Massive thanks

On behalf of an amazing roster of panelists – Dorothy Engelman, Sherien Barsoum & Rob Dyer – a Texas-sized thank you to everyone who voted for the “Social Media, Social Change & Social Filmmaking,” panel, which was accepted for the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival this week.

 

We are very much looking forward to sharing our experiences with the non-profit sector, advocacy organizations & independent filmmakers attending SXSW.  Please ping any of us if you are going down to Austin this year & plan to check our panel out.  We’d love to have any of your comments &/or questions ahead of time!

 

Again, we greatly appreciate every single person taking the time to register for a voting account & adding their vote to the Panel Picker site.  We couldn’t've had our panel accepted without your votes.  To receive the programmers & advisory board’s green light in the first round is a BIG deal, especially since we’re in as a panel & not a core conversation.

<3 you!

Facebook Developer Garage -> Fun with Algebra & Bilingualism

Don’t know if there has been a recent statistical breakdown of Canadian language preferences on Facebook, but last night’s fantastic* & long-awaited Developer Garage event got me into an algebraic mood.

Please play with these numbers & challenge me if you feel this is mingy!

One of our (many) challenges in government communications (oh, hai, I got a new gig…more about that later) is our commitment to French-language services. Some comms branches & agencies, strapped for time & staff, worry that there isn’t an audience for French-language content on social networks. Last night’s #FBTO presentation by Facebook Canada’s Alfredo Tan included some great stats that lead me to believe otherwise:

  • 16.9 million Canadians on Facebook (50.1% of ’09 population)
  • 54% female users
  • 9.5% French (1.6M)

Sooo…if we know that 9.5% of Canadian Facebook users are French-speaking, but we only care about Ontario (at Queen’s Park…not the royal we, okay?) …using StatsCan’s 2006 data (insert joke about non-Dark-Ages-government needing accurate population data here):

Let’s combine all the 289,035 French peeps with thecombo ENG/FR (26,050) & FR/Non-official/+ENG familes (3,065 & 3,405) for a grand total of 321,555 French-ish citizens in Ontario.

If total FR(& EN/Other) population in Canada is 6,777,665 & of those 1.6M are on Facebook – Pepsis have a 24% FB uptake rate.

We can now extrapolate that there are 77,173 Franco-Ontarians on Facebook. A definite worthy audience to plunk some effort & energy towards.

Now, who wants to quiz me on the periodic table of the elements?

* Strongly encourage you to track down the #FBTO presentations by  Syncapse (Stella Artois case study) & Vortex Mobile (Boston Pizza in-store promotion w/ FB-integration), both very good presentations that demonstrate the impact a properly planned, fully integrated campaign can have – & what data-rich results it can yield.

What I did on my summer vacation (a.k.a. last weekend)

To sate my hunger for all things documentary, I trekked to NYC last week to work the kickoff of Docuweeks on the east coast.  In two weeks I’ll be wrapping up Docuweeks in its third & final week in LA.

Once the tingles wore off from meeting the amazing, ambitious & gifted filmmakers (& often their families), interacting with the crew of enthusiastic volunteers & working out of the IFC Centre Theatres, I had a chance to learn about the business of fundraising, filmmaking & distribution (& more importantly Oscar nomination eligibility).

The International Documentary Association has been holding Docuweeks for 14 years, ensuring that the world’s top documentarians have the requisite number of screenings in the City of Los Angeles & the borough of Manhattan to contend for an Oscar nomination. The 2009 IDA ‘Finishing Fund’ grant-recipient, Summer Pasture, is one of the screenings this year; a success story reminiscent of the many talented musicians who’ve benefitted from Austin Music Foundation‘s career-changing ‘Incubator’ fund, which ensured that artists could take their projects to the next level without mortgaging their lives away.

My personal favourite thus far (until I see a new batch in L.A., & handicapping the Finnish flick ‘Steam of Life‘ from my admitted bias for all things Suomi) was ‘Louder than a Bomb‘, a Spellbound-esque tale of rival slam-poetry teams facing off at the Chicago finals.   Strongly encourage you to keep this film on your radar, because it very well may tug at the proper Oscar judge heartstrings & sweep the world in a couple months.

Unfortunately I can’t embed the trailer, but if you check out their website: http://louderthanabombfilm.com/ you can watch 8+minute teaser for the film & get a sense of how compelling these kids’ stories are.

If you’re completely smitted by the pick, the filmmakers are savvy enough to link to a Pay-Pal-enabled donation prompt on their website & are offering tax receipts through a 501(c)3 NGO based in Chicago.  Smart cookies.

Another avenue for film funding came across my interwebs through Kickstarter’s heads up on the in-progress Bob Dorough doc, which is almost done & has a fantastic tiered donation scheme…I chipped in & so should you if you enjoyed School House Rock clips in your yoof &/or are a fan of Charlie Parker & Miles Davis collabs.  The filmmakers have been fantastic at pumping out email updates to the funders, explaining the process, being completely transparent about their financing & licensing challenges.

As documentaries become less of a niche market & more filmmakers start, ahem, documenting the filmmaking process itself, how can artists better use social media, digital video & online funding models to get into more film-loving homes & theatres?  Feel free to comment on your fav doc/fiction film case studies that’ve shown gusto in their business models online.

Square peg vs. Round hole – There’s an app for that?

Had the pleasure of attending a thought-provoking journalism seminar last night, which was organized by the lovely crews of Samara Massey College.  The first in a series, the evening’s lecture featured Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and current editor-in-chief, president & CEO of ProPublica.

What sets ProPublica apart from many up and coming online news outlets (or MSM using citizen journalists to round out their roster of writers), is its success rate partnering with mainstream media outlets (NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, PBS, 60 minutes, etc) at the early stages of investigative journalism or at the final hand-off/distribution stage.  They are able to undertake ambitious research from their “independent, non-profit newsroom” thanks to a foundation grant, which sustains the basic operating costs, and are now looking to create a more sustainable financing model with various funders and small individual donations.

For example, last summer ProPublica investigated the high rates of re-hires among negligent nurses in the state of California, and paired up with the LATimes to expose the lax oversight in tracking potentially (& often fatal) staffing decisions.  Between the two outlets’ teams, they researched every Californian nurse disciplinary case from 2002-08 (over 2,000) and revealed that the average lag-time on action by the Board of Registered Nursing was over three years, & many cases were left forgotten.  One day after the story was published, Governor Schwarzenegger replaced almost every member of the Board, citing the newspaper & online organization’s coverage as bringing the issue to light.

Examples abound of long-form investigative journalism affecting change by exposing negligence, corruption and fraud – so the question isn’t exist/disappear…but one wonders if only addressing the shrinking budgets/staff of MSM, a larger issue is unaddressed – our shrinking attention span. (Insert obligatory ‘Google makes us stupid‘ link, &/or pop-stat used by many UX’ers that the average user’s attention span is now whittled down to 5 seconds)

Encouragingly enough for online news outlets, yesterday the Pew Internet & American Life Project released new online news usage data with internet news listed above print and radio in popularity, with 61% of Americans reading news online vs. 50% reading a local paper & 17% reading a national paper.  Of the online-ers 1/3 were reading on their mobile device.  But when we say ‘reading’ are people really reading?

One ProPublica fact that threw me was the proud statement that they’d launched an iPhone app and had a Blackberry version in the wings.  While I’m the first to strongly encourage clients to reach their audiences on as many platforms as possible, eschewing the ‘If you build it they will come’ attitude & instead respectfully joining communities that are interested in your offering, silver-bullet-izing the mobile platform for long-form journalism cannot jive without major mods.

In the same way we couldn’t create a hit radio programme walking into a studio & recording a ‘Simpsons’ script – reading a full-length long-form investigative piece on a 3”x2” screen is a tough slog for the online crew.  Are there any online outlets doing a good job of serializing content so that it’s broken up into manageable mobile-friendly chunks, while also grabbing the audience’s attention with cliff-hanger-style endings every couple days, or embedding multi-media content to supplement the copy?  Any way to use audio to create subscription-based podcast versions of the stories – if there was ever a sustainable online revenue model for journalism, it might be long-tail-able via iTunes – or at least worth a shot…

Why social media schadenfreude is scarier than swine flu

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:

Enough with the peanut gallery already

*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.

Beyond adoption – considering NGO’s social media intentions

It’s been a long non-blogging stretch, which included live music (natch), a bday (piñata & nacho-enhanced), driver’s ed (2nd time’s a charm, right?), domain registration lapse (ack!) & details emerging on what could be the wildest winter ever…

Thankfully, the key sanity check (outside of running/air-drum solo’ing) has been reading.  One of the best nerdy reads in a long while has been the Hatcher Group‘s recent report ‘New Media & Social Change: How Nonprofits are Using Web-based Technologies to Reach their Goals.’ Despite the sins of unnecessary capitalization, this is a punchy report worth downloading regardless of whether you or your clients are in the nonprofit sector.

Why is the Hatcher report, which is filled with some good ‘how-tos’ & tip sheets, different than the usual freebie ebooks or ‘top ten’ digg/delicious-bait blog posts?  It’s the data peppered throughout the report, which was culled from a relatively recent survey (May 2009).  The survey asked 70 key questions to gauge 30 NGOs’ new media interest & experience.  Most telling were these statistics confirming NGOs’ attuned state regarding the online world:

  • 53% ‘infrequently’ & 30% ‘frequently’ perform blogger outreach (& 57% spend at least 1-2 hours a week doing so)
  • 73% frequently monitor blog references to their organization &/or issue
  • 60% increased their fanbase, 40% increased web traffic & 20% increased media coverage thanks to Facebook

It’s valuable to stay on top of this sector’s digital communications habits because it’s planting social media seeds in the most fertile ground.  This fertility is thanks to two factors – the necessity of very cost-conscious tool-use & a youngish workforce with a seemingly limitless supply of passion for their cause.

About this time last year, I drafted an interview list for a winter interview circuit of New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles & San Francisco.  A large percentage of the almost 30 interviewees were working for social change either in-house at non-profits or at agencies dedicated to the nonprofit sector.  While almost all of the interviewees were at or near the cutting edge of online tool adoption & seamlessly integrating digital communications into their organization’s overall plan, the Hatcher Report is a valuable sample of an average NGOs’ habits.

To demonstrate the more realistic snapshot & less experimental respondents, check out this survey response about the aims of an organization’s blogger outreach:

  • 91% of organizations hoped to reach media
  • 83% wanted advocates, legislators &/or staff to take note
  • 70% sought the general public’s engagement through this unique digital channel

Perceiving online communications & blogger outreach as primarily a ‘means to an end’ for mainstream media coverage is a somewhat disheartening response from almost all 30 groups the Hatcher Group surveyed.  While blogs can break or popularize stories before they are reported in newspapers or on television, the 91% wish to affect MSM left me worrying that blogger outreach wasn’t being executed with the best intentions, & as a consequence, without the most tactful approach.

Am I being completely paranoid?  It seems odd that there was a 20% gap between NGOs who considered the ‘general public’ as a separate entity worth speaking with via blogs vs. feeding messages to the masses in a backdoor fashion via blog authors.  Regardless of this concern, the report is a great short read & in addition to the data offers short & sweet reminders about best practices in conducting campaigns online.

It’s hard when you’re always afraid, you just recover when another belief is betrayed

Next week, Hill & Knowlton ‘s paired up with the Empire Club for a special panel discussion on the relationship between Social Media & Corporate Trust.

One of the brilliant benefits of working at H&K is the ability to tap into the roster of creative colleagues in our offices worldwide, and to learn from our clients, many of whom operate in interesting industries, both in hyper-local or international contexts.

This event reflects the depth and breadth of experience among H&K’ers and our highly-regarded star staffers client-side.  Although we often emphasise our role as trusted advisors and communications experts, we couldn’t deliver results commensurate with our high standards without intelligent, innovative and inspiring clients.  In this case, we are honoured to host a timely panel on social media and corporate trust with an inspiring client on the world stage.

Recent online public relations and reputational meltdowns, from Motrin Moms on Twitter to Domino’s Pizza’s starring role on YouTube, social media is exerting its power at an increasing rate with unprecedented speed.  Speaking with Suzanne Fallender, Intel‘s Manager of Corporate Responsibility (Global Programs & Performance), Peter Aceto, ING DIRECT Canada‘s President & CEO, and Canadian Business‘ Senior Writer and Editorial Board Member Tom Watson, our Director of H&K’s National Corporate Communications Practice and social media enthusiast Boyd Neil will moderate a discussion about employees, stakeholders and investors’ trust and the impact of social media on their perceptions.

Suzanne’s professional experience in corporate responsibility portfolios spans over a decade and her insights into the wide swath of international challenges across environmental health & safety, HR, legal and stakeholder relations will certainly resonate with all attendees.  For more information on the work of Intel, scan the Intel Corporate Responsibility blog , one of many social media tools part of Intel’s larger strategy for improved internal and external communications

Peter’s role as the senior leader of ING DIRECT Canada has proved extremely successful, highlighted by improved customer feedback, streamlined business model and a strong team executing the company vision. His experience working on the ING DIRECT USA executive committee was beneficial to many organizations serving underprivileged children around the world, as he championed the ING DIRECT philanthropic activities.

Thomas’ recent nomination for two National Magazine Awards, of which one was a feature on the ABCP fiasco-themed Facebook group,  reflects his understanding of the social media space, and its impact on coporate reputation.  His writing, which has appeared in The Hamilton Spectator, the Financial Post and now Canadian Business, spans business, finance, politics and technology.  An avid blogger, Thomas’ business-themed Double Take blog features posts that may not appear in the print version of CB.

More information can be found on the Empire Club site here.

We hope to see you on May 7th at the Royal York to enjoy what will be a unique conversation about trust & social media among four industries’ finest communicators.