Escape to Chengdu

Photo

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:19:01 -0500

Reading Roosevelt: The Landon Campaign

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:53:00 -0400

Home sick with a fluctuating fever, and reading The Politics of Upheavel by Arthur Schleshinger. The book chronicles the Presidency of FDR and provides thorough accounting of the partisan politicking of the era. The similarities between now and then are striking. Most notably…

GOP fear-mongering about DEBT DEBT DEBT

…The Republican National Committee prepared a series of radio spots, presenting the case against the New Deal in the homely terms of a soap opera.

Marriage License Clerk: Now what do you intend to do about the national debt?

Prospective Bridegroom John: National debt? Me?

Clerk: You are going to establish a family and as the head of an American family you will shoulder a debt of more than $1017.26—and it’s growing every day…Do you still want to get married?

John: You-er-I-I-What do you say, Mary!

Mary: Maybe-maybe-we better talk it over first, John…All those debts! When we though we didn’t owe anybody in the world.

John: Somebody is giving us a dirty deal…It’s a lowdown mean trick.

Voice of Doom: And the debts, like the sins of the fathers, shall be visited upon the children, aye, even unto the third and fourth generations! (Music)

In the innocent days of 1936, however, both the Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company turned down these programs; as the NBC president said, it “would place the discussion of vital political and national issues on the basis of dramatic license rather than upon a basis of responsibility for stated fact or opinion.”

Photo

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 04:05:06 -0400

Rethinking Taxing Health Care Benefits

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 04:00:28 -0400

In the move toward reforming our health care system, it’s altogether possible that we may have to impose a tax of some kind to help offset the costs. Everyone - Republicans and Democrats alike - silently agree that a tax will be necessary, but no one in Washington wants to speak of it.

I’m indifferent to the financing of a new system, so long as there is quality, universal coverage. Nothing is free and having people get sick and use emergency rooms for primary care ain’t cheap either, so my understanding is that we pay for it one way or another. I’d rather pay through a predictable annual tax, than through the wild west of insurance deductables and benefit caps.

What does this all remind me of? Social security. Not surprisingly, there was quite the political fight in Washington when Roosevelt first proposed a payroll deduction for Social Security. From Galbraith:

“At last the Republicans felt they had found an issue. Excited reports rolled into Landon: thus from Ohio - “The labor vote has stayed unimpressed and adamant until now that the Social Security payroll issue is brought home to them. This state is all agog over payroll reduction.” As voting day came nearer, Republican orators harped with ever-increasing intensity on the horror which lay ahead. The Social Security Act, said Frank Knox, “puts half the working people of America under federal control.” Republican spot broadcasts told workers that they would not have a name under the program, only a New Deal number.

…”Imagine the field opened for federal snooping. Are these 26 million going to be fingerprinted? Are their photographs to be kept on file in Washington? Or are they going to have identification tags around their necks?” In Boston John Hamilton took up this last suggestion, declaring that each one of the enslaved 26 million workers would have to wear metal dogtags (“such as the one I hold in my hand”). The Heartst newspapers featured one page 1 an arresting spread: “Do You Want A Tag and Number In The Name of False Security?” On page 2 was a picture of a bare-chested man somberly wearing a tag on a long chain: below was the stark caption: YOU.

The same is going to happen with health care - it’s already started. Health IT is going to let everyone spy on your health status. Rationing health care. The government coming between you and your doctor. The government will run health care. You’ll be forbidden from receiving the treatment you need/desire. Blah blah blah. How did Roosevelt deal with Republican scare tactics? From Galbraith:

“It did not panic the President, but it deeply angered him. Its patent cynicism summed up for him the contempt with which he believed all economic royalists viewed the democratic process. He had already in the course of 1935 passed out of the George Washingtonian mood of the first New Deal. Now he saw himself increasingly as Andrew Jackson…The attacks on the social security program completed the conversion of Roosevelt to a thoroughly Jacksonian wrath…The evident determination of [a wealthy minority] to deprive the ordinary people of social security drove Roosevelt to fury.

Roosevelt hit back the same way Obama often does — with public shaming and arresting oratory. I can’t wait.

Reading Roosevelt

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:30:51 -0400

Developed against the backdrop of depression, [Roosevelt’s] philosophy of compassion had a particular bias toward the idea of security — “a greater physical and mental and spiritual security fo the people of this country.”

“Security,” he once said, “means a kind of feeling within our individual selves that we have lacked all through the course of history. We have had to take our chance about our old age in days past. We have had to take our chance with depressions and boom times. We have had to take our chances buying our homes. I have believed for a great many years that the time has come in our civilization when a great many of these chances should be eliminated from our lives.”

(We’ve had to take our chance with our health care, too. Here’s hoping President Obama knocks this one out.)

Tweed and aviators. ‘Nuff said.

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:18:03 -0400

Tweed and aviators. ‘Nuff said.

deep thoughts?

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:30:08 -0400

Sometimes I buy unappetizing snacks—like this stale trail mix that I’m currently picking raisins from—because I know that I won’t enjoy it very much, which means I won’t eat very much of it.

And then I think…man, life can really suck sometimes.

Video

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:03:56 -0400

Nonprofit Messaging in an Attention Economy

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:25:35 -0400

Nonprofit Messaging in an Attention Economy

Notes from UStream Forrester Conference

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:16:00 -0400

Watching the Forrester conference live on http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/

Quotes & Notes:

“You need to design for desirability”

“You need to touch upon emotional relevance with your customers”

“Desirability is difficult to define. Almost as difficult as it was for Justice Stewart to define ‘obscenity’ in 1946. He said, ‘It’s really hard to define, but I know it when I see it.”

“Desirable experiences create a one-to-one connection.” Example given of Rolex homepage, where there is a gorgeous watch, and the hands on the watch are actually synced with your system clock. Subtle one-to-one connectinos through design.

“Desirable experiences understand that we’re human, and they speak to us in our natural language.”

“Sometimes desirable experiences just make us laugh.” Gives example of an uncomfortable product (body shaver for men), gets around discomfort by using humor.

They're Now Our Peers! Oh no!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:34:56 -0400

Great quote from Brian Solis:

Instead of top down communications and focusing on the influence and control of messages and perception, we’re learning that those influential groups of people are now our peers and therefore require respect, honesty, and support in order for us to earn their trust – and hopefully their business and enthusiasm along the way.

Seth Godin on curiosity and fundamentalism.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:29:57 -0400

Seth Godin on curiosity and fundamentalism.

Email Worst Practices

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:16:00 -0400

Ignorance is (Not) Bliss

Not using a friendly “from” name in the sender line, just using an email address.

Using an exclamation point in subject lines.

Not having a welcome email.

Hiding the email opt-in on your Web site.

Using single-large-image emails.

Lazy is as Lazy Does

Using and not optimizing the default system-generated text (converted from your HTML version) in a multi-part message.

Not asking for basic preferences such as “HTML versus text.”

Not including a preference center.

Too many required fields in opt-in forms.

Not performing good list hygiene.

To Error is Human

Bad links.

Typos.

Forgetting to change a placeholder subject line or message content to the real one.

Using outdated or incorrect images.

Sending the test message to the entire list.

Sending recipients to the wrong page or “Web version.”

Bad, Forrest! Bad!

Scraping email addresses off the Web and adding them to your database.

Hidden or difficult unsubscribe process

Sharing email records within your company or outside vendors without permission.

Disregarding preferences.

Buying a list (as opposed to renting quality lists) - (Hint: If it comes on a CD:ROM, run Forrest, run).

Playing musical chairs with ESPs in an attempt to outrun your bad sender reputation.

Fun Facts About a Dying Industry

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:00:37 -0400

• Thirty years ago, 71 percent of adults read a daily newspaper. Ten years ago, it was 59 percent. Last year’s figure: 48 percent.

• Last December, 63 million unique visitors came to newspaper Web sites. Google’s figure: 133 million.

• Ad revenue for newspaper Web sites rose 21 percent to $773 million in the third quarter of last year over the previous year. Print ad losses during the same period: $1 billion, wiping out the gain from the Web.

• In the third quarter of last year, print advertising dropped 9 percent, including a decline of 17 percent among classifieds. A Goldman Sachs prediction for overall newspaper advertising this year: a drop of 8 percent.

- From AJR

The New Rules of Media

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:49:30 -0400

The New Rules of Media

Email Insider - Making it Personal

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:25:40 -0400

From Email Insider: http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/?p=613#comments

Here are four ways to personalize your email program today:

1) Include the recipient’s name somewhere in the message. This is one of the simplest but most powerful personalization tactics. As Dale Carnegie famously said, “A person’s name is to that person the most beautiful sound in any language.” Just be careful how and where you use a name: it often works well as a salutation in letterform messages, but can seem gimmicky when used gratuitously.

2) Add a user control panel to your emails. Dedicate a portion of your email to the recipient: add a user control panel or personal profile section. This is a piece of real estate the recipient “owns,” featuring a combination of user data and the opportunity to update that data - the ability for users to control their email experience. This could be as simple as “Hello, John Doe,” preceding links to a preference center with controls on email format and frequency. (We jokingly call this a “faux-file.”)

A more developed user profile section might include account or loyalty program information, recent activity details, and a subscriber photo. In one test, adding a personal photo to an email control panel inspired a flurry of recipient activity; there was a massive uptick in profile photo updates every time an email launched. Whether it’s pictures or preferences, even adding a faux-file can help you build out real user profile data by offering obvious blanks to be filled.

3) Personalize content based on a user’s preference center selections. Give recipients the ability to specify how much and what type of information they want. This is a great approach for content publishers. It’s simple: ask them what they want, and then deliver that! If they want to hear about Olympic diving, send them an article about that famous triple-flip.

If you give your subscribers the opportunity to tailor content to their interests and leave out information that doesn’t appeal to them, I guarantee your retention rates will increase. For more in-depth tips on this tactic, fellow Insider columnist Melinda Krueger wrote an excellent article on preference center-based content publishing just yesterday!

4) Include specific product recommendations within a mass mail message. This is more of an advanced email-ecommerce fusion move, but if you are already capturing user behavior and/or purchase information on your Web site, it’s the next logical step.

Populate a submessage section of your mass mail with personalized recommendations based on recipients’ past purchase or browse behavior. Use default content for recipients you don’t have enough data to make recommendations to.

These are just a few simple ideas to get you thinking about how to personalize your email program. For those of you already leveraging personalization strategies: share your wisdom! What are some of the ways you’ve been most (and least!) successful?

the end of the online petition

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:32:00 -0400

The folks who started MoveOn.org were pioneers in the art of online organizing. Avaaz, which was envisioned as the global arm of the MoveOn brand, deploys many of the same techniques as the older MoveOn. It’s my sense that these techniques are obsolete, relics of the web1.0 era.

The online petition. The letter to the editor. The message to your member of congress. These tools were instrumental in sparking national movements around such causes as saving PBS, stopping artic drilling and ending the war in Iraq, but as e-advocacy experts are now discovering, these tactics did not cultivate future leaders in the movement. Instead, these tools helps ordinary citizens take part in change, but failed to connect them with a self-sustaining, longterm community (some exceptions outstanding, including MeetUps, DailyKos and other community blogs, etc).

Today, Avaaz.org asked me to to sign a petition that’s allegedly being sent to Chinese President Hu Jintao, demanding he start a “meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama.” That’s all well and good, but what’s not meaningful here is the ask itself, and the assumptions it makes about Avaaz supporters. Assumption #1 is that we’d believe that this petition could even reach Hu Jintao, and that if it did, that Mr. Jintao would actually care. Assumption #2 is that we’d feel satisfied simply signing our name to a meaningless petition and forwarding that same meaningless petition to our friends and colleagues, so that they can help grow Avaaz’s email list.

(If, in fact, Avaaz has connections to the inner CCP sanctum that I’m not aware of, and that, in fact, this petition to his majesty can actually reach the President, than I still maintain that Avaaz must convince me of that possibility.)

Do you see where I’m going with this? Avaaz, you’ve got the right politics, but you don’t respect me. I have no doubt that you’re able to affect real change in the world, but you also want to grow your email list and, subsequently, grow your donor base. I understand the need for GROWTH, but don’t waste my time with cynical, growth-based campaigns. Connect with me other people who care about Tibet, maybe people like me who’ve lived in China and understand the enormous complexities of the Chinese government. I would love to dialogue with others who share my perspective, and perhaps work with them on a way to affect change.

Folks, it’s time for online organizing to enter the era of web 2.0, and your sad little Facebook group is not cutting it.

idea for blog post

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:25:11 -0400

Nonprofits and businesses alike will do well in social media by involving their staff. The conversation in social media starts with staff, not consumers or supporters. Debate the issues. Question your assumptions. Enable an ongoing dialogue between decision-makers and task-masters. Let folks own a piece of your organization.

Zogby Interactive poll on journalism

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:55:16 -0400

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews2.dbm?ID=1454

Highlights:

Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets - 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important. Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).

Although the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism (64%), overall satisfaction with journalism has increased to 35% in this survey from 27% who said the same in 2007.
Both traditional and new media are viewed as important for the future of journalism - 87% believe professional journalism has a vital role to play in journalism’s future, although citizen journalism (77%) and blogging (59%) are also seen as significant by most Americans.
Very few Americans (1%) consider blogs their most trusted source of news, or their primary source of news (1%).
Three in four (75%) believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.
69% believe media companies are becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition, while 17% believe they are the right size to adequately compete.

Jonny Goldstein's wrap-up

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:06:05 -0400

From Jonny Goldstein:

Bloggers and PR/Marketing people talking about how to piss off bloggers. From a conversation at SXSW led by Rohit Bhargava:

1. People who are obviously not longtime readers who pretend they have been.

2. Stealing content, messing with your identity

3. Getting you on mailing list and not getting you off it.

4. PR based outreach. Treating bloggers like journalists.

5. Getting irrelevant press releases–spend the time to make sure it’s going to the right person.

6.Not treating people as people.

7. Once you have developed a relationship, then you can have better odds of them doing you a favor.

8. Make it hard for people read/view/listen to your content. Formatting on content. Make it very easy for people to view your media if you are asking people to view it and promote/review it.

9. Having to deal with bureaucratic layers.

10. Not identifying yourself transparently. False representation.

11. Dont’ treat bloggers as press at events.