Blogging For Hope: Hunger And Hope

Scientific American recently published an article that asks a question designed to strike at the heart of everything we know: Could food shortages bring down civilization? The article, by Lester R. Brown, included three key concepts, before calling for a massive and rapid intervention.

• Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.
• “Failed states” that export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees.
• Water shortages, soil losses, and rising temperatures from global warming that impact food production.

"As the world’s food security unravels, a dangerous politics of food scarcity is coming into play: individual countries acting in their narrowly defined self-interest are actually worsening the plight of the many," he wrote. "The trend began in 2007, when leading wheat-exporting countries such as Russia and Argentina limited or banned their exports, in hopes of increasing locally available food supplies and thereby bringing down food prices domestically."

John Holmes, writing for the UN Chronicle, cites an earlier date. He pinpoints that food prices began to rise in 2004 while production increased at a pace slower than demand. The result? According to Bread for the World, 963 million people across the world are hungry and 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes daily — one child every five seconds.

There Are Big Calls To Action, But Change Happens Small.

When the fact and figures become so immensely staggering, people tend to tune out and shut off. After all, what can one person possibly do to change the world? How could helping one person matter, when it fails to help the nearly one billion who need help now? How will talking or writing or posting about any specific world problem possibly help? How indeed.

One of the greatest lessons I ever learned from working and volunteering in the nonprofit sector was that people tend to contribute less when the tasks seem overwhelming. (The same can be said in the private sector too). So much so, the outcome results in characteristics similar to depression, except en masse.

It's not uncommon for people feel sad, guilty, or avoid taking any action because "doing anything is too much effort" or "nothing one person can do has any impact." It's just not true. Change happens in small, sometimes unnoticeable ways.

Heifer International Makes A Difference.

And sometimes it is noticed. Heifer International has more than 180 projects that make a difference all over the world. In fact , since 1944, Heifer International has helped communities learn to become self-sufficient by raising animals that provide direct benefits such as milk, eggs, wool, fertilizer, as well as indirect benefits that increase family incomes for better housing, nutrition, health care, and schools.

It's more than a hand out, it's a direct and sustainable hand up. And its those small successes that make all the difference. Here are just a few from BloggersUnite.org and BlogCatalog.com bloggers. They contributed more than 10,000 individual posts and actions (and counting).

Speaking Engagement: AIGA Meets Twitter

If you were wondering (and some people are still wondering) whether Twitter is a permanent addition or passing fancy, AIGA Las Vegas recently invited me to speak along with Warren Whitlock, author of the Twitter Revolution. Everyone is serious about Twitter.

Whitlock is a bestselling author, speaker, publisher, blogger, and marketing strategist. You can find him and about 28,000 followers on Twitter. I'm one of them. He was one of the first people I followed on Twitter, given that he is also from Las Vegas. It's also nice to know I'm in such good company because the AIGA event is two hours.

AIGA LV '09: Java Jam: Twitter Whut?

AIGA LV '09: Java Jam will take place from 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6 at Faciliteq in Downtown Las Vegas. Parking is easy; AIGA Las Vegas provided a map. The event is sponsored by MGM Mirage and Clio 50.

I haven't settled in on what to talk about next week. Here are three thoughts I might brush upon:

• Handling real-time communication as company spokespeople.
• The varied approaches for organizational engagement.
• Why giving up control doesn't mean lack of management.

Of course, I'm always open to new ideas. For example, I loved the impromptu session with Danny Brown today on Twitter. The discussion was integrating social media into crisis communication. It's a great topic; one worth fleshing out sometime soon.

Measuring Communication: Wrapping The ROC

Since January, we've presented an ongoing series dedicated to the Return on Communication (ROC) formula. The ROC defines a communication measurement abstract across advertising, marketing, public relations, internal communication, and social media.

[(B • I) (m+s • r)/d] / [O/(b + t + e)] = ROC

The formula demonstrates how the return on communication is related to the brand equity of the company or product, the intent of the communication, the execution of that intent, the reach and duration of that communication, and the outcomes that communication produces over the cost required to execute it. When matched to the equation, it would read like this:

The brand times intent (message plus suitability times reach divided by the duration) over the outcomes, divided by the cost (budget plus production time plus experience expended).

In other words, a company with a strong brand and well-defined intent that properly communicates to the right audience will produce better outcomes. Those outcomes can then be divided by the cost required to execute the communication. Simplified, all this really means is the return on communication is equal to how well the intent achieves its outcomes.

I | O = ROI

This also concludes the Monday series so we can present another white paper series next week. However, from time to time, we will be revisiting the abstract with models and case studies to demonstrate how it works by example.

Download The Abstract: Measure: I | O = ROC

The ROC is an abstract method of measuring the value of business communication by recognizing that the return on communication — advertising, marketing, public relations, internal communication, and social media — is related to the intent of the communication and the outcome it produces. Every Monday since January, the ROC series explored portions of the abstract.

Considering Content: Two Top Ten Tip Lists

There are plenty of people who might argue the point, but content is still king on the Internet. Readers, friends, associates, colleagues, etc. are all looking for the most useful information about someone, something, some service, or skill set.

After all, content searching and sourcing is the primary reason Google exists, isn't it? How about Amazon? How about Flickr? How about Etsy? Most people go to these places to look for specific content. And once they find you, the question is "did you deliver?"

I know two people who delivered this week on the topic of content management. First, Valeria Maltoni on Conversation Agent and then Kat French on the Social Media Explorer.

Something I always tell students when taking in information from different sources on how to be a better writer is to look for similarities and underlying themes. If diverse parties like Ogilvy (advertising), Princeton (academic), and KSL (journalism), and Copywrite, Ink. (communication) all say similar things, albeit differently, there might be something to it. With that in mind, this is where Maltoni and French seem to intersect:

Ten Tips For Content Management

1. Operate from a strategy and plan.
2. Provide value with the right content mix.
3. Choose the right messenger.
4. Participate with your community.
5. Recognize their participation.
6. Make good on your promises.
7. Keep it fresh by meeting their needs.
8. Consider legal and public interest.
9. Never force the sales message.
10. Know your objectives/expected outcomes.

Add the five steps most publics take to move from being aware to taking action, and you'll find all three models blend together rather nicely. So maybe there is something to it, whether you're talking about social media or communication in general.

Embracing Earth Day: BloggersUnite.org

As the sun was rising in the west, 88,000 blog posts focused on Earth Day were added to more than 2 million written this week. Almost 10 percent of them were written by bloggers at BloggersUnite.org. At 6 a.m., it was still early when I looked.

Earth Day By Individuals

Rebecca Leaman, writing for Wild Apricot, highlighted organizations that use Wild Apricot Web sites to help carry out earth-friendly missions to help establish a sustainable future.

Mary Ann Strain, C.P., who represents the "Passionists" at the United Nations in New York City, wrote about Chandrika Tiwari in Nepal and how climate change is impacting women, who she says make up 70 percent of the world’s poor. Even in the United States there is a discrepancy, she writes, 13.8 percent of women are poor compared to 11.1 percent of men.

"irtiza104," who is a student in Bangladesh, used his post on LIFE As I Know It to explore the meaning of Earth Day after admitting that he was "having a lot of trouble fully understanding the meaning of the Earth Day." He then goes on to list seven steps that could help the earth, ranging from curbing our reliance on plastic bags to planting more trees.

Doson, a BlogCatalog regular, chose to write an original poem called "The Blue Marble" on his blog, Inside Doson. "Time Thief," writing a few days ago to help promote the event, provided eco-friendly tips (such as riding an Optibike) on This Time - This Space. And Samantha, an artist who maintains Samantha's Art Studio, promoted reusable bags that can be purchased on Etsy.

Their voices will join millions more who are writing, blogging, and attending events in honor of Earth Day, which marks the beginning of The Green Generation Campaign, a two-year campaign that focuses on the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2010. Some events are small. And others, are much larger.

Anti-Earth Day By Individuals

Of course, not everyone shares the same ideas about Earth Day. Alan Caruba, writing for the Canadian Free Press says "much of the foundation of the environmental movement is pure lies, mind boggling distortions of questionable 'science', and a thin veneer for the entire purpose of environmentalism, the imposing of a one-world agenda for the enrichment of a few who dream of a monopolistic control of the world’s resources and its human work force."

He's not alone. There are plenty of people who will write about that today. Or, perhaps, remind us how people haven't done enough in what is often billed as politics masquerading as planet friendliness.

Politics Or Promise?

Maybe it's because I grew up watching the acclaimed Keep America Beautiful PSA crying Indian commercial that launched on Earth Day in 1971 (The PSA won two Clio awards and the campaign was named one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th Century by Ad Age Magazine), but I like Earth Day.

Sure, I understand the politics and commercialization of it all. It's simple. People will be around to save the planet or they won't be.

At the end of the day, when you deduct all the fuss from the extreme, the net result is that Earth Day helps people pause for a minute or two and think about how we might do this or that a little better. Ergo, Iron Eyes Cody convinced me to promise to never litter again. It's a little thing. But a whole lot of little things add up to something big. There is nothing wrong with that.

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer

Squeezing SM Pros: Bloggers And Celebrities

According to Mark Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne, writing for The Wall Street Journal, the concept that blogging is passing fad might finally be put to rest. The United States is a nation with more than 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income, he writes.

"Pros who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for their blogging," he wrote. "One percent make over $200,000. And they report long hours -- 50 to 60 hours a week."

Beyond the stats, demographics, and several key observations, there is something else that these numbers might mean. Not only is social media mainstream, it's changing and some of the old guard leaders are being supplanted by newcomers.

In some cases, reasonably well-paid professionals that blog, tweet, and chat across the Internet have outpaced early adapters with brand boosts from big companies. While it always happened before (one wonders if there would be Scoble without a Microsoft or a Kawasaki without an Apple), the brand boosts are starting to come from smaller and much more traditional companies. (We predicted it was inevitable several years ago.)

At the same time, coupled with the addition of celebrities like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, several social media types that used to lead the way say they feel like part of the crowd. Leo Laporte even said with only 100,000 followers, he could go back to being a normal Joe. It almost begs the question. When wasn't Laporte a normal Joe?

In a recent interview, Kutcher revealed his secret. Despite the billboards and already high number of followers, he just wants to be a normal Joe connecting with people using an online message service. And you know what? That's pretty much what he does. He is not alone either.

So, as some top social media pros eventually find themselves as part of a shrinking middle between a growing number newcomers and celebrities at the top, it seems to me the best advice isn't to call new folks carpetbaggers as much as it might be to welcome them along. I've seen several thousands of bloggers rise and disappear over the years; the good ones always stick around without labeling others simply for fear of giving up turf. There is no turf online, except the astro kind.

Equally important, having managed several hefty brands over the years, I always known that brands provide amazing boosts for individuals. Big deal. It's better not to worry about positive brand associations as much as your ability to be true to your company, your client, or yourself (depending on why you spend your time online). That's not online advice; it's advice for life.