The Social Web We Weave

Can we all declare calling in bomb threats to a college campus a trend that's passed?  If you still feel the urge to disrupt thousands of lives and cost lots of money for a prank, at least make sure you're not doing it with Facebook friends.

The latest round in Texas involved a threat at Texas State in San Marcos and Texas A&M in College Station.  In Lone Star State terms, two schools not THAT far apart.

And who knew they shared a connection through their fake bomb threats.  Yes, when Dereon Tayronne Kelly was arrested for the TAMU call, police noticed he had a Facebook photo with a young woman, Brittany Henderson, the week before was arrested for the TSU call.

Actually, not just a picture with her.  It was Dereon's profile picture.

It Can (And Will) Be Worse

Ah fall.  The leaves.  The colors.  The insane schedules of events.  Sorry to be away, but projects have a way of soaking up energy and time.

Nevertheless, the great faux pas of Facebook roll on.  While we have survived our own trying start to the semester courtesy of a new student records system (lots of one-on-one relationship work there), it can, and will, be worse.

Consider the dilemma of Green Mountain College in Vermont.  A private school that has a strong sustainable footprint mission.  Including making full use of the livestock.  As in putting down old Ox when the time comes, and turning it into, well, what you do on the farm.

But in this case, the ox comes with a name, Lou, and even after the student referendum of how best to take Lou's fate -- the vote was for fulfilling the mission of sustainable farm management -- imagine the feedback.  Kudos to Kevin Coburn, the director of communications for GMC, for fostering a transparent process, including lengthy posts on their Facebook and not (one assumes within the reasons of good taste, language and decency) squelching the commentary.

Here's a small liberal arts institution with just under 3,000 likes but a current traffic of almost 1,000 discussing the end of Lou's career.  Takes some commitment to that transparency and a willingness to engage the students to stand up to that social media microscope (might seem like a proctoscope) at times.

WEDNESDAY PM ADDITION:  The Chronicle of Higher Ed weighs in with a nice background look.

Just to show it's at both ends of the spectrum, our colleagues to the south at LSU -- close to three-quarters of a million like -- are working through a controversy of photoshopping photos of student groups that had body painted crosses at a recent football game.  Same type of passionate opinions, and after their less than rapid early response to the September bomb threat on social media, we'd be curious to see the reaction.  Kudos there as well as once the issue became apparent, the LSU team cross posted the student opinion and sought to be more open regarding the changing of the photos.  That honesty is limiting what could be a pretty nasty exchange.

WEDNESDAY AM ADDITION: A tip of the cap to Chris Syme for adding this link from ABC News which gives you a look at the photo and other overview of the decision.

So whether you're big or small, there are social media constants:  Be open.  Be transparent.  Tell the truth.

World Bullying Day Starts Out West

I see that today, Oct. 1, we're suppose to wear blue in support of anti-bullying.  Sure hope that's not UCLA Bruin blue based on today's dispatches from the West Coast.

Seems one of the assistant SIDs let media wander to the wrong spot in practice, and new UCLA head coach Jim Mora Jr. let him know about it in front of the whole team.

I pick it up from one of the Bruin blogs via a colleague on Facebook.  Frankly, the Los Angeles Times source for the story is far more cutting than the blog.

Not gonna act like I haven't received or seen such ass chewings -- just not usually in full view of the public, the team and the people you're suppose to work with.

T.J. Simers, the LA Times columnist, picks it up:

It's what we've come to expect from our really good college coaches as they set out to make men out of the kids in their programs.

And you know the Bruins had to just love it, with UCLA fans no doubt also admiring Mora's drive to be the very best at whatever the cost of human dignity.

That's when a program knows it has the right guy, or as Mora put it: "I'm not going to jeopardize what we're doing as a football team because of the incompetence of some people."

I think it's pretty well understood football is the most important thing going on at UCLA, and every man, woman and child needs to understand that.

UCLA is 4-1.  It's all good.  Nothing to see here.  More along.  Just inside the house banter.

Sports might not build character, but it sure can reveal it.

Before I get emails and calls from colleagues in the field, look, you all know that you do that behind closed doors.  Even that is tantamount to creating a hostile workplace and sooner or later, it is a college campus.

Another colleague said it: coaches at that level are kings.

The collective we allows this.  Don't forget, they're winning.  Before you cluck about your school or your rival, ask yourself an honest question: would you let the coach go bat guano crazy on helpless staff if you thought it would lead to a 4-1 mark?  Hell, they'd volunteer for it (and at many institutions, functionally speaking, they do).

Oh, and by the way, that Stomp Out Bullying Day artwork?  Yeah, it's blue and gold.

Where Did My Likes Go?

Speculation that Facebook's total membership was inflated by as much as 25% and that the number of actual live users (discounting those who legitimately made accounts but do not participate on a regular basis) could be as low as 15% of the total number got a boost last week as the social media giant began purging known bad accounts.

So if your Facebook page's growth stalled last week, it's likely you didn't really drop meaningful members.

Read more.

The Best Politics is No Politics

Growing up in Louisiana, there were notable political legends, and epic reactions to same.  The way that Huey Long politicized the state's employees led to some fairly draconian restrictions on political activity by classified workers.  If you worked for the state or city, no yard signs.  No bumper stickers.  No political rallies.  In some ways, quite a limit on your freedom of speech.

Today, that still applies to classified workers -- unclassified are no held by that law.

Maybe they should.

Civil servants have to work with whoever gets elected.  On the sports side of college, Lou Holtz can tell you that handing out endorsements has a way of biting you.

The state of Louisiana issued its semi-annual list of thou shalt nots for classified employees during elections, and I was pleased to see the addition of the social media realm to the list.

Employees in the classified service are prohibited from engaging in political activity. Political
Activity means an effort to support or oppose the election of a candidate for political office or to
support or oppose a particular party in an election. Therefore, you cannot display political signs
in your yard, bumper stickers on your vehicle, or wear a button or pin that could be perceived as
supporting a person or party. Also, you cannot “like” a candidate or party on Facebook or follow
on Twitter or any other social media.

At the same time, I have to ask this question of the regulators.  Yes, "like" can equal endorsement, but what if a voter is simply trying to stay up with the news?  Is following both sides to make a decision?  What I believe they intended was to prevent partisan posting in the wall -- which is really your "endorsing" or "engaging" in political activity.

The regulation is intended to prevent political activity.  What this does not directly address within social media is just that.  By reading what was said, an employee can't "like" the party on Facebook, but they could share and post all the obnoxious campaign fodder they want.  Later in the circular, the commission says the very limited things a classified employee can do:

You may vote, you may be a commissioner or poll watcher, you make express your opinions
privately, and you may sign a recall petition.

Expressing opinion on Twitter much different from prohibiting someone from simply following and consuming the information.

The Make It Viral Spiral

Walking away from a meeting at which the subject of the conversation was creating something for video that would "go viral" reminds me that the desire to be the flavor of the day is strong among this generation of marketers and communicators.

The smart money says you can't "make" anything viral -- the meme rolls or it doesn't.  What separates PSY from PS2?  Aside from good coding, one is catchy.  The other was the 1980s failed attempt to get everyone excited about an operating system that just didn't have it.

It is the magic.  It is doing something slightly out of the ordinary.  Doing it well.  And doing it over and over.

Thus the exact lessons proffered by Deborah Marquardt in a Q&A with Ad Age sent out last week via the PRSA feed.

Here we have another storyteller in Marquardt:

Story is already at the center of marketing, and we need to keep it central to the process when there are so many touchpoints for consumers and people aren't reading your story in a linear way.

 OK, you want the spark approach.  Sure, create a video INTENDED to inflame and you might get the job done.  Or, you might not.  There are literally hundreds, thousands, of pot-shots taken at Islam on-line.  What separated the recent from previous?  What made it viral?

It is the same in the political races.  The ginned up Romey killed by wife commercial isn't having the same viral impact of his own words (the 47%).  And all the Obamacare scares in the world didn't have the traction of the president's misstep (you didn't build that).

Some tips?

Genuine beats designed (again, look to politics)

Take the viewer where they can't go (our POV stuff with the 50-yard line is extremely popular -- both band or sports)

Best possible quality.

Relate it back to your story.

And stop trying so hard.  Make it good -- your people will appreciate and spread it.

Al Qaeda Sleeper Cell Sex Video

See, so maybe the point of The Atlantic article that written media needs better headlines to draw attention is overstated.  Then again, you did click on it.

Boring Headlines by Conor Friedersdorf makes his point with good examples of how to do it wrong.

Let me suggest to you who is doing this right -- NPR News.

Without undercutting their credibility, NPR gives me the level of "attitude" that is appropriate.  In fact, I've wondered if they hired a former Onion editor to write for them.

Seriously -- that funny. 

The key, however, is they do these tease headlines for real news on social media -- links in Facebook and Twitter -- where that voice is appropriate.

Consider -- which of these are NPR and which are Onion:

Freedom Soda: New York's Ban on Big Sodas Hitting Us Where We are Human

Report: Majority of Americans Stopped Paying Attention Several Words Ago

Are Today's Millenials The "Screwed Generation"?

If you don't want to click, just like a sandwich, the NPR links are the bread around the Onion.

No snark from NPR on things like the killings in Libya or other "hard news", but what is wrong with standing out from the crowd?

Obama Campaign Not Reading This Blog

Obviously.

The case for putting more human in the loop for social was made by the President's campaign this week.  Did they really mean for the first thing from the official Twitter feed on Sept. 11 to be a shameless plug to volunteer for the campaign?

I doubt it.

Did someone think, hey, I can automate a tweet every Tuesday heading down the stretch.

To quote another politico, you betcha.

And, the campaign that was so in tune with the online world in 2008 looked tin ear in 2012.  The reaction was quick and visceral.  Defenders were quick to say the President followed later in the AM with his personal "-BO" tweet.

I'm not going to act like I have never used scheduled tweets.  In particular, on a football game day there are certain things (gates open 3 hours out, etc.), but I also carefully watched that A) the tweets actually went [no small issue] and B) things didn't change.  Nothing like a thunderstorm and lightning to change your pregame schedule, and you have to be ready to delete those messages.

To reference back, here's the previous tweet about People Matter.

Shocking Social News: People Matter

Have I mentioned lately the best $300-ish you can spend is on PRSA membership?  If only for the daily brief, because you're going to get curated news gems like this one.

It's a Business Week story about the more we automate, the more the human element becomes crucial.

I could not agree more.  The more social tools are employed, the more significant it becomes to have trained people to handle them.  And by that, I don't mean a student worker ('cause you know, kids get these interwebs) or a minion.  Front line reputation management folks who know your operation front to back, and can stay disciplined in the storm to carry forward a message.

Or, I might opine, not run away if the heat turns up.  But I digress.  Here is your rock solid 140-like takeaway from Business Week:

The lesson here is simple: People matter more than ever. When things go wrong, as they inevitably will, you’ll be glad you made people a priority.

Winners know that.  Penny pinchers and the petty don't.

CoSIDA Presentation

For those wanting the slides, I've turned it into a PDF that you can download.

Some Columns from the Weekend

Tim Dahlberg's summation of the events of Happy Valley are succinct and prescient -- the coverage of the Cult of Personality at PSU are far from over.

In my own head, I have had to reconcile Joe Paterno (and other college football coaches) with the Lance Armstrong case.  Finding myself somewhat conflicted -- is Lance no different than Joe -- I discovered this column from Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (pay link) which at least began to sort it out.  It will suggest it is worth the day access to read as Martin brings Barry Bonds, Armstrong and the opening question "What if there was a pill you could take to lose 50 pounds overnight?" together.

Discuss.

Catching Up Soon

Apologies for a few days break, but a spontaneous experiment to verify both the law of gravity and Newton's laws of motion delayed my writings about social and hurricanes.

Not Even the Nastiest

Taking a little history break today after working through the fun of Hurricane Isaac (and more on that over the weekend).

Enjoyed reviewing for my American History 2020 before the hurricane break just how nasty Presidential politics have been and that no matter how bad you think it is now -- this is neither unprecedented or unusual.

Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer did us the service of reviewing the original Presidential campaign -- the election of 1800.  Remember, George Washington didn't find himself in too terribly deep in partisanship, but with the Father of the Nation off the scene and Thomas Jefferson ready to rev things up against John Adams, well, it went nasty fast.

These are great reminders that no matter how noble we recall our past leaders, they were competitive politicians.

I used some of the back-biting comments in Polman's column for a We're History episode about a year ago.

So until one side calls the other "a hideous hermaphroditical character" or a "son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father", let's just say today's politics are just par for the course.

One Man, One Million Dollars, Nine Days

Want to know how to succeed on-line?  Look at The Oatmeal, the website of bizarre posters and satire.  Matthew Inman was a programmer in the Seattle area who wanted to find a way to express his point of view, and by the start of the '10s his creation was clocking over four million uniques a day.

How to describe The Oatmeal?  Maybe Mental Floss run by Gary Larsen.

He recently used the power of his following to generate a million dollars to seed a Tesla museum at the legendary scientist's old labs in New York.

He did it in nine days.  You can read his take on the success on his blog.

This isn't his first foray into fund-raising.  When a website was infringing on his copyright -- and Inman called it out -- the website had the balls to sue Inman for defamation.  In true digital century style, Inman fought right back, creating the "Operation BearLove Good. Cancer Bad" cartoons and campaign.  The illustrations featured the website's owner's mother seducing a Kodiak bear (you might now get a sense of the humor displayed at The Oatmeal, made famous by cartoon concepts like Five Reasons to Punch a Dolphin).

The battle was not fair.  The Oatmeal asked for donations to cover the $20K in damages called for in the suit.  He raised $220K, with proceeds split between American Cancer Society and National Wildlife Federation.  The website then filed a federal suit against The Oatmeal, ACS, NWF and IndieGoGo, leading to another round of blowback.  Eventually, the site backed down dropping its suits.

What can we learn from The Oatmeal?

Born Digital:  The Oatmeal is the poster child (hmm, quite literally) for an enterprise that would never exist absent the networked media.

Single-minded focus: The Oatmeal is one man's vision of the world, and relentless in promoting and defending it.  His previous big moment was shouting down some detractors.  Living proof that we have to come up with some different way of expressing "don't get in a pissing battle with people who buy ink by the barrel" that fits the digital age.

Genuine: What you see is what you get, and not unlike George Takei on Facebook, The Oatmeal is legend for saying what he thinks in a sincere and endearing way.

Unique: This is Gary Larson 2.0.  If you haven't read much of The Oatmeal and you are of the generation that misses that warped yet spot on take of the world, you need to take some time to read the back catalog.

Learn more The Oatmeal background from WikiPedia and from Inman.

You Mean They Like to Blog the TV Games Too?

It is good the research is in to support the reality that the second screen is for interaction with TV.

I had running discussions -- hesitate to say battle, but they were skeptical -- with administrators back in the beginning of interactive blogs at Arkansas thinking it wasn't necessary to do any game on TV.  Some thought that "infringed" on the TV rights; others naively believed "who would follow that" when they could watch.

For the community.  And while we did get a different crowd -- the ones who had no other way to follow the event previously (no TV coverage) -- were less and the need for volumes of play by play was reduced, a much different dynamic began as the fans could discuss among themselves what they saw.

In the report, I'll call out two obvious problems.  First, this looked at 16-to-24.  My experience is this is NOT a youth movement.  We had as many fans over 30 as under on sports blogs at Arkansas.

The second one was this quote from the report:

The challenge for second screen content today is that it is likely to be relatively expensive as we are still in an experimental, bespoke phase.

Relatively expensive?  Compared to the total production cost of the event -- are you kidding?  A CoverItLive or similar interface account is a modest expense without advertising and finding a staff member to interact.  That's it.  We never had marketing or the rights holder on board sufficiently (read: they didn't care because they didn't see it as a revenue stream worthy of their time), but there was no doubt in my mind that a little effort could have washed the minimal costs through a sponsorship agreement.

Like so many things in social -- they aren't free, people's time is money, but it is about believing in the end result -- building community and affinity -- and deciding that it is going to get done.

As master Yoda said:  Do.  Or do not.  There is no try.

It Is All On The Record

Another reminder that once it is in digital, it becomes easy to find.  Toss politics aside and focus on the error of trying to cover tracks but at the same time communicate in writing.  Investigators have unearthed this advice to subordinates in Washington:

"Don’t ever send an email on doe email with a personal email addresses,” Silver wrote Aug. 21, 2011, from his personal account to a program official’s private Gmail account. “That makes them subpoenable.”

You can read the whole story at the Washington Post.

It reminds me of the attempts by athletic administrators to similarly avoid FOIA by taking their discussions to Gmail or Hotmail rather than good old .EDU.  This also reinforces the answer to that question I still occasionally get - you mean they can get my private email?

Jonathan Silver tells you exactly how -- at least in discovery of your email account name.  I still caution that even if you follow Silver's advice, if the perception arises that official business was taking place outside of the official channels - whether you are state or fed - subpoena power can compell a network admin to show activity records.  Guess what now? Better hope you never logged into that other account at

PRSA Weighs in on Penn State

Earlier this summer, the Counselors to Higher Education group within PRSA noted that in the Freeh Report that it appeared the internal PR staff at Penn State was a non-factor -- neither consulted and in the one reference in the report, ineffective.

The PRSay column by Gerard Corbett about where PR should be in a crisis of this magnitude is required reading -- for "C"-level executives.

The five-points given are spot on, but one in particular brings it all into sharp focus:

At Penn State, senior officials don’t appear to have consulted with the public relations professionals who could have helped the university avert the crisis it is now facing.

Can't help if you're not asked, but I also know, you can't be a part of the solution if you are seen as "being negative" for pointing out the problems.

By the way, if you don't believe it could happen at your institution, read through this checklist from Poynter.  Jill Geisler is brutal -- BRUTAL -- about the eight ways you could be at risk, starting with:

Your organization uses words like “integrity” and “values” in promotional literature, but leaders rarely utter them in the course of daily decisions, much less the toughest ones.

That's just number one.

Have You Posted a Photo Today?

Forget #FollowFriday or whatever small meme you track -- ask yourself this key question:

What have I done to create interest or engagement today? 

Not one day a week, every day of the week.

And to that end, what better way than posting great, interesting photos.

Don't believe?  Here's another fact-packed note from WOMMA about images and how they dominate social.

If you want to go in depth, click back to the Facebook Five, particularly talking formula when it comes to Visual.

(In order: the Doctor BS Facebook Five: Immediate | Sentiment | Visual | Mobility | Brevity)

A Fab Four of Facebook for Students

Just finished talking to the instructors of our University Studies 1000 course -- which is an orientation and study skills class required of all freshman at Northwestern State -- and encouraged them to get their kids to link themselves to the social fabric of the campus by engaging with the Fab Four Facebook pages:

#1 -- The university main page (which for us is /NorthwesternState)

#2 -- The athletic department main page (which again is /ForkEmDemons)

But the next two may be the most important for their retention at college and their integration into the social life of campus.

#3 -- Their academic area of interest

#4 -- Their social area of interest

We as a university spent a lot of meeting time this summer discussing retention and how to improve engagement with students.  The consensus -- the more students relate to each other, find connections, find older peer leaders -- the better chance for success.

Thus, what better way to get students to meet more peers and find new interests than actively encouraging them to get involved with the sub areas.  Follow the university and athletics -- great -- helps my overall numbers.  Knowing when the next literary event, recital, lecturer in their area is and commenting back and forth among friends -- that is priceless.

Another Arkansas Trooper, Football Event

In case anyone thinks football troubles are unique to the University of Arkansas, Arkansas State completed its own crisis involving state troopers, high profile people and its head football coach.  Michael Dyer was dismissed from the ASU team, and head coach Gus Malzahn initially resisted discussing the matter.  The problem was the public record via Arkansas State Police due to the dismissal of an arresting officer who pulled Dyer over in March.

The timelines here intertwine with those of Bobby Petrino's motorcycle accident.  Dyer was stopped in March, an internal ASP investigation into began in May.  Petrino, of course, was April 1 through the month.

The Searcy Daily Citizen got the ball rolling with the first Freedom of Information Act request which brought out the details of the investigation and the trooper's video.  I'd like to give you some samplings of what is there, but the paper has a hard firewall.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had a accounting of the dismissal of the trooper, Royce Denney, who among other things turned off his in-car camera to lecture "Dyer about his future and how these items can mess up his football career".  Before the video was stopped, Denney told Dyer on tape that he was being a "total dumbass" for driving 96 mph in a 70 zone, possessing marijuana and a firearm and that he -- Denney -- was going to leave what to do about the weed and gun to "Coach", implying that he was going to give the Auburn transfer and former Little Rock high school superstar a break.

"You've got a career ahead of you. . . . What I should do is bend you over here and whup your butt."

Unlike Arkansas where the connection between Troop L commander Lance King as the head of the sideline protection delegation with Razorback head coach Bobby Petrino (and others before him) was quite clear, whether or not Malzahn really knew Denney isn't clear -- and that Denney in his mind was trying to help a young man get straight by giving him just a speeding ticket and turning the rest of the details over to the ASU head coach.

What we do know is that as soon as Malzahn had the full story -- the claim was Dyer had told him about the traffic stop, but not about the weed and gun -- he dismissed Dyer from the team.  And after putting off trying to talk about the event in detail, Malzahn used the start of a press conference a couple of days after the story and the dismissal broke to talk at length about it.

The initial problems were using the "I'm here to talk about something else" politician's move when first challenged, something he corrected soon after, for the football coach and the "I'm taking the law into my hands and giving you a break because you are a talented young athlete" by the trooper.

Turns out, trooper had other issues and while the focus will now be on his most recent mistake, he's fired.  This detailed out in the Friday ADG.

As yourself, would any of this have been hotly pursued by media prior to Sandusky?  Or locally to these folks in Arkansas, Petrino.

Do we have a larger systemic problem as it relates to law enforcement and college football, regardless to the size of community?  The DA in PA went public the week after Joe Paterno reached his record-setting win, but two games before the close of the season.  That was timing that to me appears odd.  The ASU events show that at some level, it wasn't just UA.  Don't overlook that a part of what is transpiring in Montana with investigations into the football team relates in part to the local police department or campus police and reporting Cleary Act crimes.

You get the sense that Denney in his mind was trying to the right thing in getting a talented young person to stop acting like a fool (and on the tape, the female passenger was joining in to berate Dyer).  We also get another careful what you do in public like the Chick-fil-A protestor (especially when you are a public servant) because video is out there and it will get to YouTube.  Here's a link to the dash-cam video, which was picked up via Freedom of Information Request.

But at some point, trying to guide young people and give them second chances to learn from mistakes as they mature in college -- something we all are suppose to be doing in higher ed whether it is athletic or academic side of campus -- crosses the line into enabling.

For Michael Dyer, who now has found himself gone from a second major college program, those second chances look like they are fading fast.

For the wider us of higher education and governance, it gives everyone pause and consider -- and remember that while we in theory have been in a transparent world as public servants that today's tools -- social media (where first rumors of all these events with the football programs at all levels started) and digital media (for the tapes and other records) are now fully enabling FOIA.

In other words, get your procedures in line (ASP issued new ones now to deal with football related duties -- since all of this brought up that they didn't have one) and make sure you are fulfilling that first crisis plan rule -- trust in God, verify everyone else.