This week the boys and I headed down to Denver for our third year of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus. I admit that I truly look forward to the circus, and this year it’s back at the Denver Coliseum until October 9th which has the fantastic benefit of FREE parking. Add to that the fantastic kid ticket price of just $10 (see my link at the bottom of this post), and you’re getting a world-class show that won’t break the bank. In fact, it’s cheaper than taking the kids to a movie. And you’ll enjoy it too.

I expected to love this performance. Every other year has been fantastic, and when I was invited to ask any questions I liked, meet the performers and see the animals, I was won over yet again. The Fully Charged theme worked best during the clowns performance – how many clowns does it take to change a light bulb? A lot. Those clowns were absolutely the funniest I’ve seen them. We all laughed a lot – it was really a great way to get the show really underway.

There really was something for all ages, although the show is one that if you have very small kids you should try and get to a matinee performance instead of an evening – I saw a few sleepy heads in the audience in the second half. My kids, aged 11, 13 and 17 each liked different parts of the show. The high wire, tigers, elephants, acrobats and Fearless Fernando Brothers on the twin turbines of steel were absolute hits.

My favourite act, however, was what I think of as classic circus, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen it – the two strongmen, Dmitry Nadolinkskiy and Rusian Gilmulin weigh over 300 pounds each. They spun massive logs and telegraph poles around like batons in a marching band. And then they amazed everyone by lifting each other up and showing exactly what it takes to be a strong man in the true sense of the word. Wow. They made it all look pretty easy, but when they then pick each other up, it’s pretty awe-inspiring.

My final tip is just to make sure you get your crew a good feed before heading down to the show. While parking at the Coliseum is free, you’ll do a full week’s paycheck at the concession stands if you turn up with hungry tummies. Oh, and don’t bother taking food in with you – bags are checked at the door. (Bugger. I know this is standard everywhere, but sheesh!)

Want to get tickets for your mob? Head to Ticketmaster to get kids’ tickets for only $10 if you use the code FFAKID. (I think that’s the same price as the popcorn at the concession. ) But concession prices aside, this show is one you don’t want to miss. It truly is the Greatest Show on Earth. I already have next year’s one on my calendar. In ink.

Disclosure: My children and I attended the circus as guests of Feld Entertainment for the purposes of an honest review.

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The difference between a natural hazard and a disaster comes from the effect it has on people. More and more everyday people are turning to social media to find out what is going on within their area and community of friends as well as their traditional information sources such as mainstream media. Through the work we’re doing at Project EPIC at the University of Colorado at Boulder, we are focused on using social media to help collect and organise information in a way which will allow people to find out what is happening during a time of crisis.

Of course, one fantastic aspect of social media is the social part – it means you can ask specific things in it and get a response, and it doesn’t matter what kind of social standing you have. It also means people can come together to put little bits of information in, and create a really reliable, up to date repository of information that others can search on. Social media makes ‘crowdsourcing’ possible, relevant and, particularly in crisis events, timely.

At our lab, we are working with volunteers, official agencies and everyday citizens to create easy-to-use tools that everyone can contribute to. Whether they are willing to pitch in for a few minutes, or a few days, everyone’s help means we can organise the information in social media more quickly – ultimately if you take a few minutes to volunteer to use the tools you already know how to use, then you could actually save lives – or at the very least, take some panic out of the event for the people involved.

Twitter

Our current tool is a format most people are familiar with, even if they don’t use it themselves very often. Twitter has a massive number of users, all around the world. However with hundreds of thousands of tweets being put out every minute, gathering information from them about a hazard event, and then showing it in an easy way to citizens and authorities is a difficult problem.

We use a system called Tweak the Tweet (TtT). Using TtT is easy – start by opening your twitter account, and then do a search on the hazard event (for example, for hurricane Irene, enter the word Irene.) All the tweets dealing with the hurricane will come up. Choose one of the tweets, and then go to your ‘What are you doing’ window, and rewrite the tweet in the format that our TtT computer will pick up when it scans the tweets coming through.

First, write the event hashtag #Irene

Then, identify what the main part of the tweet is dealing with, from the selection of general topics we use. These are: shelter, power, location, road, need, offer, damage, evacuation and so on. Please note that sometimes a tweet will need to be separated into more than one TtT tweet, so that it contains just a specific piece of information. Sometimes general tweets coming through the stream contain more than one thing (eg: “The shelter at 20 Riley street in New York has space for 200 people and pets” could be more than one TtT tweet when it’s rewritten.) Use that word (shelter, power or whichever you choose) as the second hashtag. Consider it to be like a heading. Then straight after the hashtag, write in the information related to that heading. Then you might have a secondary hashtag, which offers a little more detailed information. This tends to be a location, or contact details (we use the heading hashtags of #loc and #con to save space). So, you might have a tweet that is looking like this:

#Irene #Shelter Shelter now accepting up to 200 arrivals, including pets #loc 20 Riley Street, NYC

And then push send. That’s it! Our computers will be able to ‘read’ your tweet, whereas it couldn’t ‘read’ the original one. The computer uses the hashtags to organise the information into cells in a spreadsheet that is updated in realtime as these tweets come through. Then the information in the spreadsheet is translated and mapped, so that the general public can access information local to where they are heading or where they are – or where they know others are. The ‘back end’ of our spreadsheet (all the coding stuff) is shared with agencies and other volunteer organisations such as Ushahidi and Crisis Commons, and they work with us in combining the twitter data we’re collecting with other efforts they have.

Finally, we are also able to include images in these maps. If you’re using your own cell phone, turn on the geo location and just take the pictures and upload them to twitter with the #Irene #photo hashtag, and they’ll be added too. Alternatively, you can use the #location tag and put in where you’ve taken the image from.

The magic is that you don’t have to sign up – there’s no formal boundary to entry, and the learning is super easy. Don’t be worried about ‘getting it wrong’ – we all do – but we have people who are watching the tweets come in and are cleaning them up as they get added to the spreadsheets. It also doesn’t matter if you’re putting through information that might already have been entered – if it’s a double up, we remove the second one, depending upon whether time has passed etc. and the information might be new. Even if you can help out with TtT for a few minutes a day, or a longer commitment, the help makes a huge difference, both to people directly involved in the event and also those who love them but are far away.

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Erika Doss’s work on memorialisation is an interesting foray into how western societies consider death. We are used to seeing memorials offline, from crosses at the sides of roads through to war memorials, and everything in between. We even see memorialisation happening online. But do we carry the human values of our offline existence online? Do our values look the same online as they do offline? And can we solve some of our society’s problems in dealing with death through the integration of memorials in technological spaces?

Pic: Flickr, Bennylin0724.

If we are, as Doss says, a “death-denying society” – one in which we’ve managed to ensure people die in locations we are ready to accept it occurs (66% of people die in hospitals, hospices or the like), then our obsession with social media might give us an opportunity to forge a better relationship with the topic of death.

Some cultures celebrate death as any other rite of passage. But in our Western culture, we ‘other’ death. It’s a taboo subject.

At CHI2011, a whole session was dedicated to the topic of death and bereavement and a few researchers are making headway into this interesting topic. However, I am left thinking that our work needs to look at opportunities in considering societal issues with taboo subjects using the social media spaces our society is already embracing rather than creating new sites and tools that people are ready to ‘other’ (distance themselves, or create a distinction between themselves and that place or those people) just as they do nursing homes and hospices.

Facebook allows you to memorialise the dead, but it doesn't suit everyone

So while Facebook continues to have problems with managing the fact that its user base will die – really die – we all have to address what we want to have happen with our social media accounts when we fall off the twig. The first place to consider how we want to have our social media lives finish up or continue, is to recognise how we feel about the people in our current friends lists on social media sites still being there when they physically pass on. Most people I know have at least one deceased person in their Facebook friends list. Nobody unfriends them. They just sit there. Living alongside all the other vibrant people in your stream, yet not. Typically, if it makes you uncomfortable to see faces of people you know are no longer physically operating their own account, then you’re unlikely to want that to happen to you. But at the same time, it seems harsh to unfriend or even just silence that person’s stream.

Do you have people in your Facebook stream you know are now deceased, and how do you manage it?

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1. How to avoid people using location-based social media
2. Facebook Privacy – when did you last update your settings?
3. So I’m about to become known as that woman who researches death in social media.

I spent the majority of this week in Canada at the CHI Conference. This one was going to be the test. I’d done so well so far and in five weeks, lost over 10 pounds. I’d made an error and put my order for my Nutrisystem delivery in a little later than I needed to, so even though I was fully prepared to take the most portable versions in my luggage, I didn’t have them to take! No worries, I was told, you’ll do fine and we’ll be here for support if you need us. Ohhhhkay!

I really enjoyed the conference and learned some good “stay on target” tips while I was at it.

Traveling to a conference and staying on your food/exercise plan

1. Don’t think your general walking around will be enough of a reflec

Vancouver! (Where it rains A LOT)

tion of the exercise you do at home. A lot of what you do daily gets no recognition, but everything you do when you’re travelling gets focused on and you’ll probably think you’re exercising more than usual, but you’re not. I had intended to use the hotel gym equipment but I didn’t. Instead almost every evening I went out for a solid walk around Vancouver for a few hours every time, in different directions. I must have walked about 4 or more miles and being at sea level, I loved it. I can’t begin to tell you how different it is on your lungs! Additionally, my workshop on the first weekend was 2 miles from my hotel, and I walked back and forth from it six times in the first couple of days – great way to see some of the city. So, arm yourself with a map, put on your walking shoes and go!

2. Conference food: Think before approaching the tables. Look from a distance to see what selections are available, thinking ‘where are the fruit/vegetables?” instead of “ooh, look at the variety of bagels/muffins/cupcakes” – do NOT think, “what am I allowed to have.” Permission based dieting makes you feel like you want to break free and ‘spoil’ yourself.

3. Meals away from the conference: This was easier than I thought, but you get tired of the same old selection of grilled salmon and salad or nicoise salad with sauce on the side. Most of the time I was alone, so as Vancouver has a very high level of Asian influence, sushi was a great choice, as well as other very healthy options. The only iffy moments were when dining with others – a burger joint where the plain burger I chose gave me indigestion all afternoon (I’m just not used to bread and fat any more! Glad I walked it off that evening. Didn’t make that mistake again.) and a better outcome of dining with others from my lab, where I chose the same lunch a friend chose, simply because she makes healthy decisions. “I’ll have what she’s having” was easy to say (pop culture reference aside), didn’t interrupt the conversation, and didn’t need me to focus too heavily on a menu I was having difficulty making a selection from.

4. Move away: While others tend to mill around the food areas, get your own food, and move right away from the food tables. The further, the better. On most occasions I went back into a breakout room to power up my laptop. This means you’re not chatting while eating, and are focusing on what you’re doing. It also meant I had power and internet access when not many others were using the network!

5. Drink your water: This was the one thing I failed on, and maybe it was because I thought it would be the one thing that would be effortless. I have no trouble drinking my water at home, because I’m in a routine  and know where the closest bathrooms are, etc (sorry, after four kids my pelvic floor…. well. Sorry again. TMI.) Anyway, make sure you’re always armed with a water bottle, and go for a glass of water at every break time. It makes a solid difference.

RESULTS

So I’m learning well! Obviously the portion sizes and learnings on what is good to eat versus what’s available on a menu is sinking in. I lost an additional pound!

Week One -4.6 pounds                      Week Two -1.4 pounds (total loss: 6 pounds)

Week Three -1 pound (total loss: 7 pounds) Week 4 -.6 pounds (total loss: 7.6 pounds) Week 5 -3 pounds (total loss: 10.6 pounds)

Week 6 – 1 pound (total loss: 11.6 pounds)

Disclosure: Nutrisystem is supplying my food and dietary support for four months in return for my honest reflections on the program. Do you live in the US or Canada, and want to join me and get healthy with Nutrisystem? Join today by calling 1-888-853-4689 or by visiting http://www.nutrisystem.com/nsblog.

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I’ve just returned from my first CHI conference where I joined one of the pre-conference 2-day workshops. The workshop I did was HCI, Politics and the City. We were broken into teams to deal with real-life problems being experienced by local grassroots organizations in Vancouver, Canada (where the conference was held). It was a great opportunity to really experience the locale of the conference as soon as we hit the ground, and to collaborate on some real-world problems.

I was lucky to be working with a team of smart, switched on people from different specializations in HCI. Computer Science, Architecture, Comm/Media and Art backgrounds were all present on my small team.

Vancouver, a stunning cityscape.

My team was chosen to work with the fantastic people at Peers Vancouver, a non-profit organization committed to helping sex workers find alternative employment and transition out of the sex industry. In an incredibly eye-opening weekend (where I have never felt more naïve), I learned about the realities the organisation faces in doing it’s work – trying to assist people into better lives without making them feel worse about the life they have – and often battling the misconceived opinions of the wider community in the process.

There are numerous problems being faced by Peers – as there are in any community-based organization. But here we saw one where technology was a key element in creating social ill. Young entrants to the sex industry were getting off the streets, and instead plying their trade online more and more. For once, the digital native myth is realized with these young people as they use the internet to find ‘dates’, become disconnected from each other and instead rely on their own instincts to get by. Of course, traditional forms of street outreach from organisations such as Peers become less effective when the people you’re trying to help are no longer on the streets. You can’t see them to begin building relationships and trust. Peers needed help in working out how to enter the digital realm – a space they just didn’t know. To choose a metaphor, they thought it would be like going to Mars and trying to work with people there instead of the street corners they knew so well.

We worked on providing the organization with a plan for moving forward. A plan which included telling Peers that the core aspects of what they do are still entirely relevant in the digital space. All we needed to do was replicate it in a digital sense. To complete the metaphor, it was like letting them know that the internet would not be Mars for them, but instead, it’s just a different ‘city’ with the same basic things behind it, driving it and challenges to be met. Finding those parallels was difficult because we were not familiar with that environment. However, when given the invitation, the Peers directors could start having the conversation about what to fill in where we had blanks. It was a great opportunity for all of us to learn.

So what did I learn?

The workshop was incredibly useful. It helped me understand what it’s like to work with people of very different backgrounds and specialisations, as well as how to speak technology to people who are extremely good at things which are not technologically based, and who are wanting to find out more about that space. All members of the team have decided to continue a relationship with Peers, and assist with seeing their plans through to fruition.

Real-world problems are the same if you’re in a big city in Vancouver, Sydney or Denver. I’m guessing they’re also the same in London (where two of my workshop team mates were from) – attitudes, the scope of the land, and the scope of the problem, are always the same. The lack of location- and domain-centric issues is interesting – I remain fascinated by the relationships between geography and social media.

Real-world cityscapes and dynamics of community are the same as well. There is a Chinatown in Vancouver, as there is in so many other cities. There is an impoverished part of the city area, and it is separated from the classier parts by just a few blocks. There is no spoken distinction. The unsaid, however, does not stop the socially understood difference – even to foreigners such as myself. In these city streets, people’s attitudes change, the environment changes, the ‘feel’ of the area changes as you segway from one part of town to the other. In this way, Vancouver is every-city.

It was a great workshop to be a part of, and I’m grateful for the experience. It really brought home the fact that as researchers, we also must connect with the people we design and work to help. HCI has a place everywhere. We are about more than just smart homes, smart phones and yes, even smart people. HCI has a heart. It’s what makes it a very special and vital part of the world of information technology. The fact that this workshop ran this year shows that the people at CHI are seeking to retain that sense of heart as it moves forward – and as we find people questioning what the broad field of HCI should or should not be, while it retains this heart, it’s humbling and socially relevant to be part of it.

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I’m a woman in tech and I’m struggling.

I’m not struggling because of my kids, or juggling home and work, or even because I have boobs instead of another single swinging appendage.

I’m struggling, dear friend, with the fact that many women in tech are focused on having little girl temper tantrums about not being represented in the mainstream, and because many men seem to want to aim the discussion around that.

I’m struggling because I’m hearing men say they can’t find women in tech to employ, or to be co-founders with.

I’m struggling because the only people who get any attention in the conversations about women in tech are ‘influential’ men who really have no idea about the truly fantastic parts of being a woman in tech. They only rant about the ‘issues’.

I’m struggling because it’s never been better for women in tech, and the future is amazing – yet all up-coming girls hear is how whining women are ‘fighting’ for acceptance. It’s neither a true representation of what is open to them, nor does it demonstrate the incredible talent that exists out there already. The women who are just doing it.

Focusing on perceived problems does not make someone want to join your parade, or hear you out. So those who whine create silos of pity parties that don’t move us forward.

Grace Hopper Vs Barbie

I recently attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Tech. It was fantastic. Why? Because it was a technology conference. A technology conference – that happened to have over 2000 women at it. And the only thing focused on how you looked was the ridiculous Barbie with a pink computer that’s somehow supposed to be bridging the gap.

Carol Bartz at the 2010 Grace Hopper Conference. Pic: Yodel Anecdotal, Flickr Creative Commons.

Seriously? I know Barbie wants to be more like me, but keeping the plastic pert boobs and a pink laptop is not going to cut it. Sorry, Mattel – Barbie is about as believable a computer scientist as Ken would be. I am anti-Barbie, and giving her a laptop is not going to change my opinion. Barbie certainly doesn’t help the Women in Tech issue – I am no more going to turn into Barbie because I’m a computer scientist than she is going to turn into me because she has a laptop. Additionally, she is a commercial product – that a company is making money out of. To highlight her as an icon for Women in Tech is ugly on many fronts. Why don’t we have a Grace Hopper Doll instead? Non representation of Women in Tech is not fixed with misrepresentation.

At the Grace Hopper Conference, there were myriad companies actively interviewing and recruiting smart women. In booths allocated for it. Stacks of them. That’s something I’ve never run across at any other conference. It’s a shame NOBODY (including those so-called ‘male supporters of the cause’) talked about that on blogs or media at all.

Why is it a big deal that women were being recruited?

It’s a big deal because it’s something girls need to know. If you’re a girl and you go into tech, you’ll have myriad job opportunities. Because male computer scientists are, let’s face it, a dime a dozen. There is no doubt the females bring something a little different to the table. (And it’s not a pink computer.)

I’m not going to engage in the ridiculous circular debate on the difference between women and men and whether one sex is better than the other. That’s not the point. Instead, you’ll note I said they’re a little different – and in the interests of creating technology that is created through iterations with alternative, diverse inputs to its production, it’s vital to have a good mix of people on your team.

The companies interviewing women at Grace Hopper saw that. They wanted our resume’s. They sat down and spoke with women and girls looking at a future in tech. Women and girls who were actively pursuing education at higher education institutions, and who had internships and experience. Or who wanted them.

If you’re a girl considering a career in tech, let me tell you, it’s probably the best career move you’ll ever make. The second thing you should do is not only attend small women conferences where the focus on problems are the main subject. Instead, go to the general (yes, male dominated) conferences. Introduce yourself to the startup community. Start putting yourself out there. Find your field and develop your skills, and get vocal. It will be appreciated by almost everyone. And those who don’t like it don’t count.

And forget about Barbie, conferences that create echo chambers of whining, and men who want to lead the discussion instead of be part of the conversation.

Be the change you want to see

If you’re a woman in tech, find some women you’d love to see speak at conferences and recommend them to the organizers. Stop going to women conferences *instead of* general conferences – at the very least, do both. And my challenge to you is to find a woman in tech or up-and-coming girl, to nominate for an award. There are lots out there. Or you know, you should nominate yourself. Tell other women how inspiring you think they are. Reach out and email a woman who has influenced you to be in tech – even if you have never actually met them. Write a blog post, and link to it here on what is fantastic about being a woman in tech.

And get a clue: Yes, there are dickheads out there. But they’re dicks to everyone, all the time. Not just to women.

It’s time. </rant>

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I was delighted to have presented at the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology conference at the University of Colorado yesterday. This was my second year at this conference, and it was incredibly well attended. As usual, some of the best moments came in the smaller discussions and conversations had over the lunch break.

In Australia, the curriculum in K-12 includes aspects of Media Literacy. In the US, each state has a different set of required things to be taught, and many don’t include media literacy at all. That’s just plain scary.

Today’s media is pervasive. It’s no longer identifiable as something separately held within the bounds of a newspaper or tv set, that you access to inform yourself as you go about your day. Instead today media is everywhere. It’s in your pocket. It’s part of who we are, our culture and identity.

On top of that, we are no longer just receivers of media. Today we create it. Critical analysis is not enough. We must equip ourselves and students, and our own children, with the tools and savvy they must have in order to be responsible creators, receivers and engagers with media in all its forms. As the Daily Camera quoted me from my presentation today on its front page, banning media forms doesn’t make people media literate. In fact, I believe it does the opposite.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session and the response was eager. If you’re an educator or a parent – or a college student – this is a presentation I hope you get some value out of too, so I’ve decided to add it here on my blog as well as on the conference wiki. Please feel free to use it as if it were under a creative commons license (ie just give me credit when you feel it’s due). And of course, your comments, responses and input are worth their weight in chocolate.

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News flash: I’m not your average mom blogger.

I do research in social media and post that along with my posts about my family, my work, my life and beliefs. Like most women I wear many hats, and I blog a little about them all. Sometimes it’s academic (like this one could be if I hadn’t just had 3 hours sleep), other times it’s more focused on how many things people throw away that are perfectly good. My blog is three dimensional – it’s a pretty transparent view of me in all my roles.

Many people and companies know I do humanities focused research in social  media. Some are really interested – it sounds so fun to work on that stuff! But I’m  kind of sucking the fun out of social media. I am very interested in how little details  like word choice and sentence structure contribute to identity work (how we see  people, and how we construct what we want others to see us as being). I find I need  to speak about stuff in very much a short elevator pitch style rather than give full  answers to those who ask about my research – because you know what? They really  don’t care about the structure of a tweet the way I do. They want to connect and get  stuff. I want to know why. While these overlap, they’re not exactly the same. To use  an academic term, we have different lenses.

Luckily, my friends/colleagues are typically one of the following:

a. Too polite to say how truly boring they find it, or how I’m destroying the ‘fun aspects’ of social media for them by analyzing everything they do/post.

b. Care more about me as a person than my work.

c. Actually like talking about the research and how it fits with what they’re interested in (these people tend to be other academics, people in industry concerned with social media, or startup people.)

d. Someone I used in my research data collection.

e. On drugs/alcohol.

Or a little of some of all of the above.

In any case, whatever area you fit in – I’m posting my full Masters Thesis here. Because it’s my blog and I can. And also because I spent a heck of a lot of time researching and writing it. The realm of the mom blogger is a crazy and at times convoluted one. Not all of us get along – in fact I’m waiting for a “Real Housewives” version of mom bloggers. (If you giggled/smiled at that, you know what I mean.) And that friction is because we are all passionate, opinionated and sassy. Even though I disagree with some of the things people do, I respect them for making their own way.

So enjoy my thesis for what it is. For those who are not seasoned academics and want to actually find out what it was all about, probably the best thing for you to do is just read the intro and then skip to the conclusion – and trust that I did all the data work in between – that will stop boredom setting in.

I am moving on with my work, and have entered the realm of crisis informatics – looking at how people use new tools of technology to communicate during emergencies and disasters. I am very lucky to be working in the EPIC lab at the University of Colorado. I continue to be interested in digital marketing, social media and as a mom blogger (self identified as well as identified by others), I look forward to seeing how and if brands and women finally work out how to work together.

FINAL MASTERS THESIS

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The hot thing at SXSW is location-based anything. (I’m so cool, I don’t even need to be there to know this.) But I’ll bet every single geek pushing a location-based app at SXSW is missing the point. You should sign up for location-based social media. So cool people can avoid you.

Here’s the deal – there are some people I’d rather not see. (Oh come on, don’t get all judgy. Like you’re happy to see every single person, every time you see them? Yeah, right). Some people always ask you for money. Maybe they repeat the word “dude” too often (that’s really annoying). Or they’re smelly. Or don’t wear shoes (I have this thing with shoes. Blame flylady.). Perhaps there was a drunken evening in a toilet stall you’d rather not be reminded of (don’t look at me, but if you’re blushing right now, well there you go).

These are people who you cross the street to avoid.

If an axe murderer checks in at Starbucks, best you go elsewhere for your mocha. (Pic credit: Flickr Creative Commons Jin.Thai).

Social media today gives everyone the ability to only ever run into people you like, and avoid all the weirdos. Yes, even if you’re at (Woodstock for geeks*) SXSW.

Location-based social media is the gift that rewards everyone. You can see where the people who will negatively effect your groove are at all times, and avoid them. And people who actually like those dodgy losers can find them.

It’s a win-win.

Real-world example right here

Over a year ago, I requested all mountain lions around the Boulder area get on Brightkite. It was a reasonable request. I just wanted to know where they were so they wouldn’t eat my kids, Brightkite is a local startup (ie, the mountain lions need to support local industry), and it would allow us all to avoid an awkward confrontation.

The old-school way of keeping track of mountain lions. Social media would be far more effective. (Pic credit: Flickr Creative Commons pst)

Well, none of the mountain lions took me up on it. Maybe they don’t follow me on Twitter. Anyway, I found it very disappointing. It was all about mutual respect. Live and let live. You lions do your thing and we’ll do ours, and if you let us know by checking in at North Boulder, maybe even with a cute pic of you with your cubs, then we’ll be aware you’re about to eat our terriers. Or kids.

But no, they didn’t do it. And so we had a spring and summer where little dogs were chewed, and the owners had no idea. That’s just disrespectful when Brightkite was right there, all free and stuff.

So the big takeaway is to get into location-based social media. It means I can avoid seeing you. Then everyone’s happy.

*This (apt) description of SXSW was originally coined by @nsquared but I pushed him for it. He’s a nice guy. Don’t go hatin’.

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3. Glade's sweet smell of good social media PR with Edelman

Dear SXSW attendees:

I know you’re all excited. You’re going to spend a whole heap of time being all geeky and fun, and drinking and stuff. Talking about startups, design, innovation, music… ooh I’ll bet you’re all tingly.

My husband is one of you. He’s kid-at-Christmas excited. He loves Texas and had a ball there last year. As a startup geek guy, he can’t wait for a whole week of indulgence.

Good on him. I hope he has a great time.

But now to the point of this post – apart from his blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, my husband has an Australian accent.

I have seen the way females respond to a male with this shrimp-on-the-barby quality. It’s a little over the top. During SXSW women go a little nuts for startup guys – add the accent, and it’s all downhill for the startup widow wife.

Unlike some other (better known) startup guys who think it’s okay to flirt and carry on while away from home, as long as they “don’t go home with anyone at the end of the night,” (I’m not naming names, but you freaking well know who you are – and people do talk about you, by the way), it’s not going to cut it with me.

Stop whining, woman. What’s the point?

I’m not going to SXSW (someone has to stay here and look after the kids and write a thesis), so… I’m running a Where’s Waldo-style competition on my husband for attendees of SXSW. Let’s call it my little contribution to citizen journalism.

Ooh, a competition from a mom blogger? (Who’d have thought, right?) But how do I WIN?

This is Jed. Print it out. Keep it handy. (Note the wedding ring.) Some call it stalking, I call it love.

All you have to do is find my husband, Jed (gorgeous guy – see the pic – with accent). Take pictures of him, and post them on whatever social network you use (Brightkite, Twitpic, Flickr, whatever). Tag them ‘Jed’. You can then tweet me the link (@Mediamum), or post them in the comments for this post. Each entry will get a number, and I’ll draw a winner using the Random Generator tool. The winner will get a $25 gift card from the place of their choice. The more pics you take, the more opportunities you have to win.

I love my husband. If I squint a bit, he looks like Mark Harmon, and that’s something too good to lose.  I’m sure you understand.

Thanks, and I hope you rock the world at SXSW. (Don’t make me come down there.)

*Jed has given his blessing for this competition to happen. He thinks it’s funny. That will be the case unless everyone there starts taking his picture. Then I’ll be the one laughing.

**Do not chew me out for being a loser wife. I love mah man and no biaitch is gettin’ in mah way (hair flick). That said, he has my blessing to drink and talk and stuff. Just as long as his hands are in plain view at all times.

Related posts:

1. How to avoid people using location-based social media
2. The future of higher education – crowdsourcing reappointments
3. More than deputies: A definition of journalism for the 21st Century

It has been my absolute privilege to be on the Executive Committee of the CU New Venture Challenge (CUNVC) for 2010.

The CUNVC is focused on providing entrepreneurial support, mentoring and cross-campus collaboration for startups that include students and faculty, across the University of Colorado.

The goal is to provide some real support and eliminate some of the smoke and mirrors involved in really giving a entrepreneurialism a go, no matter what field of study you are involved in. As a result, over 20 teams submitted final business plans this year, for companies ranging from high-tech startups through to outdoor recreation and music.

After months of fantastic workshops and crash courses, the semi-finalists are getting ready to compete on Thursday, and on Friday we are having a fantastic afternoon featuring our four top teams, who will be competing for the prize money.

The four finalists will be pitching to a panel consisting of venture capitalists, angel investors and serial entrepreneurs. The teams will be trying to win the prizemoney of:

First place, $6000

Second place, $3000

Third place, $2000

There will also be a special prize of $200 for the company deemed by the judges as their choice. The competition is going to be tough, and these teams are going to be well worth seeing. The best news is that the finals are open to the public. Join me on Friday 12 March, at 2pm at the ATLAS Building at CU (room 100) to see these finalists impress the judges.

Come along, and let them know how appreciated and important innovation and entrepreneurialism are.

Related posts:

1. The chick flick of startup founders
2. The Startup Kid
3. How to create a stir – write about women in startups

There were so many amazing aspects to the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston, Texas this last weekend that it’s hard to really pinpoint the essence of just one takeaway. There is a great range of posts coming together about the event and you can sort of lose your entire day surf them all through this great link list by Misty Khan. But read this first, right? Come back to the top after you’re done. It will still be here. Promise.

The tagline of the conference was “What you’re doing matters,” and the theme was “Definining a movement.” At one stage of the conference Laura Mayes (@lmayes) said they weren’t entirely sure what that definition was, but it would come together.

Well, it totally did.

The words of my new buddy (one of my new buddies. I now have heaps and heaps of them. And they’re all amazing!) @Mir on my panel, “Got Strategy,” also with the amazing Susan Getgood and Isabel Kallman of Alpha Mom really resonated with me as a definition of the mommyblogging movement. Mir said that recognising she was a ninja shopper, and that she could celebrate that through her blog, was a big deal for her.

And I went “aha!” And then I went NINJA! Oh my gosh. NINJA!

As mums, we wear so many different hats – and we secretly reckon we are pretty crappy at most of them. Sometimes we share that secret suspicion with the world. And we roll around in it. We’re ready to see our faults and failures instead of embracing our brilliance and abilities. Sometimes that’s kind of fun. Most of the time though, it leaves us feeling a little less than amazing.

The Mom 2.0 Summit gave us all the invitation to embrace our inner mummy ninja. When Mir talked about realising how awesome she was at getting a bargain, and deciding to share that “shopping ninja” quality with the rest of the world through her blog, it was a way of standing up and saying “I’m really great at this, and readers of my blog will love hearing about how they can leverage my ninja quality.” And they bloody well do. I sat there, next to her on stage – and wrote it down. Really. I did. I was taking notes on the stage.

I wanted to kiss her. I reached out. And you know what, she would have totally let me if I had gone through with it. A big sloppy one. Right on the lips.

Why was being a ninja such a big deal for me? The only ninja’s I’ve run across before have been startup wankers who associate it with being awesome testosterone laden risk takers who take no prisoners. (They’re the ones that rant on about ramen noodles, and eat the expensive dishes at Hapa Sushi instead.) That’s okay if you’re five. And have a plastic samurai sword.

But the mummy ninja doesn’t pretend.

At the Juiceboxjungle Ad Network gathering, with Lauren from Vizit and Andrea of Savvysassymoms..

We don’t have the testosterone “I’m an awesome wanker” attitude. Instead, we mums are incredible at getting stuff done that shouldn’t be able to be done given the time and resources on our hands. We make it all just work. You know that loaves and fishes thing? That’s our daily reality. We pitch companies, wear an apron (even if only in the bedroom, @mublogger) and get dinner (or order it). We wash, get stains out (or leave them in and casually cover them with a loosely knotted cardi), battle tooth decay in the kids and keep them .. ahem…regular. We’re mums. And we make it all happen. And sometimes we’re just freaking dangerous. (You know, in that daring Fear Factor good way type of danger.)

I’m a startup founder mum ninja. I do frugal family stuff because I have to – and I’m really good at it. (I loved getting the coupons that came with our Mom 2.0 Summit welcome bag.) I can create a kick-ass strategic plan for any type of business – or show you how to do it so it makes sense. I am also a mummyblogging media ninja. I believe the future of media lies in the hands of all of us. And I’m using that ninja-esque power to energise, shake up and invigorate the potential content producer in everyone. And really annoy a few old-school media people too. (That’s actually a bonus.)

I’m so excited to have met so many other mommybloggin’ ninjas at the Mom 2.0 Summit, as well as the representatives of some great PR companies (many of whom are also mom ninjas – booyah!). It was simply empowering in all the best ways. If you can, you should totally come and join me at Mom 2.0 next year in New Orleans.

If you’re a ninja mumblogger, with an Active Voice blog, then you can change the world. That’s a definition of a movement I’m proud to be a part of. Thanks to all the wonderful bloggers I met – you are all ninjas. The world is a better place because you blog. (I was tempted to write something like “the blog is mightier than the ninja sword” but that would have made you groan, so I didn’t.)

Related posts:

1. Join me at the 2010 Mom 2.0 Summit
2. NestleFamily, breastfeeding and social media
3. My thesis, mom bloggers and understanding brand relationships

Are you still reaching for the same goals you were three years ago? Do you feel like a hamster in a wheel?

Everything you do needs a strategy – some of these strategies are comparatively easy, like going to work clean, neat and tidy. The key is to have a routine, and introduce the necessary tactics into that routine to make the objective achievable (like setting your alarm clock to get up on time, having the necessary implements like a toothbrush and so on).

Then, you track yourself through your routine to make sure the milestones are accomplished. For example, if you are due to leave by 7.30am and are not showered at 7.15am, you know you’re risking not meeting your objective. It doesn’t need to be 7.30am before you identify there’s a problem.

Setting real objectives

The first step in developing your strategy for anything is to set objectives that are more defined than dreams. Thinking of your objectives in the terms that “I wish I was getting more publicity” or “I really am aiming for more people to buy things from my store” is not good enough. They’re a starting point from which you can develop real objectives. If you leave objectives in that type of framework, I’d say you’re not really ready to achieve them. That’s why so many New Years Resolutions bite the dust. And it applies to business too.

Let’s take “I really am aiming for more people to buy things from my store” as an example.

While we leave that sentence as it is, there is no threat. We can’t fail. We haven’t put in place any SMART qualifications on what we’re wishing for, so it’s all a dream. The SMART acronym stands for qualifications that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and with a Timeframe. Let’s look at the sentence again and apply the SMART principles.

“I really am aiming for more people to buy things from my store.”

It’s not Specific enough. Exactly how many more people? What things do you want to sell more of?

It’s not Measurable. How many more things do you want to sell exactly?

It’s Achievable?  With the sentence the way it is, all you’d need is two more people to buy one more thing from the store and you’ve achieved it… but is that really what you’re looking for? It’s also really silly to say you want to sell 10,000 items if you’re only selling 2 at the moment. Be specific – have real numbers that you believe you can achieve.

Is it Realistic? This is different to Achievable. Sure, you might be able to reach a goal of selling 1000 more items in your store if you go to 4 conferences this year, and work every single day of the week for a 14-hour day. It’s achievable. But is that realistic? Do you really want to do that? Will your family think that’s okay? Be realistic.

Make a Timeframe. Part of knowing what you want is knowing when you want it by. Timing allows you to both monitor how well you’re going to get to your goal, as well as define when you’re going to achieve it. When you set deadlines, you need to treat them seriously otherwise you might as well never have set them at all.

In most cases, it’s not easy to go through this process. After doing all this, you could also end up with multiple objectives instead of the one flimsy one you began with. That’s fine, because you’re recognising that there are numerous things you are really wanting, not just one.

You could end up with a sentence that says, “I want to sell 200 floral aprons from my store by 30 June, 2010″ as well as one that says “I want to have 30 new customers buying aprons from my store by 30 June, 2010.” Both of these would have different ways of achieving the objective, but they complement each other.

And the probability of you achieving these objectives is infinitely more likely than the flimsy pipe dream you began with. It will reduce your stress (because you have something definite to aim for), and get you ready for the even bigger objectives you’re on your way to next.

No related posts.

Moving to Denver meant we moved to the heart of Speed Stacking. We’d tried it out back in Australia, because you know, it’s freaky to watch so as soon as we saw the ad on tv we just had to give it a go.

The sport hasn’t taken off in Australia like it has in other some places. But Denver is where it originated, and so here we are, equipped with cups, timers and mats.

This sport is great for kids to build their fine motor skills, concentration and team work. I love the flexibility of it all, and the way kids can move at their own pace, and challenge themselves to beat their own times. It’s competitive without needing to beat other people (although you can of course do that). The equipment (some cups) is easily transportable, and fairly inexpensive to buy if you just want the basic set (around $15). I treated myself to a set of little thimble-like cups at the World event last year ($8).

I’m not telling you my times. It’s embarrassing. Instead, here are the current world records, including different countries. I’ll end with a video of the kids at the World Sport Stacking Championships last year. We have the cups out of the toybox now, and are in training for this year, which will be held at the Denver coliseum from April 10-11. There’s an event for adults too, especially as doubles! Anyone want to join me? I promise you can use the standard size cups…

Related posts:

1. World Championships Speed Stacking
2. Just us Talking: When should kids get to decide for themselves?
3. Skiing on a budget with kids in Colorado

The Islam and the Media conference, held by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado at Boulder (January 7-10) was a huge success in bringing together leaders in thought and practise on religion and media. But you wouldn’t know it if you’d been watching mainstream media.
At a time in our history that international front pages and lead stories are obsessively dealing with some aspect of Islam, it’s interesting that of all the mainstream media reporters on religion who were invited to attend the conference or interview any of the delegates decided it was not enough of a priority. Surprising when the topic is hot, and when local media simply had to come to campus on any one of three days (including the weekend) to talk with any of the world leading scholars (including Elizabeth Poole)  on Islam and its representation in popular and digital media.
If I were a reporter with a beat, I’d not only be sure to be on top of the content, but the least I’d be doing is reporting on key influencers in my area.
Perhaps if there had been some events at the conference that reinforced the moral panics international media have aligned with Islam, we would have seen a greater presence of professional reporters – but they would have been reporting after the fact, by their own choice.
Should religion reporters have reported on this conference? Attended it to find out how their media is conveying ideas and representations of Islam?

Image courtesy Library of Congress

Unveiling the panic of Islamaphobia? Or does it serve traditional media to maintain and pander to the ignorance of the people who pay for what might or might not be newsworthy?

Related posts:

1. Disrupting the barriers of media in the 21st Century
2. More than deputies: A definition of journalism for the 21st Century
3. Teaching New Media Literacy

I’m very excited to be attending the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston, Texas from February 18-20. The schedule of events is chock full of sessions that I want to learn from.

I think this conference is one which really does enlighten all parties – marketers and ‘moms’ –  on how the other operates. I regularly hear complaints from both sides – it seems there are as  many different expectations as there are companies and bloggers. I’m looking forward to  seeing both sides have an opportunity to describe their experiences, and make  recommendations that lead to even better relationships.

I’m even more excited to have been invited to share my insights as part of the panel for the f  first professional session of the conference. In the session we’ll be discussing setting a strategic  path for your blog through creating a marketing plan and SMART objectives that are both trackable and achievable. I’ve been thinking for about a month now on exactly the best way for me to support the session with additional materials – and I’m considering doing an e-workbook for attendees to use in creating their own marketing plans.

I’m about to plan all my travel arrangements and start thinking about what I’d like to achieve from this conference. I have had a number of women tell me that Mom 2.0 was the best conference they’d attended last year. I firmly believe that with the schedule and talented women I’m lucky to be surrounded by leading these sessions, and the amazing array of women and companies who will be attending, 2010 will be just as successful.

I’m looking forward to getting along and meeting all the exciting, inspiring women who will be there. Will I get to meet you?

Related posts:

1. Mom 2.0 Summit: You’re a ninja
2. 2010, the year of the Active Voice Blog
3. NestleFamily, breastfeeding and social media

This week I was happily invited to join some other Colorado-based bloggers for a few adult snacks, refreshments and the opportunity to build a basket of goodies to take home. It was a great evening, put on by Glade’s parent company, S. C. Johnson’s wonderful PR team from Edelman in Chicago, to promote their Sense & Spray product.

This event demonstrated Edelman actively identifies good people for brands to work with, and can put together an event that suits all parties. Edelman has fantastic staff, for a start. The company also teamed with social media expert, Ann-Marie Nichols, to ensure they are hitting the right targets.

If you ask me, Ann-Marie and Edelman are smart operators. After meeting/catching up with them on the evening, my belief is that the bloggers were hand-picked to represent ethical, good quality content providers who actively engage with their readers. Women who are authentic. At a time when companies are seeking out mommybloggers more than ever, there are now bloggers who do nothing more than run around the USA for the opening of every envelope. Smart companies, like Glade and Edelman, see beyond what I’ll call “the usual suspects.” (Yes, I’m biased. I was invited.)

Edelman’s staff were well equipped with plenty of information for us to take home in the best format – a USB drive. The activity of putting together our basket of goodies allowed us to chat about the product informally, and we also had fun coming up with possible names for a new Glade scent. (Yes, someone said Bacon. I said Aussie Bush. Ambiguity FTW.) I was so lucky to have Jen Goode so kindly say yes to drawing by freehand (magic marker) one of her lovely penguins on my mug.

It has pride of place on my desk and reminds me how special women entrepreneurs like her are. I have always loved Jen’s designs and you can check the penguin ones out on her blog, and buy a whole range of stuff featuring them. She also does other designs too. She’s an amazingly talented woman in so many areas. I feel so lucky to have actually met her too now.

The event was a great success for Glade. The bloggers discussed myriad issues beyond and including the product, and we all came away feeling positive – and that associated value rubs off. Edelman gets it.

But the goal kick for me was the extra mile Edelman went for me. Here’s the thing:

We were all offered a basket to give away on our blog. Awesome. However, I asked if it would be okay for me to give it away to anyone, anywhere – given some of my readership is in Australia. Glade is a global brand, but I completely said I understand if that’s not okay. I just needed to be clear on my blog. On the spot, the Edelman ladies said “Absolutely, we will make it work. We will send the basket to anyone who wins.” So I’m stoked. I love that foresight and appreciation of my needs.

And I’m excited to give away this lovely basket of goodies to you, even if you’re an AUSSIE!

What you'll win! (The mug will be a fresh one that you can draw on. Great if you're like Jen Goode!)

The basket contains a snuggly IKEA blanket/picnic rug, Swiss Miss mix with mini marshmallows, eye cover, ceramic mug and some permanent markers to decorate it with, and the wonderful new Glade Sense & Spray plus a refill that we have had now in our bathroom for a few days. It smells great and with the refills costing under $4 each (USD), and them lasting about a month each, even graduate students and startups can afford it (ahem).

HOW TO WIN!

To enter is easy – Leave a comment below with your recommendation for a new scent for Glade, focused on Australia. It can be funny or serious. The winner will be picked by Harry and Charlie on Wednesday and I’ll contact you via Twitter/email (make sure you leave contact details). I’ll also announce the winner on the blog. Go for it!

Related posts:

1. NestleFamily, breastfeeding and social media
2. The three steps to being influential in social media
3. Should some brands stay out of social media?

I have a great amount of data from the recent NestleFamily twitterstorm. Luckily, I was able to see the storm coming. As a few of the attendees began tweeting about meeting up a few days prior to the start of #NestleFamily, I could see that there was going to be some fallout. My interest had been piqued a few months earlier with the Nestle “What’s for Dinner” junket that received some backlash (which I was a part of, albeit briefly).

Even though I was prepared for it, I doubt anyone saw the enormity and longevity of the community’s outrage. The tail of it is still going. This was a key happening on Twitter, and it had far more impact than the Motrin Moms speedbump. I would argue that Twitter’s community has morphed again as a result. Focus on the types of junkets mommy/daddybloggers who call themselves “PR friendly” accept, and what it says about who they are doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There were real responses from the community. Many negative. This great post by cynematic discusses this responsibility further.

My research

I manually copied thousands of tweets using the #NestleFamily hashtag. I also created an online survey that people were invited to complete during the twitterstorm. I’m very excited to have that data. The 66 completed responses are authentic, grabbed at the time it was all happening, and the qualitative survey responses are about as true to real emotion as you can get – people were telling me what they were doing at the same time as doing it. That’s not easy to get when questioning people about their about online activity. When I write it up it will be a chapter in my thesis, and probably a paper/conference presentation as well. I’m going to write up a short version of the results and post it here on my blog soon.

The most positive outcome has been the amazing work done by Annie, aka @PhDinParenting, who took the opportunity to ask some very pointed questions of Nestle. Nestle has been responding to her questions, so good on them. And Annie has posted their responses in the best, most transparent means possible. She then adds her own analysis and research, with links that are exhaustive, informed and inspiring. It is her work that represents the future of real journalism. It’s why I say that the future of journalism is social.

My question to Nestle

I kept largely out of the limelight on this twitterstorm so as not to taint the data I was collecting. I did, however, want to find out Nestle’s views on the dismal rate of breastfeeding in the USA. Nestle promotes its substitute milk in the USA, and with the USA’s very low rate of exclusive infant breastfeeding at 6 months of age, I wanted to find out what they thought about it all. I submitted the question as follows:

As a premier substitute baby milk manufacturer and marketer in the USA, I’d like to know what your opinion is about the fact that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the USA lies at just 12%, when the WHO says it recommends 100% exclusivity for the first six months.

Your Nestle site states that WHO is the “gold standard” so I’m assuming you would agree this statistic is troubling.

Why do you believe this statistic exists? Do you think it can change? And if so, how?

It took a few weeks (I think Nestle lost my question, and then located it when I enquired again about their response), but their response is here:

Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for the delay in our response and we appreciate your patience.

At Nestlé Nutrition we support the positions of the American Academy of Pediatrics and WHO that exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of age is best. The most recent statistics from the 2008 CDC Breastfeeding Report Card (2006 data) show that the national average from exclusive breastfeeding is around 13.6%, which is below the Health (sic) People 2010 goal of 17%.

According to the CDC Infant Feeding Practices Study (IFPS) II (http://www.cdc.gov/ifps/ , there are many reasons why mothers might stop breastfeeding, ranging from difficulty with sucking and latching to worries about producing enough milk. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/122/Supplement_2/S69#T2

We believe that optimal infant health is truly the goal and we advocate for more infant feeding support and education for mothers, regardless of whether they breastfeed, formula feed or both.

We are encouraged by the improvements reported in breastfeeding initiation and duration and will continue our efforts to educate and encourage mothers to give their babies a healthy start. That includes providing education and resources for her, and if she cannot or chooses not to breastfeed, or chooses to supplement her breastmilk, we provide high quality, iron-fortified infant formula-the only safe and healthy alternative to breastmilk.

Robyn Wimberly RD,LD.
Nestle Nutrition Contact Center

So there you go. I have my own thoughts on this response. The final paragraph, to me, is just disgraceful – it’s written very poorly. It seems to be saying that Nestle’s substitute formula is the only “safe and healthy alternative to breastmilk.” I know that those words “safe and healthy” are definitely not something I agree with. But I’m a breastfeeding advocate, ex-journalist and PR queen, and am used to spin. I have done the research. I know what I know and have made up my own mind. The US Government has initiated the Healthy People plan, but where breastfeeding rates are concerned it is failing – and it doesn’t reflect the WHO “gold standard” referred to on Nestle’s own site. There are holes all over this response. The last paragraph made me wince. I think Annie does a brilliant job of dissecting these responses and calling out the holes. I’m not going to do that here. I recommend you read all of Annie’s work, and if interested in more, you can read my short research blog piece on Breastfeeding in America, see the Ignite presentation, or email me for the full papers to see how the numbers stack up. And then make up your own mind.

So what does all this mean?

Now, I know that this storm has ended up being thrown in the “too hard” basket by many people on both sides of the fence, as well as those who sit on top of that same fence. Statistics are being used pragmatically. Manipulation of data is rife. There’s aggravation, and it becomes personal for many who feel attacked by even discussing it. For many, it sucked the ‘fun’ out of Twitter.

But the fact is, this milestone proved the resilience of the microblogging community. It’s opened a conversation that will bind the community even more solidly. It’s given us a view of people that we didn’t know before. People to both connect with, disconnect from, and understand better, even if they disagree with us. If Twitter were really nothing more than messages about eating candy and frozen dinners, then this storm wouldn’t exist. People have taken it upon themselves to get better educated about something they might not have known about before. They were provided links and questions. They had the opportunity to follow up, and go deeper into the issues than they have ever been led by mainstream media, and Nestle ended up without the buffer of media to spin their messages to.

Key Learnings

For the community: Mainstream media is no longer an excuse for not knowing about stuff. The depth of information you have is up to you and your attention span. That’s a hard responsibility to own. In Nestle’s case, I congratulate anyone (including some attendees) who tried to find out more information or followed it up, no matter where you ultimately sit on the ‘issues’. I challenge those who simply sought an easy path and blindly continued tweeting Nestle-friendly inane statements on Twitter, without addressing any of the twitterstorm. It won’t, in the longer term, help your credibility in the community. The really influential people in this equation can be easily identified. And that’s awesome.

For companies: You don’t get to own your messages any more. Social media represents a revolution, not an evolution. It’s another tool in your promotional strategy, but you have to be ready for the real conversation. The one where your comments get called on. The one you don’t direct. And you will never have the last word unless the community deems it to be okay.

Related posts:

1. The three steps to being influential in social media
2. Should some brands stay out of social media?
3. Breastfeeding in America

PT Barnum is recognised as being one of the heavyweight players in the history of advertising. He was also the father of personal branding. While you may not agree with his tactics, he has inspired masses of advertising practice and his stamp remains.

Any time you see something promoted as “jumbo” size, that word comes from Barnum. The term “white elephant” is also his. The story goes that Barnum had found success with a circus that included elephants. A competitor, trying to outdo him, got hold of a rare white elephant for his circus. Barnum’s response was to whitewash one of his own elephants and advertise the life out of it, not only eliminating the “unusual attraction” the competitor had, but also reducing the reasale value on the rare elephant itself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2dTZMP_nSY]

Barnum’s the father of hype. He’s the guy that began the whole idea of the limited edition. The panic of missing out. He said “Once in a lifetime opportunity.” “Be the first to see…” and “Last time ever!” Think of all those music artists doing their ‘final’ tours. They leverage that messaging. It creates a sense of urgency.

Some of the more ugly aspects of Barnum’s advertising involved the sideshows and unusual freak shows he liked to use with his circus. He’d attract people to see the bearded ladies, the midget called Tom Thumb, and the dog-faced boy, to name a few. He sought to profit from the abnormalities of others. He saw that people would pay to see it, and he made the most of that opportunity.

Barnum is world-reknown, even today. He created The Greatest Show on Earth! And that name has stuck through all these years. Even in Australia we know of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Of course, these days it looks a little different to the Barnum circus of old. There are still elephants, but they’re not painted white and in fact the circus has its own Center for Elephant Conservation.

Happily, I was invited with my kids to experience the Barnum and Bailey, Ringling Bros. Circus here in Denver courtesy of Feld Family Entertainment. I really wanted to see what this world-famous circus was like. Having animals in a circus today is still controversial, so I chatted with some friends beforehand and was really very pleased when I believe about 80% of the circus acts were not animal related at all.

I remember being brought up with Disney stories and Little Golden Books where the elephant in the circus is unhappy. These elephants were lovely to see. And they smelled of animal wash. They smelled a lot. So did the tigers for that matter. I’d happily help wash an elephant, but you can sort someone else to do the tigers thanks.

The boys and I had a really great evening at the Circus. There was one reference during the show to the Big Top, but we were in the Denver Coliseum, so part of the magic of that is lost. I did expect sawdust and perhaps to be a little closer, but the acts were spread all around the “ring” so it meant we got a good view and for some things we were really close up. While Harry was sitting there hoping someone would fall (he’s 11 and he’s a boy), Charlie was just loving all the circus antics. They loved the dog tricks in particular – which reminded Charlie of our own dog training experiences – and the humour of the tigers and trainer had him in giggle fits.

It really was an evening out for the boys and I that we enjoyed thoroughly. Charlie was asking the next day if we could go again, he enjoyed it so much. A tip if you’re going to head down there, is to of course eat well before you go. Eating at Denver Coliseum means you get really crappy food for an incredibly expensive amount of money, and of course they don’t let you take in your own food. To save you some money, you know I’m a coupon queen, so thanks to Feld, to finish up the post I’m giving you a discount code so you can get in cheaper when you book your tickets through ticketmaster. The show runs until October 11. You can see all the details here at Ringling.com and scroll to the bottom here to see another video we took on the night, of the female human cannonballs!

Ringling Bros. Coupon Code Details

• The coupon code is MOM — four tickets for $44 Monday-Friday, and $4 off tickets for all weekend performances.
• The tickets can be purchased from ticketmaster and by entering the MOM code in the “MC promotion” box when purchasing tickets.
• Minimum purchase of 4 tickets required; additional tickets above 4 can be purchased at $11 each during the week and $4 off on weekends.
• Offer not valid on Circus Celebrity, Front Row, or VIP seating.
• Cannot be combined with other offers. Service Charges, facility & handling fees will apply .

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxhKdm9Zt8o]

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I am fortunate enough to have been invited to attend IMSI, the Invitational Masters Student Invitational, to be held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the weekend of October 16-18. Given Rutgers received over 100 applications, to be one of the 25 students invited to discuss their current research and proposed dissertation topic with Rutgers faculty, existing doctoral candidates, and other invitees is a privelege and real highlight of my academic career.

In my application I had to submit an existing paper to demonstrate my research. The paper I chose to submit was on identity work performed on twitter through the use of language and sentence structure. This paper looked at how people create and present an identity of themselves on Twitter, primarily through the use of @ replies, hashtags and retweets. While it’s a decent paper, for Rutgers I’d like to extend it to look at this identity work, and how the Twitter community sees its need to create an identity of concern in crisis and tragedy. This is where I’m headed.

Online communities and crisis

We’ve all seen media stories of tragic events, and how people are affected by them – and how they’ve gathered together online as a result. While sites exist to create online memorials, sometimes it crosses over and a personal fun page is morphed into a place for others to gather when they’ve passed on. On Twitter, I have personally witnessed multiple occasions where someone has ended up tweeting their own tragic events. The death of a wife. The death of a child. I wonder what would have happened if Twitter had been so commonplace during larger tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings.

I have watched the online community gather to provide concern and support to individuals directly affected by tragedy. It is this kind of resonance that led me to undertake a small content analysis on the tweets associated with the Australian bushfires last year. I wanted to find out who was tweeting about it? How were they involved? What were they saying and why?

The paper was a very small, very specific analysis in which I was surprised to discover that two thirds of people who twittered during the high point of the bushfire-related tweets were located nowhere near the tragedy. In fact, they were overseas. None of them knew people directly affected. And what were they saying?

Apart from retweeting basic information, the majority of people wanted to know how could they help?

Seeking triangulation? I’m not quite there yet…

Last week I attended the presentation of Leysia Palen’s to-date work in crisis informatics at CU. And the data appears to be reflected in her unit’s research (in particular, on the American-located Red River floods) as well. Exactly the same percentage – two thirds of people tweeting during a disaster are not directly involved.

So, is this real?

I hear a lot of people who doubt the friendships experienced in online communities. They say “how do you know they’re real?”

Now, of course they’re not doubting that the person tweeting is human (sometimes now, however, that presents an entirely different issue), but they are definitely doubting their authenticity. How do you know someone is really concerned about you if you’ve never met them face to face before? And it’s a really good question.

The Karen Walker factor

Karen Walker was a special character who found life, and resonance with many in the hit sitcom, Will and Grace.  While the show has had its day, there are many Walker moments that still hit the nail on the head.It is what is swimming in my head as I plan my paper for the Rutgers Invitational.

One of these is in an episode when Will and Grace are not talking (after a massive argument in which Will tells Grace to move out, which I swear was one of the strongest bits of acting on television I’ve seen). In chatting with Jack about how to get Will and Grace to talk again, she firstly says, “pretend to think, pretend to think.” She then follows it with “Pretend to care, pretend to care.” Of course Karen does care. She’s just conscious of the need to appear to care as well. Plus it’s funny.

So here I am:

* Are people who offer support in online communities ‘pretending to care’?

* Is the expressed concern a demonstration of identity work that gains them favour and positions them as caring individuals you’d want to have as a friend?

* How does the caring from the community affect the person experiencing tragedy?

Do you have any experience of this? Would you be willing to undergo an interview for my research? What do you believe is true?

My sincere thanks goes to the SJMC at CU, without the support of which I wouldn’t be able to conduct any of my research and also in particular to Dean Paul Voakes who saw fit to support my application with a letter of recommendation that I never saw, but am convinced was highly influential in my acceptance.

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Let’s confirm who professional journalists are: People (trained or not), paid to produce content under the mastheads of traditional news outlets.

Let’s confirm what they’re supposed to do: This is a tricky one. No matter how many times I have asked, and how many people, across Australia, the USA and the UK, nobody can give me a core definition of journalism. Maybe it’s a secret. A magician’s code. Part of the smoke and mirrors used to convince everyone they’re worth being paid for over anyone without a mogul. Professional journalists promote their work as a noble art, one that demands a rigor most can not attain. With prompting, a professional journalist will usually agree you need training, you need balance, fairness, fact collection and analysis.
In a conversation I had on Twitter with people in Australia following the Twitter’s Impact on Media and Journalism mini-conference (actually a 2-hour seminar of sorts), Brad Howarth, a professional journalist who was attending says journalism will not be “harmed or replaced by Twitter.” Another Australian, Renai Lemay, followed his presentation at the same conference with a post for ZDNet where he likens his role as a professional journalist to a knight, protecting the honour of a “great lady of noble birth” and describes Twitter as a “playground for pleasure of journalists.” Somewhere to reconnect with the audience. While Renai seeks to support Twitter’s role, he demonstrates a very Lipmann-esque view – it’s still them and us, and being able to play amongst the great unwashed is a novel way of “cutting the fat out of journalism.”

Bringing it to the US, last night, on Lou Dobbs’ show on CNN, the Face Off segment featured a rather strange topical area of ‘Social Networks & Journalism: Is traditional media obsolete?’, Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University held the same line as Renai. He described citizen journalists as “acting like deputies … it’s just like we used to use eyewitnesses.” In what was supposedly a debate (which Dobbs pointedly remarked at the start he hoped would be won by Professor Thompson), Micah Sifryn, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum began well by saying “anyone can commit and act of journalism.” However he followed that up by agreeing with Lou Dobbs that it “takes more than just holding up your mobile phone and filming stuff and then putting it online to be a journalist.”

Oh really?

My issue is that all of this is either a. focused on the media used for journalism rather than what journalism actually is, or  b. garbled propaganda nonsense.

Let me be clear. For those who don’t know me, I was a traditional, paid journalist for 15 years. I then moved to Public Relations, and then into teaching journalism, marketing, PR, event management and advertising at college. Happily, I’m back in traditional professional journalism myself, as the Boulder Startup Examiner for Examiner.com. (I make enough for a cup of coffee a week). I’m even currently undertaking graduate research in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at CU in Boulder (on social media communities), and I TA on the Intro to Journalism and Intro to Advertising classes. I’m a co-founder of a startup which will enable people to create more content and make better connections online. I’m pretty well engaged on all fronts.

And my question is thus: If traditional, professional journalists (those I’ve identified above) want to say what they do is different to what is able to be done by anyone else, I believe they have to say what makes it so, in order to be understood. So let me help you professionals out. The book, Elements of Journalism, authored by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel, provides 10 elements of journalism. They are:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
3. Its essence is discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting, and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.
10. The rights and responsibilities of citizens to be media literate.

But I’m questioning these traditional elements. While the 10th Element only appeared in this text in 2007 as a direct response to the power of Web 1.0, I believe it’s time to entirely redefine the concept of journalism. To strip it back and challenge the notion of what it is – a notion that has root in the medium, not the craft. All of the above elements of journalism reflect a somewhat Lipmann-esque attitude. But at last in the 21st Century, John Dewey really gets a turn. At journalism’s very core is one thing – communication. So I’ve developed a new definition of what journalism is:

Journalism is communication through any means that enables two things – a. the transmission of factual information about all factors that make up society, and b. validation, authentication and discussion of opinions, beliefs and commentary.

In the past, given the limited and expensive range of tools open to people, journalists were defined as a separate group of people. Training in the media they worked in, and how best to ‘do’ journalism to communicate messages were the focus. But those constraints have left us. The best journalism does not rely on the old elements – nor the old media. It doesn’t rely on training, or a paypacket.

Will journalism still exist when the moguls move onto more profitable ventures? Yes. Is it noble and necessary for democracy? Yes. Does it need defending? No (from what?). Is it the realm of the few? No, not any more. It’s not Twitter that is changing it. It’s Web 2.0. All social media. It’s going to be even greater when even more people are creating the content. That’s democracy.

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What a great night we all had at Ignite Boulder! The presenters were all wonderful, well prepared and community vibe was enormous. The ATLAS theatre was packed – you can definitely see why these were some of the hottest tickets in town leading up to the event. This community is incredible. I’m so grateful to have been welcomed into it.

It’s so kind of Glenn Letham to have filmed it all from the audience, and posted presentations on YouTube for everyone to see. (The official ones are going to be available on www.igniteboulder.com in the near future.) Here’s mine, courtesy of Glenn. By the way a sincere thanks to everyone who make it happen, and to the massive support and great feedback I’ve gotten. It was spectacular.

Ignite Boulder 3 – Obsession with breasts and breast feeding

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I’m really excited to be presenting this coming Wednesday evening at the third Ignite Boulder, being held at the ATLAS building at CU. Tickets to the event sold out in just 7 hours. (When I say ‘sold out’ I mean they were taken… the tickets are actually free.) That’s scary fast.

Ignite is a fantastic event in which speakers have just 5 minutes and 20 slides to present their topic. There’s no restrictions on topic and in fact this time around much of the topic selection was crowd-voted prior to selection. There are no sales pitches allowed and the presenters’ slides are on auto pilot, so you have to keep up because once the ignition is pressed, there are no delays or going back!

In a town like Boulder which is so focused on tech and business, it’s great to have an event which allows the community to present on stuff just for fun. Ignite lets you meet lots of other people, possibly learn something and laugh a heap.

If you’re not in Boulder or missed out on a ticket, you can see the videos of all the presentations a day or so after the event. It’s also going to be live through KBFR Pirate Radio here in Boulder.

List of presentations:

The History of the Mustache – Tim Poindexter
How to properly prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. -Ace Harmon
10 Design Predictions for 1909… or so I reckon. – Brandon White
How to Sing Your Way out of Danger -Ef Rodriguez
In the face of a bad economy, we techie folk are resourceful – Ingrid Alongi
Breasts and media’s obsession with them. – Joanne White
Everything I Learned About Marine Mammals I Learned While Cutting Them Up. – Bruce Wyman
The world is burning but I still have my yogurt – Jen Mayer
New Music Biz Model: What Would a Crack Dealer Do? – Grant Blakeman and Reid Phillips
How to use Twitter for marketing and PR – Brian Shaler
How to Make A Rap Song -Brandon Whalen
How to piss off people and lose friends in Boulder – Tara Anderson
Awkward Rules – rules for awkward situations – Vikas Reddy
A needle in a stack of needles or getting people to notice you – Matt Galligan

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What is the difference between citizen journalism and traditional media?

That’s the question BlogWorld & New Media Expo, being held in Las Vegas from Sept 19 to 21, 2008, seems to not know the answer to.

Billed as the world’s largest blogging and new media conference, BlogWorld is holding a one-day workshop for citizen journalists.

Great!

While I don’t want to offend anyone with my own opinions on this, I felt pretty offended by what followed. Looking through the program overview, it appears that to be taken seriously as a citizen journalist, you need to be trained by traditional journalists. After all, as the site says, “Traditional media has tried to learn from the blogs…  Now it’s time for the bloggers and other new media journalists to mine the history, tradition and most importantly, the knowledge base of traditional journalists.”

Simply part with $350 and you too will be able to be trained by four out of five people who don’t actually practice citizen journalism… or that even have blogs. In fact, upon looking through their bio’s which are linked in the speaker profiles, only one of them (the same one) actually has any relationship with Web 2.0 at all.

And at the end, you’ll get a certificate which you can have on paper, or for those ‘new media’ types, in a web badge format! What a bargain!

I’m sure that Norg and allvoices will be searching out for cit j’s with accreditation offered by BlogWorld. Nope. Maybe it will make me feel more ‘professional’ or make me more ‘influential’ or add to my branding?

I really don’t think so.

Getting trained by old media journalists and academics who work in a model which is failing to profit doesn’t reflect the demands of journalism of the 21^st century. If I had $350 to spend, it wouldn’t be here. But I’m sure many will.

Monetizing citizen journalism… at last someone’s worked out how to do it. Thanks BlogWorld!

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Today I had the good fortune of watching a few tiny pieces of BlogHer ’08 in its final formal day (there is an unconference over the next 24 hours, which no doubt I’d be more interested in). Now, I have just come from two very important Australian conferences. Firstly, PubCamp which was presented in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, by itechne (which I have connections to, and which I presented at) and then also the Future of Media Summit organised by Ross Dawson, which was a combined conference simulcast between San Francisco USA and Sydney, Australia.

Both of those conferences talked (heatedly at times) about the responsibility and accountability of media and journalists as they move online.

And then I hit BlogHer. As a Marketing and Events teacher at College level, and as someone who has admittedly only experienced a small portion of the event itself, I feel BlogHer 08 is making dollars by capitalising on the marketing potential of the target audience – both the target of the attendee and of the advertisers seeking that attendee’s ear.

The ‘Mommy Bloggers’ are ka-ching for so many marketers. This audience – the mums (yes, I say ‘mums’ rather than ‘moms’ because I’m an Aussie) - is one that is hard to convince through regular advertising channels. The best way of convincing mums to try their products is through word of mouth. I don’t need my academic credentials to tell me this, I know it. I’ve had four little darlings and I know the best recommendation on products for my child has come from other mums I trust.

And the mums that are trusted in the 21st Century are the Mummy Bloggers. Until now, mums have had very little interaction, relatively speaking, with other mums. Playgroup, pre-school, kindy etc were the places these women connected. But now there’s the internet. And it’s connecting all mums so they’re a power-buying force.

Guess what? The marketers know it, and are chucking free ‘schwag’ at the blogging Mummies in an attempt to inform and persuade them to use, review and talk about their products. They’d be stupid not to.

But guess what else? Mums are not stupid. They/we did not expel our brains at the same time as delivering our children. You want to give us free stuff? Great. We’ll take it. Thanks very much. If marketers think that giving stuff to a mum automatically means they’ll write something good about it on their blog, then they are the stupid ones.

Journalists in Australia have a code of ethics which compels them to produce content that meets a particular standard. It is supposed to guarantee accountability and responsibility. 

Bloggers, including mums, probably don’t need a code of ethics. Why? Because everything they write has their own personal name behind it – not some third person brand owned by a mogul. Therefore everything a mummy blogger writes has an underlying guarantee of accountability and responsibility. They are their own brands. Their reputations live and die by their own hand. If your toy sucks, then it sucks.

So you want to give Mummy Bloggers free stuff? Go ahead. From the sounds of the attendees at BlogHer 08 they got heaps and heaps of what they are calling ‘schwag’, ranging from a phone through to books, toys, massages… but if you make the mistake of thinking it will influence them to write something untrue, you’re a crap marketer. More fool you.

Oh, and I’ll be at Blog Her 09. And I’ll be taking a second suitcase that’s empty, just in case.

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