Without a Yard

There’s a particularly startling epidemic happening in the online world, which I’m noticing mainly in Toronto of late.  It might just be the 2.0 version of the classic Canadian tall poppy syndrome, but this strain is turning out to be stronger & scarier than swine flu.  Victims are compelled (nay, forced?) to gush out unnecessary mea culpas, fall on their twittering swords & hide in abject terror of the virus reappearing.  It disguises itself as a ‘transparency’ inoculation or an ‘authenticity’ booster shot, but there is only one diagnosis for the unfortunate malady-stricken online risk-takers - they’ve been bitten by social media schadenfreude.

Now I’m the first to grab the popcorn when things get spicy on the political scene, and don’t get between me and my indierock drama…BUT when it comes to jumping down people’s throats in an online/professional context…I get a little…empathetic.  By the luck of astrologically-aligned-nerd-stars, my salty slangly casual language whilst pitching bloggers, writing content & generally floundering through life has not put in me in this position.  According to the law of averages, until I am drafted to the WNBA, I will soon play the role of the  ’social media practitioner’ or ‘community member’ receiving a thorough ego trouncing from the peanut gallery.  {In fact, if those web gremlins continue to highjack a lovely microsite/app-project we’re eager to seed/launch I might be in this position early next week :)}

We all make mistakes.  If we’re doing right by our clients, we aren’t just going through the same-old super-safe motions developing & executing campaigns.  Ask any stellar standup comedian.  Some jokes kill and some jokes bomb.  That’s life.

So on this turkey weekend eve, let’s be thankful that there are social media peeps still taking risks, let’s remember that when this happens with ad campaigns we think it’s unique & quirky & let’s consider the embarassment of riches we have in terms of attending awesome events.  Before you pile on to critique someone going out on a limb or trying something new or having an opinion…ask yourself if you really want to end up like these dudes:

*Massive full disclosure - A staffer at Social Media Group is my basketball bud & I have been known to enjoy cheap soft-serve ‘ice cream’ with Refresh Events‘ founder.

My long weekends begin & end with an epic trek to the Sound & involve spending overdue time with the fam.  Despite the gorgeous clear skies, fresh rural Ontario air & infinite opportunities to sing ‘Save a horse, ride a cowboy’ at karaoke, I usually end up splitting this free time 50/50:  sleeping in & nerding out.

This weekend was no different - nerdery included a docu-binge, interesting new client/sector reading, and indulging in a thorough leisurely read of the Pew Internet & American Life Project report on The Internet & Civic Engagement, which was released just last week.

If the impact of the internet on political participation is at all of interest, download the entire report - it’s less than 70 pgs (incl. big’ol’graphs!) - not a massive undertaking, I swear

A gem gleaned/interpreted from the report is that once someone becomes involved in politics online - not necessarily partisan - they are on a slippery slope to nerdsville.  Posting a blog comment is practically a gateway drug for full-on civic engagement - next thing you know they’re signing petitions, writing their local representatives, writing & posting material themselves…& even donating cash.  Who knows what they’re doing in the streets to get this money to pass on to organizations & campaigns.

• 19% of Americans online had posted material about political &/or social issues or used a social network for civic/political engagement
• This crew was disproportionately young, of course, & also don’t show as much of an old/rich/educated socio-econo slant compared to other engagement measures such as donations & volunteering.
• 61% of politically active online Americans signed petitions (vs. 32% of all adults)
• 50% of online politicos have contacted an official directly.  (Very cool to note that satisfaction rates for contacting political officials was equal online/offline)

The authors posit that social media could alter the vast majority political participants being well off/educated.  The catch is ensuring that newly recruited online politicos start affecting change IRL.  We all know how easy it is to comment on a Facebook/blog post, or ping off a petition - but ratcheting up the free-time donation to include face-to-face canvassing, volunteering & other vital parts of being a ‘real’ citizen are tougher to nail down.

Now this is usually the part of the blog post where I complain about not having similar report from a Canadian thinktank or pollster, but that’d be unfair.  In April’09 Elections Canada published a Working Paper on ‘Youth Electoral Engagement in Canada.’ Thankfully I CAN complain about the age of the data - most recent year in the report was 2006.  The authors have similar conclusions regarding age/income/education as being the three determining factors in political participation as Pew.  The highest engagement levels create this familiar demographic combo: Older religious married born-in-Canada men who earn more than $40K with post-secondary education in rural communities.  Of these factors, being born in Canada was the #1 influencer, with post-secondary education a close runner-up.

Although I whinge about the age of the Elections Canada data, (even Pew study authors admit that without cell-phone owners included in their survey they’re not getting a true glimpse of the younger cohort) there’s a great section on ‘Why is youth turnout so low?’ that has a fantastic summary of previous political science theories on declining engagement.  Citing Cart & Eagles, among many other political scientists, the authors state:

“…the way election campaigns are run may be partly responsible for the turnout decline…traditional door-to-door canvassing has a powerful impact on turnout…evidence that direct candidate contact with voters has been decreasing over time, as parties have devoted more attention to the media…may have contributed to lower turnout, although it is not clear why this should have affected the youth more than older people.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Although online content is a great source for spreading information/sparking discussion/priming donations about politics & social issues, until the user becomes engaged with an issue to the point of ponying up volunteer-time - online engagement is a series of soon-forgotten empty gestures (green avatars, anyone?).

This ends tonight’s nerdcast - I’ll be online less this week because of an especially short work week for less than awesome reasons.  Heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s helped thus far (whether you know it or not ).  Equal gratitude goes out to a flexible employer & helpful IT crew who’re eager to lend wireless routers, webcams & laptops during a time of coccooning.

Since there’s plenty of time to browbeat, spam & harangue y’all into voting for our South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) panel about passionate people (please do vote early’n'often here, seriously), I wanted to riff on the theme of a spot-on proposal, discovered thanks to Rad Campaign’s founder Allyson Kapin twitterstream (@womenwhotech).

Sarah Granger of WomenCount has an awesome lineup of women speakers on board to discuss ‘The Silent Majority: Women in Politics Online.’ Regardless of whether or not you plan to attend SXSWi, could you please click that link, create an account & vote for this panel as a favour to me? Please?

Timing’s spot-on, with scorching-hot political discussions about proposed healthcare overhauls & infinitely blog-able nutbars attending local townhall sessions.  Countering the divisive & anger-fueled ‘discussions’ occurring on this subject is an online space launched today, built by BlogHer & the Sunlight Foundation for women to share their thoughts on the healthcare debate. Users are encouraged to employ Sunlight Foundation’s roster of online tools, such as OpenCongress, to efficiently search & read the healthcare bill’s contents.  It’s telling that the first space online for public policy conversations by/for women is on the subject of healthcare, a public policy and private sector subject area that is in dire need of more estrogen after hundreds of years of male-only pharma trials & medical studies.

Hopefully by March this space‘ll serve as a case study for the ‘Silent Majority’ panelists to demonstrate that a large female audience will eagerly contribute to serious policy discussions when offered a space & encouragement; & this space‘ll also contrast sharply with mainstream media coverage of screaming match soundbites, insult-slinging & fear-mongering.

While it might seem ‘kumbya’ to state that these policy discussions would be more civil had they been shepherded by women, having worked for two whip-smart, balanced, strong & self-effacing female politicos, I truly believe that this is true & look optimistically to Kathleen Sebelius‘ ‘tenacious d’ throughout her career to deliver real reforms from the Health & Human Services Department in the months to come.

The clearest authoritative communicator on the touchy subject of lower participation rates of women in politics is Dee Dee Myers.  In her 2008 ‘Why Women Should Rule the World’, Myers devotes an entire chapter to ‘Closing the Confidence Gap,’ where she specifically lists verbal tics (starting phrases with ‘I think..’) & self-discouraging mental patterns that eroded her confidence while working in the West Wing. (More recently a Canadian expert scholar on this subject, Sylvia Bashevkin, published ‘Women, Power & Politics,’ which I’d highly recommend if you want a maple-glazed variety).

As Myers recounts her personal experience in one of the most coveted staffer roles interacting directly with news media, she supports her heartening &/or cringe-inducing anecdotes with research & interview quotes from biologists, sociologists & politicos (including Sebelius :).  What made me think of this chapter within the context of BlogHer/Sunlight/SilentMajority was this quote from Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, which merges gendered discussion participation, voices online & confidence perfectly:

“There is no talent difference that I can see.  There is sometimes a difference between the men and women in the willingness to claim airtime in class.  The men seem to feel that they can start talking and eventually they’ll have a point to make.  The women are more likely to feel that they ought to have something valuable to say before they say it.”

We’re definitely lucky to have wry commentary coming frequently from bloggers such as Kadi O’Malley, as well as the many sharp female print jounalists from Canadian dailies extending conversations from their columns online, but we are unfortunately still at a loss when it comes to quantity & choice for viewing the political landscape through a women writer’s lens, professional or amateur.

Blogging about this at all means entering a loaded & delicate subject matter (landmines include ‘tokenism,’ ‘quotas,’ ‘man-bashing,’ etc.), but I feel the same as I did when I blogged in the winter to mark The Churchill Society’s support of women in politics.  What’s changed is that with more collaboration between female writers online & the tools to synthesise information to suit a searcher’s specific policy interests, in the months ahead we’ll hopefully see more safe spaces built for informed female users to discuss specific policy issues, flesh out their views, disagree honestly & openly - without descending into name-calling.

No Joni or Rush in iTunes (yet) to officially celebrate.  Aside from the Yankee-Doodle-ing eAdvocacy posts, wanted to share the success of a client that we’ve been very lucky to have - Molson.  The Society for New Communications Research awarded both our H&K Digital Team & our talented, charming & thoughtful contacts at Molson with the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Award (blogger relations category).  Please forget my breathless gushing over indie rock upstarts to recognize that this is truly huge.  We were pitted against respected heavyweights, such as Edelman’s lauded US social media team and the social media pros at SHIFT Communications.

The event so nice, we held it twice - Brew 2.0 in T-dot & VanVegas - won over the SfNCR judges evaluating blogger outreach (& you might remember all the buzz that it generated in armchair quarterback vs. participant-blogger-punditry shortly thereafter? For Immediate Release Podcast? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone know the effects?) & was quite honestly, two of the best ‘working’ nights I’ve ever experienced to boot.

Let’s turn it up to eleven in ‘09, then.  Blogs’n'tweets’n'memes’n'dreams, y’all! Read up on Molson’s (winning) submission ici.