Posts Tagged blog
Links with Your Coffee: News and Notes from Matthew Hurst
Posted by MattHurst in Ideas, Professional Networking, Work on June 16th, 2010
At IDEO’s Humanizing Social Media event in February 2010, we explored the implications of social media on interpersonal communication. Rather than perpetuating the discussion of case studies and e-commerce during Social Media Week, this social experiment left us questioning how the communications shifts have impacted the way we develop new friendships online. Our cellphones were left at the front door and we exchanged our clothes for a plain white t-shirt affixed with buttons which carried tags that describe ourselves, like “blogger” and “geek” in my own case.
It was an thought provoking exercise, and now I can finally share the results from this experiment with you. We had a great night at this event, so much that I was awarded the honor of “Person with whom you’d most like to stranded on a desert island with”! Look for yours truly to take a staring turn during the panel discussions, as captured in this video.
A little further news and notes not quite long enough to warrant a blog post of their own: Read the rest of this entry »
November’s 7
Since moving to New York City I’ve kept busy; enough so that I skipped the month of October with this recurring feature, in which I share the ideas currently shaping my life. Between applying for jobs, connecting with professionals, and getting acquainted with the neighborhood, I have more to share than ever.
Blog: Scouting NY. At the last Future of Local Media NY event we talked about finding a niche for your blog; I think Scouting NY has an appeal to an audience outside this city. By treating New York not as a tourist or resident, but as a scout for film locations, it reexamines the metropolis as though for the first time. Be sure to check out their series revisiting locations from famous films set in NY, including my favorite “Ghostbusters”.
Colleague: Jonathan Coffman. I connected with Jonathan not as a professional, but as a peer; he was one of the first people IRL from Twitter. Since then he has made himself available as a professional resource, but with a personal touch using social media . Jonathan seems unafraid of ambitious projects, and inspires others to try the same through his personal example; to say he has developed a personal brand is an understatement.
Group: #PR Breakfast Club. Of all the professional networks I’ve been connecting with, this online group must be the most friendly. Almost immediately I was welcomed into this tight-knit club upon joining their happy hour on Twitter, and IRL that courtesy was returned. This club is connected in every sense that a group should be.
Meme: BAD09. I had the opportunity to participate in the third annual Blog Action Day, and I’m glad to say I wasn’t alone: 13,604 blogs helped spur discussion of Climate Change. This 500% increase in blog posts were read by over 18 million estimated readers, demonstrating the power of individual bloggers to organize and influence others online.
Music: The Beatles RockBand. Since September it seems like The Beatles have been everywhere, and now they finally come together again through this special edition of the music game franchise. Playing as the fab four might seem intimidating, but this game manages to pull it off; I have been singing along the whole game. You will respect Ringo after playing the game, and It’s still the only way you can (legally) download The Beatles music.
Social Network: MyPRSA. If all social media is based on building relationships, who better builders are there than PR professionals. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel by competing with other social networks MyPRSA incorporates them into a professional network that better connects colleagues, so this relaunched network is indispensable for job seekers like myself.
Website: Craigslist. We all will need to use this site at one time or another, because it is the closest thing to a monopoly on the internet. Many sites do specific aspects of Craigslist better (and make more money), but if you want to find an apartment or job, this is usually the best place to start. For a site that looks almost the same as it did 10 years ago, Craigslist has developed a model for web 2.0 communities.
Blog Action Day: Changing Minds (and Climate)
Climate change is a fact, but it’s also a choice. Everyday we make decisions about our energy consumption, most of which will have an effect on global warming. Sometimes these decisions are impacted by policy, but climate change is not inevitable; we can slow and maybe prevent its effects through our own energy conservation choices.
This year’s Blog Action Day is a call to speak out about climate change, but by now most of us know what we should say about global warming. Probably the biggest contribution individuals can make is to turn their attitudes into behavior, at least by adopting energy conservation as a way of life.
In my Master’s thesis I compared different strategies to promoting energy conservation through case studies of three communication campaigns, including We Can Solve It, Flex Your Power, and Energy Star. As an example the above advertisement, from the Flex Your Power program in California (following their energy crisis in 2000), is only one part of a comprehensive social marketing campaign which has successfully reduced total energy consumption by at least 14%. These ads go further than merely providing all the reasons you’d want to save energy, because they give people actions to use in a way which make them seem fun and easy.
Of course no one approach to this issue works with every audience, and energy conservation is only part of the solution to climate change. In the future I’ll be posting more about my original research into energy and communication, but on Blog Action Day I would encourage you to do your own research. My former professor Matthew Nisbet has studied communication about climate change, which he blogs about extensively, which helped inspire my own study of energy conservation. Perhaps leading your own study about what you can do would be the best use of your energy today…
September’s 7
Every month I share a list of trends and great ideas, because of the benefits they have brought into my life. This last month has been filled with personal triumph and tumult in which I’ve finished an internship in DC, visited friends far away in Kentucky, and celebrated a 3rd-anniversary in NYC (where I’ll be living by the next time I write this feature next month). For extra credit, and because this assignment is late, please keep reading after the bump for a few more good ideas worth sharing this month.
Blog: Lifehacker. Whenever I’m in search of inventive solutions to everyday problems, (including some I didn’t think were problems), this blog is my default resource. Apartment hunting? Check. Turn an old PC into a NES arcade? Ditto. Going paperless in the home and office? Indeed. Lifehacker makes the impossible seem practical with it’s a DIY aesthetic.
Colleague: Renan Borelli. As a colleague at NMS, Renan was an exemplary addition to every team: innovative, analytical, and fiercely ambitious. As a mentor of my own he demonstrated climbing the ladder through his own example, and shares my passion for social media. I’m also happy to call this colleague a friend of mine.
Comic: Toothpaste for Dinner. I LOL’d.
Location: Louisville, Kentucky. This river city is is more than a one horse town; it’s a metropolis of burgeoning home-grown food, culture, and is the home to many of my esteemed colleagues. On my recent visit I rode in a VW Karmann, tasted inventive brews, listened to a coffeehouse concert, and attended the Kentucky State Fair. I would visit again.
Meme: Auto-Tune anything. This should be old news, but in spite of Jay-Z’s wishes this vocal gimmick refuses to go away. It has been the subject of much debate between me and my colleagues lately. And now with the “I am T-Pain” iPod app, this fad is irrevocably bound to this time in history (or at least news coverage of it).
Politics: Health Care Reform. Regardless of what you think the best solution would be, the status quo in is unsustainable. Those who believe in shutting-down necessary changes, through the undemocratic tactics of an angry mob, only serve to
August’s 7
They say one’s influence is limited not by the frequency of their communication, but by the quality of ideas and recommendations. At risk of diminishing my own role as an online opinion leader of sorts, here is my monthly anthology of 7 ideas I think are worth sharing with others.
Blog: Things Marketing People Love. If you ever work in or with a marketing agency, this will make you LOL. You have heard these words bandied about as if they were sacrosanct, although on their face they mean very little. Since we’ve already learned about white people and journalists, why not marketing? And make your own submissions via Twitter.
Colleague: Gabe Bullard. Back when we were working on Highway 61 (revised), there was no one who’s insights into online communications I trusted more. That hasn’t changed, so if you’d like to share these ideas, he’s still on the internet.
Meme: #hcmyth . With so much disinformation being active spread about Health Care reform, why not make fun with ridiculous myth-making of your own? My colleague Beth Carpenter helped start and promote this hashtag on Twitter, which set off any number of LOL funny myths about health care. My favorite? “RT @tobytobitobe : Under ObamaCare, all Starbucks beverages will be pre-ordered “skinny, nonfat, hold the whip.” It’s for the best. #HCMyth“
Music: Blip.FM . As you might have guessed reading my post about music and opinion leaders, I am enamored in the peer recommendation system of Blip. Or maybe I just enjoy playing DJ, even if it’s just to my Twitter followers.
Social Network: 3121. This is an idea who’s time has come; the social network for Capitol Hill staffers. While you need a House, Senate, or Committee email address to sign up (still in beta), it’s easy to see the promise of a networked directory (3121 is the extension of the Capitol switchboard) that connects people and ideas in such a focused audience. Congrats to the National Journal and New Media Strategies, and god luck on launch.
Theory: Balance of Power. In politics, this describes a group of strategically allied parties that come together to create parity in systematic power. In the world of hip-hop, there are Great Powers (Jay-Z, Kanye West, 50 cent) and middle powers (The Game, T-pain, everyone on Def Jux). This theory actually works well when it’s explained at length, so please
Video: Mister Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate. Your favorite neighbor was always there for the children, inspiring many generations of kids to know they are special and loved.
One time I was asked “what’s cool and new in your ‘hood?”, to which I replied:
Being polite, friendly, and helpful. Lately I’ve been helping my new neighbors move in, or even just talking with them about things I would ordinarily care less about. Since we’re together we might as well stay. Sometimes they don’t even steal my packages.
But as usual, the cool things in my ‘hood are IMAGINATION and MAKE BELEIVE. It helps out a lot when you live on the wrong side of the trolley tracks. Won’t you be my neighbor?
Please support your local public media.
Living Classrooms – Learning By Doing
Posted by MattHurst in Blogs, Non-Profit, Twitter on July 16th, 2009
Any company can use online media to connect their brand with their audience, but how does a non-profit grow their organization despite expected declines in charitable contributions? Even with a limited budget online media levels the playing field to free and earned media for non-profits, like Living Classrooms a client I had the privilege of consulting for last spring.
Along with a team of classmates at American University, we set about creating a strategic communications plan for Living Classrooms, a non-profit organization serving underprivileged youth in the DC-metro community since founding in 2001. One of the challenges unique to this client was their difficulty distinguishing not just from a successful parent organization, but also standing out from other non-profits in DC currently struggling for funds; branding would become a strategy. Their hand-on education approach meant almost all of their funding was used in their programs, but was a challenge to developing new sources of fundraising. Meeting these budget limitations helped us build a strategy with specific objectives (met through some work on our own part).
As discussed in our presentation (and memo), creating and using a Blog and Twitter were critical tactics to meet the campaigns goals. First these online tools serve an agenda-building relationship with the local newsmedia, through which Living Classrooms would try to earn media without expensive advertising. However social media is not synonymous with free media: even though these platforms are free to use, they require thoughtful and persistent work from dedicated professionals in order to work well.
Any organization can ask someone to Twitter for them, but only a professional can make it relevant to reporters, bloggers, and others who would want to tell Living Classroom’s story. My role in this process was to build these media tools for them, and to start using these so that Living Classrooms would could model on them; unfortunately they did not have the budget to hire someone to write so my model was key. While new media levels the playing field, a public communications professional can lift an organization above from the rest, so that a non-profit like Living Classrooms can stand out online.
These tactics also play a critical role in winning and retaining new donors, since they allow Living Classrooms to provide regular updates which demonstrate the value of their donation. Because Living Classrooms, like so many non-profits, is involved in so many programs donors don’t always know about all the work their donation allows an organization to accomplish everyday. These regular updates demonstrate the compelling work Living Classrooms does through stories told in words, videos, and pictures in the channels which new donors are likely to discover this cause. This serves as a compliment to the newsletter and mailer our group designed, usually adapting the same material for online use.
We’re still waiting to see which parts of our strategic plan will be used by Living Classrooms this year, so in the meantime please check out the blog I set up or follow @LCNCR on Twitter to learn more. For a communications professional with a strategic approach, online tools can become a successful tactic for non-profits to overcome limitations and expand their communications budgets, ultimately changing minds and lives of those most in need of help.
May’s 7
Picking up on my friend Gabe Bullard’s tradition (in turn borrowed from the Thomas Crone), here’s a monthly list of 7 things I’m enjoying these days. There is no particular order to the list, just a chance to pass along some genuinely worthwhile ideas and trends that wouldn’t warrant a blog post otherwise
Blog: Dork Yearbook. This is why Tumblr is great; Like Mortified, only geekier. I could probably submit my own pics here, except I didn’t have a computer until I was 9 years old. Just because a good blog doesn’t fit into a professional website’s blogroll doesn’t mean it need remain my guilty pleasure.
Meme: #sillyhats . It started out innocently enough when @laurenreid photoshopped a whimsical hat on top of @gbullard’s profile pic. At some point, we’re not sure when, it became a meme of sorts. You’re more than welcome to join in of course, with the right hashtag.
Music: Cover songs. All my favorite musicians are making cover songs (or having their songs covered). Nothing new there, except there seems to be a dearth lately, or at least I finally have taken an interest. This started well before Beck/Sonic Youth’s split-single covering each other’s songs. Why re-invent the wheel when you can acknowledge your influences directly.
Social Network: FourSquare. Before I moved to DC I couldn’t really use Dodgeball, now resurrected as FourSqaure. So I was skeptical about the usefulness of the network, versus my beloved Brightkite. Something about the gaming aspect, earning badges like Mayor of local establishments, makes this incredibly addictive. Try the iPhone app, connect with Twitter, and see you around town!
Theory: Social Marketing. Contrary to the online connotations of it’s name, social marketing does not describe social media marketing. Applying marketing techniques to positively change behaviors that benefit the public good has impressed me with it’s results. And it’s not Plato’s Noble Lie.
Video: Let Me Twitter That. As if my obsession with all things Twitter weren’t enough, this Andy Milonakis video has become something like a theme song. The video itself is ironic, original, and full of in-jokes that Twitterati will recognize immediately.
Word Game: Scrabble. I never thought I’d give this Hasbro classic a try after the Scrabulous fallout. But now that I can play with friends on Facebook, and make plays on my iPhone, this game is hard to put away.