Category Archives: Politics

On 9/11

Like most Americans, I’ve been spending the anniversary of September 11, 2001 as a way to soak in as much information as possible about the events that happened that fateful Tuesday morning and to recount my own “Where were you…” experiences from loved ones. This was rather upsetting to members of my family, particularly my parents, who simply couldn’t bare to go to through the emotions of that day once again. That whole idea enraged me to a certain degree and left me thinking to myself “How could they NOT want to watch this? To understand it?”  Why is it that they fully understood the extent to which our nation was affected by the 9/11 terror attacks and I didn’t?

I didn’t do any deep-diving investigating prior to this year mostly out of blissful ignorance, but I work in New York now so the attacks suddenly seemed more personal to me than ever before. Finally, after the hours of documentaries, news specials, op-eds, and columns came to a close, I finally had some time to reflect on the reasonings behind my almost fanatic style weekend researching. It dawned on me that I was only a precocious 13 years old eighth grader at the time of the attacks. To be able to fully emotionally synthesize all of those events was difficult for everyone, especially children, and I had blocked that day out of my memory for so many years. An intense rush of guilt and remorse hit me like a tidal wave – why had I been living for 10 years not wondering?

Then came the memories that I tried to block out from my brain all this time. Flashes of my entire eighth grade class taken down to our school auditorium to hear about what happened and the confused look on my young friends faces. Then there were quick glimpses of the utter bewilderment experienced by the adult figures as they themselves tried to piece things together and console their young charges. Most of us left the auditorium and were picked up by parents or other guardians, only to go home and watch the footage. It would be days before many of those young students would return to their classes.

My little Connecticut town being in such close proximity to New York meant that there were students whose parents worked in Manhattan. What haunts my 13 year old mind most is seeing the faces of the kids whose parents worked in Manhattan turn to absolute white – stricken with terror over the thought of their family life changing forever. The memory fragments are still difficult to piece into one complete story.

(There were 26 people with ties to my town who perished that day.)

The path on Memory Lane came to an abrupt end when by 1 am, my original question remained unanswered. My parents fully understood the events because they not only experienced it wholly in real-time, but they’ve seen the affects in the years prior without rose colored glasses. Everyone talks about how my generation has a somewhat jaded perception of reality and I had until that time considered myself an outlier in that sweeping generalization until yesterday.

The only thing I can say to that affect is that we all need to wake up. We’re the ones who elected a president under the pretense of “Yes We Can” and “Change” but what have we done under those ideals to honor the lives lost on 9/11 and our country?

My hours of researching brought me to AOL’s “New York Says Thank You” movie about the New York Says Thank You Foundation, an organization that sends hundreds of volunteers from New York to help communities around our own country who are recovering from disaster. AOL is now partaking in a joint effort among corporations, individuals, and non-profits with the ActionAmerica movement. With this, we can all answer my final question by working together to turn September 11th into a day of positive action. Check out their site and figure out a way that you can help make some change.

Activism Has Never Been This Trendy.

American fashion designer Kenneth Cole recently launched a social issues web site, www.wheredoyoustand.com, a platform which encourages open debate on political hot topics like gun control, abortion, gay rights, and war. The topics, while very limited in scope, present an opportunity for focused dialogue in a socially savvy way. What I find most interesting and compelling about Cole’s new site is the way in which dialogue takes place on a given issue.

Users are immediately propelled into a whole new realm after clicking an issue. You are then prompted with a question, such as “Are Anti-War Protests Unpatriotic?” and are given the opportunity to answer a simple “yes” or “no” your response, though, comes in the form of a Facebook “Like” so it automatically links through to your page once you choose a side. This not only lets your audience know where you stand on a certain issue, but it also allows the Where Do You Stand audience more of an insight to your social graph. Comments left underneath the question prompt then immediately posts to the website as well as your own Facebook page and includes functionality to leave comments on complete stranger’s points of views. Questions about each issue are scheduled to change at the beginning of each month.

Not one to remove himself from the industry which launched him, Cole’s site also has video of fashionable and (apparently) politically savvy models protesting on behalf of one of the issues while wearing Kenneth Cole. This, then, creates a politically charged commercial of some sorts for Cole’s line. It seemed important for Cole, who is quite the activist himself (hence this site) to include the fashion aspect into it one way or another. Visitors of the site also have the option to shop Cole’s e-commerce site after giving their respective point of views on the issues at hand.

Cole visited the set of Morning Joe August 9th to promote his new venture and gave more details as to why his new site will sustain. He said, “Fashion comes and goes… What’s fashionable today may not be tomorrow. But if I can connect to you and talk to you about stuff that survives any given moment and I can talk to you on both levels. What you stand and what you stand for. Then I think I have a bigger place at the table. It’s just a privilege we built over time. We continue to look for ways to talk about issues that touch you and also aesthetics that inspire you.”

Regardless of Cole’s opinions on the issues presented on his site, it’s nice to see a platform that brings together two worlds which most people don’t necessarily correlate with one another: fashion and political activism, especially because it brings converse opinions together in a positive environment. Also worth noting is the open solicitation for bloggers to include their posts about the issues onto the website.

Never before has fashion been this politically innovative. My hat’s off to you, Kenneth!

Michelle Bachmann’s Newsweek Cover

There’s been way too much hullabaloo about Michelle Bachmann’s Newsweek cover. Yes, she’s a beautiful woman and people are now arguing that this photo not necessarily paint her in that way. Last I checked, the Presidential election is not a beauty pageant.

People really need to calm down and stop talking about the picture and concentrate on the content from the article.

Yes, her picture looks exactly like that promotional photos on the Step Brothers movie poster – but so what? This isn’t even half as bad of a political catastrophe as people are making it out to be. Stop focusing on this and get back to the economy.

2012. The Candidates So Far. Part 2

Political conversation since my last at-glance-look at the 2012 candidates has been centered on fixing our nation’s debt issues and employment. Since this is a non-partisan column, we’re going to stick away from the discussion and stick to the numbers – the social numbers that is.

Something that I’ve noticed is how actively engaged each candidate’s fans are on Facebook. Unlike Twitter, it provides a platform for a long form means to express your opinion, as opposed to Twitter’s 140 characters. People interested in politics are passionate about their beliefs and their feelings towards representatives. That being said, it doesn’t come to much of a surprise that of the two platforms being measured for the sake of this column, Facebook tends to have the stronger following than that of Twitter.

Note, though, the disparity between number of fans between Newt Gingrich’s Facebook and Twitter pages. He is the only potential Republican candidate whose Twitter presence is in the millions yet his Facebook remains in the six-figures. From what we hear though from Google, looks as though Mr. Gingrich has a very strong presence on Google+ and hosts a number of public “hang-outs” – I wonder how that will affect him in the long run because this is a great tool for some free video publicity.

At a glance, the candidates so far:

This article first appeared on Big Fuel’s Content to Commerce blog 7/21/11 — as linked here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twitter’s First Town Hall

When you work in social media, you know that Twitter parties are a commonly used practice among professionals, brands, and bloggers alike in order to have a widespread real-time conversation with their audiences. They generally have a particular theme, are followed by the use of a pre-determined hash-tag, are moderated by one or many hosts and serve a specific purpose (fundraising, giveaways, Q&A’s, and so on).

The much-publicized Twitter party held on Wednesday, July 6th 2011 was a little different though, because once you involve a politician, it is then repurposed into a town hall meeting.

Politicians have been using town hall meetings as an informal arena to field questions and concerns from their constituents (in what seems like) forever. Barack Obama became the first politician and U.S. President to both live-tweet and host a Twitter Town Hall as moderated by Twitter’s own Jack Dorsey (@Jack). His tweet was posted to the @WhiteHouse handle instead of his eponymous handle, and posed the question: in order to reduce the deficit,what costs would you cut and what investments would you keep – bo.

This particular Town Hall was used as a platform for Twitter to launch a new series of these discussions that can now be followed @townhall. Obama, however, used his seemingly first of many Twitter Town Hall’s as a vehicle to discuss the economy and employment, and answered only a handful of question during the hour. Dorsey drew credit to eight curators from around the country for filtering the over 70,000 questions (as reported by Mashable) under the hash-tag, #askobama. The session featured questions from everyday people as well our own Speaker of the House John Boehner (@JohnBoehner), and the New York Times’ social media savvy columnist Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof).

Radian6 partnered with Twitter to analyze over a million studied tweets prior to Wednesday’s event, and followed up with an early post-analysis two days later. They were able to break down the discussion by volume of questions, question topics, and demographics of participants.

To watch the video of the Town Hall discussion, visit askobama.twitter.com or on the White House’s Youtube page.

This article first appeared on Big Fuel’s Content to Commerce blog on 7/10/11 – as linked here.

#2012. The Candidates So Far.

It’s been over a month since I posed the question, “how will the 2012 candidates learn from our current president’s successful social media campaign?

What worked for Obama was creating a strong, likeable personality and online brand. A brand so powerful that WeFollow.com has him listed as the second most followed person on Twitter – second fiddle, of course to the Mother Monster herself, Lady Gaga. The only other politicians amongst the sea of entertainers and pop culture personalities in the Top 100 are Al Gore (#51), Arnold Schwarzenegger (#60), and John McCain (#85). Two out of three are no longer in office, and, as we know, McCain lost to Obama in 2008 and has made no intention to run 2012.

How will the 2012 candidates fare?

We’re still over a year away from the election and more people have thrown their hats into the race to officially declare their candidacy. There has yet to be a major player from the DNC to challenge the incumbent, Barack Obama. Let’s take a look at how major members within the GOP match up against Obama’s massive social media following**.

None of the current 2012 candidates have yet to crack through even the top 200 most followed people on Twitter. That being said, I’m particularly interested in seeing how their online presence will be affected along the course of the campaign trail.

*  Numbers as of July 5, 2011.

** Klout scored verified by www.klout.com on July 5, 2011.

This post originally appeared on www.contenttocommerce.com/ on July 5, 2011. 

Eyes on 2012…

Tuesday, November 6, 2012 isn’t only about a month or so off from when the Mayan’s predicted the world would end. It also happens to be the day our nation’s citizens choose the next leader of the free world.

We’re about a year and a half away from the election (give or take) and are now starting to see some people throw in their hats for 2012. The question I pose until next November is how will these people learn from Obama’s successful campaign? – at least in terms of integrating as comprehensive and successful of a social media movement.

Now is the time where the marketing geniuses behind those pining to be the next POTUS develop complex strategies to make them win this ever-desired seat. These people would be utterly remiss not to take a few pointers from our 44thpresident’s award winning “Obama for America” campaign from 2008. One of the major contributing factors that propelled the former junior senator to the political forefront was a comprehensive and strategic social media program that turned him in to a viral sensation and eventually our nation’s leader.

Arguably, the integral component to launching a successful social media campaign for 2012 will be how each prospective candidate chooses to position their brands online. What worked for Obama – “Yes we can,” “Change”, and a charismatic/likeable personality – may not work too well for, say, Donald Trump. What also worked for Obama was being able to translate his positive personality traits into equally as likeable a character in the digital world.

Seeing as our current president’s campaign was clearly such a success, it will be interesting to watch as other potential candidates turn their attention towards implementing a social media program as powerful as his was.

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This post originally appeared here on Big Fuel’s blog Content to Commerce.

#OBL and The Social Media Newsroom

The era of social media is making the “where were you when…” question obsolete and is now challenging it in a way members of older generations would not begin to fathom. While the query that will help shape the future of news dissemination could be considered an addendum to the “where were you when…” proposition, we the people of the social media generation are interested in “okay… but how exactly did you find out?”

Social media has evolved from a platform of expressing your likes and dislikes to become a major hub from which we share stories, compare thoughts, and create dialogues with the members of global community and the evening of Sunday, May 1st, 2011 was no different.

I’ve always been intrigued by the way that social media seems to take a news story, regardless of accuracy, and give it enough force to help blast a rocket to the moon. That being the case, I’m always particularly skeptical when it comes to breaking news on the social mediasphere, so as I laid in bed Sunday night blasting off my final musings of the day, I was caught off guard when I started to see the people I follow announce bin Laden’s death.

Therein lies the question: who out of those you follow do you consider to be a reliable enough source that you take their social channel posts as the be all that end all? In this instance, I had to weed through celebrilosophers, comedians and moms, to sources like @WhiteHouse, @TIME, @AndersonCooper, and @nytjim to verify the story.

Despite the skepticism involved in some of the breaking news on social media, I knew that I would find dependable sources to verify, or at least give more insight, on the matter all before having to flip to my favorite news channel or news site. Thus beginning the cycle of news breaking to news confirmation all on the social mediasphere.

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This post originally appeared here on Big Fuel’s blog Content to Commerce.

Making the Blind Tweet See…

Turning a blind eye is always a simpler undertaking than accepting the pains of reality. This, of course, can be used in a variety of contexts, however, for the sake of this blog let’s use it in relation to the current state of affairs in the Middle East and American culture.

If we take a quick glance at the events of the past week we’d see that the social mediasphere has been ablaze with James Franco, Oscars, and… Charlie Sheen? Yes, it was amazing that the seemingly amazing super-artiste/ultimate scholar Franco has joined the social mediasphere – most likely at the behest of the powers who be at the Academy. I myself am a major devotee of all things Franco – a self-proclaimed Franco-phile if you will, and despite all of the criticism he garnered for his hosting responsibilities, he definitely helped bring many a wandering eye over to the awards’ telecast this year. Also worth noting are his amazing (read: ridiculous) videos…

Now to this whole Charlie Sheen nonsense. We’ve all known since the 80s that the man formerly known as Carlos Estevez was the black sheep of the Sheen/Estevez clan – he did, of course, turn down the epic role of the Karate Kid, and was never as cool as Gordon Bombay was in the 90s. Both Sheen-arios are merely blips on the proverbial Sheen radar which has come to measure the many antics in the 20 years after Mr. Miyagi helped a young Ralph Macchio soar to teen idol status. (Writer’s note: Sheen obviously rose to such a level himself, but for his killer bad boy image thanks to films like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”). There were many strippers, arrests, rehab stints, physical assaults… the list goes on… leading up to the current joke that Sheen is making himself into. The Twittersphere is on fire with Sheen related trending topics – mostly because his soundbites are just so absurd that the average literate human being’s mind goes haywire after soaking in his nonsensical musings.

There’s a problem though – while Charlie Sheen is busy #WINNING and doing whatever it is one does with #TigerBlood, Middle Eastern countries are in a series of (what is turning out to be) domino-effect civil unrest. The irony here is that while we’re busy using our tweets and status updates to interpret the deeper meaning behind Franco’s photos (there aren’t any, the man just likes cats) and figuring out why no one has imposed that California “you’re an adult, and you’re crazy so I’m going to put you under psych evaluation” rule onto Sheen yet (Note: California code 5150 allows for involuntary psychiatric hold if you were interested) – people in the Middle East are using their 140 characters to start overthrowing authoritarian regimes.

It’s time we all tune in to what’s happening in the Middle East. There are a lot of effects of the melee hitting our coasts – among them the almost $5.00/gallon gas pump situation. Try giving your Sheen-dar a break for a bit and allow the left side of your brain an opportunity for propitious usage. It’s easy to ignore the obvious, especially when you feel it doesn’t pertain to you, but if Middle Easterners can turn their tweets into political action, the least we can do is read up on what’s going on.

These sites have been providing me with some solid information on the current state of affairs in the Middle East – links will bring you to their ME tabs:

Eyes on November 2012

The next presidential election is 21 months away and there’s only mere speculation as to who will be running for the office of our nation’s chief executive. If we look back to around this time during the last race for office there is one particular difference – the contenders were more vocal and at least we had the slightest intimation as to who was swimming in the pool of potential candidates.

There is one person, though, who has been passively campaigning since being plucked from obscurity in “The ‘Silla” and thrust into the political atmosphere. While others (mainly Mitt Romney & Rudy Giuliani to name names) have taken the time since the ’08 election to quietly rebuild, Sarah Palin has made it a point to keep her name, and particularly her brand, in the forefront of all American’s minds.

Whatever your opinion of the gun-toting hockey mom from a small Alaska town, we would all be remiss to not acknowledge her ability to remain culturally and politically relevant since her running-mate lost the presidency. From her books, to FOX News corresponding, reality show, online presence, and countless appearances, (Dancing with the Stars, anyone?!) Ms. Palin has undoubtedly built her platform brick by brick since 2008. She has worked hard to make herself a political juggernaut and overall well-known name.

Why is it, though, that she has yet to make her run for office official? She has been running for office of public opinion for so long that it’s only a matter of time before anything formal is announced.

The most important component of any candidate’s run for office is name recognition, so congrats Ms. Palin, you’re certainly ahead of the bunch.