foreboding is that these are the last medium-term numbers before the November mid-term elections, so the Democratic Party has to live with them while the out-of-power Republicans argue about how little the Democrats have been able to turn the economy around. Rather than delve into the political fray, though, we want to point out that the not-for-profit sector of the economy continues to show a growth that is slightly better than the for=profit business sector. Such contrasts are not significant enough to move overall unemployment numbers down, but they show both the ongoing strains in the economy and the possibilities for the not-for-profit sector to offer both job-creating stimuli and mission-based opportunities to rebuild communities.
Popularity: unranked | Category Grants and Funding, Nonprofit, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Spike Lee Follows Up With “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise”
We finish this week’s focus on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with much help from Spike Lee’s documentary “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise,” which recently showed on HBO and is periodically being repeated. The followup finds many of the same people who told of their immediate post-Katrina experiences so see how they are faring, and what has changed in the intervening years. Lee begins with the Saints’ Super Bowl miracle victory this past February and how it marked a turning point in the morale of the citizens of New Orleans. Recovery was certainly on its way, thanks to the work of Brad Pitt’s “Make It Right” organization rebuilding so many homes and the rise of sound charter schools in the midst of the New Orleans public education system – among other things. But the improvements also mask some of the ongoing rot within.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Greening, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Housing post-Katrina: What FEMA Can’t Do, Brad Pitt and Friends Can
A neighborhood of east New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
The hurricane was tracked for a week before it made landfall in western Mississippi. We knew it was coming and had ample time to move people out, to board up homes, to store up supplies… Instead, the planning from the federal administration was desultory, and many within New Orleans admitted that they thought they could just wait out another hurricane, even a Category 5 one. None planned on shoddy engineering from the Army Corps of Engineers. When the levees broke, 200,000-300,000 people were driven to their roofs or out of their neighborhoods, and some 1800 directly to their deaths. Though many in fact escaped with their lives, none of their homes survived. None. If the sweep of water did not dismantle them outright, seepage and mold and a couple of years of abandonment ensured their destruction once heavy machinery and big money returned to the city. In the (ongoing) interim?
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, News and Current Affairs, Politics, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Flooding of New Orleans – Five Years On
The print, broadcast, and online media have all weighed in on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the resultant flooding of over 80% of the city of New Orleans. Most of the reports we have been reading and watching want to tell a story of recovery, and there are many cases of success to be sure. Yet the reporting also shows how much remains to be done, especially in the areas of housing, medical services, and education. How are they faring according to reports?
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Revisiting Spike Lee’s Documentary “When The Levees Broke”
Five years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Despite the fact that the worst of the storm was east of New Orleans (by about 100 miles), the largest city in the region received the worst damage when the inadequate levee walls were undermined by the storm surge the day after the eye passed the coastline. Spike Lee’s documentary, which first aired on HBO on the one-year anniversary of Katrina, looks at the city from its (inadequate) preparations for the storm through the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from the city over the next six months. The series is long available on DVD and streaming via online services. We would join the chorus of reviewers in encouraging you to watch it (again).
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Currents Of The Gulf Coast Beat On Beautifully, If Barely
This past week marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on the western Gulf Coast states, especially – and most infamously – on the city of New Orleans. Almost 2000 people died as the hurricane crashed into the Mississippi Delta and then overloaded the dilapidated and antiquated levees of The Big Easy. $81 billion dollars worth of damage, most of it to homes, local businesses, and schools, made it the most expensive natural disaster in US history. Arguably, the costs are still being paid, though, with further degradation of the wetlands (begun by development but, once thinned, sorely beaten by the storm surge) and the ongoing efforts to rebuild New Orleans.
Director Spike Lee went to New Orleans in the fall of 2005 to film “When The Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” to document the devastation and give some voice to how and why such devastation might have occurred. He was to return this summer to film a sequel: “If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise.” He got more of a story than he planned.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Fourteen Nonprofits Worth Following/Emulating on Twitter
The good folks at Socialbrite.org have recently posted a list of what they consider to be a ‘Top-Twelve List’ of social organizations and nonprofits that we all should follow on Twitter. The introduction gives you links to Twitter and how to become a ‘Follower’ of these organizations. It also includes links to individuals who might be worth following as well. It is worth noting that, though the number of ‘Followers’ for each of them is listed, the list is based on the work the groups do and the qualitative use of their Twitter presence, not merely their race to get X numbers on their lists (a quantitative benchmark that seems much more important to celebrities than to community organizations).
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Housing Market Continues The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
The shocking number of foreclosed houses in July, over 90,000, has sent shockwaves through the economy – especially the Stock Market, as the Dow Jones Average has been near or below 10,000 the last few days (having reached highs just over 14000 a week ago). Investors worry about perceptions of future growth. The surprise of the number, which National Public Radio (NPR) reports is the second highest rate of monthly foreclosure since the crisis started, sent further ripples of fear of a double-dip recession through the markets.
And yet as NPR also pointed out in its report, “the number of homes in the early stages of foreclosure is down — more than 30 percent from the peak early last year.” This number suggests that the rate of foreclosures in the last months of 2010 and early 2011 might not be too high. What is driving the stock market down, then?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Debate About Interest Rates And Opportunities For Growth
Economists are not known as a gregarious bunch (save Paul Krugman, perhaps). So it might not be much of a surprise to learn that the reports (eight per year) from the Federal Reserve are known as “The Beige Book(s).” The report takes on information from the twelve district Reserve Banks concerning the previous few months and how they are to be contextualized over the previous year. The report released in early August for the summer of 2010 argues that most sectors at least held their own, and that many have shown overall growth over the past year, despite some month-to-month downturns. The key term is “modest,” which is used at least once in each of the six sections of the summary of the July Report. But though the twelve presidents of the twelve district banks might agree on the modesty of the growth, they are sharply debating amongst themselves what to do about it (if anything).
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Net Neutrality Debate Gets Infographic Treatment
Sometimes serendipity meets synchronicity on anyone’s social-network radar, and a few different views of the same issue materialize before our very eyes. We had a moment of such pleasure today as we were directed to an infographic entitled “15 Facts About Net Neutrality.” Over the last couple of weeks we have posted a number of stories about the debate over net neutrality – a debate that went white-hot when Google and Verizon announced a proposal for a neutral internet, unless companies saw the need to establish tiers of speed or service. Yesterday we posted a TED Talk about designing data to assist in comprehension and to allow statistical comparisons for the non-mathematical. And today we found a nice infographic on net neutrality!
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Information As Data And As Pictures Can Make Learning Efficient (And Fun)
Earlier today the TED website (Technology, Education, and Design) posted a wonderful talk by David McCandless entitled “The Beauty of Data Visualization,” in which he spends about 18 minutes showing the audience the ease and pleasure with which some pretty arcane, humane, and controversial material can best be learned with a combination of ‘traditional’ data and ‘infographics’ that allow visual comparisons and opportunity for pattern recognition. The presence of the infographic is not new, of course, but Mr. McCandless shows a number of ways similar data sets can show different relationships in a clear and concise manner for the layperson. We have embedded it for your viewing pleasure:
Popularity: 1% | Category Education: Technology, Media Review, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Kevin O’Keefe of O’Keefe Communications
Kevin and Catie O’Keefe founded the eponymous O’Keefe Communications in Washington, DC in 1979. Over the next three decades they’ve watched the video and event-production industry change its technologies from bulky boxes of videotape to memory cards the size of a quarter. They’ve navigated the rise of social media and the demise of the synchronized slideshow presentation and have driven expectations toward finely crafted multi-screen presentations in light-sculptured spaces. Thriving through economic downturns by keeping the focus on the client and the client’s job security has given O’Keefe Communications a “big trust factor,” as Kevin O’Keefe put it when we spoke with him from his office in the nation’s capital. (more…)
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Baseball Players Raise Their Philanthropic Stats
Baseball has a long and unique tradition of its players going out into the communities to raise money or the spirits of their less fortunate fans. Babe Ruth visited hospitals and children’s homes, for example. These activities were part of the expectations of owners and likely facilitated by the fact that many players came from poorer communities yet worked their way on to the local baseball team – where they played the bulk of their careers until owners dictated a sale. The link between ball and philanthropy was not broken, even as the game expanded and players’ salaries grew, a great example being Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who was killed when his plane crashed trying to bring relief supplies to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua. A recent trend to this tradition concerns the fact that some players are starting to work charity opportunities into their contracts by using the world-class facilities at their disposal.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Double-Dip Recession Fears Continue To Mute Enthusiasms
The Unemployed Await Free Coffee (1934)
We don’t really want to brag about this. We wish we were wrong. But the MKCREATIVE blog was worrying about a double-dip recession before the three-foot-deep snows melted from the double-whammy of Nor’easters born by the eastern seaboard this past winter. The housing market, upon which so much of the US economy depends upon, was considered through the worst of the overextended subprime mortgage fiascoes that had flooded the market. Once the housing market stopped its freefall (leaving aside the political debates about government stimuli helping and/or not being big enough/too big…), the argument went, we could regroup and pick up pieces. Unemployment would also stop ballooning once people quit panicking about the housing market. And now that we are in the dog-days of summer?
Popularity: unranked | Category Banking & Finance, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization, Sustainability | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Viral Marketing Needs A Plan And Optimism (But Don’t Rely On Latter)
The world-wide awareness of Old Spice brand got a huge lift out of its revamped “Old Spice Man” commercials, Facebook page, tweets, and video postings this past half-year (Full disclosure: I bought some Old Spice stick this weekend for the first time, solely in recognition of the humor and success of the campaign. Whether I buy it again remains an open question.). It was not the first such viral campaign to have a phenomenal impact on the brand, nor will it be the last. But it has been successful, according to many analysts, precisely because the folks at Old Spice, and at Weiden + Kennedy, prepared the groundwork by considering the product, the market, and ways to control the message (among other things). Most efforts at viral advertising do not work as well, but by their very nature their failure makes them difficult to track. But here are some examples that other media gurus point to…
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Net Neutrality Ought To Concern Green Businesses
The week finishes where it began and with an effort to link a couple of themes we have pursued (harped on?) this week: net neutrality and the greening of your business. The debate over net neutrality is not likely to be a front-running concern in the midterm elections, which might be unfortunate, given the ways a tiered internet medium could warp the dissemination of ideas across it. Most individuals, as we noted on Tuesday, might not really be aware of or concerned about how some services and advertisements and media get to their computers that much quicker or higher up search lists than others. But for non-profits, small businesses, green(ing) businesses, and mission-based institutions, a tiered-by-fees network could prove to be a notable hurdle to their aspirations.
Popularity: unranked | Category Greening, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Giving By Billionaires Getting Some Reflective/Reflexive Pushback
Gates & Buffett pledge half their wealth to charity
The pledge of William Buffett, Bill Gates, and a growing number of multi-million and billionaires has received a great deal of press in the last couple of weeks, as Mr. Buffett has made efforts to enlist the super-wealthy from around the world. According to a report in The Washington Post by Donna Gordon Blankinship (5 August, 2010), the giving of the American wealthy could mean some $600 billion in giving. That is double the $300 million given to US charities in 2009. The reception among a number of online established media of such philanthropy has been quite positive, but some considered voices are starting to raise questions about the structural problems that such über-donations might create. Are the challenges valid?
Popularity: unranked | Category Banking & Finance, Grants and Funding, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Politics, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
A Great Survey Of Email-Blast Services For Nonprofits
As our regular readers and Twitter followers are aware, MKCREATIVE has recently and proudly received ‘Gold Status‘ by the Green Business League. We work with our clients to help them green their companies and organizations as well – and a great way to start that process is to use email blasts to get the word out instead of mass paper mailing campaigns. The development of the e-blast/e-zine from its humble days of the turn of the millennium has meant that we have the opportunity to design visually pleasant and reader interactive emails that can inform and entertain. We can do so without burdening either the non-profit trying to get the word out in as effective and efficient manner or the recipient who can read, click-here, scan and delete, or unsubscribe (not from your group’s email list – we’re just sayin’…).
In the last couple of years a number of e-blast services have arisen and many of them have packages geared toward not-for-profits. The good folks at Groundwire.org have written a really helpful white paper about a series of the better known services, what they offer, and for how much. The brief report is definitely worth a look for any group looking to start an email campaign or who want some guidance on how to improve the one they have.
Popularity: 1% | Category Education: Technology, Nonprofit, Software Review, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
‘Net Neutrality’ Is Complicated – And Is Heading To Extinction (Part II)
I'm shocked - shocked! - that corporations
are closing net neutrality.
The responses to the tag-team proposal/ announcement by Google and Verizon yesterday continue to pour in – few of them favorable. Again we depend on the Huffington Post for providing a useful synopsis of reactions across the media world. We noted Craig Aaron’s reactions on SaveThe Internet.com yesterday, and he has weighed in with a longer response today. Though his analysis of the loopholes Google & Verizon are attempting to open for themselves is worth reading, his countermove is precisely the one we noted yesterday is the one most likely to fail:
If there’s a silver lining in this whole fiasco it’s that, last I checked anyway, it wasn’t up to Google and Verizon to write the rules. That’s why we have Congress and the FCC.
Perhaps for an election cycle or two. But with corporations allowed by the Supreme Court to give unlimited amounts to political campaigns and candidates…?
Today, though, we would like to suggest a couple of ways to think about the issue of net neutrality, or the ways to think about how the net is going to be tiered and controlled over the next few years. Please bear with the mundane analogies…
Popularity: unranked | Category Education: Technology, Marketing, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
‘Net Neutrality’ Is Complicated – And Is Heading To Extinction (Part I)
Citizen Kane dictates a 'Statement of Principles'
for his newspaper
The arrangement/ agreement drawn up between Google and Verizon was posted today amidst much fanfare and/or derision. The full proposal can be read here. It begins with a statement of principles concerning consumer protection meant to ensure freedom for anyone using the internet to share unprohibited and unharmful materials.
Consumer Protections: A broadband Internet access service provider would be prohibited from preventing users of its broadband Internet access service from–
(1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice;
(2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and
(3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service.
The statement then drifts toward statements about how internet service providers (ISPs) can and should develop ways “to engage in reasonable network management.” What constitutes ‘reasonable network management’ is where the details are – and perhaps the devil.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Social Media Is Being Driven By And Toward Women
A recent post by Pam Dyer at SocialMediaToday.com concerned a survey and infographic by Ethan Block at Flowtown.com that demonstrated the many ways women are involved in social media. The evidence shows that over half of all adult women use social media at least once a week, and they use it to gather information on entertainment, health and wellness, and food. A significant number use the media to solicit others’ opinions on these matters and more. The knowledge that women are more regularly involved in social media than men is not so new, but the presence of women as a communications and commercial force on social networks seems only recently to be gathering momentum.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Press Release: MKCREATIVE Awarded Gold Status by the Green Business League – Use 100% Windpower to Power Their Business
Baltimore-based creative agency, MKCREATIVE, was recently certified as a “Gold Certified Green Business” by the Green Business League and joins the growing sustainable business community, choosing emission-free wind-energy and is a next step towards achieving certification as a Platinum Certified Green Business. (more…)
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Written by: Marco Kathuria
Recent Reports of Administration’s Efforts To End Foreclosure: “Extend And Pretend”
The program has been having to redefine success
With midterm elections coming in November, and with the Democrats generally sailing against the political winds, reports about the difficulties and inadequacies of the Obama Administrations project “Making Home Affordable” (MHA) are likely to slacken further the party’s sails. The MHA program was set up in February 2009 as offering “opportunities to modify or refinance your mortgage to make your monthly payments more affordable. It also includes the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program for homeowners who are interested in a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.” Signs of challenges for it are evident on the website’s front page: a drive in July 2010 – 17 months into the program – “to raise awareness of the Making Home Affordable Program.” Given the high foreclosure rates of the first half of 2009, advertising such a program might hardly seem necessary. Unfortunately, recent reports show that even for those who signed up for the flagship Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), rebounding mortgage payments and/or foreclosure loom over them on a month-to-month basis.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, National/International, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Politics Of Broadband Distribution
Macworld.com (among other news and tech outlets) recently reported the latest FCC report arguing that the deployment of broadband internet service is not expanding at an acceptable pace. Moreover, expectations of the the speed of broadband need to be upgraded to match technology developments. According to the MacWorld article, “The report, required by Congress, is an “honest look” at the state of broadband in the U.S., Julius Genachowski, the FCC’s chairman, said in a statement.” (The official statement of the ambitions of the FCC concerning broadband distribution can be found here.) But, like most any statement in an election year, the politics of the report has become a notable talking point.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Web Browsers Open Up The Web To Us (And Open Us To The Web)
Ever since the invention of Lynx in the early 1990s to give at least a few folks access to the internet, we have been growing ever more comfortable with accessing information, buying products, and sharing ourselves with our Facebook Friends. We are aware to some degree that the websites we visit place ‘cookies’ on our computers so that the computer and any given website can remember each other and save relevant ‘personal’ information pertinent to the site. But concerns about how intrusive those cookies are have long been voiced since their invention (invented at the same time and by the same man, Lou Montulli, who wrote Lynx and developed Netscape. Moreover, Mr. Montulli expressed fears about the abuse of his cookies.). Recent developments of ‘Third-Party Cookies’ mean that advertisers can track you across sites with their cookies, which can customize your experience throughout the web. They can track your behaviors and steer you toward certain products no matter what you were searching for. Orwellian? The Wall Street Journal believes it could be.
Popularity: unranked | Category Education: Technology, Marketing, Software Review, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Housing Market Remains Soft As Banks Shy Away From Loans
The bubble in the housing market (and the attendant mortgage-backed securities, etc. that pumped up the bubble) is largely blamed for the rise in debt among American consumers. The fear of, and calling in, of that debt led to the collapse in credit in the early fall of 2008 that sparked the recession. Though economists generally agree that technically the US has been out of a recession since the winter of 2009, the fact remains that what we call ‘economic growth’ is really a stagnation: we are only replacing economic consumption with economic production. Better than a recession, perhaps, but not by much.
The problems in the housing market remain, though. Overproduction of housing has led to a glut of living space that no one can afford. At least not without a loan to get started. Which many people can not get because they do not have jobs that could sustain paying back the loan. A new report from The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development in New York argues that banks have been unwilling to engage the lower-income housing market for some time, which only exacerbates the larger problem.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Facebook Is Changing Business, Advertising, Language…
Click Me To Follow MKCREATIVE On Facebook
We wind up our week-long survey of Facebook with a look at how it can be used as a business tool, and how people are using it as such. Even if you do not yet have a Facebook site, the impact of the technology on our language is unmistakable: ‘Friend’ has become a verb. The ‘Like’ button has found its way throughout the internet. Posting or tagging someone’s wall no longer has any relevance to spray paint or graffiti… Certainly Facebook has changed the ways companies and nonprofits reach out to their customers and constituents. If your organization has set up an account, or if your organization was convinced to do so by yesterday’s posting, then you will want to see how to disseminate your site and to see how it is being received. Moreover, you want to be ready to take on the changes that social media have ushered in over the last few years, and – more importantly – the changes that are still to come.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Education: Technology, Marketing, Media Review, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Setting Up Various Facebook Pages – Know The Types!
By the summer of 2009, Facebook came with a few new profiles: personal pages, community pages, and public profiles. The three are distinct, and even within the public profiles, one has a number of choices about the kind of public profile one wishes to establish. There were some issues (surprise!) when the features were first added, but by now many of the kinks have been smoothed out. A little research before you start clicking can go a long way though, because if you start your page in a ‘wrong’ category, all you can do is delete that page and start over, an unpleasant prospect. But please read on and hopefully we can clarify some of the jargon.
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, Education: Technology, Marketing, Media Review, Nonprofit, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Keyword is “Social” – The Medium is Just the Means
From the study by Boyd and Ellison
We continue our week-long series on Facebook with a brief look at what ‘social media’ means. We make no claims of thoroughness in but one blog post. Indeed, some have taken entire academic semesters to explore the field. What we hope to present here are some common sense approaches to envisioning and contextualizing the social-media phenomenon of the last 4-5 years. In fact, a quick timeline will help put some perspective on the topic: The first widely accepted social-networking site was ‘SixDegrees.com,’ which was founded in 1998 and closed its site in 2000 during the Dot Com Bust. Though similar sites allowing the posting of personal profiles and the searching and liking of others via one’s profile percolated up in the intervening 2-3 years, it was only in 2003 that services like Last.FM, LinkedIn.com, and MySpace.com took off and the so-called ‘Social Media Revolution’ took off. Twitter was still three years away at that time! In other words, we are all new to this medium, and what sites will survive with which services is still an open question. (Time line taken from the scholarly study “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship,” by Danah M. Boyd, School of Information,University of California-Berkeley; and Nicole B. Ellison, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University. Humans wrote on clay and stone for thousands of years before parchment replaced it for many centuries before paper replaced that some 700 years ago. Social media are still in the zygote stage, by comparison, which makes predicting their mature characteristics almost impossible.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Marketing, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Facebook Has 500 Million Users, Not 500 Million Fans
Yesterday we saw some of the early history of Facebook and how that history might be pumped up by the movie “The Social Network,” due out this fall. The CEO and one of the inventors of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, seems comfortably nonplussed about the movie’s sexy spin on his and his friends’ efforts. But other concerns about the future surely do weigh on the young man who recently watched his website and company surpass 500 million subscribers. In fact, one of the awkward facts about Facebook is that it is by far the most used social-networking site, yet it is also the most griped about. Most recently: changes in privacy settings left users requiring to comb back through settings to opt out of new modes of sharing and even opt back out of what they had previously established as hidden information. Numerous consumer advocacy groups have cried ‘foul!’ and are challenging the practice. The movie might only sour further an already jaded relationship between users and the company.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
For The Week: Social Media Focus On Facebook
Are you one of the 500 million?
A purely alpha-betic writing established itself in the eastern Mediterranean about 3300 years ago, which marked a seminal shift away from ‘pre-history’ and towards documentation, institutional memory, and social media. We will not be tracing the evolution of writing from proto-Sinaic carvings or Phoenician tablets to Adobe’s Creative Suite 5, but we would like to look at the evolution (or what many might call a ‘revolution’) of the social-media behemoth that is Facebook. Though not the first social medium (Don’t forget Napster, especially in its pre/extra-legal days!), it has become the king of the hill with its profiles and searches and synergies with so many other networks (like Twitter). Facebook recently broke 500 million subscribers, and it brags that over 50% of those subscribers are on Facebook at any given time. Impressive numbers and a market teeming with customers, clients, donors, and ad-hoc NGOs.
But Facebook has had growing pains as well. Security and privacy concerns for its users, a plethora of competitors (admittedly, many bubble up and fall away at a speed surprising even in the age of the 24-hour news cycle), and even the possibility that the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zukerberg does not even own Facebook. All this week we shall be looking at the Facebook phenomenon, as well as offering some tips and caveats for those considering using the social network as part of their personal and/or professional lives. We begin our saga with the recent media frenzy concerning the Facebook biopic/movie, and the allegations of Facebook having been stolen and/or sold away by Zuckerberg.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Corporate Social Responsibility As A Cause For The Deepwater Horizon Disaster?
Are corporations practicing kindness that can kill? Is BP too devoted to appearing green and ‘beyond petroleum’ to get down to the tricky work of deepwater drilling for oil? What about Massey mining concern and the disaster from April? And perhaps Wall Street Banks were too focused on gender equality not to study the bubble they were pumping up? So suggests Chrystia Freeland in a column in The Washington Post this past week. Surely corporate leaders can walk and chew gum, no?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
As National Recipe Changes, So Should Marketing of Housing
The metaphor of the American melting pot has been around since the foundation of the republic, though the great breadth of peoples coming to the US did not really expand until the end of the nineteenth century. But along with the melting pot have come vociferous and sometimes violent resistance to immigrants – especially toward specific groups at specific times (the Irish in the mid-nineteenth century, the Italians in the early twentieth century, Mexicans today…). The fact of the matter is: the various groups who make up the population of the US have shifted and reshifted over the last couple of hundred years. They are mostly looking for a safe place to participate in the American experiment and raise their families. Therefore we ask if housing marketers and organizations are taking on board the population trends in their outreach.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Marketing, National/International, Nonprofit | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Social Media Offers Reception, Not Just Dissemination, of Ideas
Social Media Is For Reading, Too
How many of us, individuals, organizations, and small businesses, have shied away from getting involved with social media because we were not sure we had much to say? How many of us have quietly sublimated a sense of distrust of what we could contribute into an unwillingness to learn about social media? I have, for one. The open seas of social media can seem vast, rough, and uncharted (if not ‘unchartable’!), and from the seashore it can seem safer not wade in. Nevertheless, we have often posted on this blog ideas about how to dip a toe, then a leg, etc., into the ocean – get acclimated, then get writing with what you are comfortable sharing with a wide audience that can become wider still with some patience. But a recent blog posting from Neil Vidyarthi on SocialTimes.com cleverly points out that social media can, and should, be as much about reading/learning as it is about writing/teaching.
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, Media Review, Tweets, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Don Akchin, Director of Don Akchin Strategic Communications
Don Akchin
Don Akchin, Charm City resident for twenty-five years (“I’m still a newcomer”), has turned his reporter’s training and love of writing into a successful enterprise of marketing mission-based and community-development groups like St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, The Baltimore Collegetown Network, and the Bon Secours Spiritual Center. Beginning his professional career writing for The St.Petersburg Times newspaper, he still considers himself “a recovering journalist.” After leaving the paper in the mid-1970s to pursue a job with the 13-30 Corporation (which later became Whittle Communications), he worked with print magazines and made TV-news format videos for high-school and college kids. During his tenure at 13-30 Corporation, he realized that he was moving accidentally into marketing. Since 2006, he’s kept a lively and information blog, “The Accidental Marketer.”
“I started out as a writer and I am here to help [nonprofits] with communications. But along the way I realized that in fact I was talking about marketing. So to me it was ‘accidental.’ I think that many of the people in marketing positions in nonprofits are there ‘accidentally.’ They were promoted from being the assistant to the president or they were in HR but were called upon to do fourteen other things, and one of those was communications, or PR, or marketing.” He sees numerous intersections between writing, fund-raising, marketing, and communications. “You don’t need a Ph.D. to do this.” Marketing is about story-telling.”
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, Web and Print, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Don’t Forget The Nickels And Dimes of (Micro)Donations
These can add up to big support
We are all sensitive to the economic plight that faces our country and the world: the banking crash and bailout and the unemployment that has grown close to 10% and could linger for some time. The beating the economy has taken shows its bruises first-and-foremost on those bodies least equipped to handle it: the working poor, the ill, the disadvantaged, and the organizations trying to help them out. Donations, as we have often noted on the blog, have taken a real hit since late 2008 (even though the US remains the most generous nation on earth in this regard). Nonprofits and charities are often temped to seek out the biggest donors to help balance the books and keep the good work going. Though that strategy has many merits, we would encourage these groups to remember the microdonations that became part of the donor landscape about eighteen months ago and continues to make a positive impact for their recipients (and for the folks who can spare even a few dollars to their favorite causes).
Popularity: unranked | Category Grants and Funding, Marketing, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Followup On Friday’s Post About BP’s And Apple’s PR Problems
On Friday we reviewed the ways BP tried/failed to control the messaging about the explosion and blowout of their/Transocean’s/Halliburton’s ‘Deepwater Horizon’ platform. Numerous pundits, as we noted, believed that BP was fighting a losing battle anyway, and should have coordinated a contingency PR strategy. Perhaps one that stated the facts without suggesting either optimism or hubris – and kept the figureheads out of the limelight whenever possible. In that posting, we compared BPs terrible gaffes with Apple’s efforts to get ahead of ‘Antennagate,’ a reference to reception/antenna problems on their latest iPhone 4. Over the weekend, we found a bit more material that bears thinking about concerning these two ongoing public-relations struggles. We stress again: the two issues are entirely different (BP still should be held accountable for the deaths of eleven workers – iPhone users are occasionally dropping calls when inadvertently using the so-called ‘Death Grip‘ of the antenna), but watching two superpowers in their industries wrangle with their public images is informative for the mission-based organization also wanting to present a forthright and optimistic message to the public.
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
BP/Haliburton/Transocean Blowout Recapped – What About The PR Blowout?
The explosion on 20 April killed eleven workers
BP’s third effort to cap the destroyed Deepwater Horizon well seems to have been successful, as pressure tests have not done further damage to the emergency mechanisms. As of posting (the afternoon of 16 July), the BP Global website stresses the cleanup of the Gulf without immediate mention of the successful capping done yesterday. Discussion of the cap is found via the link “Gulf of Mexico Response Homepage.” Such an improvement in the situation might deserve mention on each and every page of BP Global’s site, but this post is not going to question BP’s website design. Nevertheless, the successful capping of the well (touch wood), serves as a telling moment to skim some of the thoughts that have been shared about BP’s myriad PR blowouts since the disaster happened. Perhaps the best known of those is @BPGlobalPR as led by @BPTerry and Leroy Stick. We have often encouraged our readers to follow them through this disaster, at least to enjoy some black humor (and offer donations) through the crisis. But many in the communications and media arena have responded to the ways BP has tried to marshal the PR gaffes and crises it keeps finding itself in – the most recent of which are allegations that BP influenced the British Government to allow the only Lockerbie Bomber held in Britain to return to Libya in an effort to secure an off-shore drilling contract with Quadafi. What ‘lessons’ can be learned from these fiascoes?
Popularity: unranked | Category Climate Change, Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Tweets, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Asia Foundation Discusses Major Fundraising Via Facebook
The social impact of Facebook is beyond doubt. Almost 57 million Americans used it as of March 2009, and that number has since doubled. Facebook itself claims that over half its members are engaged with their 100-plus friends at any given moment of the day. The largest growth is seen among women over forty, and women use Facebook in greater percentages in all age groups (a topic we shall explore soon). They also tend to give more often to charities. The juggernaut has changed our language and our understanding of social networking, and this blog has often discussed its impact and uses.
But when it comes to using Facebook to raise money, charities often see a disconnect between action on their site and income through their calls to donate – especially for smaller charities. How do the heavy hitters leverage their Facebook presence into charitable activity? Sometimes they work around their Facebook pages, rather than on them, as John Karr, digital-media director for the Asia Foundation in San Leandro, CA discusses in a guest blog post at The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The AF’s “Books For Asia” program recently raised $10,000 and send thousands of copies of The Tales of Peter Rabit to children in Mongolia studying English. How did Asia Foundation turn its Facebook presence into big bucks?
Popularity: unranked | Category Nonprofit, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
President Obama’s New AIDS Initiative Posted On WhiteHouse.gov
Yesterday, President Barack Obama shifted emphasis from his predecessor on yet another issue, as he announced the administration’s launch of the “Natinal HIV/AIDS Community Discussions” to be hosted by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP). “HIV remains an serious challenge to the American people and I am committed to developing an effective National HIV/AIDS Strategy,” said President Obama. “The National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions will provide an opportunity for members of the public to give their input on how we can best address this crucial issue. With the insights from communities across the country, we will have a strategy that is focused on the goals of reducing HIV incidence, getting people living with HIV/AIDS into care and improving health outcomes, and reducing HIV-related health disparities.”
The change of emphasis pertains to a stress on helping those who have the disease as well as educating those who participate in activities considered likely to spread the disease. The previous administration stressed abstinence, which certainly helps the spread of STDs, but also tended to sweep aside discussions of treatment or care for those who contracted them. Early reactions seem mostly cautiously optimistic.
Popularity: 1% | Category Grants and Funding, Healthcare, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Baltimore Continues To Revitalize Inner Harbor With Residential Park
The revitalization of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor began in fits and starts as early as the late 1950s by Mayor Thomas J. D’Alesandro, Jr. Though technically a ‘harbor,’ the specific area known as the Inner Harbor was always too shallow for ocean-bound vessels, oven those built in the early nineteenth century. The Inner Harbor thus served as a rump of warehouses and cheap housing for laborers who had to travel a couple of miles east to get to the docks holding the big cargo ships. Almost as soon as the last medium-sized ships stopped coming into the eastern/inner harbor in the late 1950s, work went into finding other uses for the space. The first round of improvements mostly consisted of tearing things down and creating open spaces that could be used when necessary, but hardly grounds (no pun intended) for economic vitality. Rebuilding came in the 1980s, with a focus on tourism and attractions (the National Aquarium, Harbor Place Hotels, a myriad of restaurants, and the Maryland Science Center. Most of this rebuilding was along the eastern rim of the shallow harbor, but housing took a bit longer to enjoy a similar renaissance.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Greening, Local/Maryland, News and Current Affairs, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Can An Animation Animate Donors To Help ‘Tarla’ Get An Education?
“A Girl Story is a unique donation-based film that brings to life the experience of many underprivileged girls in India. This particular story is told through the eyes of Tarla, a young girl who simply wants to go to school and receive an education. Our project’s goals are to raise awareness about the challenges that girls like Tarla face, and to drive donations for the nonprofit group Project Nanhi Kali.”
Not only is the effort unique, it has caused a bit of a stir among both the online non-profit and blogging communities, as well as among web/video designers. The idea is that as donations flow to the Nanhi Kali project to encourage education among poor girls of India, the video(s) change to relate the story of the composite character, Tarla. The question at hand is some form of “Will it work?”
Popularity: unranked | Category Education: General, Marketing, Nonprofit, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Americans Love Bargains, Unless The Bargains Involve Health Care
Few discussions inspire such vehemence as the discussion about health care in the US. We have been wrestling with what to do with it since the Great War, and we tend to talk big about changes every four years that we have national elections before we go back to (grudgingly?) accepting what we have. Such raving leftists as President Harry Truman called for a national insurance plan that would cover anyone who wished to join. Such level-headed and scientifically-minded groups as the American Medical Association denounced it as the thin wedge of Communism. The debate has see-sawed over the decades between a debate about lost productivity to illness and the individual’s responsibility to earn health care. Of course, it was hot campaign issue in 2008, with then Candidate Obama trying to move the debate away from a social-right to an economic necessity. Though health-care ‘reform’ was passed this past spring, opposition was vociferous and most Republicans are still planning to use that opposition as a catalyst for their fall campaigns.
Health care is about as personal-yet-public a topic as one can imagine. Health seems like one of those things we will sacrifice anything to retain, and putting mere dollars on our wellbeing seems tawdry. By the same token, the business of America is business. And health care is a business – to the tune of some 17% of GDP in 2009 (though the percentage probably reflects an overall reduction in GDP rather than a ballooning of health care expenditure). What do we pay? And what do we get for what we pay for?
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Healthcare, News and Current Affairs, Opinion | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Charitable Giving In US Shrinks But Does Not Collapse In Face Of Recession & Oil Spill
Americans give over 1.5% of GDP to charitable organizations, according to International Comparisons of Charitable Giving by the ‘Charities Aid Foundation’ in England. Such generosity is almost double the next nation’s rate of giving: England with .73%. Such willingness to give to those less fortunate is a wonderful quality about America, and surely stems in part from the fact that ours is a nation that was built by peoples moving into new territories with unproven technologies and with religious motives to help neighbors in the grand experiment. Moreover, the incredible wealth generated by the US (the present economic crises notwithstanding) has given opportunity for many to give back – the incredible sums given by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in recent months being only the most talked about. England’s coalition government, on the other hand, is trying to spur charitable donations from among the country’s richest to help offset the drastic cuts required in the government’s budget over the next few years.
Though Americans’ willingness to give, even during hard times, is one of the ways we have been able to keep working toward a ‘more perfect union,’ experts are warning that charitable donations will get knocked down severely as the Great Recession continues, and as the full economic and environmental costs of the BP/Haliburton/TransOcean disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are realized.
Popularity: unranked | Category Climate Change, Community, News and Current Affairs | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Constitutional Balance of Powers Helps Avoid Tyranny of Majority (and Minority)
The framers of the US Constitution wanted to establish a number of levels (the document assumes local governments and outlines the national government’s inability to interfere in the jurisdictional prerogatives of the states) and branches of government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial). One of their ideals was to avoid the sort of monarchic or aristocratic amalgamations of legislator/judge that ruled in early modern England. The design was also meant to try to ensure that no individual institution within the government could unilaterally act. Such a system has launched a good number of debates and conflicts (oh, and a Civil War). And we are about to have another one that will have a significant influence on the specific issue of (illegal) immigration and on the general issue of which level of government is responsible for which kinds of policies. The US Justice Department is suing the State of Arizona over its recent law requiring the enforcement of federal immigration laws and the expedited deportation of any suspected illegals (SB 1070). The argument is that immigration is the purview of the national government. What is the background to this dispute and who will win?
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
States Key To Speeding Up Citizens’ On-Line Connectivity
Welcome back from the Independence-Day Weekend. We hope yours was a festive and safe one to celebrate the birth of a new nation striving for ‘a more perfect union.’ Not perfect, but ever striving. This week, we will look at a few of the ways we might be heading toward ‘more perfect union’ and ways we might be letting ourselves down. Today: High-Speed Internet
“The Pew Center on the States” has recently published a report on how states might be the most important lynch-pins to build a ‘national’ high-speed internet network. The report can be found at the website FoundationCenter.org. The report begins by pointing out the problem to be solved, despite the fact that the sheer numbers seems impressive. “Today, broadband is available to about 95 percent of Americans. But that figure masks wide geographic, economic and demographic disparities, and many experts say both the quality and speed of service in the united States need to be improved to keep pace with other nations. and only 65 percent of Americans actually have broadband at home. The remainder— approximately 100 million Americans—say they cannot afford it, do not know how to use it or believe it is irrelevant to their lives, among other factors.” We would suggest that ‘irrelevant to their lives’ is the thorniest of possible issues, as it suggests people believe they need not access information. Imagine, in another context, 45% percent of people in the 1910s not seeing why newspapers might be relevant?
Popularity: unranked | Category Education: Technology, News and Current Affairs, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Happy Fourth of July! May You Have (Only) Monday Off
We wish you a joyous and safe Fourth of July weekend holiday, with plenty of family, friends, fireworks, and good eats!
And as a mark of (vaguely) good news to roll into the weekend, the unemployment rate fell in June from 9.7% to 9.5%. The fall is the result of a unique trade-off, as over 200,000 jobs were lost as those temporarily hired by the Census were released from their positions. But the private sector also added 83,000 to bring about the slight reduction in overall unemployment. Though good news, arguments over continuing unemployment benefits, in the midst of other budgetary concerns, might prove to be the debate of the next couple of election cycles: what IS ‘small government’?
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Sad News From Two Nonprofit Groups
Nonprofits have felt the strain of the shrinking economy, as we are all aware. And usually such stresses are felt with a curtailment in giving and/or the trimming of services. Of course the ripple effect to those most needing the work of the given nonprofits and charities are perhaps the most troublesome results. Nevertheless, we have come across two sad news stories concerning charity groups who must deal with stresses of different magnitudes caused by different crises.
Popularity: 1% | Category News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Twitter Continues To Set World Cup Records, And Now Sets Places
Twitter's World Cup Home Page
It should no revelation that we have been following the World Cup in South Africa here at MKCREATIVE. But we also have been following the ways social media have had an impact on the event – at least the sharing of news about the event – as an example of how the strategic use of social media could benefit your organization. Well, the global influence that is football (er, ‘soccer’) can now be seen in the use of Twitter as well. We reported about two weeks ago that the biggest blast of tweets came after the US vs. England match (tied 1-1), though was quickly followed and beaten by the Lakers’ 7th-game victory over the Celtics in the NBA championship. A conclusion to be drawn from these back-to-back record breakers was the intense Ameri-centric use of Twitter. But no more…
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Marketing, Software Review, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D