The Political Power of Social Media

Ok, I stole this great title from an article Clay Shirky wrote in Foreign Policy that I thought was both insightful and innovative - he took a fresh look at what social media's role is in politics and made some recommendations to governments, particularly the U.S. government, on how it can use social media to foster democratic change and transition.

This article was written in 2010 - but it came in handy just in time for the unprecedented Arab Spring revolutions spreading across the Middle East in the early part of 2011. Also lucky timing for me, since I am in the process of writing my masters thesis on social media's role in this revolution. Did you hear that an Egyptian man named his newborn daughter "Facebook" in deference to the role Facebook played in helping to organize the revolutions that ousted Hosni Mubarak?

While we know that social media had SOMETHING to do with these revolutions - everybody is talking about it, including the media - we don't actually have any evidence to prove its impact. This is the challenge I am encountering as I write my thesis. Nobody has yet qualitatively or quantitatively looked at the impact of social media on political events, on civic action, or political change. There is scant research on the power and in the influence of the Internet as a new form of communication, and other research available on the similarities between traditional media and new media in terms of their agenda-setting effect and their power to shape public perception and opinion, but nothing on how, or most importantly WHY social media has the power to influence politics. Is it because humans understand that information on social media is peer to peer and not filitered by gatekeepers or other forms of state, government or corporate controls as social media is? Is it because the Internet and digital world has increased our consumption of information and social media provides a way to aggregate a lot of information quickly, and tailored to one's needs?

All very interesting and the current analysis and research are just the tip of the iceberg....

Online Journalism: Foreign Policy Magazine and Syria

I've been involved in somewhat of a blog war that is taking place on FP Passport - a blog by the editors of Foreign Policy magazine. One of their editors, Blake Hounshell, recently posted two blog entries about Syria that were rather unsubstantiated. Frankly, I was really surprised to see this type of "journalism" on such a prestigious magazine's blog site.

The first article, "The Dumbest Country in the Middle East," was really quite infuriating. Here's what I posted in response to the article's headline:

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A "Dumb" Decision

As a Syrian American who is an avid reader of FP, and who also works at a prestigious Washington, DC think tank, I am bewildered at the title and unsubstantiated nature of your blog post. Not only is your headline unacceptable by any journalistic standards, it's simply untrue. You may argue that because this is a blog, you are entitled to your opinion in both title and content. However, because you carry a prestigious name known for its journalistic excellence, you also carry the responsibility to convey accurate information to your readers, even in a blog.

***

The word "dumb" was removed from my vocabulary at a young age. It carries demeaning connotations. Besides the fact that it's simply untrue, I don't think it should be acceptable in any type of responsible reporting. And that's not to say that it's a pretty childish way to describe a country that is at a crucial diplomatic point with the United States; the U.S. is sending its first ambassador back to Syria after a five year.

A day later, Mr Hounshell posted the article, "Is Syria smart?," in response to another commentator's post. Clever title (ha!), but flawed argument. In reviewing Syria's "poor" economic growth and its refusal to "join the West's camp," I pointed out to Hounshell that he conveniently forgot to factor in the strain of 1 million+ Iraqi refugees on Syria's economy:

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What about the refugees?

Let's also not forget the 1 million+ Iraqi refugees that Syria is so graciously housing from the mess the U.S. left in Iraq. The unbelievable amount of strain this has placed on the already fragile Syrian economy is often overlooked when "reporting" the factors that contribute to Syria's economy. A 2010 report from the International Rescue Committee (http://www.theirc.org/special-reports/iraqi-refugees) says "The U.S. has spent approximately $650 billion for military operations in Iraq and a disproportionate $29 billion for diplomacy and aid. More resources must be allocated to help the displaced in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and other host countries." How many Iraqi refugees has the United States admitted?

So rather than acknowledge the impossible strain that Syria is bearing on its economy, the U.S. has decided to continue to impose economic sanctions and provide disproportionate amounts of aid to a mess that Syria wasn't involved in to begin with. In light of this, sounds to me like the Syrians are doing pretty well.

***

I wonder what journalism has come to these days. Subjective writing, spotty reporting. While the Internet should be a facilitator of communication through blogs and discussion forums, and citizen journalism is on the rise, I still expect to see quality reporting from respected publications like Foreign Policy.

Why Engaging Audiences on Twitter Isn't Always the Right Thing...

Someone in my office proposed the idea this week of using our organization's Twitter account to host a "Tweet Contest" to see if we can better engage our audiences with our mission. I found myself quickly saying NO to an idea that normally would strike me as a good one -- after all, any type of activity encouraging interactivity and engagement with an audience on a social network should be a good thing! It's generally proven to be a recipe for success. Taco Bell and Dunkin' Donuts launched successful contests on Twitter, as did the State Department.

However, in a comparison of our Twitter feed and Mashable's 10 Twitter Best Practices for Brands, I believe that my organization is far from ready to host a Twitter contest. Here are a few of the points:

Be authentic and believable - Mashable says that you'll become believable only after you've established trust among your audience. Our Twitter feed currently is operated via an automatic RSS feed that pushes headlines from our website. There is no human behind the feed responding to followers, following people back, or talking with our audience.

Do your research before engaging customers - Mashable suggests "knowing how your customers use Twitter." This can be accomplished easily and for free using a few simple search tools, including Twitter's own search engine, search.twitter.com to see the conversations already happening around your brand and issue. Because we haven't been active on our feed, we really don't have an idea of what conversations are happening about us and around us.

Track metrics and conversation trends - Tracking metrics, also using free tools available online like www.tweetvolume.com, is an easy way to get an idea of how your popular your brand/issue is, how many people click on the links that you push out, etc. Metrics help guide your Twitter strategy going forward because they give you an overall snapshot of your presence on the social media scene. We currently do not have a strategy in place to track metrics or trends.

So, my recommendation to my organization was that we hold off on the contest until we've established the fundamentals outlined in Mashable's guide above.

Do you think I was right in my recommendation?

Google vs China: Damaging Diplomacy

The Western media continues to portray Google as somewhat of a hero for abandoning its facilities in mainland China and moving its services offshore. Washington Post op-ed columnist Richard Cohen praised the search giant in his March 30 article for walking away from China’s Internet censorship policies and its egregious human rights record. The BBC also chided China, reporting on March 23 that Google’s move “is a major blow to China’s international image.” While Google’s move might have highlighted its tough stance against censored search results, its undiplomatic handling of this event threatens to alter world affairs and U.S.-Chinese diplomatic relations.

Google, a corporation that benefits from significant global popularity and enjoys widespread brand recognition, carries with it the responsibility to represent the United States and its values across the globe. Google’s worldwide reputation is among the likes of McDonald’s and Starbucks and it has become a symbol associated with Western modernism, liberalism, and capitalism. American businesses that operate on foreign soil are essentially unofficial diplomats of the United States. Google’s presence in China should help improve diplomatic and economic relations with that country, and not inflame sensitive ties.

Instead, Google has mired itself in a he-said-she-said conflict, angering and isolating both the Chinese people and the Chinese government. Google recently publicly announced its frustration with the relentless Internet security breaches and its irritation with China’s Internet censorship laws. While Google did not explicitly accuse the Chinese government of the recent hacks into journalists’ and democracy advocates’ e-mail accounts, its action clearly pointed the finger at Beijing. Such implications could potentially damage U.S.-China relations in a diplomatic arena where cooperation on key issues is crucial. After all, China is a major holder of the U.S. national debt, has the world’s third largest economy, and some scholars at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace predict that China is poised to takeover as the world’s next superpower.

China adamantly defended itself repeatedly against accusations, most recently on March 31 when the google.cn site became temporarily unavailable. Chinese government officials called Google “totally wrong,” and blamed the company for “politicizing” the event. Now, according to a Los Angeles Times report, China could potentially block the search engine permanently, which would deliver a huge economic blow to Google.

What’s interesting is that Google did not seem to have a problem with Internet censorship in 2006, when it launched its google.cn site and quietly obliged to China’s censorship restrictions. Let’s think about this. The population of China is 1.3 billion.It has 360 million Internet users. Google reports that 97% of its revenue comes from advertising. From a business standpoint, China is practically a goldmine for advertising and marketing. It’s not hard to see that Google’s executives had their eyes set on advertising and marketing dollars and were less concerned with upholding their mission to protect the free flow of information on the Internet.

Google is both an ambassador of the United States and a multi-national corporation operating with profit in mind. Reconciling both identities requires a delicate balancing act. Respecting and appreciating the laws, culture, and values of its host country should be an inherent mission in each American business abroad, and not just to be observed when it’s convenient. Google’s withdrawal from China did not have to be as abrupt, considering its history. An ambassador should always remember that diplomacy is the first option.

What Happens When You Avoid the Groundswell

Janet was good at representing Exxon Mobil Corp on Twitter. She responded to people's inquiries, provided interesting facts about the company, and even talked about the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill. The problem, though, was that Janet was not an Exxon employee. Nor was she affiliated with Exxon in any way, shape or form!

As you can imagine, this scared the pants off of corporate giant Exxon, who takes great care in controlling the messages they send out to the public. They've designated only a handful of employees to deliver such messages. When the story broke in 2008, "Janet" was using http://twitter.com/exxonmobilcorp to falsely portray Exxon, even using a background picture of Exxon gas stations. Exxon reps commented at the time that they were not using Twitter or any other social networking tool, and clearly weren't monitoring the buzz about their company online, avoiding the groundswell completely.

Brand jacking is not something new to the web - because it's so easy to set up a profile, anyone can be pretend to be an employee from a company in just minutes. (See a list of official Twitter brands here.) Rather than following the steps outlined in Groundswell to listen, talk, energize, support, and embrace their online constituents, Exxon chose to deal with the situation behind closed doors - contacting Twitter to have the false feed removed because of copyright infringement of the photos and immediately talking to and responding to questions from the press.

What they should have done is participate in the groundswell from the beginning. Large corporations should invest the resources and budget to hire someone to maintain their online presences and snatch up corporate names like "exxon mobil corp" on Twitter and Facebook before brand-jackers do. They should think of a strategy for their online presence, engage their audiences, and participate in discussion. This incident cost Exxon its brand identity, called attention to their non-engagement online, and fooled the Twittersphere, costing them the precious trust of the online community.

As of today, it appears that Exxon has set up an official Twitter feed. Like Groundswell says, you cannot ignore this trend.

It Really is a Small World

"Trusted and loyal ASW members who meet certain criteria have the privilege of inviting a limited number of their friends to the network. If you know someone with this privilege, you can ask them to invite you. If not, please be patient and continue to ask around in your own personal and professional circles.”

Ouch? That’s the message on one of the opening pages of A Small World (ASW), a self-described “private international community of culturally influential people who are connected by three degrees.” This exclusive social network seems to contradict much of what we think when we hear “social networking sites,” which are generally described as huge, open networks that generate a lot of "noise" like Facebook or Twitter. It also contradicts Emmanuel Rosen’s faith in the six degrees of separation theory, which ASW has now tightened to only three degrees. But, this site has generated a lot of attention and highlights an interesting genre of social networking: niche networking sites. While other niche sites like Linked In, which caters to professionals, or Classmates.com which connects classmates together, or even Tripadvisor.com which brings together people based on travel experiences, this type of exclusivity is new to the online social networking model and has proven to be a contributor, generator, and facilitator of buzz.

So perhaps we’re on to something here – can a closed, tight-knit community catering to a specific demographic be a marketer's dream? ASW's strategy has proven to be wildly successful. A huge benefit of these types of networks is that they generate appeal to advertisers who want to target a specific group of people in one place (in ASW’s case, advertisers include high-end luxury brands such as Mercedes and Cartier). It also can serve as a breeding ground for word of mouth marketing among like-minded individuals who are interested in the same products.

Niche social networking sites eliminate the daunting complexity of social networks that Rosen describes. On this site, particularly, marketers can be sure that a person’s “friends” are actually a direct friend of the person, or a friend of a friend – only separated by a maximum of three degrees. Unlike larger social networks that cater to the general population, such as Facebook, ASW actually shows “tie strength,” a concept Rosen says social networks lacks. On ASW, you can click on someone’s friend and a map showing how they know each other and through who appears. It's always a close connection.

However, ASW does reinforce Rosen’s principle that people who have similar interests and likes and are generally similar to each other are more likely to link together. ASW is a perfect example of this. It’s a forum where people with similar cultural interests can gather and discuss travel, entertainment and nightlife in discussion forums. Users can gain new information from people that they are not directly connected to, but are still in the same network, which Rosen describes as important criteria for buzz to spread. The forums on ASW are brimming with comments, questions, experiences, suggestions, and advice. In addition, people on ASW also take their relationships offline, forming small gatherings. and real-life “clusters” to network with each other, share information, meet new people, etc.

Perhaps such niche social networking sites are the wave of the future?

I'm taking two classes this semester at Johns Hopkins - International Public Diplomacy and Public Relations in the Age of Digital Influence. This weekend, I've been immersed in Emanuel Rosen's book, "The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited," in what seems like the first moment of quiet I've had to just read and think in ages (thanks, blizzard!). I realized that a concept was beginning to emerge that was important, if not vital, to success in both public diplomacy and social media strategies: listening. Yep, listening.

A concept that seems so native to us is so difficult to put into practice. Listening is the silver lining of the successful case-studies that Rosen presents; the companies that listened to what their audiences wanted, whether it was to solve their grievances, answer questions, or even just to provide a way to easily contact the organization, were successful in their attempts to control the message they wanted to deliver to their audiences. Listening is the elusive task that any corporation wanting to make the most of word of mouth marketing or take advantage of the social media groundswell needs to master in order to craft a successful marketing strategy. But no one really does it.

My organization is a prime example of this. We set up both Facebook and Twitter pages just to be "involved" in the social media groundswell, without really listening to what our users wanted from us on these networks. How were these networks different from our website? Would they offer new, original content, or would they simply serve to expand the reach of the content on our website? Did our users expect us to talk to them, to engage them, to interact act with them, or to just pump out information? What did they want to know about us? Was social media important enough for us to allocate staff time and resources to it? Not having the answers to these questions is costing us to miss a prime opportunity to generate buzz around our organization using these incredibly powerful tools, especially in light of our new headquarters project that is beginning to become a visible part of the national mall's landscape.

Because of this, we can't quite call our presence on these sites a success yet, because we haven't even begun to do the initial listening and research. Stephen Colbert, the host of this year's Grammy's, asked his daughter several times during the show, "am I cool now?" She kept shaking her head. And I keep shaking mine because just having a presence on these sites, just like being present at the Grammy's, does in no way make us "cool." We have to actually do something - interact, become part of the the community, and give our users what they're looking for, just like how an artist at the Grammy's who performs something or wins something engages audiences and gives them something to talk about, to have a successful presence.

Similarly, listening is a vital, yet underused tool in public diplomacy. So many campaigns fail because they don't address what people want, or don't answer the questions people are looking for. Take the State Department's failed Shared Values campaign, for example. The undersecretary of public diplomacy commissioned a series of videos showing Muslims happily living in America. The videos were shown to Muslim audiences abroad in an effort to help combat growing anti-American sentiment. In the end, the campaign was deemed a failure. Anti-American sentiment was growing out of a dislike of U.S. foreign policies, and not out of a dislike of American culture or Muslims living in America. State department officials had failed to listen, and therefore, failed to address the root of a growing international problem.

Listening is essential to any marketing strategy. And because the Internet is identified as an important facilitator of buzz, companies and organizations should use the myriad of tools available to them online - RSS readers, search engines, newsletters, forums, etc - to listen to what their audiences are discussing and how they are doing it before attempting a strategy. Listening will help organizations identify what triggers conversation, what people are reacting to positively and negatively, and what the best ways are to engage audiences online and will help ensure an organization's success. We also shouldn't forget what Rosen points out in his book: listening is just the first part of a process. It must be in tandem with some type of action for it to be successful.

New Semester, New Books!

I'm excited to take social media to another level this semester with my Public Relations in the Age of Digital Influence class at Hopkins.

Especially excited about the reading list, which includes books that I've wanted to read for a while now:

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (Hardcover – April 21, 2008)

Influence: Science and Practice (5th edition)
Robert B. Cialdini (Paperback – Aug 11, 2008)

The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-life Lessons in Word of Mouth Marketing
Emanuel Rosen (Paperback – Feb 24, 2009)

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff
Clara Shih (Paperback – Mar 22, 2009)

Unleashing the Power of PR: A Contrarian’s Guide to Marketing and Communications
Mark Weiner (Hardcover – June 23, 2006)

Designing for the Social Web: Voices that Matter
Joshua Porter (Paperback – May 4, 2008)

The Cluetrain Manifesto is quite the classic. I got several comments on it from people who saw me holding it as I was reading. Although a little outdated, its copyright is 2000, its an interesting package of 95 "theses" organized into a coherent manifesto for any businessman, business owner struggling to make sense of the Internet boom and the digital arena.

I wish everyone in my organization could read this book. Although it starts off with some pretty obvious observations - the Internet has changed the way we communicate, markets need to adapt, blah blah blah - it does present some interesting solutions on how to adapt. If only people were willing to adapt. I work in an organization comprised of ex-government employees -- former Foreign Service Officers, ex-CIA employees, etc etc and for some reason, this particular breed of Washingtonian is incredibly stuck in their ways. They refuse to recognize the power that the Internet holds to radically change the way they conduct their work. They even fail to recognize the power the Internet holds in changing the political landscape - facilitating peace and negotiation and garnering support for political issues.

The 95 theses, I would say, center around a few major themes: The Internet as a virtual marketplace, the role of organizations in this transformative communications environment, the impact of this technology internally on organziations and employee communications, and how organizations can connect with this virtual marketplace. Rather than attempting to predict the future, the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto actually set the path for the future, making this book remarkable and important for any digital strategist to read.

In other readings I came across on the Web about this book, it seems as though many unanimously agree that this book just "won't die" and the principles it proposed ten years ago are still highly debated and considered today. What's shockingly weird though is how BAD the cluetrain's website is! For a book that imparts so much information about Internet strategy, etc, the website is an absurdly bad display of design principles and strategy. Go figure.

Millenial Makeover

No wonder "Millenial Makeover" is one of the NYT Favorite Books of 2008 - it discusses some of the most pressing issues of our time: how social media affects elections and politics. The book discusses how the winning party will successfully use and keep up with technology. This technology, according to the book, is rapidly changing the political environment.

It does a fairly decent job of describing the current political environment, and predicting the future - tracing how technology changed everything from pop culture, such as music and movies, to national politics. I'd like to think of myself as a "millenial," the way the book describes them - the early adopters of society, the optimistic politically and economically, the ultimate group that every marketer wants to reach because they are the movers and shakers. It's the ultimate book for anyone wanting to learn more about and understand this millenial generation - how to reach them, identify what they want, and give it to them. It provides surprising insight into the 2008 elections -- which set a precedent for using technology to gain support quickly and efficiently. The book also discusses how campaign techniques - fundraising, advertising, etc - have been revolutionized by millenial thinkers and technology.

The insights offered in this book are valuable to anyone wanting to understand domestic politics and their correlation with the technological world.

Online Political Advertising

Yet another reading in the series edited by Julie Barko Germany from the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, "Best Practices for Political Advertising Online" again brings together the best in the field to contribute chapters on how the Internet is changing the political landscape. Focusing on one of the tools with the most potential for generating profit, paid advertising through search engines and other marketing tactics online, this publication shows that developing an Internet marketing strategy is both beneficial and necessary in today's media environment.

Because online advertising eliminates the physical costs of print and production, political advocacy groups can save time and money through online advertising. Search engine optimization has become more of a profession these days, and hiring someone to optimize your website to drive traffic to it and managae and maintain your online ad campaigns such as Google AdWords could be a valuable investment. Although online advertising is a relatively new field, this publication points out "best practices" in the field and advises groups to plan ahead and budget accordingly. The report also makes a good case for using online advertising and shows how a group can target a particular demographic, and reach voters online.

I compared the search engine marketing, online display advertising, and online lead generation best practices from this report to what we're doing at my organization, the U.S. Institute of Peace. Search engine marketing is perhaps the most important strategy, as it drives users back to your Web site and points them to the content you'd like them to see based on keywords. SEO (search engine optimization) uses meta-tags that are embedded in the code of the website and tell search engines what type of content appears on the page. While at USIP we concentrate heavily on this, we have failed to develop a good set of metrics in order to judge our success. SEO will become more interesting with Web 3.0 - where taxonomy, a standard set of key words to describe a page, will be replaced by folksonomy, a set of words that users develop to describe a page. Tagging and tag clouds will also be an important part of SEO.

USIP has not yet developed a strategy for using online display advertising, although this paper makes a good case for using banners and flash ads across the web to target particular demographics. Creating an online advertising network can help expand the reach of an organization or political candidate's website.

And lastly, the paper talks about using lead generation, or recruitment to gain donors and supporters. Using a CRM like Salesforce can help with this strategy because it will help organizations track people's interests and keep a record of their interactions with the organization, such as by phone, or email, or physical mailings. Although this paper describes lead generation as cost-effective -- in reality, purchasing a CRM database like Salesforce is very expensive and requires an administrator - it is a crucial aspect of reaching and retaining constituents in any political advertising campaign.

Online advertising should also be important to traditional media outlets today -- as more and more are migrating to the web, they will have to look to the Internet for ways to generate profits.

whitehouse.gov and Drupal

TechPresident and the Associated Press today reported that www.whitehouse.gov is now using the open-source web content management system Drupal to manage their website - the same platform that we use to manage www.usip.org! Drupal is an awesome software because of its community of developers that are constantly adding and updated the system. The AP says that Drupal will make the site more secure, as well. Kudos to the White House!

We the Media: The Death of Professional Journalism?

I think my greatest fear was realized last semester in a class I took called "Journalism in the Digital Age." My undergraduate degree is obsolete.

I was a dual major in broadcast journalism and international relations at Syracuse University - graduating from one of the top communications schools in the country, The Newhouse School.

Sadly, everything I learned culminating in my top-rate (and very expensive) degree was shot down by my last class and by Dan Gillmor's book "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People" which sadly realizes the demise of professional journalism and applauds citizen journalism as the future of journalism.

All the standards of professional journalism, the inverted pyramid method of writing, the ethics and morals that journalists should hold when reporting a story are no longer reserved for a trained elite group of "journalists". Today, anyone can be a journalist without any sort of formal training. This brings about an interesting debate of journalism as an activity vs journalism as a profession. Which is it? I graduated thinking that it is a profession - but today's media landscape, and Gillmor's book are undoubtedly proving me wrong. Citizen journalists are proving that journalism is an activity that anyone can participate in.

I'm not denying the power of citizen journalism. In fact, I am a citizen journalist, spreading news and coming up with original ideas through my blog and my Twitter page. But citizen journalism also brings up many complex questions: what about the ethics, morals, and standards that are associated with journalism as a profession? How do laws that protect journalists and freedom of the press apply to citizen journalists, such as a bloggers? While I agree with Gillmor that citizen journalism - "grassroots journalism" - is changing the media landscape and changing the power and influence that "Big Media" companies have held throughout history, I still believe that a business model outlining a symbiotic relationship between grassroots and professional journalism will be the successful one moving forward. Gillmor outlines several business models including the "tip jar" (paying bloggers and other independent writers to cover stories that people want to hear), advertising, paid/content/subscription models, and niche publishing, or "nano publishing" - sites that target very small specific users. Niche groups can appeal to advertisers wanting to reach a particular demographic.

Take the example of OhMyNews, the South Korean news site that's based on citizen journalism that Gillmor looks at as a case-study in his book. Their model is based on the symbiotic relationship described above - they employ a core of professional editors and journalists and then solicit articles, columns, interviews and more from a cadre of citizen journalists. The professional editors then select the stories from the citizen journalists based on their meeting journalistic standards such as integrity, factual accuracy, style, etc. This "collision of journalism and technology" as Gillmor says, is helping to facilitate the rise of citizen journalism: giving citizens the power to select and create the news they digest.

I spend most of my time at work touting the benefits of technology and how empowering it can be. Similarly, Gillmor takes us on a quick trip through the evolution of the Internet, where he explains how the "read only" web developed into the "read/write" web that calls for active participation among users through wikis, blogs, etc. This type of technology is the vehicle for grassroots journalism and can help us understand the direction journalism is moving in and can help us devise successful models for the future.

The Politics-To-Go Handbook

I was excited to read The Politics-To-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics because I probably know the least about mobile technology in the technological realm. I've always wanted to create a mobile phone friendly version of USIP.org. This guide, to say the least, was definitely worth printing the 100+ pages and putting into a binder to keep in my library of quick reference guides.

Even though I would have liked to read something that was less of a primer/background guide and more of a analysis of mobile strategy, this guide helped me understand the demographics of cell phone users and texters and helped lay the groundwork for what the future of the mobile industry might look like.

Demonstrating several examples of success -- like the massive texting during the Live 8 concerts and the use of popular bands like U2 to mobilize their audiences toward a certain cause through cell phone registration systems -- this piece also brought about something that I learned back in 2001 when I was studying as an undergraduate in Europe. Texting was rampant in Europe back then (I'd be lucky if someone ever actually called me!) and I remember thinking that it was weird that no one texted in the US. It was still an undiscovered service that would later prove to be a cheap, effective way for communicating with one another. This article touches on the very subject of why the US lags so far behind in mobile technology (an example Dr. Rosenblatt gave in class once asked if you put a cell phone and laptop in front of someone living in Asia and asked them to find an answer using one of the devices, chances are, they'd reach for the cellphone instead of the laptop, whereas someone in the US was more likely to reach for the laptop). Looking further into this issue seems compelling. Exploring cell phone security, mobile campaigning, fundraising capabilities, how to use cell phones for charity, and integrating video into mobile technology are all important topics for analysis in determining the future direction of mobile technology.

No doubt that mobile technology will emerge as a major player in the filed of communications in the next few years and this piece is a good primer in that direction.

The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics

You can tell when an author is a journalist. Their books are smooth, easy to read pieces that make sense and somehow make complicated topics easy to digest. Matt Bai, author of "The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics" and a journalist covering American politics for the New York Times Sunday Magazine accomplishes the task of showing how grassroots organizations are becoming major political movements and are reshaping a major political party in this country through mechanisms such as the Internet. He portrays a brilliant inside look at the inner workings of the Democratic party.

His behind-the-scenes look at the relationship between grassroots movements like MoveOn.org and blogs such as The Huffington Post and The Daily Kos (both of which I read weekly, if not daily), and huge political players like Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, the Democracy Alliance clearly shows the internal power struggles, obsession with the Republican party, and the clash of egos that have prevented the Democratic party from expanding, succeeding, and become a coherent party with a coherent "argument". While politics are clearly more complex than simple partisanship, Bai points out that the agonizing blows dealt by a cohesive and strong Republican party and the disaster left behind by the Bush administration gave the progressive party the right motivation it needed to regroup and reorganize. The election of Obama was only the first taste of sweet victory for the Democratic party; how he will actually implement his coherent message of "change" has yet to be seen. But the opportunity is there.

This type of comparison kind of reminds me of the organization of the Israeli lobby and the progress they have made through their strategic organization and leadership, as compared to other groups who could benefit from such structure and organization and a clear communications message, such as the Palestinians. Has anyone ever read The Israel Lobby? If not, you definitely should. It's an amazing look into the organization and structure and power of AIPAC (The America Israel Public Affairs Committee). It proves that having a coherent message (or an "argument") will help you succeed. It proves that new ideas backed by effective strategies also help you succeed. It's precisely what the Democratic party needs, according to Bai.

Perhaps most interesting is Bai's account of a MoveOn.org party/bbq he attended that was organized by someone energized by his disdain for FOX news and his Republican neighbor. What Bai noticed at this party was a critical notion to understanding political movements online: the participants were not young, tech savvy kids who are stereotypically known to be the ones controlling the Internet Age; but they were middle-class suburban adults who, for some time now, have felt disenfranchised by American politics, as Bai points out. MoveOn.org helps organize these people and provides a forum to connect with one another and allow their voices to be heard.

After reading the book, I decided to do some research about Matt Bai and his book and discovered that the book was quite controversial, and was actually the only political book in 2007 to be named a New York Times Notable book. I was really impressed by this book - I think Bai has an interesting take on progressive politics and I think he highlights the challenges facing American politics accurately.

O.M.G.

You have to see how amazing social networking is.

Bakcground: My status on Facebook today says: "cheers to Obama and to the nobel committee for taking this action to highlight how important diplomacy is to peacemaking."

The attached is a personal message I received on facebook from someone i went to ELEMENTARY school with and have not spoken to in about 18 years.











Text: Hi Dida - I wholeheartedly disagree with you about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I'm going to choose not to be friends with you because of it.

Dida Atassi: LOL!


Cheers to social networking.

Blogging @ PBS's Idea Lab

I found an awesome blog hosted by PBS called MediaShift Idea Lab.

"Idea Lab is a group blog by innovators who are reinventing community news for the Digital Age. Each Idea Lab blogger is a winner of the Knight News Challenge grant to reshape community news."

Awesome. They have a best practices section, reports from high-level conferences like Gov 2.0 (Check out: "Report from Gov 2.0: A Nerd, Suit, Spook, and Database Smoothie"), and the best part is, you can TALK to the writers and engage in a conversation about any of these topics. I can read Idea Lab's live Twitter feed directly from the page (I love embedded Twitter widgets) and users can declare which articles are their "favorites", and the site pulls out "featured comments" from users. Pretty interactive and comprehensive. Although too bad it appears that their Twitter feed is not actually updated by a human, but rather by an RSS feed directly from their site via twitterfeed.

This, as we've learned in Dr. Rosenblatt's class, is a no-no ---- It's what we're doing here at USIP and something that's on my list of things to change. I've only been here about 4 weeks and one of my top priorities is to revamp the way we do all of our social networking -- which appears to me to h ave been put together rather quickly and without much strategy. Probably from some pressure from the powers that be.

Care2 and Online Advocacy

Care2 is an online advocacy group that I first heard about in Rigby's book (see posts below). The do some pretty cool stuff, so I've decided to get involved by following them on Twitter, and attending a release of an e-campaigning benchmark report they are hosting with Advocacy Online. The event is actually an exclusive simultaneous live webcast in Washington, Toronto and London. I'm hoping to learn a bit more about what works with online advocacy and campaigning, the most effective ways to organize people in a virtual world, and hopefully, this report will also be able to lay out best practices. I'm starting to really get into the strategy behind these campaigns. I'll report back on what I learn. The event is on October 13.

Social Media is Older than the WWW?

This is more of a note to myself to remember to look into Dr. Rosenblatt's idea that social networks existed long before the World Wide Web. I remember being a little confused by this in class once, but now I have a better understanding of what that means.

I just read something that Dr. Rosenblatt posted to his blog that was quite frankly, amazing. It was a memo from Milton John Kleim, a member of the Aryan Resistance, a white supremacist movement in the U.S., on using social networks to their advantage. Disregarding who actually wrote it and the context of the memo, it was written back in 1998 and includes some of the same strategies for using social networks that were outlined in the Person to Person report!

Kleim talks about using USENET, an old online discussion forum, to spread their message. He advocates moving beyond their own social networks into others, warns against spamming, suggests interacting with those who express interest in their cause immediately, and promotes contacting members of the networks with some regularity.

Perhaps Dr.R is right -- this "new technology" isn't so new!

Act.ly and Social Networks

I love act.ly! I am learning about it through my digital political strategy class at JHU. I just participated in a petition/experiment that my professor Dr. Alan Rosenblatt is conducting. Apparently there is a game for Twitterers called Mobster World (I'm not even going to link to it so that this doesn't happen to you too... you can search for it if you want!). If you sign up to play this game, it will hijack your follower list on Twitter and send them a direct message FROM YOU if you sign up to play! There's no way to make this stop - no contact information on Mobster's site and no way for people to click and opt-out.

Not only is this super-annoying but it's just WRONG! This got me remembering how annoying cold calling and automated calling is, especially when the "robot" fails and calls you at 2AM. At least now, I can do something about it from my own desk. I signed up for act.ly and "signed" Dr. Rosenblatt's petition by allowing act.ly to Tweet the cause on my Twitter account. My irritation actually led me to find and follow EndTheRoboCalls on Twitter and all sorts of interesting and cool petitions that I can participate in on Act.ly.

This takes advantage of the essence of social networking: republishing information to individual social networks makes that information viral and reaches many people quickly.

Maybe I'll start a petition to remove tourists who stand on the left of the escalators (when they should be standing on the right, walking on the left) from the Metro system. :)