CNN and the use of Social Media

I, like millions of others watched the milestone speech of Barack Obama at Invesco field last night. And yes, I have a lot to say about the speech, but for this blog, I'd like to point out a couple uses of social technology that I thought were noteworthy from the coverage.

I watched the coverage on CNN. Aside from Wolf and Anderson, every other reporter on the panel for the last few days was scrolling through their Blackberry's while commenting on the events, particularly when McCain was rumored to have chosen a Veep candidate. A couple of them even had two Blackberry's. (Why do you need two?) Each analyst commenting that they were receiving emails from their contacts regarding the news and rumors.

On Thursday night at Invesco field, much was made of the realtime fundraising through text messaging that was happening. I got a kick when Wolf Blitzer described texting as an example of how the Democrats are using the "cutting edge social media."

What I really liked was how, at the end, one correspondent, positioned in front of a large touch screen was bopping between you tube videos from inside the arena posted from cell phones, including qik posts.

It made me wonder how scripted it was as an example of the grassroots popularity of Obama.
Think we'll see the same at the Republican convention?

Technorati Tags: CNN, Blackberry, Social Media, Democrats

Repairing Social Nets for Children in Foster Care

My neighbor, Donna, had a retirement party this weekend. After 30 years of service to Bay Area children as a Social Worker and Children's Services director she was sort of dialing back her schedule and semi retiring. But I learned this weekend, that Donna has really been a pioneer who has created a social networking program that is truly changing lives.

I've lived next to Donna for more than 10 years now and have always had nice conversations with her, but very rarely about her work. Early on, she made it clear that home was her respite from the day to day anguish she faced in helping children whose families had fallen apart due to drugs and crime. My wife and I respected that. At parties and in all those weekend conversations, we only scratched the cursory surface of her work. But this weekend, with some of her co-workers congratulating her, I learned just how modest Donna had been.

Last year, Donna created a pilot program, the first of its kind in California and by her co-worker's account, the United States, that uses the data and social technology of the internet to reunite children in Foster care with their maternal and paternal families. The pilot was so successful that a formal program was funded and started. "I was able to show the county that spending resources to connect names and locations in the case documentation with internet searches, in many cases gave us the opportunity to reunite these children with their extended families." Donna told me. "Putting these kids back into appropriate social and familial networks dramatically increases their long term ability to succeed."

The case records and internet searches combined with clinical counseling to smooth the process of reuniting these children with their latent social networks is a powerful solution that is repairing these children and offering them significantly improved chances for a productive future.

Just two examples offered an emotional insight into the program's impact. One involved a young 10 year old who had been in foster care for more than 5 years. A search of his case records led to the location and contact of his father, who had been presumed dead. The man, who at one time had been involved in drugs but long since had cleaned up and become a devoted husband and father, didn't even know he had a son. At the first meeting, the man brought many of his nuclear and extended family to meet the boy. At the end of the meeting, the father expressed his unconditional love for the boy and promised to bring him home. Within a few weeks, the young boy was living with his father and new family. Life improved for that 10 year old in ways that a foster system could never achieve.

A second example was of an older child who had been in foster care for most of his life and was about to "age out of the system", meaning that at age 18 he would be emancipated and leave the foster care system. Certainly there is preparation and programs to help this transition, but still, at 18 your social network is pretty much dissolved. Case and internet searching reunited this boy with his extended family in a southern state. Coincidentally, while in foster care, the boy had become a Master horseman and his extended family happened to be Master horsemen as well, running their own horse farm. Reunited with his family, he instantly had a repaired network and a bright lifelong future as a horse breeder.

Donna followed her hunch that case reviews, internet searches and the right counseling model could repair broken social networks. The resulting program is changing lives. It's a different view of social networks than we, in marketing are used to discussing, but the case study is extremely valid: Strategy, technology and insight combined to create meaningful conversation between people and institutions.

Social work habits: Reboot every now and then

In my role as a Creative Director, as in many jobs, an important part of each day's learning is to connect with colleagues. It's really one of the most powerful learning processes. Associate with smart people and you'll get smarter, that's what my Dad always said, and I know it to be true. Just about every day, I get into the office, grab a cup of java and on my path back to my desk I start the day's "conversation" by stopping in for a quick touchbase with Tom, Chris or Theresa. Usually in these short, informal discussions, I can count on getting and giving some bit of information that is going to make the day, and sometimes even the business, more productive.

Sounds normal and pretty much how business has been conducted for centuries, I'm sure. Only, this is Silicon Valley and this is now. In the last few months new people have been added to my morning walk and the "walk" has been changed to shorter bursts of conversation that last throughout the day. These people are from all over the globe and I converse with them via several means like @jgavilla on Twitter, netvibes, their blogs, linkedin and a few others. In just the last couple of years the tools have been created for anyone to easily expand their associations and daily conversations beyond their immediate, physical world.
Just this morning, I was turned on to Snocap, which I'll share with all my musician friends, a good article on social media spending, found out a good friend was going to be featured on CNBC tonight, and found a much easier way to blog using ScribeFire, which, incidentally has just about killed my preference for Safari (especially combined with PicLens!). And I haven't even gotten into the office and poured a cup of coffee...yet.

As the adoption of these tools become mainstream for business, pleasure, entertainment and more, how will the course of business and even society in general change?

Dad was right indeed and there has never, in the course of human history, been a better environment than the social web to associate with smart people, learn and share.

Social tech, future rock stars and brand fans.

One way or another, everybody wants a fan base of some sort. Could be your parents, your spouse/partner, if you're lucky, your kids. Ask any rock star, nothing is more valuable than your own legion of loyal fans. Social technology is creating, and reinforcing brands faster than ever. You don't have to look far for the evidence. Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, and Seth Godin are by all appearances building nice brands for themselves using, reporting and evangelizing social media and technology. 

And now, smart marketers are asking if, when and why they should sit up, listen and engage their customers in the course of building a brand fan base. Look, the Genie is out of the bottle. People, and companies are all benefitting from deploying a social media plan.

Is it luck, or can you orchestrate the building of brand fans through social technology? I like to think it's a little of both. Frankly, you can build a fan base if you have some social technology out there and good plan to use it. Here's a simple and true example:
Over the weekend of April 25-27, the school my children attend has their annual Spring festival. I run the entertainment for the weekend and was lucky enough to book a fantastic alternative rock band, called Punchface. These guys are fun, entertaining, great musicians, in other words, deliver on their brand promise in spades. They also had every teen and a lot of parents in a rock frenzy. By the end of their 2 hour set, I heard at least two new fans tell the lead singer that they had already visited the band's myspace page and signed up to be Close Friends of the band.

Two hours, two new super fans (who each bought a t-shirt and probably the iTunes downloads). Not bad, and it happened because the band was ready with the brand, product and social tech.