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.
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
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.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
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?
Popularity: 1% | Category Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Opinion | | View Comments
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.
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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’?
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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.
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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
Possible New Role For Pollution Credits: Lowering Runoff Into The Chesapeake Bay
The idea for a carbon tax to create a carbon credit market seems politically a dead letter in the current economic crisis, but the idea that credits could be traded for those who are able to achieve stated limits on pollution still might have some influence. A micro-economy has been suggested for the Chesapeake Bay region, with pollutant run-off being the currency that might be traded. The Foundation Center gives us access to a report on how such an exchange might be developed, how it might improve conditions in the bay, and perhaps how it could be used successfully to deal with other pollutants.
Popularity: unranked | Category Climate Change, Greening, Local/Maryland, Politics, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Baltimore Finding Ways To Urban Renewal That Do Not Adversely Dislocate
In so many ways Baltimore spent much of the second half of the twentieth century as a city that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory: A vibrant industrial and trading city with a notable financial sector as well (in the decade after World War II), a city of some 2 million people who enjoyed the second most extensive trolley-car network in the US, a city with a pennant-winning baseball team (Yes, it was that long ago…). But by the late 1960s, the city was riven with racial violence, ‘white flight,’ and the secretly organized dismantling of much of its public transport for the sake of union jobs in a GM plant (now greatly reduced and outside the city). Needless, to say, the Orioles remain comfortably buried in the cellar of the AL East. Fortunately, he most recent efforts to revitalize the city, with the overwhelming input of Johns Hopkins University (disclaimer: the blogger is a graduate of said institution), are drawing support, ever-growing funds, and even praise — all of which deserve our attention.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Grants and Funding, Local/Maryland, News and Current Affairs, Politics, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
BP Appoints New Public Face Yet Continues To Pump Out The Sludge
No, we are not returning to @BPGlobalPR and its efforts to keep the BP/Deepwater Horizon/Haliburton disaster at the forefront of our minds and our punchlines. BP is doing a fair job on its own. Most recently, The Wall Street Journal got hold of the BP’s own internal newsletter “Planet BP” and its efforts to spin the spill as something of a lifeline for the non-fishing sector of the economy: “Much of the region’s [nonfishing boat] businesses — particularly the hotels — have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams,” another report says. Indeed, one tourist official in a local town makes it clear that “BP has always been a very great partner of ours here…We have always valued the business that BP sent us.” So far so good for them…
Popularity: unranked | Category News and Current Affairs | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Elizabeth Warren Still Fighting For Consumer Protection
Almost a year ago, Elizabeth Warren began a focused campaign to bring consumer protections to the discussion about financial and credit reform. She is Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University, and (yet?) chose to introduce her position on such protections via the following YouTube video:
That was a year ago. Where is she now and how is she reaching out with her ideas? More importantly, how goes the move to create such an agency?
Popularity: 1% | Category Banking & Finance, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Tweet This: USA! USA!
Landon Donvan sends the US to the next round of the World Cup
For the first time since 1930 the US national soccer/football team won its World Cup qualifying group with a dramatic, last-minute, 1-0 win over Algeria. Soccer skeptics might immediately assume yet another yawning 1-0 match. But if those skeptics are also baseball fans, they might assume a great pitchers’ duel. In this instance, we had a great goalkeepers’ duel as Tim Howard of the US and Faouzi Chaouchi of Algeria were both kept busy with shots against the posts and breakaways. Indeed, it was as exciting and flowing match as could be hoped for. And as we predicted, social media kept the excitement flowing to ever widening audiences.
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, News and Current Affairs, Tweets, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Toshiba Reinvents Tablet To Tweak The Portable Market
We discussed the Apple iPad a couple of months ago as the product that could transform expectations of the tablet/portable/cloud computing world. Well, eighty days into the product launch, and 3 million iPads later, the market is soon to get another competitor: the Toshiba Libretto. Neither is/will be the first into the market, but Apple’s iPad has proven itself the game-changer many expected. What are some of the early reports on the Libretto?
Popularity: unranked | Category Hardware Review, Software Review, Technology, iDevice | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
The Costs (Possibly Real) Of Advertising Via Facebook
A recent report from the Reuters and Socialbeat believes that revenues at Facebook topped $800 million in 2009, well over the (high-end) estimates of $700 million. Facebook is a privately owned company that need not report its precise numbers to shareholders, but Reuters talked with sources within the company who said the income far surpassed the mid-year estimates stated by Facebook board member Marc Andreessen. With some 500 million members (by far the most popular social network site in the US, and with ever-growing allegiances through much of the world), Facebook makes most of its income via advertising. The question is: how much are advertisers willing to pay to reach those millions via their Facebook accounts?
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, Media Review, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Lest We Forget: Oil And @BPGlobalPR Still Gushing (And That’s Not The Worst)
“You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire.
All you’re doing is recording it.”
Art Buchwald
Follow this link to one of BP’s Live Feeds of Gulf Oil Geyser
We are now 60 days – two full months – into this ecological disaster. Few even mention the eleven platform workers killed when the Deepwater Horizon first blew apart on 20-21 April. BP and TransOcean and Haliburton have danced through the Kibuki Theater of Congressional Hearings, blaming each other for the blowout and yet spinning post-facto admissions that they struggled to keep up with the others’ incompetence. The evidence of indifference to safety concerns on behalf of BP’s management continues to leak into the press. And through it all, @bpTerry continues to work hard to broaden the outreach and impact of @BPGlobalPR:
@bpTerry highlights some of the positives
But who is this guy, and what do his efforts portend for social media and brand allegiance/control?
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, National/International, Politics, Tweets | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Foursquare: Yet Another Social Network, Yet Another Fundraising Tool
The means to communicate quickly online and establish networks of like-minded folks come thick and fast these days: MySpace superseded by Facebook (still king), challenged by Twitter, who has had to contend with Google Buzz!, Socialvibe, Zooppa, and a myriad of others that (mostly) cater to fairly specific communities. We have reported about how a North Carolina charity established a ‘Twitter Table’ to help broaden the outreach of its annual fundraising luncheon. Now a comparatively new social network is causing a bit more stir among the e-connected, and it too is the subject of an online discussion next week about how to use it as a resource for fundraising.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Marketing, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City
Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of NYC
The board of directors of the Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City recently appointed interim chief executive officer Bernell Grier as the CEO of the organization. Ms. Grier has built up an impressive resume as a banker having over her career serving as EVP, Retail Community Banking; SVP Middle Marketing Lending; Community Development Director; and credit program co-manager – all before moving full time to NHS of NYC. As COO, Bernell helped steer the NHS offices in New York City’s five boroughs through the rough waters of the collapsing housing market, and has continued to work to expand NHS’s base of donors and projects. We had the pleasure of talking with her on a bright June morning in midtown Manhattan before her full docket of business got under way.
Bernell’s career trajectory is a wonderful example of how preparation and consideration can meet serendipity, as she has moved between the corporate and nonprofit worlds with ease, a smile, and a strong sense of calling to community. Her first job as a teenager living in Harlem, New York, was as a Community Outreach Coordinator with “Neighborhood Board No. One.” She began with a plan to teach mathematics in the very public school system that gave her the good start she enjoyed, so she went to City College of New York for teacher accreditation in education and math. The need for a summer job took her to Chase Bank Manhattan, where her people-skills were already evident enough that she was offered a spot in management training. One is tempted here to say “And the rest is history.” But ‘the rest’ is where it gets interesting.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Grants and Funding, Nonprofit, Revitalization, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
NeighborWorks Week Draws To Successful Close
The NeighborWorks Week (June 5-12) that just finished (and that we promoted a couple of weeks ago) focused on educating homeowners to the danger signs of mortgage-assistance scams and predatory loan practices. According to the NeighborWorks website, “NeighborWorks America and local NeighborWorks organizations held more than 320 community revitalization and 150 loan modification scam awareness events nationwide.” Not surprisingly, one of the bigger shows of force was in New York City, where the issue was put up in lights. Literally.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Twitter Tables To Turn Up Fundraising Fun
Charity events, galas, and $X000-a-plate dinners have been traditional ways to raise funds, even in these difficult times. And yet, social media have captured the imaginations of many a fundraising group and we have often reported on ways social media, philanthropy, and community involvement are tweaking the traditional ways to do things. Well, The Chronicle of Philanthropy is reporting on how Thompson Child and Family Focus, a charity in Charlotte, N.C., has found a way to combine all of the above.
Popularity: unranked | Category Grants and Funding, Marketing, Nonprofit, Tweets | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Harvard Study Argues for Jobs, Then Houses – Which Is The Cart?
Can unemployed afford one of these?
The financial crisis that began in earnest in 2007 and came to a head in 2008 has driven up unemployment to the highest point it has been since the Great Depression. Even with this statistic, though, we might want to appreciate how much has changed and how different the scale is (admittedly, cold comfort for the unemployed): For much of the 1930s unemployment was above 15%, and at its worst unemployment was north of 20%. The worst unemployment figures for the ‘Great Recession’ just got past 10% in the winter months of 2009. No one makes light of even 7% unemployment, and as we have recently commented upon, the recent uptick in employment this past spring is not likely to last the next month.
The smart money has been to argue that the bursting of the housing bubble brought about unemployment, and thus a rise the housing market will stimulate job growth and lead toward economic upswing. But a recent study from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies strengthens the arguments of those who say the collapse of the housing market might have pulled us down, but it can not pull us up. Who could buy a new home, thus stimulate the market in question, if they are unemployed from the millions of jobs lost in other sectors of the economy?
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Revitalization | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Soccer’s World Cup Kicks Off Today & Social Media Already Winning
What with oil slicks growing and aid ships being forcibly boarded and sanctions being levied and nuclear-weapons threats being kicked across ‘demilitarized’ zones, it is important to remember that human beings do indeed have the capacity to share a positive competitive experience. And thus begins the World Cup in South Africa!
The ideal of the tournament was first raised in 1914 (oh, the irony), but FIFA, the world association of national soccer/football associations, concentrated its efforts on the Olympics until the mid-1920s, when the body pressed ahead with a tournament open to professionals. The first World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay, who went on to win it by defeating Argentina 4-2. ‘Only’ 13 teams joined that first tournament, but with over 93,000 fans pouring into the stadium for the Final, it was clearly a huge success. The World Cup has been held every four years (with the exception of the 1940s) ever since, and it has grown with each successive tournament. It is the single most-watched event on the globe, and unlike the ‘World’ Series, or ‘World’ Champions of the NFL, the winners of the World Cup can honestly claim the title.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, National/International, Tweets | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Survey Of Outcomes From Tuesday’s Electoral Primaries
This Tuesday’s series of party primaries marks the single biggest day of polling before the midterm elections in November. Thus pundits have wanted to read the tea leaves (no pun intended, as Rand Paul already ran and won his primary in Kentucky) at the bottom of this round’s pot of primaries.
Chris Good of TheAtlantic.com presents a fine rundown of the results, with the nomination of Blanche Lincoln as the Democratic Senatorial candidate perhaps being the biggest surprise, given the resources from other Democrats against her: “This is a tough loss for labor unions, and an unexpected one. The biggest U.S. labor organizations poured over $6 million into this race to try to secure [Bill] Halter as a 59th vote in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, and it looked like a long shot from the start. But Halter had surged ahead of Lincoln in last the three polls prior to Tuesday night (all by Research 2000), and it started to look like he’d win after all. He didn’t, to the dismay of many.”
Popularity: unranked | Category National/International, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Charitable Giving Suffers Along With Economy In 2009
GivingUSA Tracks Where/How Much Americans Give
We suspect that our audience already has anecdotal evidence of today’s topic, but the annual report from the GivingUSA Foundation demonstrates that charitable donations are down by 3.6% in 2009 from 2008. “The Chronicle of Philanthropy” has an excellent summary by Holly Hall, who points to the fact that the slide in donations in 2009 actually follows a fall of 2.8% in 2008. On the same day The Chronicle has another story that points out how New York State is making cutbacks to programs to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. So the Great Recession has certainly eaten into individuals’ abilities to give and states’ abilities to offer services and protections to their constituents. And yet, some silver lining can be seen among these recessionary clouds!
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Grants and Funding, Nonprofit | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Jobs Report Suggests Slight Or Slighter Growth Depending on Source
The release of the government’s jobs report this past week was cause for about as much speculation as Apple Inc.’s World Wide Developers’ Conference is this week. And just as people pretty much knew about Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone weeks ago, so people were pretty sure what the jobs report would look like before it was made official. The jobs report needed contextualization within the economic disasters we have endured for the last three years. We will leave contextualization of Apple’s WWDC and new iPhone for another post.
Job Losses and Gains Since Jan. 2010
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Social Media: Introductions and Perseverance Can Bring (Little) Victories
Social media create a counter-intuitive tension. On the one hand, we use social media to create relationships with family, friends, clients, and like-minded peoples of our hobby/political party/aesthetic choices/etc. Relationships take time and are sometimes built on what, at the moment, feels like a rushed introduction or awkward interaction. On the other hand, modern media encourages us to think of news – indeed, of all information – as being reinvented every twenty-four hours. So when I get a ‘Friend’ request or retweet a great article I feel somewhat dislodged from the very information I am trying to disseminate. If one has that sense of disconnect, it might be worth remembering the differences in scale that might exist between one’s social-media persona and one’s self. Then let time work its magic through that scale, even if the social relationships seem few.
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, Education: Technology, Marketing, Nonprofit, Technology, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
“BP Cares” About Public Relations, Though ‘Public’ Seems A Sticking Point
Like we said, the great satire of @BPGlobalPR forces one to hesitate before laughing or crying, unsure which is the proper response. Leroy Stick continues to lambast people’s mushy responses to this little setback. I mean, “So YOU want to see pictures of dead animals covered in oil and WE are the bad guys!? Sick bastards. #bpcares” (3 July). Yes, BP continues to fumble its way to a solving of the oil gush, and the stories that are beginning to leak out about how BP continues to fumble the publicity statements are almost as alarming. Unlike the faulty deep water well, we have the technologies and experience to handle press releases, do we not?
Popularity: unranked | Category News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Tweets | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
@BPGlobalPR: Public Relations Is About Public, Not Brand
NASA Satelite Image of BP Oil Leak (27 May)
It is a fool’s prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.
Neil Gaiman
No doubt you have been following the BP/TransAmerica/Haliburton oil leak as it continues unabated in the Gulf. We have often heard the term ‘oil spill’ in the media, but this is NOT an oil spill. It is a leak (at best). Spills come from a finite and visible container and involve a finite amount of materials escaping that container (the drunken crash of the Exxon Valdez was a spill). The preventable disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a leak: the oil, methane, and unrefined gas will continue to leak for an indeterminable time and at what remains an indeterminable rate. And in the 44 days since its explosion, we easily forget that eleven rig workers were killed in the initial explosion, despite foremen’s warnings of a dangerous buildup of volatile methane in the pipes.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Five More Ways (of 10) To Make Make Your Blog Work Best For Your Organization
The Social Signal group of Vancouver, CA
As promised, we continue today with the second half of a great compendium drawn up by Jon Cottingham at Socialbright.com. He has been teaching us about how to make a company’s blog a pleasurable experience for the audience (and for the writers!) and how to make such a blog a productive marketing tool. Indeed, to refresh memories from yesterday’s entry, the first point raised was to put the ‘Investment’ in ROI. Today we turn to the back five on our way to the clubhouse and some well-deserved drinks.
6. Firefighting – Crisis communications
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Five of Ten Ways To Make Your Blog Work For You And Your Organization
Last week the good folks at SocialSignal.com posted a fabulous 10-step program to help nonprofits and small businesses use their blogs to create interest, educate clients, and develop brand loyalty. The downloadable PDF is the culmination of a series of blog entries (of course) by Rob Cottingham and is entitled “10 Ways Your Blog Can Provide Real Value To You, Your Organization, and Your Brand.” The guidance in the e-book is fabulous, and the materials so rich that we wanted to dedicate a couple of entries to it this week. So, without further ado:
“1. Put the I[nvestment] in R[eturn] O[n] I[nvestment] – Showing your organization’s human face”
Popularity: 1% | Category Education: Technology, Marketing, Web and Print | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Remembering Memorial Day
Remember the Fallen
First and foremost, let us take a moment to remember those who have served in the country’s armed services. Whatever your politics, whatever your position on US foreign policy, whatever your position on the contentious issues of Afghanistan and Iraq, surely you will agree that our service men and women sacrifice a lot – if not their lives – so that most of us can kick back, have a day off, and openly complain about or praise our politics, foreign policy, and interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As for the day itself: The first Memorial Day was on May 30th, 1868, though it was called “Decoration Day.” The holiday was declared by Civil War General John Logan. General Logan wanted the day to help mend the relationship between the North and the South after the Civil War. He stated that he chose May 30th for two reasons: First, it was a day that no Civil-War battles took place. Second, he was confident that flowers would be in bloom all over the United States by the end of May.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day.
Popularity: 1% | Category News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Tweets, Uncategorized | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Linda Cronin-Gross, President of LCG Communications
Linda Cronin-Gross, President of LCG Communications
We have been reaching out to some of the influential people in the nonprofit/mission-based/greening/housing (etc.!) communities to hear about the work their organizations are involved with and how these individuals got involved in that work. Their insights and experiences can inspire us all as we continue our work in our chosen areas.
The series of interviews continues with Linda Cronin-Gross, founder and president of LCG Communications (Brooklyn, NY). She has been in the worlds of politics and public relations since the late 1970s, and she founded LCG Communications ten years ago in an effort to educate nonprofits on the benefits of strategic communications for progressive, issues-driven organizations and campaigns as well as for small businesses. She is a member of the National Writers Union as well. Linda Gross’s success has not been linear or without challenges (like walking a straight line through the lobby of the Rockefeller Center with a teary-eyed political candidate). Yet her perseverance and good humor have been critical to the success she and her firm have enjoyed over the last decade. So how did she grow from music teacher to adviser and communications specialist to greening groups and progressive organizations throughout New York?
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, Greening, Nonprofit, Politics, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Neighborworks America Starts Summer Holidays With Educating Struggling Homeowners
Who doesn't need the cash nowadays?
We have all seen them. Many of the advertisements are made in Microsoft word, printed on a $99 color printer, and tacked onto telephone poles throughout struggling neighborhoods. Many of us know them as the scams – at least ‘too-good-to-be-true’ – deals that they are. But our confidence is likely bolstered by our relatively stable economic status. But for tens of thousands of Americans whose economic status has been undermined by corporate malfeasance and the bailouts requested by many of those same corporations, the temptation might be too great if it means cash to pay a medical bill that had been covered by the work-place insurance lost with the job a few months back. And even if the victim is savvy enough to steer clear of papers stapled to poles, home-loan and buy-for-cash scammers have tapped into a myriad of legitimate media to cull for the desperate.
In their ongoing effort to educate homeowners, “NeighborWorks America” (the umbrella organization of Neighborworks offices in all fifty states) is focusing on this particular black market, and we want to help spread the word.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Kicking A (Housing) Market While It’s Down
We are not a glum group at MKCREATIVE by any means. We just believe ‘forewarned is forearmed.’ Yesterday we discussed the local (read: Baltimore-Washington region) housing market, which did not enjoy a notable bubble and (thus?) has not suffered a violent bust. Nevertheless, the region is seeing a striking deflation in home values as foreclosures bite into more and more families. Anecdotal and personal evidence has seen not a few houses go from lived-in to empty to for sale in a few months, victims of foreclosure. In this region’s case, the problems stem not so much from over leveraged home loans made to people told/believing the market would never again shrink but from the fact that the Recession and unemployment (or worse, the terrible and larger problem of underemployment) continue to erode people’s savings and thus their abilities to keep up with their mortgages. Two years into The Great Recession has left many at the end of their abilities to pay, so their homes join the growing list of foreclosures (as reported yesterday, 35% of the homes for sale through April are foreclosed, compared to 22% from last year in Baltimore alone). A short-sold home gives no relief to the home owner from creditors, of course, as creditors get to buy back the house on the cheap and hold it until the market improves so they can sell it again.
Ah, but when will that happen?
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics, Sustainability | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
‘Resilient Baltimore’ Probably Needs Resilient Housing Market
Up in Baltimore City from 22% to 35%
Economists, reporters, politicians, and bloggers have all proclaimed and/or wondered if The Great Recession is over. Our blog has followed some of these statistics and claims at the national level, but today we want to look specifically at the situation in Baltimore and its housing market.
Many (weak) signs suggest bottoms have been found in a number of markets, and perhaps its human nature for us to seek out and accept the good news. As we have previously reported, the mid-Atlantic did not enjoy a stunning housing bubble, and thus did not endure a painful popping of that bubble. According to CNN Money, “In the Maryland and Virginia suburbs around Washington, the restrictions on building are among the most onerous in the entire nation. As a result, only a trickle of new housing is coming on the market, despite the good economy and strong job growth in the Washington area.” So-far-so-good…
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Local/Maryland, Politics, Sustainability | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Panera Restaurants Want to Give Back; Follows The Music Industry (But Where?)
Pay What You Can, In Some Places
Bruce Horovitz of USA Today Newspaper has reported on the conversion of a Panera/St. Louis Bread Company Café (the original name of the store that became the Panera franchise) to a pay-what-you-can enterprise:
A sign at the entrance says: “Take what you need, leave your fair share.” Customers who can’t pay are asked to donate their time. The cafe opened Sunday and will operate seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
While the store does have cashiers, they don’t collect money. They simply hand each customer a receipt that says what their food would cost at a conventional Panera. The receipt directs customers with cash to donation boxes (there are five in the store). Cashiers do accept credit cards.
The founder of the Panera chain, Ron Shaich (who just stepped down as the company’s CEO) hopes to create a non-profit ‘Panera Foundation’ with such cafés in each of its markets across the country. From Mr. Horovitz’s interview: “It’s a fascinating psychological question,” says Shaich, who says he’s dreamed of doing something like this for years. “There’s no pressure on anyone to leave anything. But if no one left anything, we wouldn’t be open long.” So Shaich is trying his hometown first, then taking what he learns throughout the franchise. Though some are betting against the plan.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Sustainability | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D