I have an idea for C-SPAN

Someone probably already thought of this idea, probably more than one person, but it seems cool to me anyway and it's easily accomplished, thanks to groups like Open Secrets.

What if, when a member of Congress is speaking on the floor of the Senate or House and it's being broadcast on C-SPAN, a list comes up that gives specific information about who gave that person the most money in campaign contributions? One of the great things about consumers of information in 2009 is thanks to social media tools they've become much more adept at processing multiple bits of information at once. It's not hard to listen to someone speak while perusing a list.

To prevent overkill, I think it's sufficient to include, say, the top ten contributors for the most recent election cycle, even though that doesn't really tell the whole story either. But I've noticed an emerging and frankly exciting trend as of late - people who consume news about politics are becoming much more savvy about how the process works and what really influences members of Congress.

I've included here a rather sloppy artist's rendition of what it might look like for the Senators from my state - forgive me, I'm not what you'd call an expert at photoshop. But when there's a debate on the floor of the Senate (or the House) and you hear a member advocate for a particular point of view or commercial interest, it's nice to know if that person has been taking contributions from a relevant party.

I wouldn't DREAM of accusing any particular member of Congress for being a paid spokesperson for any particular company or industry - mostly because so many of them insist that the thousands upon thousands of dollars they accept have absolutely no influence over their votes whatsoever. (uh-huh.) But I do think this is publicly available information that people deserve to have top-of-mind during any policy debate.

An alternative to this would be to amend the dress codes for the House and Senate floor. Rather than jackets and ties for gentleman and similar appropriate dress for ladies, I might suggest the suits NASCAR drivers wear with the logos of the companies who provide "sponsorships" plastered all over them.

Discuss.

Female Role Models III

Well, I haven't seen anyone unleash the "b-word" but I have seen a couple of high-profile guys do some pretty craptacular things to younger women in the workplace. So thank you, David Letterman and Steve Phillips for having affairs with younger women in the office - and then disparaging those women or treating them like a punch line once they call you on it. Say what you will about the "other women" in these stories - none of this would have happened if Letterman and Phillips had the self-control to keep it in their pants.

In response to their pathetic public and private behavior where the underlying premise is it's somehow understandable to act like that, I present the third installment of my ongoing series on female role models. To refresh your memory, here's what I consider a "role model" for this:

So every so often I'm going to pick a few women - some moms, some not - who are doing this RIGHT. Someone an online mom can show her daughter and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

I've done two of these posts, here's part three.

Julie Marsh. I've worked in social media for a while now, and if I want something DONE, I call Julie. Julie is an entrepreneur and an advocate for bloggers. It's impossible to shoehorn her into a single category - let's just say there probably aren't too many people who can say they worked at the Pentagon AND in the music industry. As one of the co-founders of Blog With Integrity, she's taking a stand against the lack of transparency in social media. She's doing something on her blog (The Mom Slant) right now that's actually quite rare - she's bridging online communities. She's featuring voices of people who have worked in the military and sharing it with a community of moms. To me, this is social media at its best.

Cat Laine. Ho-hum. Just your run-of-the-mill Swarthmore-Oxford-Harvard educated do-gooder who likes to go to places like Haiti or Guatemala and help people there start their own businesses to help them get affordable clean energy, sanitation, and clean water. You know, the one who serves as Deputy Director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group and contributes to their blog and spreads the word on Twitter. And can do so in 4 languages. This woman passed up an opportunity to go to the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York to hobnob with the muckety-mucks and drink chardonnay because she was too busy actually doing the stuff that the well-dressed CGI folks were talking about for a week. If you're reading this thinking "egad I don't do SQUAT compared to her," you're not alone.

Christina McMenemy. I met Christina back in 2007, and to be honest she struck me as just another blogger. Pleasant and witty, but really just another blogger. Then I read her blog. I read about her relationship with her daughter Cordelia, a wonderful little girl who happens to have autism. (She has another wonderful daughter as well, Miranda.) I read about how she was coping with the economic downturn in Ohio, and how she was going back to school and now works as a labor & delivery nurse. (For those who haven't worked in hospitals, that's one of the most demanding jobs there is. Think about it - you're constantly around women who are about to give birth.) and then I read something that just put her into "role model" territory for me - she wrote the single best piece on health care reform I've read in years. If my old boss read it, he'd say, "this is why we have to get this thing done."

Tanis Miller. Yes, the Redneck Mommy. OK, yeah, she's funny. And she writes about the funny stuff that happens to her and her family. But she's also used her blog as an effective tool to help people understand the terrible anguish one feels when she loses a child. And the challenges a parent faces when that child has disabilities. And the emotional roller coaster you go on when you decide to adopt another child. With a disability. And when you learn that the two children have something else in common. And then you use your position as Canada's awesomest blogger to stand up for families of kids with disabilities, and raise money for all sorts of charities. So yeah, that's a role model in my book.

So stay classy, guys. I have a bunch more role models on tap.

Earth & Industry: The Politics of Copenhagen

I contributed a quick "what to watch for" piece for my pals at Earth and Industry about the UN meeting in Copenhagen in December. Go read it if you're feeling generous.

Speech Clouds: Obama vs. Obama on Climate Change

President Obama gave a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday "challenging Americans to lead the global economy in clean energy." Once again, thanks to the magic of Wordle, I pushed it through their cloud generator and got this:

And then I thought it would be cool to compare it to the President's speech to the UN a while back:

It's interesting to me how the themes shift when the audience is different. Seems "climate" wasn't mentioned in Cambridge at all, and "jobs" didn't seem to get much mention at the UN.

What's Really Important?

I do a lot of work with bloggers, and it's safe to say the majority of bloggers I work with are moms. The bloggers I like working with most are relentlessly entrepreneurial, and exceptionally creative. They bring a passionate positivity to their work. Many of them are fearless - they share an enormous amount of their personal lives online. I think it's almost therapeutic for them.

I've been going through a fairly tumultuous time - selling a house, living in someone else's house for a few weeks, moving a few hundred miles into a new house, and trying to hold down a demanding full-time job. It's been hard watching my wife do the lion's share of the work associated with the move (not to mention the family) while I'm traveling or sitting on a conference call. There hasn't been much sleep.

But then I saw this and it put things in perspective.

Daddy's Tour of Duty Slideshow by Cool Mom Picks

View more presentations from Kristen Chase.

I work a lot with Kristen Chase, mostly for the reasons I listed above, but also because when I work with her and with Julie Marsh (who served in the Air Force as well) I look good to my bosses. She's juggling her job, her other job, her other other job, promoting her sassy new book (which you should definitely buy), traveling all over the place, taking care of three young kids, essentially by herself. And she's trying to explain to her kids that Daddy is on the other side of the world, and he's going to be there for a while, but he's very brave and he misses you very much.

The simple fact is there are moms (and dads) all across America telling similar stories to their own kids. And I can't begin to imagine what they feel when they hear the ridiculous discussions on TV or the radio or the blogosphere about what's happening over there. I can't imagine how resentful they must feel when politicians and radio and cable talk show hosts on either side of the ideological spectrum use what's happening over there as a gimmick to get attention or further a personal agenda.

But I'm guessing they're shouldering the burden much in the same way Kristen is.

Our troops deserve our unyielding and long-lasting thanks for the sacrifices they endure. So do their families.

Yes, Daddy IS very brave. And we're all hoping he comes home soon, and comes home safe.

Those crazy college kids today

Will very soon be looking at choices for things like mutual funds and life insurance.

How do you plan to reach them?



A tremendous piece from Dr. Michael Wesch.

Traveling this week so posting may be light. But I'll be back at it soon.

SING

and enjoy your weekend.

Welcome to Blog Action Day - Climate Change Edition

This blog post represents my personal opinion in celebration of Blog Action Day. I should say that up front so I don't get fired.

Climate change is real, it's influenced by human activity, and we must act immediately and dramatically to address it. That's the reflection of scientific consensus. Any attempts by people in my profession to suggest otherwise, to distract people from the problem, or to dismiss the concerns of the scientific community as granola-crunchy lunacy are disingenuous at best.

PR flacks like me aren't exactly the most important people in this discussion, but we have an important job, and we haven't always done a good one when it comes to this issue. Too often we see "the environment" as a marketing angle. Too often people in our industry have developed strategies designed to dance around the issue. Or to mislead people into thinking a company is really willing to embrace solutions that will have a negative impact on the bottom line. Or to convince people that their elected representatives are really committed to doing something substantial.

There are many more people talking about climate change, especially today, and that's a good thing, but the interests aligned against real, effective policy are as entrenched as ever. Thanks to this amplified conversation, most of these entrenched interests are realizing they're ultimately going to lose this fight and the strategy is to hold on to as much money as they can, for as long as they can. But if the political winds shift, if there's even a hint of an opportunity to reframe the debate about something else, don't think for a second there won't be a PR flack with a strategy ready to exploit it.

The best way to make political progress is to stay on the rhetorical attack. The attack must ALWAYS be truthful and can NEVER be violent, but it also has to be relentless and unforgiving. Call out the companies and call out their flacks.

The environmental movement has made enormous strides in recent years. Don't let up now.

One place communications pro's can start is getting smart on environmental issues and getting to know people who lead the environmental movement. We have to give clients the best possible advice about what really constitutes "bold leadership" on sustainability issues and what's not - so many companies really don't understand the issue or the priorities of the community.

In my experience a lot of what is called "greenwashing" is actually accidental. But there's no excuse for that anymore. Companies have to be aware of a product's life cycle. You can't say you're "green," but you should commit to being greener every day.

There are a number of places people can go to get background. I obviously recommend my pals at Earth and Industry. Companies can also work with the makers of the Good Guide to see what consumers are looking for.

Climate change affects all of us - but the good news is we can still affect it.

"How can you work for them?"

As I watch the Blog With Integrity folks continue their steady streak of AWESOME, I sometimes think about that question. I've heard it a few times in the past 7 years. Typically it comes from someone I worked with in politics or health care and they hear me rattle off a client list.

Companies don't hire PR firms because they need help selling sunshine or puppies or high-quality free dental care. Generally speaking, people hire PR firms because they have PR problems. And while very few of them are actually bad people, a great many of them tend to do things that don't make them popular.

If you do a lot of issues management or crisis communications work, as I have, you're probably not interested in just hanging out with people who think exactly the way you do. You have to thrive on bringing different viewpoints together, cobbling diverse interests into coalitions, and finding influential people who cross social and cultural barriers.

But I've been asked how I can work for x company or y organization and still sleep at night. The truth is simple - this is one of very few jobs I can think of where it's important, even encouraged, to give an unvarnished and completely candid opinion to a client whose viewpoint is diametrically opposed to mine. Sometimes it's called "speaking truth to power." Sometimes it's called "tough love." Typically this counsel is confidential, and while it's candid it's also respectful. But if the information is accurate, it's often useful.

As communication has become more social, it's even easier. My job has become connecting clients directly to thoughtful people online. I'm still a middle-man, but I'm not a filter anymore. Yes, I'll try to connect clients with the people who find relevance in what we're discussing, and the odds are much better that the conversation will be a positive one. But there are never any guarantees online. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

PR Blogger of the Year?

When I found out I was a finalist for PR News' PR Blogger of the Year 2009, I emailed my boss and said, "surely there must be some mistake."

He replied, quickly: "I double checked."

Seriously, it's an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence as Brian Solis of FutureWorks and Tim Haran of Usana Health Sciences. Many thanks to the good people at PR News.

Brian has done an outstanding job promoting the profession and I've been reading his blog regularly for some time now. His latest book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, is a valuable tool for people who want to do this right. He was talking about social media as more sociology than technology before it was cool.

To be honest I hadn't read Tim's blog before I learned he was a finalist, but I've taken a look and it's clear his enthusiasm for his company's activities is contagious. He does a great job keeping so many people engaged and excited.

PR News has an interesting group here of three fairly different blogs. Brian is using his blog to talk with fellow communicators. He's relentlessly focused on sharing best practices, identifying trends, and so on. Tim is using his blog to show the personal side of a company and its people, to grow and enhance a social network. I'm using my blog as a tool to engage specific online communities and have issues-based discussions.

It brings me back to a question Karen Russell asked when I was speaking with her class about what division of a company should we place social media - PR, marketing, corporate communications, or somewhere else. I said you shouldn't get tripped up by categorization or nomenclature - social media is what it is, it serves different functions for different people, and may not belong in the same place for every company. Brian, Tim, and I are all practicing public relations at our jobs and with our blogs, yet it's clear we're all doing it very differently. I don't worry about definitions. I do care about communities, relationships, conversations and results.

Warmest congratulations to Brian and Tim, and I hope I get the chance to meet both of you soon.

And another thing

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that most social media "experts" are really just making up new terms to restate the obvious about marketing and communications?

Checking in from the wildnerness

A couple of quick thoughts today. I'm really to swamped to do much more right now. But this is my blog and I get to rant.

First, a social media savvy entrepreneur might build a pretty strong business coordinating logistics for people who are moving to a new city. I have to say I'm flabbergasted at the consistently bad experiences my wife and I (mostly my wife) have had over the past few weeks, from our realtor in Kentucky (absolutely horrendous) to the moving company (thousands in damage) to utility companies and everything else. We've called the same companies dozens of times and we At this point I'd pay a small fortune to have someone take all that stress off out hands. The biggest problem is nobody talks with anyone else. You have to start the process over every time you call to get the same problem fixed. Everything is shipped out to subcontractors and artificial barriers are set up all the time that prevent people from seeing the big picture, and all it takes is one lazy or disinterested person to slip up and the whole system breaks down.

I realize there are people with profoundly more serious problems and I'm among the most fortunate people on Earth. But SHEESH.

Second, I just think it's hard to position yourself as "pro-American" when you're cheering over Chicago losing the Olympics and complaining when the President wins the Nobel Peace Prize. There are people on television saying things like "the damage is done." I just don't know how one recovers politically from winning a Nobel Prize.

And I'm wondering why Kanye West didn't Bogart the microphone - "Listen Mr. President, I'm gonna let you finish, but Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe had one of the best years EVER..."

Bloggers are Entrepreneurs

And that's how you should treat them.

I've been ridiculously swamped lately but I had the opportunity to meet several bloggers last week for work. I'll let the bloggers speak for themselves on what they thought of the visit. But as I had more network-y type discussions with them, I kept coming back to the thought I had years ago - bloggers, particularly many online moms, are amazingly entrepreneurial.

I saw this report in the Washington Post that discussed about the breadth of women-owned private businesses. I suppose entrepreneurship among women is to be expected - it's fairly common among any group that has experienced bias in the workplace. But while I hesitate to define any group beyond the terms the group uses to self-identify, if I could find a common thread among all the bloggers I met last week it was entrepreneurship. All but one either owned her own business or collaborated with other bloggers in a business venture. The remaining blogger, an academic, also showed many of the characteristics of an entrepreneur - leadership, creativity, passion and drive.

I don't know about all bloggers, but I know many started writing online because they needed to strike out on their own. They were independent thinkers. They value their own time and intellect. And they have no tolerance for crap. As next-gen PR flacks like me want to engage bloggers and others who communicate online, I think it makes sense to think of bloggers perhaps a bit less as beat reporters and perhaps a bit more as entrepreneurs who are looking to engage in something worth their time.