Without a Yard

It’s the most humbling time of the year.

PanelPicker‘s launch bombards us with requests or outright spam from aspiring pundits trying to participate in South By Southwest.

& who can blame’em? I mean, erm, us.  We’ve assembled a stellar roster for discerning thumbs to vote up-up-&-away to Austin, Texas in March, 2012.

Why the unwavering obsession with this Shiner-soaked conference? Since 2005, nerd Mardi Gras has been exciting & energizing, & conveniently bleeds into the music industry’s only upbeat gathering post-Napster.

During this raucous 10-day marathon run of panels, workshops, parties & performances, startups’ fates are sealed, business cards exchanged (or ‘bump’ed) & socially autistic coders finally make it to third base.

Despite grizzled veterans’ gripes about its increasing size & commercialization, you’re hard pressed to get more bang for your buck as a film, music or digital conference attendee elsewhere.

Speaking of bucks…It’d be dishonest to not mention the financial considerations behind the apps. Speakers receive free conference badges, which is a lovely gesture & makes the trek somewhat less unaffordable to non-profit sector folks & entrepreneurs.

Cue the violins….

Until Friday, September 2, you can make “Social Media, Social Change & Social Filmmaking,” a panel to assist the non-profit sector, advocacy organizations & independent filmmakers, a reality.

Simply visit this site & log in or create a SXSW account, then click the thumb-up icon. (Extra brownie points = share this: http://bit.ly/r4EX2P)

The panel features Dorothy Engelman, who co-founded q media solutions, built GetInvolved & specializes in non-profit-sector digital shorts; Sherien Barsoum, former social worker, documentarian & founder of taza media; & the inimitable sk8 king of all social media for non-profits, Rob Dyer, founder of Skate4Cancer, subject of DreamLoveCure documentary & overall tireless advocate.

To add to the infinite supply #G20+Twitter armchair quarterbacking, wanted to highlight some creative media that illustrate the power of integrating funny messages into online advocacy.

The history using humor in civil & human rights advocacy is long…& arguably could include the gonzo journalism/satire of Hunter S. Thompson & Youth International Party hijinx of Abbie Hoffman…but what was exceptional about the use of humor in/after the G20 was the speed with which witty slogans, signs & chants traveled thanks to online video, social networks & twitter.

Not only are the surreal exchanges between protesters & police captured, streamed & shared in realtime, there is a posturing among the posse acknowledging that they are staging their own viral-version of a Heritage Moment.

My favourite was the ‘Riot Suit Remix’ by Drown Radio, featured on Laughing Squid:

An impetus to integrate slicker, catchier, more timely, and funnier videos will be felt my many advocacy organizations in the months ahead.  Last week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that, thanks to broadband penetration, sprawling content options and the capabilities of smartphones, video viewership has increased exponentially since 2007 (now 7/10 adults view or download videos online).

More interesting than this ‘no duh’ stat is that both political and humorous ‘genre’ vids have doubled viewership rates. Political videos held the attention of 15% of online users in 2007 and now reach 30%; and comedic/humorous videos were accessed by 31% of internet surfers in 2007 and now are screened by 50% of adults online.

When it comes to creating & uploading videos, gender and age parity is starting to emerge, though men are still more likely to be watching video content online than women.  Overall the younger, wealthier and more educated users access vids, which correlates with broadband connectivity and hardware capabilities.

Let’s sign off with an ode to ‘the best movie about a start up ever’ & a nod to my family history of working to promote literacy (not that my writing style would reflect this…).  In May, the fine folks at Improv Everywhere wanted to show the NYC library patrons that their public resource was in jeopardy, and to capture a stunt on digifilm to share with the world, create some buzz, corral supporters & pressure the decision-makers.  Be sure hop over to the IE blog for a full write-up of the ‘mission’:

Would love for anyone to plunk in their fav humo(u)r+advocacy examples in the comment field.  Was going to include the recent spate of vending machine/social good hacking, but worried it was a bit of a stretch….

What do KISS, IKEA & Muslim women have in common? Unfortunately there’s no snappy punchline, it’s just an excuse to weave a nerd narrative through a bunch of interesting news stories.

I’m sure by now you’ve got your Oshawa B&B resos, relieved to hear the city’s glam-rocker residents’ KISS ARMY allegiance wasn’t in vain. The band ran a straightforward prove-how-much-you-love-us online contest, which was styled like a petition, requiring city residents to submit email addresses, & promised a concert for the winning city (regrettably it was a KISS concert).  After the band announced the winning city, they published a tour schedule that did not include Oshawa. Now, it doesn’t take Columbo to examine a tour schedule & discover a gap that is geographically & schedule-wise able to accommodate a ‘secret’ show or ‘by popular demand’ second night in a venue (Hello Wilco, Welcome to Massey Hall x2!).  Nonetheless, the interwebs’ hyper hypos have an irrepressible impulse to stretch their harnesses.  The city was up in arms, thousands joined Facebook protest groups, locals became ‘representatives’ on news outlets, fansites heaved & a PR maelstrom ensued.  Can’t completely blame unnerved fans for their reaction, but it proves that an online ‘petition’ campaign banking on engaging region-specific communities must reach all stakeholders clearly, consistently & concurrently – online & in ‘public’/mainstream media messaging – or face the wrath of multiple red-dye-tongue-waggings.

From KISS to kisses, The Times’ Freakonomics blogger Steven Dubner references gay rights kissing protests in Salt Lake City (or ‘IRL’ – in real life) in a fantastic quorum post called ‘How Much Do Protests Really Matter?’.  It’s a great long piece that highlights some of the most effective protests throughout history – & puts the KISS KRAP, ridiculous IKEA font fiasco & the ultimate online overreaction of #AmazonFail (of which Shirkey’s blushing reflection is the best) – into perspective.  Kent State, this ain’t. Aside from totally dismissing the online flareups, what can be gleaned from recent issues that’ve made their way into the mainstream?

One positive example of addressing consumer concerns straight-on is the triage-style response from Tim Horton’s to their comp’ed coffee clusterfritter.  After being accused of supporting anti-gay groups, HQ calmly, widely, publicly stated otherwise, while explaining the franchisee relationship & corporate values in a balanced manner.  Though they’ll go down in Twitter history as being ‘too slow’, realistically a major multi-national addressing an online issue centered on a (not ideal ideologically…) backwoods charity BBQ in less than 48 hours (counting weekend days…sadly the downside of our email era is expectation to check 24/7) is approaching impressive.

Finally, last Sunday’s NYTimes magazine on women’s issues had a special ‘The Medium’ column on Feminist Hawks by Virginia Herrernan. It illustrates how ‘motherhood’ issues (for lack of a better word…) can be repackaged, re-purposed & emailed for protest campaigns under new auspices.  In this case an anti-Afghan outlook was wrapped in women’s rights.  Herrernan tracked a popular email petition propelled by pundits such as David Horowitz that sought signatures supporting persecuted Muslim women, but stated military aggression was the solution to women’s liberation.  “This material is expected to help seal Horowitz’s general case for the war on terror, though he has not yet changed the name of his cause to, say, the war on misogyny.”

It might be hard to assign a #fail to online protests writ large, but the summer months brought a new level of inane chatter that could be called out & calmed down as the temperature drops & leaves begin to fall.  Creating online communities, sharing fact-checked/substantiated information & organizing IRL events is one of the strengths of the internet.  Our creative communities’ ongoing successes in subverting negative legislative/funding changes & presenting a strong case for supporting the arts is my favourite example of combining social networks, multimedia & the power of assembly to affect legislative change & public discourse.  Maybe revisiting the history of protests & learning from past well-informed, organized, thoughtful participants, will remind us of this.  You’ve been assigned Whingeing History for first period, first semester – enjoy the final days of summer, kids

One of the oft-tossed phrases on The Twitter is ‘first world problem.’ Don’t know if it has jumped the meme shark, but it consistently serves a vital tone-defining purpose by allowing a user to whinge freely while communicating some self-awareness.  It’s a sly wink that in the grand scheme’o'things this croissant-less-cafe, super-long-supermarket-cue or obnoxious-TTC-seatmate is less tragedy, more inconvenience.

Two totally unrelated distinctly Canadian happenings over the summer have me thinking more about this phrase within the context of advocacy campaigns and public policy.

There is no shortage of interesting, well-researched, vibrant and thoughtful pieces written by political and tech bloggers on the CRTC hearings and the belief in ‘net neutrality’ – an issue that’s been close to my heart since the early aughts when interning at Heritage Canada and researching new media policies’ effects on our cultural industries.  And while it pains me to say this, not to undermine the many passonate people devoting energy to covering the hearings…I think we’re dealing with a #firstworldproblem here.

So I wanted to raise another #firstworldproblem, since we’re sitting here comfortably online in our sheltered homes or offices, powered by hydro, enjoying the interwebs (throttled or not) into the political blogosphere – howabout this summer’s TWO elections happening among Canada’s aboriginal population?  Any thoughts on the candidates campaign websites or the coverage or tools to monitor donations/events/promises?  Thought not.

With total affectionate bias towards the writer, I strongly believe that this piece by Waub Rice best reflects how the AFN election is both important and flawed in moving forward on issues affecting the quality of life of our country’s on-reserve native population.  Please do take a moment to read it to have a *glipse* of what it would be like growing up TODAY on-reserve across Canada where the speed of internet access is an unlikely topic of conversation.

Last month a blog post surfaced citing a very dated Stats Canada report (published 2004 using 00/01 datasets) calling this lack of internet access a ‘second digital divide,’ but mainly attributed off-reserve aboriginal Canadians’ rates of use to living in non-urban areas and tracking alongside non-aboriginal rural internet access trends.

Essentially, sadly, on and off reserve internet access rates and the overall lack of robust compelling information and potentially collaborative spaces online regarding the issues facing aboriginal Canadians, the composition of band councils, the election of chiefs and the AFN itself, is due to the lack of the basics for many – we’re not talking high speed/wireless/unthrottled internet – it’s electricity, computers and modems – and in many cases the communities have yet to be ‘wired’ themselves.

As the AFN process will undoubtedly evolve, as noted in today’s Globe’s encouraging piece here, internet access for Aboriginal Canadians will become much more important.  Hopefully within the next five years we will see an infastrucutre that supports on-reserve and off-reserve natives to have access to all candidates’ information and tools with which they can raise issues, coordinate campaigns and offer the same level of engagement despite a community’s location.

The same tools used to communicate the challenges of first-past-the-post or advocate for electoral reform in provincial elections in Ontario and most recently BC will hopefully be used to engage Aboriginal Canadians in a discussion around building a more representative political system.  That’s a #firstworldproblem worth devoting some energy, IMHO.

In the midst of some eye-opening on-the-ground-coverage in Iran & reflections on social media’s use in times of crisis, Twitter‘s been lauded as a tool able to bring ‘outsiders’ into the loop with unprecedented immediacy and increasing importance.  Most well-known & demonstrative of its role thus far were yesterday’s announcement that the US State Department contacted Twitter HQ to request the delay of scheduled updates to ensure continued information was broadcast from innumerable frustrated citizens & the underwhelmed disappointment with mainstream media coverage of the election among observers worldwide over the past week (a.k.a. #CNNfail).

When asked by friends to explain Twitter (often phrased as “Why the crap are you on your iPhone again, Rudey McJerkalot?!”), which happens a lot since this (flattering?!) bizarro world recognition, it’s hard to describe the scale & scope of the medium.  Depending on who you choose to follow, your daily dose of information via Twitter can consist solely of leaked hiphop mixtape bittorrents, horoscopes, localvore recipes, or salacious spam.

Like blogging, Twitter’s had a tough go earning the respect of mainstream media.

Lest I sound like a mohawk’d-Misfits-lovin’-kid screaming ‘Punk’s not dead!’, with every ‘decline of the relevancy of X’ article, there’s another useful voice popping up or staying vibrant online – be it on Twitter, blogs or holographic robot interpretive dances. The bad/boring/bored robots rust – this ratio of success:fail says nothing about the medium – the same can be said for unrecorded songs, unpublished poems & unsewn outfits.

Hopefully after this week’s umpteenth demonstration of Twitter’s usefulness beyond hype-y marketing forays it’ll stop being second-guessed as a fuel source to move forward an issue’s narrative.

Closer to home, & far more capable of describing the whats & whos of Twitter, are the computer whizzes at Sysomos.  Their report released on Friday is phenomenal. Some brilliant observations can be gleaned from just scanning the Summary if you’re tight for time, here are my favourites with my comments in parentheses:

-  21% of users have never posted a Tweet (Would most agree that the 1/5 ratio of ‘lurkers’ is the same for chat rooms & forums?)

-  72.5% of users joined between January – May 2009 (Mind-boggling growth rates, thanks to Oprah & Ashton)

-  65.5% of self-identified ‘PR Professionals’ have never posted an update ( hm. )

-  55% of users use something other than Twitter.com’s webpage version, Tweetdeck is #1 with 19.7% marketshare (could determine viability of pay-to-play or tiered membership offering based on how many users opt for paid mobile applications)

Hopefully the next generation of this report could examine the content overall to determine how many posts are Retweets (or ‘RT’s), sharing website URLs & messages to ask/reply to other users (‘@’s back & forth) – this might give us a better idea of how conversational the medium can be vs. the broadcast-y nature in which it has been characterized/dismissed.

On that nerdy note, I bid you adieu & hope our paths cross in music nerdery this week during NXNE

Special hat-tip to Count Gavin (a.k.a. Gavin Stephens – hilarious Toronto comic) for movie-reference-reminder….