Thursday, November 27, 2008

Change coming into focus

I often feel like making something on holidays (you know, like something besides pies). It seemed like a good time to give my Obama countdown widget a new look.

Play it again, Big.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Furor over Motrin and babywearing: a lifestyle war?

If you need to catch up on the Motrin storm that spread via Twitter over the weekend, first look at the video and see what you think.

Then, check out:

- Blog posts on the topic.

- Twitter search on Motrin.

Mommy bloggers, who tend to hang out on Twitter, were offended by the video’s copy, and the tone of the narration, which implies that wearing a baby in a sling or other carrying apparatus amounts to an affectation. It offended me, too, even though I wasn’t a baby wearer as a young mom. (I tried it, and it didn’t suit me, but not for any lifestyle reason—I just never felt I had the proper purchase on my baby; I liked belonging to the constant contact species, and carried my kids around a lot.)

Telling the folks you’re trying to persuade that their preferences are an affectation is the dumbest aspect. Think about it. It’s like trying to sell Visine to iPhone users by helpfully informing them they only bought their phone to look cool, but there’s help for you dumbasses. Visine can save you from yourselves, save you from the eyestrain you were dimwitted, vain and phony enough to inflict on yourselves.

A few commenters—looks like mostly guys and controversy trolls—are eyerolling or belittling the outrage. In which camp are the people at Johnson & Johnson’s agency who cooked this thing up? I do think there are culture camps here, and it’s because babywearing is still seen as a ”hippie thing”—not so much now as it was 20-30 years ago, but the perception lingers.

So, when the voiceover talent seems to curl her lip in derision at women who want to look like good moms, I gotta tell you, coming off the culture wars fought during the election campaign, it feels to me like Sarah Palin or Ann Coulter is talking to me in that video. And she’s saying “I’m so sick of your hippie shit—your latte-drinking, hybrid-driving, baby-slinging ways. Why don’t you go live on a commune and stop influencing normal heartland moms to adopt your godless ways.”

Sound like a stretch? Maybe, but you really can’t argue with perceptions, and that’s how the read struck me. Which is why, as so many bloggers have pointed out, J&J should have tested the tone with the target audience. Who approved that voiceover anyway? That’s who I’d blame, and send the agency’s creative staff to tonedeaf school.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Online congressional and other public hearings?

When Barack Obama sent a thank-you text message to supporters—on his way to the victory speech—saying he couldn’t have done it without us, I thought that was nice to address us first. I replied “You’re welcome, buddy. Keep us involved.”

Wired Obama supporters have been thinking a lot about how the power of his online communities might be harnessed to do some good beyond getting him elected.

What would you think about bringing public hearings into the online world? It wouldn’t have to be exactly like Capitol Hill hearings. Hearings have taken to the road for a long time, but they tend to keep to the same formal rules.

A different kind of supplementary input might be put in place so that testimony could be given via one of the live video services, in shorter chunks, and by a different class of witnesses—more ordinary citizens, more front-line experts, fewer heads of agencies and heads of interest groups. (The higher you climb on the title ladder, the less you learn about what’s happening and the more you learn about what the establishment wants you to think is happening.) It would be less formal than hearings held in Washington, but more official than a town hall.

Live commentary on the testimony could be mined not just for reaction to the testimony but also for ideas. It could shape the direction of the hearings in real time.

I don’t believe anybody thinks Joe citizen should vote to decide things like how to fix the economy. But swarms do one thing very well: they ferret out the important, consequential bits of an issue, situation or conversation. When this happens in real time, we’re saying “Yes, more of that, please. Now.” We’re like players in a game of hide the thimble, telling the hunter if she’s hot or cold, closer or further away from the prize, or the essence of a thing.

If our representatives in government take the trouble to listen, and if they are canny about it, they’ll use that power to navigate the issue terrain.

Later: Brian Solis pens a good roundup of Obama’s use of social media during the campaign and and floats ideas for using it for governing. The stat that popped out at me:

YouTube also swayed towards Obama with a network of 358,000 to 191,000, with the Obama camp posting over 1,800 videos compared to McCain’s 330. These videos accounted for 110 million views.

While the ratio of Obama-to-McCain subscribers was about 2:1, the video posting ratio was more like 5:1. So, it’s not just that the McCain campaign was stuck in the 20th century in terms of thinking of the electorate as an audience; McCain supporters thought of themselves as the audience.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Winding up a story

I’ve never watched Pushing Daisies, but I hear there are plans to finish up the story in a series of comic books, should the TV series get canceled.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that TV shows should do this when there’s still an audience, but maybe not a big enough audience to justify Hollywood production. I don’t know if comic books would be my medium of choice, but I think I’d consume more of some stories in just about any form.

It’s especially cruel to fans, don’t you think, to lop off a series in mid-story like both of David Milch’s HBO series—Deadwood and John From Cincinnati. Give me a podcast or an animated movie, a novelization, shoot, a blog. Just tell me what you had in mind to wind the thing up. You know? And, OK, because I pay for HBO, I think I feel a little more used when I don’t get my conclusion.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Now the juicy stuff can come out

I can’t wait to dig into Newsweek’s special, deliciously long election project, Secrets of the 2008 Campaign. Three of the seven chapters have been posted to the Newsweek website so far.

They’ve saved up all the gossipy behind-the-scenes stories they had promised not to reveal until after the election. NewsGang Live junkies should savor this tidbit about discussions around choosing Hillary as VP. @stevegillmor was always convinced that Obama’s staff bore a grudge, that it colored their advice, but that Obama himself might not have been so set against the pick. I always agreed.

Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary’s name came up in veep discussions, and Obama’s advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, “Are we sure?” He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

This is one of those once-every-several-weeks occasions when I’m moved to print out a long article so I can cuddle up with it and relish it. I keep thinking I should play around with an alternate CSS stylesheet that makes the presentation of things like this more book-like.

Separately from the Newsweek roundup, it comes out that Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent. She thought it was a country. I don’t know about you, but I’m not done with her. I say pile on the ridicule if it helps keep that horrid woman off the national stage. I’m totally in Steve’s camp on that score, too.

Newsweek’s piece is supposed to cover the uptick in threats against Obama in September and early October when she was busiest “energizing” her base with the associations game. That person, for all her Christian professions, has an ugly ugly soul. I’ve never seen any other politician bask in boos the way others soak up cheers.

 

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Feeling good

About Nina Simone | Versions of Feeling Good

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Predictions, and decisions

You can make your own predictions on the NPR site. It would have been nice if you could save your map, and if they somehow could have integrated the predictions with the reality.

After thinking about heading downtown, I’ve decided to stay in for the evening and watch TV and the swarm—trading being there for knowing what’s happening, and watching the finale in the same way I’ve watched the whole process.

All day I kept trying to remind myself that I might regret not going, that being in Grant Park might give me a memory like being at the band shell in Central Park in December 1980 for John Lennon’s memorial. I’ve always been glad I didn’t give into the urge to blow off attending it because the crowd would be a hassle. I suppose it might boil down to getting old.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Wonder what’s gone wrong

The spot, made by Progressive Future, is airing on MSNBC and CNN this weekend. Quite a contrast from the other side’s 527 efforts.