Spare Change

Engagement and Deliverance at the CDC, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:00:00 +0000

I can't attend humongous conferences like the American Public Health Association monstrosity; although there are an incredible number of sessions, only a small percentage actually apply directly to my own interests. Last week at the CDC's 2nd National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media, I had the opposite problem. So many sessions were scheduled, and nearly every one was spot-on as to the topics I want to learn about, that it was hard to choose which ones to attend. (Disclosure: I was on the conference planning committee, but can't really claim credit for how the actual end product turned out. And I unfortunately did not try hard enough to change the theme -- "Engage and Deliver" -- which Adam Ant sang over and over in my head throughout the conference.)

I had to miss the last day of the conference, but still filled an entire notepad with my notes from each session. Aside from the plenary sessions, the panels were comprised primarily of research-based presentations. Despite some inevitably dry deliveries, I'm glad our field has evolved to the point where we have so much research to share. Here are some of the key points I thought were worth highlighting:

Plenary

James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, talked about how, under the right conditions, a group's decisions can be smarter than those of the smartest person in the group. He used examples like Google's pagerank algorithm, racetrack betting and Best Buy's yearly gift card sales. His point is that if you can devise a way to aggregate individual predictions simultaneously, and to do this within a diverse group of people with different perspectives and ways of approaching problems, the random errors will cancel each other out and you will end up with the closest approximation to the correct answer.

Key lessons: 1) When assembling a team to solve a problem, bring in people with many different viewpoints and skills. 2) Encourage disagreement. 3) Limit the amount of back-and-forth dithering, which leads to worse decisionmaking.

New Frontiers in Message Design Theory

Karen King, University of Georgia - If you have multiple messages to convey within a campaign, you can bundle up to four together without losing recall. It does not make a difference whether you specify the category that unifies the messages. I found this interesting as I have always thought to be most effective you should limit the number of messages you try to cram into a single communication piece. They were testing this with brochures, but I think other media would have a different maximum number.

Michael Rovito, Temple University - For the issue of testicular cancer, he used perceptual mapping to identify four different types of "control identities" related to locus of control (whether people believed control was external or internal) and constructs of whether control is realistic or unrealistic. The four types were: 1) The Fates - unrealistic external; 2) The Herd - realistic external; 3) The Optimals - realistic internal; and 4) The Manipulators - unrealistic internal. Clearly, different types of people need different kinds of messages tailored to their beliefs.

Bill Smith, Academy for Educational Development - Bill described a research/decision making technique called "deliberative polling," which was created by James Fishkin and offers another way to think about involving citizens in policy discussions when there is no clear-cut right answer. A randomly selected sample of 800-1500 people, who are first polled by phone, are brought together over two days. During this time they read background documents on the issue, have experts explaining the different options, ask questions of the experts, and break into small groups to discuss and debate what they've learned. This technique can be a good way of involving the public in evaluating competing alternatives and prioritizing public policy issues.

Applying Emerging Theories to Engage the Public

Sergey Sotnikov, CDC - By mapping out the relationships between either organizations or people within an organization, you can use network analysis to visualize the key points within the network. You can look at who is most connected overall, who are the go-betweens on specific topics, and who is more isolated. This can help you figure out the best way to spread information within a network.

Jennifer Heilbronner, Metropolitan Group - Jennifer spoke about building public will, and how this is a different process from social marketing. She defined it as "a communication approach that builds public support for long-term social change by integrating grassroots outreach methods with traditional mass media tools and connecting an issue to the existing, closely held values of individuals and groups." While I think she was contrasting this process to the too common mass media-focused, short-term campaign blast many people think is social marketing, her description of public will building is much closer to the more comprehensive marketing mix-driven social marketing process to which many of us in the field adhere. You can download her group's Public Will Framework to learn more about their process.

Constanze Rossmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat-Munchen - While I thought it was overkill to start off with a definition of "health flyer" and I loved her pronunciation of the word "anxiety" as "ANKshity" (Yes! It does look like it should be pronounced that way.), this presentation looked at two very important different elements of how we present information. First, do exemplars -- a case study of one person -- affect risk perceptions, attitudes and behaviors more than abstract statistics and generalizations about the population? In her testing of a brochure about obesity, the answer was yes -- but only among people who are already involved with the issue (e.g., worried about their weight, dieting, etc.). Second, what is the effect of fear appeals in graphic images? She tested three different images related to obesity, each of which was either low, moderate or high fear inducing. Interestingly, she found that when it came to building knowledge, the low and high images were more effective. To affect risk perception, attitudes and behaviors, the moderately fear inducing image was more effective. I wonder why that difference - do different types of people react to the images in different ways?

That was Day 1 - I'll sum up the second day in a subsequent post.

In the meantime, you can learn more by checking out the Ning group for the conference that was started by Dana Sheets as a place to share notes. If you're on Facebook, look at the Health Communication, Marketing and Media group that is a central place to exchange ideas related to the conference. Read Craig Lefebvre's summary of a discussion that took place at the conference about the development of a professional network. And if you went to the conference and want to put in your two cents about what you thought, someone at the CDC Chatter message board wants to know if it was "as extravagant and pointless as we all expected it to be." Um, no, Senator Coburn. An embarrassment of riches, perhaps, but extravagant and pointless, not in any way.

More soon...

Remembering Tony Schwartz

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:03:00 +0000

I just learned from Dick Morris that political and social media pioneer Tony Schwartz died this weekend. While he is perhaps best known for a TV commercial that ran only once but changed the course of an election (the Daisy ad) and his media work for other political candidates, he is also owed a debt of gratitude for his influence on social marketing as well.

Among the more than 20,000 spots Tony recorded in his lifetime were the first anti-smoking commercials. A 1961 ad featuring children dressing up in their parents' clothing in front of a mirror ("Children learn by imitating their parents. Do you smoke cigarettes?") was credited by the American Cancer Society with driving the tobacco industry's ads off television and radio. He was an active anti-tobacco advocate and addressed many social issues as well.

I was lucky to have met Tony several times as a student at the Harvard School of Public Health. He co-taught a course on developing media communications that I took, and for which I later became the teaching assistant. Because he was agoraphobic, Tony did not often leave his home in New York City. He taught the class via teleconference, and we actually flew up to New York to meet with him a couple of times in his 56th Street apartment/studio (yes, it's nice to go to a school with resources like that!).

In his cramped studio surrounded by massive shelves of tapes and videos, we had the opportunity to learn from the master. At the end of the quarter we had our own PSA radio spots recorded by a professional announcer there.

From Tony, I learned the importance of tapping into emotions, using sound and images to strike a "responsive chord" with what people already knew and believed. And long before the Truth campaign came along, he was wielding the delicate scalpel (and sometimes blunt club) of shame to get people to do the right thing about everything from picking up after their dog to city budgetary issues.

His guerrilla media approach often utilized the tactic of "narrowcasting" to the extreme; he sometimes even had a target audience of one - for example, the chairman of Philip Morris or McDonalds, or the city councilman responsible for a particular crime-ridden neighborhood. In some cases, just the threat of Tony's well-known brand of shaming via media was enough to persuade an abrupt turnaround without the ad ever running.

Though I haven't thought about Tony Schwartz for quite a while, as I write this I am realizing how much I apply the things I learned from him in my everyday work. Thank you, Tony.

Photo: tonyschwartz.org

Please Pardon Our Dust

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:11:00 +0000

For some reason, my blog has decided to stage a rebellion. It got used to slacking off and resented my putting up a new post. Until I figure out how to fix it, you can find all of the sidebar items usually found on the right side, sitting in a big pile on the bottom of the page, too lazy to lift themselves up to the top. A thousand pardons...

Photo Credit: Robert Brook

Be There or Be Square

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:17:00 +0000

The second National Conference on Health Communication, Media and Marketing, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is coming up in August. This year I'm on the planning committee, and it looks to be an even bigger and better affair this year than last. Early bird registration is open through June 13th. Here's all the details:

National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media 2008

The second National Conference on Health Communication, Media and Marketing sponsored by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Marketing and the Office of Enterprise Communications will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 12 - 14, 2008, at the Omni Hotel in downtown Atlanta. The National Cancer Institute and the National Public Health Information Coalition are co-sponsors for this event.

Three half-day pre-conference workshops are offered, for an additional registration fee. I will be presenting a workshop on Social Media for Social Marketers. If you've missed my Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar, it will be similar in scope and a bargain to boot. Other workshops include Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications, and Designing Health Literate Marketing Products and Services.

If your company or organization is interested in exhibiting at or sponsoring the conference, it's a great way to reach hundreds of health communicators and social marketers.

I'm also excited about the Ypulse National Mashup coming up in July on "Reaching Today's Totally Wired Generation with Technology." Anastasia Goodstein, who writes the Ypulse blog, has created an empire around youth-related information, and has put together an amazing event with the creme-de-la-creme of speakers who understand how youth use social media and technology. If you are trying to reach youth and you do not read Ypulse daily, you must start. Look at the agenda and list of speakers and you'll see that this is the definitive youth conference to attend (July 14-15 in San Francisco).

I will be moderating a panel that is part of the Building a Youth Movement preconference on "Using Social Media to Create a Social Movement." The panelists include Ginger Thomson, CEO of YouthNOISE; Liba Rubenstein, Manager of Public Affairs/Impact Channel for MySpace; and Tina Hoff, VP and Director of Entertainment Media Partnerships for The Kaiser Family Foundation. An amazing group of speakers! The preconference is being organized by Aria Finger, the CMO of Do Something, who was just interviewed on Ypulse.

Let me know if you'll be at either of these events. I hope to see you there!

UPDATE: Anastasia just let me know that if you enter the code 'NKW' when you register for the Ypulse Mashup, you can get a 10% discount off the standard rate!

The Tip Jar - 5/28/08

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:08:00 +0000

It's been way too long since the last installment of the Tip Jar, my collection of recent odds and ends from the world of social marketing to pass along to you. So let's unscrew that jar and see what falls out...

How much effect would you think a checkbox would have on someone's decision whether or not to become a potential organ donor? When the checkbox on the form at the DMV is "opt-out" versus "opt-in" to the organ donation program, consent rates are much higher. In both cases, people generally adopt the default option, but with opposite results, even among people with similar characteristics. This is an example from Dan Ariely's blog, linked to his new book Predictably Irrational, of how people are influenced by environmental and emotional factors that unknowingly affect our choices and behaviors even when we think we are making rational decisions. I think the field of behavioral economics holds a lot of lessons for social marketers.

Don't miss the special free supplement in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine with a treasure trove of articles about the (now defunct) VERB Campaign. This great example of using branding to persuade preteens to get physically active had full-scale evaluation data showing how effective it was, and the articles in this supplement help round out the case study.

Another classic social marketing brand, the Truth Campaign, seems to have gotten off-track with its latest TV ad. Called out by AdRants for being anachronistic, I have to agree that basing the commercial on a tobacco company executive's statement in 1971 -- 37 years ago -- is irrelevant to today's kids. A 14 year old today was born in 1994 (yikes!); 1971 might as well be 1871 to them. Hope the campaign will lose its obsession with old tobacco industry documents and get back in touch with what connects with youth now. They used to be great at it.

I found it interesting that the Democratic National Committee is requiring the caterers for its convention in Denver this summer to use healthy, environmentally friendly ingredients. The food must be local, organic or both, and must include at least three out of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white. Fried foods are out. Individual bottled drinks are a no-no, as are styrofoam plates. This will be a challenge for the caterers, as one said, "We all want to source locally, but we're in Colorado. The growing season is short. It's dry here. And I question the feasibility of that." The costs for the committee's 22 or so events may be at least doubled by these new requirements (not a happy prospect given their money woes, I'm sure). If they succeed, though, I'm sure this will be a model for other future events.

It's worth checking out the podcasts of the panels from the Making Your Media Matter conference, presented by the Center for Social Media. They include topics like games for social change, telling difficult stories, hip-hop as a medium, crossing cultural boundaries, and emerging formats and distribution strategies.

Global warming gadfly Bjorn Lomborg wrote a thought-provoking piece in the Wall Street Journal on how to think about the world's problems. Can we set our priorities based on straight cost/benefit analysis of what will be most efficient in saving lives? Maybe we could, or maybe the vested interests would get in the way. On Friday, a panel of the world's top economists will release a prioritized list showing the best and worst investments we could make in 50 solutions to the biggest problems. That should be interesting to see, and even more interesting will be the reaction to it.

Are you a sworn officer of the grammar police like I am? Misplaced apostrophes drive me bonkers. Misspellings make me want to stab people with a red sharpie. PSFK points us to a Chicago Times article about two guys who decided to get militant and do something about it. They traveled across the US as the Typo Eradication Advancement League, stopping wherever they saw typos or grammar mistakes on signs and either asking the owner to make the correction or fixing it themselves. My heroes!

SocialButterfly has compiled a comprehensive list of the latest social marketing-related events coming up on the calendar this year all over the world. There's something for everyone there.

Speaking of social marketing events (ahem), next week is Social Marketing University in Washington, DC. Even if you're not coming to SMU (though there still are a few seats left if you register immediately), if you are in the DC area please join Andre Blackman (of the Pulse & Signal blog), me and many others at the first Social Marketing Blogger/Reader Dinner and Meetup. It will be on this Tuesday, June 3rd, 6:30 - 9:00 pm, at the Capitol City Brewery (1100 New York Ave, NW). Come by for all or part of it, and eat, drink or just schmooze. If you are on Facebook, you can let us know you're coming on the event page, or send me an email at weinreich at social-marketing.com. Hope to see you there!

Photo Credit: waheedaharris

You Know You Spend Too Much Time on Twitter When...

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:32:00 +0000

In recognition of the fact that lately I've been neglecting my blog in favor of Twitter, I am doing penance with a bit of humor.

You know you spend too much time on Twitter when...

... you start calling your family things like @Dad or @Rachky in conversations.

... you only speak in short bursts of 140 characters and self-edit to use synonyms with fewer letters.

... you make decisions about what you'll have for lunch based on how interesting it will sound on Twitter.

... you find yourself thinking up new Alltop topics in the hopes of getting Kawasakied.

... you make a new offline friend and announce to all your other friends that you're just 2 people short of having 200 friends.

... your swear word of choice is "TweetJeebus!"

... your Twitter followers know you are pregnant before your husband does.

... throughout the day you compose tweets in your head about what you're doing, even if you are nowhere near your computer.

... during a Twitter outage, you compulsively hit "refresh" every three seconds hoping this will be the time it will come back on.

... most of your email is now either direct messages or new follower notifications.

... you don't feel the need to go to a conference in person anymore because someone else is livetweeting it.
... you get all your news from @BreakingNewsOn.

... you find yourself referring to the telephone's pound key as a 'hashtag.'

... you have no idea what's going on in your friends' lives unless they are on Twitter.

... you give people your personal website address as a TinyURL.

... you can't hear what someone says to you and you say, "Could you please retweet that?"

These things, of course, do not apply to me. What would you add?

Photo Credit: sarahkim

Social Marketing University Training Coming to DC

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:17:00 +0000

I will be offering another Social Marketing University training in Washington DC in June. This is a great introduction to using social marketing to bring about health and social change.

The training lasts 2-1/2 days, with the last half-day focusing on Next Generation Social Marketing. If you are a social marketer who already knows the basics and are interested in expanding your bag of tricks to include newer marketing methods using social media and other technologies -- many of the things I write about on this blog -- you can register just for the last day.

Here's all the important information:

Social Marketing University
June 2-4, 2008
George Washington University
Washington, DC

Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar
June 4, 2008, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
included in registration for SMU
OR register separately for seminar only

Complete information about the topics to be covered, hotel reservations, registration fees and what past participants have said can be found on the Social Marketing University information page.

If you register before May 4th, you will receive $100 off the regular price. There are also discounts for additional participants coming from the same organization (send your team to be trained!) and a student discount. Seats are limited, so reserve your spot soon; the last training in Washington DC sold out.

And, as a special bonus just for my blog readers, use this discount code to get an additional $75 off the registration cost of the full Social Marketing University tuition: BLOG.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope to see you there!

Technorati Tags: social marketing, training, nonprofit

Ready for the Zombie Invasion (or any other disaster)

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:51:00 +0000

Flickr Photo Credit: d200 dug No censorship!

One of the big frustrations disaster preparedness professionals constantly face is the difficulty of getting people to acknowledge the likelihood of an emergency event -- whether its a natural disaster, pandemic flu or manmade terrorism -- and to take actions to be ready if when it happens. The fact is, people don't like to think about worst-case scenarios, and they definitely don't like to have to spend effort and money to address something that they think is likely never to happen to them.

Public health and safety folks tend to come at the problem from a straightforward "Here are the facts. Are you prepared?" angle. Sometimes they also try to scare people into taking action. But you don't often see disaster preparedness as a fun and social activity. Of course, the best idea I've seen for getting people engaged with the issue didn't come from the professionals at all, but from a group of friends looking for fun. And talk about worst-case scenarios -- it doesn't get much worse than a full-out zombie invasion.

I first found out about Zombie Squad from @rachky and @zen_jewitch on Twitter. Looking at the website, I went from an initial "Huh?" to "Wow, what a brilliant idea!" Seeing the potential for social marketers to be inspired by this unconventional approach to a conventional topic, I requested an interview with members of the Squad. A big thanks to Kyle Ladd, a member of the ZS Board of Directors and one of its founders, and Christopher Cyr, the ZS accountant, for taking the time to answer my questions.
(Zombie Squad Photo Credit: Mike Dressler)

First of all, can you explain what Zombie Squad is?

Zombie Squad is the world's premiere non-stationary cadaver
suppression task force. Of course, as you may know, our mission is not
only to keep your neighborhood safe from the shambling hordes but also
to help guide and educate others to better prepare themselves for any
disaster. We want the public to be ready for anything from a natural
or man made disaster, like a tornado or earthquake, to a full on
zombie apocalypse.

Our organization focuses on fulfilling its mission by sharing
information and promoting education about issues concerning survival
and preparation. We also encourage our large member base to be
involved in community organizations that promote disaster awareness or
assist in recovery efforts. Our members volunteer their time, attend
and organize fundraisers, and give to their communities in a number of
ways. By using the zombie survival theme, we are able to reach a
demographic that many organizations are unable to.

How did you get the idea to start Zombie Squad? Fighting off the
undead is not an obvious market niche.

The official story involves a group of friends returning home from a
movie one night and discussing how they would survive better than any
of the characters in the film. From there the idea grew into a group
of people who thought it would be fun to gain the skills necessary to
actually survive a scenario where society has fallen. As they told
their idea to other friends, word spread and the organization began to
take shape. Early members realized the practicality and usefulness of
many of the skills they were acquiring. The zombie survival theme
provides a fun context to learn basic survival skills, with none of
the usual stigma attached to being called a "survivalist."

What kinds of people tend to join Zombie Squad?

We have active members from all walks of life ranging from graphic
designers and tattoo artists to military officers and lawyers. Cult
fans of the zombie/horror/post-apocalyptic genre seem to be
everywhere. It always amazes me how our members consistently donate
their time, effort, and money to support their communities.

What types of organizations hire your services or trainings?

Some of the organizations ZS has worked with include larger charities
like the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and Cancer Society but we try
to focus our efforts more towards the local communities where our
respective chapters reside. We do a lot of work putting on fund
raisers for local charities and collecting for local food and blood
banks.

How do you do your public outreach and education? What types of
activities do you use to raise awareness of disaster preparedness and
zombie survival?

Zombie Squad reaches the public via several paths. First and foremost
is our website which hosts general disaster preparation information
via our blog, well managed discussion forums and videos.

Over the last several years we've branched out with our traveling
"Zombie Survival" seminars that focus on general disaster preparation
with a zombie twist. These seminars draw quite a crowd who in many
cases come to see us for the zombie aspect but leave with knowledge
and interest in steps they can take to be more prepared for more
relevant disasters. We originally focused on sci-fi and horror
conventions around the country, but we're also regularly invited to
bring our show to Boy Scout Troops, universities, disaster fairs and
even REI stores.

Last year our St. Louis Chapter put on its own disaster fair and it
was a huge success. The fair took place during the one year
anniversary of a series of storms that tore through St. Louis leaving
over 500,000 people without power, many for a week or more, on the
hottest days of the year. Another storm hit St. Louis again that
winter with similar devastation of local utilities. The goal of the
fair was to promote the importance of being prepared for similar
disasters and to bring local disaster agencies together to talk about
what they do for the community. We brought in guest speakers and
representatives who set up informational booths from a number of local
disaster response agencies such as the Red Cross, CERT, ARES, Human
Society, SCC Health Dept and others.

In addition to these educational programs our chapters host fund
raisers for various organizations, food drives, movie nights and other
events, as mentioned in the previous question.

Would you say the emphasis of your organization is more on having
fun with the zombie theme or on the disaster preparedness message?
Which part of it do you think gets people motivated to take action?

Both. Zombie Squad is occasionally described as an organization that
tricks people into learning. While many participants are drawn to our
events by their interest in the zombie and post apocalyptic
entertainment elements, they come to realize that everything we
present has real world applications.

At what point does the zombie fun end, and the serious
life-and-death discussions begin? Are there some issues at which you
draw the line at being humorous?

That's a good question. We do have plenty of lines drawn to make sure
people don't get the wrong impression. For instance, we clearly state
that the "zombies" we discuss are metaphors for natural and man made
disasters. They are not codewords for people of other races,
nationalities, religions, sexual orientation, or anything similar.

What are some of the advantages of addressing such a usually serious
and fear-driven topic from a new angle?

Taking the topic seriously but keeping it fun is a great way to keep
people interested. There are a number of informational campaigns that
have tried to scare the public into preparing for some big disaster,
but those fear tactics in marketing always appear unauthentic. The
average person sees through that facade. Our goal is to make sure
people respect the danger that disasters pose, but not live in fear of
them. Preparation is the key to beginning to control that fear.

What have been some of the barriers you've come up against in using
this unique approach to disaster preparedness, among your members, the people you are trying to reach, potential funders or others?

The obvious major barrier is the zombie survival theme itself. While
it is a great tool for reaching specific people, others tend to
automatically tune out the message. Usually this barrier is overcome
by calmly explaining that we do not actually think the dead will crawl
out of their graves any time soon (though we're ready if they do). At
that point, people either get it, or they move on. The truth is,
there are a number of organizations out there that already cater to
those people.

Do you have any advice for other people working on health and social
causes who are trying to figure out how to make their messages
appealing and fun?

Bring in as many young people as you can. They have the best ideas
and the most motivation. The hard part is keeping their interest.
Stay on top of pop-culture trends and figure out a way to use it to
your advantage.

You can always try bribing them. One thing we find is that people
like to know that their time is appreciated when they volunteer.
There are great, inexpensive, and fun ways to reward volunteers for
their involvement that keep them happy and eager to support your
mission.

One project we're working on now is our "Volunteer Awards Program."
Not all of our members are able to get involved with local chapters,
so this program will allow them to still volunteer in their community
as part of Zombie Squad. Under the program, members will volunteer
for an organization with a cause they feel worthy of supporting and
keep track of their hours on a form we provide. We're really flexible
about where they can volunteer. They just need to contact us for
approval if it's not a charity on our list. Then at the end of the
year they tell us how many hours they volunteered and we send them a
number of incentive awards ranging from a new enamel ZS pin, patches,
stickers, shirts, and so forth, based on their level of participation.
It's a way for us to thank our members for doing their part and it
helps us to get an idea what sort of charities our members are
interested in. We're looking forward to how this program turns out and
our members seem really excited about participating.

Do you have any funny or unusual stories you can share that have
come out of the work you do? (Notwithstanding, of course, the fact
that the work itself is funny and unusual!)

The thing that always brings smiles to the faces of our members is the
realization of how far the organization's message has spread. It's a
common occurrence for Zombie Squad members nationwide to be out in
their communities wearing a ZS t-shirt and hear someone yell "Zombie
Squad" to them, or walk up and ask how they know about the
organization. When you think about the fact that this organization
started over a discussion held by a few people in a van in South St.
Louis, Missouri…it's pretty amazing.

Is there anything else you would like to mention that I haven't asked about?

Don't you want to know about the robot threat?

Technorati Tags: zombie squad, disaster, emergency, social marketing

Social Marketing University Coming Soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:32:00 +0000

I'm happy to announce that the next session of Social Marketing University will be coming to Washington, DC on June 2-4, 2008. I do not have all the details set yet, but please save the date if you are interested in attending. It will be a similar format to the most recent event, with two days of intensive social marketing training and a half-day Next Generation Social Marketing seminar focusing on how to use social media.

I am in the process of looking for a venue in which to hold the training. If your organization or institution is in an accessible area of Washington, DC and has a large meeting room to offer on those dates, you will receive three complimentary registrations for your staff (a $1,585 value) and lots of free publicity as the host sponsor. Other types of sponsorship opportunities are available as well if your organization wants to reach people interested in social marketing (download more information). If you are interested in hosting or sponsoring the event, let me know as soon as possible so that you will get all the publicity that's coming to you starting with the official announcement.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email to training@social-marketing.com and you will receive an announcement as soon as registration opens. I hope you'll be able to join me!

Photo Credit: Paul Wicks

Technorati Tags: social marketing university, nonprofit, training, workshop

Sticker Charts for 40 Year Olds

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:00:00 +0000

I just turned 40 the other day and realized I might not live forever. So, I've decided to try to do something about that - the usual: eat better, exercise more, go to bed earlier. These are all things I've worked on at various other times in my life that somehow didn't quite stick. The irony is that what I do for a living is figuring out how to motivate other people to adopt healthy behaviors. Why is it so hard to apply social marketing concepts to myself?

I thought about the benefits that I would get from becoming healthier, the barriers that I would need to overcome, how to remind myself to do these things in the places where I will see them and motivate myself to keep going once the novelty wears off...

And I realized that the answer is something that has been so much a part of my life as a mommy that I didn't even see it right in front of me. What have I done to motivate my kids, when they were younger, to do something they didn't want to do, whether it was getting through swim lessons, being polite or going to the potty themselves? Sticker charts! They got a sticker for each time they did what I wanted them to do, and after a certain number of stickers they would get a prize of their choosing -- a My Little Pony, a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, whatever worked. And they did work!

So I sat down and created myself a grown-up version of a sticker chart, with columns for each behavior I want to try to do each day and a row for each day of the month. Since I'm 40, I guess I don't need actual stickers; checkmarks will do. I have five sets of behaviors I want to try to do each day, and I decided that once I accumulate 100 checkmarks I will treat myself to a reward just for me. I'm not sure yet what it will be, since there's not really a THING that I'm lusting after. Maybe it will be something like a guilt-free morning spent lying on the beach, a visit to the museum alone without complaining kids tugging at me, a massage, or something else that feels special.

Sustaining motivation, setting goals, finding the right rewards -- these are all things we have to take into consideration when we create social marketing programs aimed at other people. It's when you have to apply it to yourself that the concepts really come to life. What have you done in the past to motivate yourself to reach your own goals?

Photo Credit: Breeezy

What is Your Organization's Personality?

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:17:00 +0000

Last week, I finally had an opportunity to meet in person my longtime blog friend Rohit Bhargava, who writes the Influential Marketing Blog. I was excited to get to see the cover of his new book, Personality Not Included, though there were still a few more days until the actual book was set to be published and released. (I love that wind-up chicken with 'tude!)

To celebrate the launch of the book, Rohit decided to put himself through a grueling virtual book tour, answering five questions each from over 50 bloggers within a couple of days. He even promised that he wouldn't be cutting and pasting responses, so each interview is different (here is the list with links to each interview).

Without further ado, here is my interview with Rohit:

What are the differences between an individual's personality and that of an organization?

This is a really good question and one that I spend a part of Chapter 1 focusing on. The main reason is that we all have a shared idea of what individual personality means. It usually relates to a four letter rating from a test like Meyers-Briggs, and conjures up images of multiple choices test online. The personality of an organization is something that I try to define as much deeper. It is the unique, authentic and talkable soul of a company.

How does an organization go about creating a personality for itself?

You're really asking the right questions here! This, to a degree is what the whole book is about. A quick snapshot of steps basically comes from my overall outline of the book:

Step 1 - Understand why organizations lose their personality
Step 2 - Look at your accidental spokespeople to see who speaks for your brand
Step 3 - Define your personality using a formula from the book
Step 4 - Create and tell your backstory
Step 5 - Overcome the barriers or roadblocks
Step 6 - Find and use your personality moments

There are other lessons in there, but that's the snapshot view.

Are there special considerations that nonprofits and government agencies need to think about when cultivating their personalities?

Of course, I think that regulations may make it seem more difficult to do things when it comes to being a government entity - but ultimately the barriers to personality come down to the same thing ... fear. It is the topic that I cover in Chapter 5 - how to overcome the different types of fear and have a personality. The one thing I might add to my list that I share in the book that is common in government is the idea of ego. This not a negative term, as many might suppose, but rather the idea that there are a lot of dedicated government workers that are trying to make a name for themselves because they may have political or career aspirations. It is a key factor that many government agencies may need to take into account when finding a way to cultivate their personalities.

What are some good examples of nonprofits or government agencies that have developed a personality for themselves?

There are a few great examples in the book, but one that I am a big personal fan of is Kiva.org. They have been one of the pioneering groups in microfinance and have also built a large following of dedicated givers because of the way that they manage to portray their brand and let their team members share their passion with the world.

What are some examples of negative nonprofit or government agency personalities, and how might they turn that around for themselves?

Good question - I think the government agencies with the lowest public perception are the ones that you might expect - eg, the IRS. How could the IRS use personality? How about taking an approach similar to what Intuit did with their popular TurboTax solution by letting people answer each other's questions in a real time collaborative online help system? Personality is all about having a human voice and trying to avoid becoming a bureaucracy. Perhaps the better questions is which government agencies couldn't use personality? They all could.

Thanks so much to Rohit for sharing his insights. You can download the introduction to Personality Not Included for a preview of what you can expect from the book. Is it time for you to think about your organization's personality?

The Engagement Equation

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:14:00 +0000

The elusive holy grail of social media marketing is figuring out how to measure the nebulous concept of "engagement." Evaluating our online efforts is even harder for social marketers because we don't have the eventual sales figures to prove that they led to any changes in behavior among our audience. Before online marketing became a two-way street, way back when people would simply read information posted on a website, we could easily track things like unique visitors, page views and recency of visit. Now that the people we are talking to can talk back to us, we need to think about how to capture the value of conversations, interactions, and social networking.

I happened to see a comment on Twitter that led me to a blog post by John Johansen titled Engagement = Ingagement + Outgagement. Before I read the post, the title alone got me thinking in a new way about the concept. Turns out that John went in a different direction with the meanings of the terms than I did, so let's just focus on the equation itself.

I see "ingagement" and "outgagement" as being similar to the ideas of inputs and outputs. "Ingagement" would refer to the marketing activities from your organization to which a particular person is exposed. That would include your website, blog, Twitter activity, emails, advertisements, etc. If someone is interested and paying attention to what you have to say, that's a prerequisite to being engaged with your organization or issue.

"Outgagement" is the response from that person to your inputs. Does he or she leave a comment responding to your blog post, subscribe to your feed, engage in a conversation with you on Twitter, join your Facebook group, tell friends about your issue? Even better, but often not measurable through online indicators, is whether they actually adopt the behavior that you are promoting.

The outgagement is much less likely to happen unless there is some ingagement, and when both occur together, in an interactive way, we get "engagement." Engagement can affect things like knowledge, attitudes and behaviors (though it could happen in either a positive or negative direction, depending upon the nature of the interactions). Even for commercial marketers, it's not always easy to make a direct correlation between social media activities and increases in sales. Mike Kujawski gives some ideas on how to measure return on investment from your public sector/nonprofit online activities.

Generating engagement is not always simple, but it's also not differential calculus. It boils down to giving people a reason to pay attention to your message and a way to interact with your issue or organization. And then it will all add up.

Photo Credit: Chris Inside

Technorati Tags: engagement, marketing, metrics

If Condoms Had Sponsors...

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:02:00 +0000

Apparently this has been circulating via email and web for a while, but new to me (origin unknown). Thanks to Nancy Lee for passing along this social marketing branding inspiration.

In the Social Media Twilight Zone

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Here's proof that I wasn't crazy this morning when I got the Twitter domain parking page, and then when I tried to respond to a comment on my blog got an error message for Blogger that said that "Services for this domain have been discontinued." (Sorry for the size/blurriness of screen shots - don't know why they turned out that way.) I figured it was a sign of the Internet apocalypse, with hackers taking out vast swaths of our social media landscape. Turns out I was wrong, and that I seem to be the only one with these wacky pages. Blogger seems to have worked itself out, but Twitter keeps going in and out for me in a different way than its usual hiccups. Does anyone have an explanation for this weirdness that seems to only affect me? (I set myself up for that one, didn't I?)

Technorati Tags: blogger, twitter

The Meaning of Definitions redux

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:24:00 +0000

Richard reposted a link to this post I wrote last year and it reminded me how much I liked it. I'm reposting it as well in honor of Daylight Savings Time starting tonight, since many of my readers may not have seen it the first time around...

Richard Kearns, the poet-activist at aids-write.org, writes about two issues that at first seem entirely unrelated: the CDC's description of AIDS, and the designation of Daylight Saving Time. After his requisite lovely poem, he writes:

seventeen years ago i belonged to a la-based gay men’s HIV-positive ASYMPTOMATIC support group. ASYMPTOMATIC was the functional word: it distanced us as far as we could get from AIDS. it was having it without having it. fear and shame and stigma captured in a moment of language.
had a love there whom i’ll call jerry, a blonde, blue-eyed hunk with fifty-two t-cells and a kiss that kept me alive. fifty-two t-cells made him happy. fifty was the cutoff. he didn’t have AIDS. he was ASYMPTOMATIC. he felt fine. he felt more than fine. i must agree he felt more than fine.
then came the day.
in an effort to make federal funding available to the shockingly growing national population of HIV-infected individuals, the us center for disease control (cdc) revised its AIDS “portrait” to include — among other things — persons with fewer than 200 t-4-cells. the cdc made this announcement on a monday. our support group met on tuesdays.
jerry came to the meeting in tears.
last week, he’d been free as a bee can fly, an HIV-positive ASYMPTOMATIC person. this week, he had AIDS. nothing else had changed. and everything.
that was the day jerry began to die. i will simplify the rest of his story and tell you he lasted about another year.

Later, Richard talks about the concept and history of Daylight Saving Time:

the us law by which we turn our clock forward in the spring and back in the fall is known as the uniform time act of 1966. the law does not require that anyone observe daylight saving time; all the law says is that if we are going to observe dst, it must be done uniformly.

while it’s not new to our lifetimes, the notion of dst has been around for most of this century and earlier. in the tradition of divinely-appointed kings who could not halt the tides by their bidding, it is an idea new with democracy, itself an exercise in social justice: an informed constituency can command the sun’s passage...

a democracy can command the time, it can alter the fall of daylight.

The implicit point that Richard makes with this juxtaposition of concepts is that definitions are powerful. The words we use to describe something can mean the difference between health and disease, between light and darkness. Jerry's health status was exactly the same before and after the CDC's pronouncement, but the new definition of a healthy t-cell count was essentially a death sentence. The sun is still in the same position in the sky as it would have been, whether we call it 6:00 or 7:00, but we can delay nighttime simply by changing the declared time.

Giving a name to something can also change its essence and give us power over it. People who were once thought to be getting senile as part of normal aging are now known to have Alzheimer's Disease. Someone who hears nonexistent voices is not crazy but suffering from schizophrenia. Kids who once might just have been considered eccentric may now be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

Beyond identifying and naming real patterns of phenomena, we can also use changes in definitions to reposition something that might be considered negative into a positive. I remember a handout I received once from a parenting workshop that showed how we could reframe what might be perceived as a negative trait in our children as a positive: so kids went from being "stubborn" to being "persistent," "anxious" to "cautious," "aggressive" to "assertive," the quiet child is "thoughtful" and the chatterbox is "highly verbal." All these characteristics that might drive parents crazy when the children are young could lead to future success as an adult if directed appropriately. Therapists often use this technique of relabeling negative characteristics to reflect an underlying strength and building on that in a positive way.

Conversely, smoking went from something that was a symbol of coolness to being a proxy for the tobacco industry's desire to enslave teens in a lifelong addiction. Bronzed skin went from being a "healthy tan" to "sun damage." The current battle over the definition of marriage is another example of the power of semantics to affect people's everyday lives.

Words and their socially agreed-upon definitions often have implications beyond the dictionary. We can try to change those meanings through social marketing and harness the power of words to bring about positive health or social change.

Photo Credit: wiccked

Bumper Sticker Solutions

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:39:00 +0000

I drove behind a car yesterday that made me wish I had my camera with me. It was a city parking enforcement vehicle, sporting bumper stickers like those I've often seen on other municipal vehicles such as police cars and utility trucks. But this one took it to another level. Plastered across its bumper were stickers that said:

DARE to Keep Kids Off Drugs
There's No Excuse for Domestic Violence
Don't Drink and Drive (or something to that effect)

and the kicker, delivered entirely straight-faced:

Keep Your Eyes on the Road.

This got me thinking about bumper stickers, as well as the context in which our messages may be seen. Bumper stickers are about as low-tech as you can get, but they're not going away. I'm always amazed that people are willing to put a semi-permanent adhesive slogan on their otherwise unblemished car, especially when it's for a political campaign that's of a limited duration. That takes commitment.

And that commitment is there because the bumper stickers people choose to put on their cars are firmly tied up with issues related to their identity. Cars are often an extension of our personality, and a bumper sticker extends that even farther beyond the automotive brand to get at our core values. That's why so many bumper stickers are political or cause-related. They can reflect the personality and values of the car's owner, whether idealistic ("Visualize World Peace"), witty ("Visualize Whirled Peas") or obnoxious ("F-- World Peace, Visualize Using Your Turn Signals"). Bumper stickers can also become a shorthand marker for being part of a "tribe" -- such as the rainbow symbol, the ichthys "Jesus fish," or the Darwin fish.

From "Save the Whales" to "Love Animals, Don't Eat Them" up to the current "Coexist" (with the letters made from symbols of different religions), bumper stickers have been used as part of cause-related communication and marketing campaigns over many years. Some merely promote the name and tagline of a nonprofit organization, while others try to change attitudes and behaviors.

Here are a few tips for using bumper stickers for your issue:

Make your words count. Like a billboard, you only have a small number of words to get your point across. Unlike a billboard, you don't have space for graphics and need to rely on the words to convey the idea without visuals. Make sure your message is clear and succinct, and make it memorable. The best bumper stickers make you laugh and then think.

Make it visible. The worst bumper stickers make you squint and mutter, "What does that say?" as you drive by. Use high-contrast dark lettering on light colors or light lettering on a dark background. Don't try to fit so many words on the sticker that you have to use a small font.

Make it ubiquitous. Figure out ways to encourage your supporters to put the bumper stickers on their cars. Give them away, provide incentives, pay college students to stick them around, use window clings if a sticker is too permanent for them... The more people see your bumper sticker, the more it will provide confirmation that support for your cause is socially acceptable and desirable.

Make it a social object. Bumper stickers can be conversation starters or a way for people to identify common interests. In junior high, a KLOS bumper sticker on our Pee-Chee folders was a coveted status symbol designating that we were cool enough to listen to that radio station.

Make it build curiosity. Drive around the US enough, and you will eventually see a car sporting a bumper sticker that says, "Where the heck is Wall Drug?" If you don't know the answer, the more you see cars with that sticker, the more it will continue to irritate those three neurons in the back of your brain devoted to the idea of Wall Drug. If you ever have the opportunity to find out the answer, you will do so just to satisfy that nagging curiosity. (Here in California, I often see bumper stickers that say, "I saw the Mystery Spot." Similar idea.) Ask a question. Make people wonder about the answer.

Make it special. If your bumper sticker is one of 20 (or even four) covering the back of someone's car, the message will be diluted (see the photo above). For more impact, your bumper sticker should be the only one on the car. Encourage your supporters to get rid of extraneous stickers so that yours will stand out.

Pundits often decry politicians' use of "bumper sticker solutions" to tackle tough issues. While bumper stickers may not actually lead to world peace (or whirled peas, for that matter), they can be an effective way of building awareness of your cause and perhaps getting people to think about it in a new way.

UPDATE: Rob adds a couple more excellent tips in the comments:

Make it memorable. A message that's genuinely funny, for instance will stick to more than just bumpers; it will be something people remember, even repeat to their friends. And that can magnify its impact tremendously.

Think about the stickee. When someone slaps a sticker on their bumper, it isn't just to say something about their cause; they're taking on a little piece of your identity as their own. What does sporting this bumper sticker say about your supporter? How can you make that statement as appealing as possible?

Photo Credit: stephyfullofgrace

Technorati Tags: bumper stickers, marketing

Nonprofit Info Smorgasbord

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:29:00 +0000

Do you have a huge number of blog and news feeds in your feedreader that you can't possibly keep up with on a daily basis? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, have you resisted deciphering those three little letters, RSS, and continue to check your bookmarked links regularly to see if your favorite web pages have updated?

Now there is a new -- and incredibly simple -- solution. Guy Kawasaki, whom I used to read in Macworld Magazine when he was the original brand evangelist, recently started a new network of websites called Alltop.com. Based on the popurls model, the sites -- each focusing on a specific topic -- show the latest five posts from a wide range of news sources and blogs covering that topic, all on one page. Topics include celebrities, health, "green," social media, small business and many others.

I suggested to Guy that he create a "nonprofit" topic and worked with him to identify news and blog feeds that should be included. And that's how nonprofit.alltop.com was born.

Like a smorgasbord, you can eat as much or as little as you want. Scan the headlines to see what looks good. Hover the mouse over a headline to get a taste of the full text. Or click on an item that looks especially yummy and go to the original site to eat the whole thing. Maybe you'll even discover some new sites you didn't know about before.

Photo Credit: WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?

Technorati Tags: alltop, nonprofit

Twitter for Health

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:32:00 +0000

When I first read about Twitter last year, I scoffed. Who cares what other people are doing, thinking or eating every waking moment of the day? I don't have time to pay attention to random bits of information or to post my every passing thought. For those of you not up on the latest shiny object to be embraced by the neterati, Twitter is a microblogging application that asks you to answer the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less. People use it to do everything from detailing the minutiae of their days to engaging in witty banter to promoting their latest blog posts and sharing useful resources.

While I was on my blogging hiatus, I found that I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to share, but no time to put them into a blog post. I decided to try out Twitter on a short-term basis to see if I thought it was worthwhile. After a few days of using it, I was hooked. I found that Twitter was a great way to have ongoing conversations and build relationships with colleagues, get quick answers to questions and get pointers to useful links. It sometimes feels like I'm drinking from a firehose, but I'm learning to identify the people who consistently have the best tweets. I've been on Twitter for a couple of months now (follow me at @Nedra), and I can see many potential applications for organizations promoting health and social issues.

Some of the ways nonprofits and government agencies could use Twitter in their work, along with real examples and ideas, include:

Providing information and tips - ex: eDiets, womenshealth, Health News
Providing motivational support - ex: Qwitter (smoking cessation), Twitter PT Challenge (fitness)
Creating a social support network - ex: Frozen Pea community, Back in Skinny Jeans (weight loss), mental health, Traineo (fitness/weight loss)
Fundraising - ex: 1PinkRibbon, Frozen Pea Fund, Beth Kanter/Sharing Foundation
Responding to disasters - ex: San Diego fires, safeandwell (American Red Cross), InSTEDD (Google.org + Rockefeller Fdn), general emergencies
Tracking activities or readings - Tweet What You Eat (food diary), SugarStats (diabetes), gtFtr (exercise), pain diary, My Mile Marker (fuel economy)
Reminders - ex: Timer (could be used for medication, stretch breaks, etc.)
Pushing news/information out quickly - ex: MissingChildren, Los Angeles Fire Department
Connecting patients and health care providers - ideas from Medical 2.0
Conducting research - ex: ethnography, buzz tracking, surveys
Role modeling - ex: Scott Hanselman (diabetes), skinnyjeans (weight loss)
Early warning systems - ex: Morbus (pandemics), trouble alerts

Since Twitter can be used via mobile devices as well as computers, many of the same concepts behind using mobile phones and SMS for social change are applicable as well. In fact, this Friday (2/29) there will be a conference on Texting 4 Health at Stanford focusing on using SMS to improve health behavior. Though it is not explicitly on the agenda, I would hope that they will also be discussing how Twitter can be used to facilitate this approach. Does anyone know if someone will be livetweeting the conference?

Nate Ritter lays out some of the benefits and limitations of using Twitter that you should take into account when determining whether the tool will work for your purposes:

Benefits
Speed Using twitter, you can very easily publish information more than once per minute. If distribution speed is critical, regardless of the information being distributed, Twitter may be the tool for you.
Non-website (source) based alerts Instant messaging, SMS/text messages on cell phones, RSS/Atom feeds, email alerts, badges/widgets on other sites, and other methods of distribution are available. If your community can’t be tethered to a website for it’s communications, Twitter can provide other methodologies to get that information out to them.
Community publishing There are a few (slightly more technical) ways of aggregating a group of twitterers posts, which means you could have more people — even your community — pitching in to help publish pertinent information.
Limitations
Only text and links can be posted. No maps. No photos. No videos. Text and links are all you get.
140 character limit. URLs will get shortened wherever possible, but 140 characters is tough to get used to.
No conversation threading. This can be tough to deal with when you’re used to discussion forums and such. Connecting with your community in this way is almost limited to real-time dialogue, which can limit the conversation’s depth and longevity.
The API has a 70 post per hour limit. Note that from what I could tell, the web UI doesn’t have this limit, but I’m sure they wouldn’t like you posting more than that unless it was an emergency anyway.

For still more ideas on how nonprofits can use (and shouldn't use) Twitter, see NetSquared's Net2ThinkTank round-up.

So, for some, Twitter will always just be a place to tick away the moments that make up a dull day, to fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. For smart social marketers, though, Twitter can be a powerful tool for education and action. How will you use it?

(If you have additional ideas or examples, leave them in the comments and I will add them to the list.)

Technorati Tags: twitter, health, marketing, nonprofit, Texting4Health, disaster

Leave Britney (and Lindsay and Amy and...) Alone!

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:22:00 +0000

While we're talking about celebrities, we can't ignore the ones who
are the examples of what NOT to do. Nearly every day, it seems, there's a new story about a celeb gone wrong: drug and alcohol abuse, drunk driving, "crazy" behaviors, teen pregnancy... It's so easy for them to spiral out of control, and all too often, their addiction or untreated mental illness leads to tragic consequences.

But what about the celebrities who pull themselves out of that downward divebomb, who get into treatment and turn themselves around? They are the ultimate role models -- people who finally admitted they had a problem and put in the hard, painful work to try to get their lives back. What a learning opportunity for regular people who may be going down that same path, though outside of the glare of the cameras. And how important it is to remember that once you take away the paparazzi, the money and the fans, celebrities are just people, and have the same emotional issues as the rest of us (maybe more).

Brian Dyak, President and CEO of the Entertainment Industries Council (EIC), wrote a passionate defense of celebrities who go through rehab on EIC's relatively new blog, Getting Reel About Art and Life (thanks to Melissa Havard for the pointer). He writes:

...But I do have one ax to grind. I’m bugged by a lot of comments I’ve heard—and articles I’ve read—about celebrities going into rehab.

With 25 years of experience bridging the entertainment and health industries, I am uniquely qualified to respond to the finger-pointing, poking, prodding, lens clicking and tittering that surround celebrity rehab.

And I’ve got something to say.

First and foremost, the celebrity rehab we read about is not a joke for people’s amusement. Thanks to our newly tabloid-driven pop culture, we—and our children—have unprecedented access to what addiction and mental illness look like. Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan and over two dozen other people gained headlines in 2007 for entering addiction recovery centers.

These are lives at risk, out of control, not jokes, and not reality television shows taking place on the streets of Hollywood for public amusement. If we pay attention, we can see complex stories unfolding before our eyes. One of EIC’s primary principles is to be non-judgmental and respect creative freedom afforded in our great nation. For those who judge mental health, making judgment on these people’s lives, I ask:

Who the hell are you?

Do you think you are better than these people? Stronger? Smarter?

Give me a break.

Addiction and mental health issues affect every cross-section of our population. If you’re laughing now at Britney Spears, will you be laughing in five or ten years when, heaven forbid, your niece, uncle, sister, brother, even your mother or your own son or daughter loses control of his or her life? Will it be funny then?

This new access to the private lives of celebrities who face constant scrutiny and challenges unimaginable by most people—and is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it exposes us to the waking nightmare that losing control of one’s life can be, but on the other hand, it has opened dialogue about addiction and mental illness that has, until now, been hush-hush. While I, like most of America, am truly worried about Britney Spears’s health and safety, I am glad to say I have witnessed a national shift from bemused fascination with her spontaneous antics to recognition of her condition as critically ill, and a new awareness of the real point of rehabilitation: to get better.

VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, A&E’s Intervention, HBO’s Rehab—these are important, revolutionary shows that serve the public in a unique and valuable way. The insights just might help someone, and that is good.

Taking steps to fight and beat the struggles that come along with addiction, being self honest with oneself and ideally healthier is a process not unlike walking through a maze blindfolded. And the good news is, a whole lot of folks find a valuable piece of themselves that they never knew existed in the process. Some make it to the betterment of their own lives, the lives of families, friends, and society.

So the next time you get a peek into the lives of Britney, Lindsay, Mel Gibson, Kirsten Dunst, Pat O’Brien, Eva Mendes, Marc Jacobs, Jesse Mefcalfe, Eddie Van Halen, Amy Winehouse and others, be thankful for what you’ve got and respect them for seeking help rather than looking down on them for having real problems. If their stories make you query your own actions, consider following their good example and ask for help. Thanks to new public attention to the recovery process, which can include relapses, we must stop mocking and start understanding...

read the rest here

Well said.

Graphic Credit: Nazaret

Technorati Tags: britney spears, lindsay lohan, amy winehouse, celebrity, rehab, addiction, eic

Celebrit-ing: Bringing a Celebrity On Board Your Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:02:00 +0000

It's a sad fact of life that celebrities generally command more attention and adulation than we mere mortals. For better or worse, things that come out of their mouths have more clout (at least among certain audiences) than if we were to say them ourselves, despite our obvious intelligence, talent and impressive job titles. So, the question is how to help celebrities use that clout for good and not just to sell movies.

Andre Blackman pointed me to a video (above) just posted of an interview with American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, who is visiting Ghana right now to help the organization Malaria No More. From what I could tell, she is a perfect spokesperson. She's articulate, knows her stuff about the topic, is enthusiastic for the cause, is timely (she is the most recent AI winner), and creates an emotional connection with the importance of the work MNM does.

Last week, I attended a panel discussion sponsored by PIRATES (The Print, Interactive, Radio & Television Educational Society) on how Hollywood and celebrities can be a force for good. Panelists included David Michaels, who produces, among other things, the Ribbon of Hope Awards honoring television programming on AIDS; Marcy De Veaux, who consults with media companies on diversity-related issues; and Alison Arngrim, who was the epitome of nastiness for my generation as Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, but who has redeemed herself as a committed advocate on behalf of people with AIDS, abused children and others.

Some of the key points that were made by the panelists include:

It's simply a fact that celebrities wield the power. Alison recounted how she was asked to appear on Larry King to talk about legislation she was advocating. When she offered to bring along experts working on the campaign with her, the show's producer immediately quashed the idea, saying, "And what show were they on?"
Sometimes you bring the cameras to the cause with the celebrities, or you bring the cameras to the celebrities with the cause -- both are okay and can help you achieve your goals.
There are "good celebrities" -- who understand why it's important to help your cause and want to get involved -- and "bad celebrities" -- who are there because their publicist told them to go. But again, both can bring you publicity.
If you can convince a publicist of the merit of your cause, he or she may be able to deliver their whole stable of celebrity clients, in addition to the one you were originally trying to get.
Look for people who have been personally affected by your issue to serve as your spokespeople. For example, the actor Peter Gallagher got involved with an Alzheimers organization because his mother had the disease.
If you bring on a celebrity, make sure he or she is prepared to talk intelligently about your issue. At the very least, provide an index card with key bullet points about your organization and issue.
If your issue is controversial in any way, your celebrity needs to be prepared to answer questions about whether they are affected by the issue personally. As Alison spoke out about AIDS after the actor who played her TV husband died from the disease, she was continually asked whether she also had AIDS. When she was advocating for legislation to help abused children, she was asked directly whether she had been abused herself (turns out she had, and decided to talk about it publicly at that point).
Looking for someone to be your organization's main celebrity spokesperson -- as opposed to showing up at a one-time event -- is a "headhunting operation." You need to make sure there is a good fit between the person and the organization.
Don't use a guilt trip to convince a celebrity to get involved. Frame it in terms of hope, focusing on the good that person can do and what a great experience it will be. And of course, what's in it for them?

And how do you get in touch with the celebrity you have decided would be perfect for your organization? You can find information on who represents that person on IMDb Pro (has a monthly fee) or by calling the Screen Actors Guild, which has a service that will provide you with the name of the PR rep for the person you're looking for. You will receive the most help from the celebrity's manager or publicist, not the agent.

Working with celebrities is not always easy, but the payoff can be big. Think carefully about whether it fits with your strategy and audience. And if it does, give it a try.

For another perspective on this issue, check out this older post from Citizen Brand that was so good I've been saving it until I could use it. And I just learned from Stephen Dann that dead celebrities can also be spokespeople so don't discount someone just because they can't actually talk anymore.

Related Posts from Spare Change:
Celebrity Love/Hate
Who Asked Them? Unwanted Celebrity Spokespeople

UPDATE (2/22/08): I just came across this blog from Do Something called CelebsGoneGood. It highlights the good things that celebrities are doing or talking about, and could be a great source for finding out which celebs are interested in which types of causes. And it's just good to see good news about celebrities for a change.

Technorati Tags: celebrity, marketing, jordin sparks

What's Your Favorite Nonprofit Must-Read?

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:45:00 +0000

With all of the blogs and news sources out there, which are the ones that you rely upon most to get information for and about nonprofits? I know my favorites (see my blogroll in the sidebar), but what are the feeds you check every day? You can leave your top picks in the comments here, or give me your fab five on this quick survey form (no names necessary). I'll provide more info next week on the exciting way these results are going to be used.

Photo Credit: elekesmagdi

An Important Valentine's Day PSA

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:26:00 +0000

Awareness of this problem is high among the target audience, but do they know that a vaccine is now available? Hope you have a happy and cootie-free Valentine's Day.

(If you are an RSS subscriber and don't see the video, click through to the blog or to YouTube.)

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:14:00 +0000

This week's Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is brought to you by the letters M and F: M for marketing and F for fundraising. They are two sides of the same coin, using similar tools to reach different goals.

Jeff Brooks at Donor Power Blog says we need to give the people what they want, by creating high expectations of what the giving experience should be and meeting those expectations.

Alexandra Rampy at SocialButterfly ponders the question of whether 'nonprofit' is a brand or merely the description of an organization's tax status.

Paul Jones at Cause-Related Marketing thinks it doesn't matter whether corporations feel the love when they give, as long as they give.

Beth Dunn at Small Dots makes the case that interactive marketing is recession-proof and therefore ideal for nonprofits, who often face tough times financially, recession or no recession.

Joshua Karlin at Marketing & Fundraising Ideas suggests that the way to get major gifts for your nonprofit is to ask for them. Pretty basic, but not easy.

Jason Dick at A Small Change notes that the way to find those potential donors to ask is to listen to them through research.

Jim Logan at Accelerate Business Group provides insight on how to build loyalty and generate repeat customers, which is definitely applicable to nonprofits though written for a more general audience.

Next week the Carnival will be at Giving in a Digital World, with the theme of "Creating and developing online supporter communities through Web 2.0." If you would like to participate in the Carnival, submit your related blog post by next Sunday (2/17) via the BlogCarnival form.

I'm Not Dead Yet!

noreply@blogger.com (Nedra Weinreich) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:38:00 +0000

Contrary to rumors going around, I am not dead yet. In fact, I'm feeling much better. I just took a much-needed breather from blogging for a while, and intend to start up again soon. I'll be out on vacation next week, and when I return I will try to get back into a more regular blogging schedule again. Thanks to all of you who have been checking in to see where I went off to. I am spending some time over at Twitter, so fellow Twits can find me @Nedra there.

More soon, so stick around!