My favorites, in no particular order:

• @Bryce1984 The Lambs That Wouldn't Shut Up #unseenprequels
• @jchinchar #unseenprequels Some Like It Tepid
• @matthasarms: Apocalypse Soon. #unseenprequels
• @steviedunn: The Day the Earth Continued Spinning #unseenprequels
• @PCTim: #unseenprequels The OK, The not so OK, and the unattractive
• @blogdiva: #unseenprequels Second-Base and The City
• @Alcudiabarfly: #unseenprequels dry-spell in the city
• @stealyourself: Madamoiselle Bovary #UnseenPrequels
• @lizzwinstead: The 5k run/walk Man #unseenprequels
• @jnjoiner: Thursday #unseenprequels
• @LParry: Shaun of the feeling peaky. #unseenprequels
• @KagroX: Still Plenty of Mohicans #unseenprequels
• @drywall: A Bunch of Mohicans #unseenprequels
• @RedGray: #unseenprequels Raiders of the Misplaced Ark
• @islandis: Sex, Lies, and Kinescope. #unseenprequels
• @macphoenix: Undocumented-Immigrant Kane #unseenprequels
• @mcsweater: American History IX #unseenprequels
• @AdamSerwer: The Dark Squire #unseenprequels
• @lizzwinstead: Conception of a Nation #unseenprequels
• @lizzwinstead: Still Going Back and Forth On Some Major Points of Endearments #unseenprequels
• (my own, heh): #unseenprequels Before Harry Met Sally
• UPDATE: via many others, this one clearly wins: @KagroX: Groundhog Day #unseenprequels

UPDATE: More fun titles are posted over at Ben Byrne's blog!

* Wondering what the deal with the # is? That's the marker for a "hashtag" on Twitter. It's how Twitter users easily add or denote a keyword, allowing everyone else to either find or refer to a topic easily. Search for all #unseenprequel tweets!

"Achtung," from fscklog on Flickr

More and more, people are talking about the "attention economy." If you're new to the term, here's the basic idea: Attention is scarce, meaning it's a finite commodity that can be gathered and exhausted. Using economics as a model, we have to choose where we "spend" our attention, and those seeking to gain our attention have to use market-based tactics — a.k.a., "marketing!" aha! — to win us over.

Models like this are very attractive to us as a culture because we're so familiar with transaction-based economies. As I wrote in "Share This!," it's how we think of everything we do. If I pay you $5, you’ll give me a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. If I refinish your flooring, you’ll pay me for my labor. Even when we think of bartering, we still focus on the transactional moment: If I cook you dinner, you’ll show me how to set up a website.

When we apply transactions to how traditional media works (think: one-directional, few-to-many broadcast messages), it's easy to see how we ended up with the dismal state of affairs that exist: reality TV, infotainment news, etc. If, as a producer of content, I need to get the most bang for my buck out of each "transaction," I'm going to create something that will gain the most attention. I'll have to yell the loudest, create the most spectacle. It's not worth my time or money to create niche content that will draw in specific kinds of audiences; partly because this is one-directional, and I have all the control, I can blast people with content and hope for the best out of that transactional moment, when I print an article or air a show. The more outrageous that content is, the better chance I have of at least catching people's eye for a moment — take advantage of humanity's rubbernecking instinct.

As we enter a more social, and perhaps more holistic, way of interacting with the world around us, squeezing our attention span in this kind of transaction-based, market model is turning out to be fraught with problems. First, the transactional moment is more bi-directional (or even multi-directional) than ever. We're having conversations with one another, so it's not just about me producing content and you consuming it. It's about how we interact with what gets put out there, and how that content changes once we start interacting with it.

It's also different because it's not a few-to-many model, it's a many-to-many model. This is where applying an economic analysis to attention becomes sticky. In the case of social media, and probably much of our non-media lives, attention isn't actually a scarce commodity. We have to reframe our interactions with one another– it's not about trying to "pay attention" to everything that comes our way, and running out of attention to pay. It's more about making the world around us a stream or flow of information, and dipping in and out of that flow as necessary or desired. Attention, in this model, isn't a scarce commodity — it's actually an unending stream that gets woven in and out of other streams. (Suddenly I'm having a Ghostbusters moment.)

Since attention isn't comprised of chunks that get accumulated and doled out as we progress into this way of thinking, there's not much use in thinking about the system as an finite economy. Who yells the loudest and makes the biggest fool of themselves will become less important as our notions of celebrity also change — having higher numbers of viewers or followers or fans doesn't equal influence and fame. Or, it doesn't have to, anyways. If we can turn around our thinking, away from the style of mass media which has only served to alienate us from one another, and produce lowest-common denominator content, towards one of a more holistic, ecosystem-like view where relationships to and relevancy of content matter, then attention's scarcity also begins to disappear.

Once scarcity is removed from the model, there's no market economics that apply to it. You're not competing for others' attention, you're creating sustainable relationships across which content flows, many ways. What happens as a result of those relationships might be quantifiable in some way, but how we choose to do so absolutely must become more nuanced than units of product sold, pageviews/uniques, or number of followers/fans gained. This is another key point missing from much of the conversations being had about social media's impact: we are at a critical, cultural juncture where it is up to us to experiment and ultimately define how things work in the ecosystem. Markets work for certain things, but information, attention and relationships aren't among them. It's time to ditch the desire to commoditize our world. What say ye?

BK wanted me to add a "how do you know the author" question to the survey, so of course, my friends decided to have a wee bit of fun. Here's a roundup of my favorite response so far (with necessary comments from me in italics):

• She's a pal.
• From the bar
• The series of tubes
• In college, we were making beds for the football team NY Giants. ask her. (true!)
• We share an ex-boyfriend, ha ha.
• It's complicated, but I've been a fan for years! (See: "We share an ex-boyfriend." No kidding, there's more than one)
• We went to psychic healer school together.
• She designed my site, and saved my life. (check is in the mail, Alice)
• I am her indentured servant (You are? Where's my dinner, muppet?)
• Schmoozing
• I mistook her for Jill from Jack & Jill Politics (true story, Cheryl.)
• We met in in jail. Or was it the Army?
• Her very favorite Uncle out of all her uncles living in NC (there's just one)
• Hair bleach and naughty conversations
• Osmosis (not far from the truth, on the Bowery)

UPDATE: More funny friends have chimed in…

• From a movie set, it's a long story (god help us, this one)
• secret president of her fan club (that check is going in the mail now)
• Sister; knew her before she got a sense of humor :) (thanks, bro!)
• friend/dog scratcher/chef (need you FT, see "indentured servant" above)
• great serendipity (the meaning of life, after "42" of course)

Also, I'm doing a series of "Yeah, But…" sidebars to help answer questions. What are your "yeah, buts"?

Here are the fears and yeah-buts I've heard most (in no particular order):

• I don't want people to know about my private life
• I like using social networks to maintain my personal relationships, but I don't like blending the professional stuff in with it
• I feel like I have to get everything right/perfect before I join an online conversation (most often with blogging)
• I don't have time for any of this stuff.
• Yeah but… the corporations/government are gathering so much info about us.
• … everything moves too fast. I can't keep up.
• … media/journalism require money/investment. Social networks can't replace that.
• … these social networks are all closed/walled gardens. Why don't we all do something open source?

Maybe one more question, for intermediate and advanced folks: If you could look back at your pre-social-networking self and offer one piece of insight or wisdom, what would it be? Is there anything you wish you'd known before you joined into social networks?

Leave everything in the comments below; I'll let yous know which ones make it into the draft and the final versions of the book.

I griped a little yesterday about this, and Elana over at Wellstone Action asked me what advice I'd give candidates running for office. Here's a quick, handy-dandy list of pointers for candidates, from the position of a voter:

• Talk with me, not to me. Twitter is a media platform for conversation, not broadcast. A rule of thumb that's used for organizations also applies to candidates: only about 20-30% of your tweets should be about you. The rest should be about what your community cares about. Which leads me to…
• Find out what your community cares about. Read what your followers are tweeting and respond with helpful information. It doesn't just have to be related to the office you're running for, either… in fact, it's better if you mix it up a little. For example, someone you follow tweets about heading to a restaurant you love. Respond and say you go there often, too, and be sure to try the blackened sea bass.
• Stay on top of hot topics. Look for people talking about issues you care about with Twitter search. You can either save them as saved search in your Twitter app (Tweetie, Tweetdeck, Twitterific, etc.), or as an RSS feed for your news reader (Google Reader, Netvibes, etc.) Then respond to those tweets, even if you're not following each other.
• Give back to the community. Retweeting others' ideas and suggestions is a great way to show appreciation, and to spead the good word.
• Use your own, authentic voice, not a press release voice. I'm a voter, a human, and I want you to be a human too. Robots don't do so well in the voting booth.
• If you don't have time, assign a staff person to monitor and respond to items — just make sure they're clear that they're your staff person, and not you. For example, NYC mayoral candidate Reverend Billy Talen has a personal account, as well as his campaign staff's group account. If your staff person uses your account, ask them to note that they're a staffer.

In short, act like a normal person who cares about the people around them, because we know you do!

–

Note: Bill de Blasio was the only public advocate candidate who responded to my gripe, and he gets extra Twitter points for both that and at least retweeting people once in a while. Go Bill!

It's that time of the year where SXSW asks us to garner mega amounts of attention for the panels we're proposing for next year's Interactive conference. This is a Big Deal, and I'm joining forces with all the other fabulous people around me to co-promote everyone's hard work. So, take 3 minutes to register and vote for us!

My panels:

• Social Media, Social Capital: Boot Camp:
  Me and Susan Mernit will give an introductory workshop showing how folks can get on board the mighty train. Update: Tara Hunt's joining us, too!
• Beyond Tokenism: How Social Media Can Fix S***:
  Me, Rob Biko Baker, Veronica Arreola and Cheryl Contee will hold a panel on what's at stake sociopolitically with social media. I'll be shamelessly promoting my book, Share This!.

My friends' gigs:

• Social Justice and Video Games: by Latoya Peterson with N'Gai Croal and Naomi Clark; invited Professor Andre Brock
• The Netroots After The Obama Victory with Amanda Marcotte and what'll be an all-star lineup fer sure
• Not the Silent Majority: Women in Politics Online: by Sarah Granger with Shireen Mitchell, Erin Kotecki-Vest, and Cheryl Contee.
• Mom Blogging – Beyond Swag and Diaper Bags: This one is with Veronica Arreola and PunditMom
• Bumpin Up: Has the Glass Ceiling Ever Smacked you in the Butt by Allyson Kapin and a slew of Important Women In Tech
• Web TV That Doesn’t Suck with Marc Faletti

UPDATE: I was in the social justice frame o' mind when I first wrote this, and forgot other Good People:

• Don't Stop Believin: Why Karaoke WILL Change the World with Tara Hunt and the Whuffaoke crew
• RT: I'm Going to Kill Myself. Preventing Suicide Online with Chris Gandin Le

(Am I missing you? Let me know!)

Thanks in advance for helping to keep social cause stuff on the plate at such an influential conference. It means a lot to us out here on the front lines!

This is probably most unemployed people's worst nightmares, especially given the scarcity of jobs within certain industries and overall economic climate. I can get denied because I had a couple of drinks with friends on Saturday night? Here's the breakdown of what can evidently keep you from getting hired:

• Provocative or inappropriate photos or info–53%
• Drinking or drug use–44%
• Bad-mouthing previous employee, colleague or client–35%
• Poor communication skills–29%
• Discriminatory comments–26%
• Lied about qualifications–24%
• Leaked confidential info from previous job–20%

As FC's Kit Eaton points out, I can definitely understand a couple of those. Lying = not okay. Leaking = not okay. Discriminatory comments, while fairly grey here = probably not okay.

The bigger issue with studies like this are the potentially limiting effect that our social network activity is having on changing the culture around us. In a big section of the book I'm writing right now, Share This!, I talk about the huge potential for the overlap between different spheres of our lives to fundamentally change the expectations we have of one another (especially when it comes to gender, race, sexuality, class, etc.), and shift our culture towards values of trust, empathy and shared purpose. The portraits we are creating of ourselves online are fundamentally political and radical. With our participation on social networks, we're saying, "This is what it's like to be a person in these shoes."

What's emerging is a trend towards more authenticity as we become more transparent about different parts of our lives. It's not a requirement (or even desirable) to reveal every last tidbit of ourselves, but more an opportunity to share what previously might not be acceptable in different parts of our lives. We belong to numerous social circles – jobs, politics, neighborhoods, hobbies, sports, religions – and now that everyone's lives are overlapping, the sharing is happening with all of us at the same time.

Sure, there's a line you have to draw with what you share– there are countless stories now about Facebook getting you fired or evicted, and many of them are within reason (i.e., you set fire to your apartment and you post pictures to your Wall… um, yeah, that's going to go get you in trouble). As for the more mundane and average parts of our lives? I say the more we can share, the better. (And here are some thoughts about what to share for those just getting started.)

Employers that don't value this kind of additional information about candidates are setting themselves up for failure in a world that's becoming increasingly reliant on reputation and recommendations. For one, candidates that aren't out there establishing their expertise and building their social capital with these tools are going to fall light years behind, skill-set-wise, those who are. Additionally, it's a rare window into more of a candidate's personality than what gets presented in an old-school style interview, and employers can see who might match and who might not.

If companies expect us to hide parts of ourselves from semi-public view, it could have a chilling effect on people who are using social networks and media to explore and present identities that are not culturally accepted, or at least roles that aren't traditional. Could this mean that LGBT lawyers have to re-closet themselves to get hired by a power firm? Or that stay-at-home parents, mostly moms, have to gloss over the fact even more that they've been out of the workforce when trying to return? This is dangerous and potentially damaging to the positive, personal-is-political force in motion right now: This is who we are, and we're here to stay.

In the end, companies are going to have to change the way that they view the information they find on social networks. Ten years ago, a Google search that turned up some TMI might be cause for alarm. But now, especially as younger generations are swimming in all kinds of online social networks, can a company freak out over "inappropriate info," whatever that is?

Who, exactly, are they going to hire?

Domesday Books by electropod on Flickr

Some of you were around Friday evening when I put it out on Twitter and Facebook, but wanted to get a chance to share it with the rest of yous after a busy weekend. Hurray! The official title of my book is…

Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking

Many folks participated in the surveys that brought us to this point, and I just want to thank you again for all that. I'm super-psyched!

More about the book:

• Book deal announcement, with a description of what I'm doing
• My fundraising appeal
• A report on how the crowdfunding is going

Twitter reported its outage being caused by a denial-of-service attack. (Quick explanation: when skilled nerds/hackers write programs to flood a server with tasks and requests, so that the server is overloaded and taken down.) What happens when we come to rely on the social web for all kinds of things, and then those services disappear? Sure, we can all merrily hop over to the next one, but as Allyson Kapin pointed out, to a certain degree, we'd all have to start over on building our networks. Our social capital translates across platforms, sure, but the physical reconnecting of users to users is one big pain in the butt.

This all points to a larger problem with how market-driven application development can be highly problematic. Yes, it creates competition, but moreso, it creates closed networks and proprietary systems. Each service — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, etc — uses its own private structure to amass our networks for us. While messages can be passed between them, there's no way to really share the data that accumulates over time between services.

Twitter disappears, for example, and we all go over to FriendFeed. But I have probably a fifth of the community on FriendFeed that I have elsewhere, because I haven't spent any time cultivating it. And I can't immediately transfer all of my Twitter community to FriendFeed. I can check my Gmail contacts and see who's on FriendFeed, but I can't just say, "Bring over my Twitter group to this service." That'd be problematic for anyone trying to make money off of building these services, I guess, if we could all just drop them and run. It reminds me of the same onus that contract-cancellation fees of the mobile networks put on subscribers to stick with them.

It also frightens me, to some extent, about the future of the Web when it comes to ubiquitous-yet-proprietary services. I think about what we might be dealing with today had something like email been developed as a proprietary service. Right now, email works the way that it does because there were early, agreed-upon protocols for transporting the information. Developers implemented service improvements and new ways to interact with email over time, but the fundamental-ness of those early protocols remains true today. Anyone can email anyone else. There is no, "wait, you're on Gmail, I'm on Hotmail, we can't talk to each other."

(Nerd moment: Remember when the early online services were like this, btw? When AOL wouldn't let its users access different parts of the Internet, like Usenet? Ah, the grand old days of walled gardens. And where are they now?)

In the case of social media services that focus on rapid-fire, short status updates, there is no agreed-upon protocol. I'm the worst kind of technologist when it comes to these things, too, because I know there's a service that's open source and based on open principles. It's called identi.ca. Why don't I use it, if I'm so worried? Because hardly anyone else I know does, because it's not very pretty, and because I still can't search my contacts to see who else is on. I'm a sucker, like everyone else, for ease of use.

So, what do we do? My heart says: all you smart designers and coders, go work on identi.ca and get it looking and working nicer. But my head knows that's probably not going to happen, at least not right away… so I'll just be here, staring at the blinking cursors, waiting for Twitter to come back up.

When I first started thinking about metrics for social media, I wanted to start out reminding our group about some fundamentals of the sphere. Oh, and with a flying lemur, because Sam Dorman had a flying lemur in his presentation earlier that day.

Introduction

I've got a little exercise to get you warmed up. Are you ready? Take a minute and jot down all of the breakthroughs in communications history you can think of.

No, no, seriously. Write 'em down. Or type 'em out, if you're like me. I'll wait.

Did you think of smoke signals? That's one of my favorites. Yep. Papyrus, printing press. Though, if we were playing Boggle, you'd have to scratch that one off, because everyone says that one. Radio, television. Morse code. The Internet.

Now tell me: In whose hands have those tools ended up over the last few millennia? Who has been in charge of, and in control of, telling our collective stories?

This is why history needs you. We need you to create and share your stories.

Social capital

Let's talk for a minute about social capital. What is it? Just like monetary capital, social capital can be built up, spent, saved up, invested. It's like a giant combination of influence and karma. The tricky part is, of course, measuring it.

According to Tara Hunt, author of a fabulous social media marketing book called The Whuffie Factor, there are a few things that comprise your, or your organization's, social capital:

• Connections: Who do you know? Not just important or famous people, either. Are you connected to lots of different kinds of people who can complete different tasks?
• Reputation: What are you known for? What do people say about your expertise?
• Influence: Can you move groups of people, small or large, to take some action?
• Access to ideas, talent: Beyond your own skill set, do you have ways of reaching out to others with talent and knowledge?
• Access to resources: You may not be able to fund a particular project, but do you know people who can? Do you have ways of generating physical support?
• Potential access: Will your access to resources and talent stay static in the future, or will it continue to grow?
• Saved up favors: Were not writing down every good deed, but do people remember you for the ways that you help others? This is incredibly important. Is your own generosity with your social capital part of your reputation?
• Accomplishments: What awards have you won? What concrete recognition papers or articles published, etc have you received for your work?

Authenticity

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with your social capital. First of all, your organization, based on its mission and staff, has a unique voice in the world. Even if there are tons of people doing similar work to yours, you are still the only group with your unique perspective. This works to your advantage in social media, because your authentic voice is your most respected and valued voice. Forget brochure-speak — this is a world of conversations.

The other thing to remember is that a lot of social media culture is built on the "gift economy:" the notion that it's a good idea to do things that are just good ideas. There's no expected return when you do someone a favor, or when you take time to share research for free. You realize that it's making the whole environment richer with your unique participation — you don't expect anything else from it.

Which leads me to the next point: one-way streets go nowhere in this world. If you're constantly posting self-referential items and nothing else, you're not going to win a lot of support for the work you're doing. This isn't a broadcast medium; this is a place to engage with your community. (A good rule of thumb, for those getting started, is to post 30% of your own material, and 70% relevant-but-nothing-to-do-with-you material.)

What people are up to now

On Facebook:

• According to Non Profit Social Network Survey, 80% of respondents have a staff person dedicating 25% of their time to social media
• 40% have raised money, BUT: a good chunk have raised less than $500 in last year

Why? Don't forget this incredibly important quote, ever:

It's still all about building relationships, telling your story, and taking potential donors through the process of cultivation, stewardship and solicitation

– Betsy Harman, on Beth's Blog

So, how are people using Facebook?

• Groups are good for personal communications, or smaller issue/action needs
• Pages are good for larger organizations, brand identities

(More on this: http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/ )

Causes:

• Help spread the word
• Measure success through awareness, not dollars
• Majority of Facebookers are younger still
• Build an identity

Credit: Beth Kanter and Allison Fine

What about Twitter?

Twitter's pretty useful for a lot of aspects. You can get the word out, sure, but you can also:

• Get buy-in or advice on new projects
• Share others' info relevant to your work
• Find like-minded folk
• Connect with media

It's up to you to go looking for the conversations you want to have. You can easily set up searches for relevant names (of your staff people, spokespersons, etc.), titles of publications you've produced or articles that you're mentioned in, and topics that are relevant to your work. You can then save those searches as RSS feeds, or in the application you use for Twitter. Another tip: put in URLs that you want to follow to BackTweets.com, and keep an eye out for who's tweeting.

But! That's not all! Then you'll take time to respond to those people: you'll thank them for talking about you, or you'll direct them to a relevant article (that most likely doesn't reference you directly), or whatever the case is. It's gardening, in a way: you're cultivating community by spending time with the people in it.

Here's a great interview that I did with Elana Wolowitz from Wellstone Action on their use of Twitter.

So how do I measure this?

Good question! Just kidding.

My friend Beka referred me to this fabulous 28-page Social Media ROI report from Peashoot (scroll down, it's on the left — you have to give them your email address to get it). All the info covered in the report applies to commercial, for-profit enterprises, but there's a lot to be applied to the non-profit world as well.

One of the biggest takeaways from the report is that it's important in social media to not just consider traditional ways of measuring success. This is not about dollars raised, for example, as a direct measurement of the time you invest in having these conversations. There are other, more interesting ways — more qualitative than quantitative ways — to keep track of how you're doing.

Here are some examples:

• Satisfaction. Look at not just the number of people talking about your work, but start documenting what they're saying. Is it positive? Neutral? Negative?
• Authority. Are they coming to your organization as a resource, looking to you for expertise?
• Loyalty and trust. How about repeat performance — is this their first time dealing with you? How often are they dealing with you?

When working with these measurements, goal-setting becomes crucial. It's important to keep your goals very tight, direct and focused, especially when you're getting going. Choose timeframes that are small — having x positive conversations about your work per week. Also, keep your metrics, to start, within just a couple of services. Say that you're going to work on your Twitter presence for the next two months and then stick with it, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin across multiple services.

What about blogger outreach?

Charlene Li has a great graphic on measuring blogging impact from her 2007 report, and I can't say it any better than the Q&A that concludes this blog post that announced the report:

Q: Is there a standard ROI for blogs? A: Nope – sorry, it isn’t that easy! Just as there isn’t a standard ROI for a Web site, there’s no standard for a blog. It depends on what the goal of the blog is and also how much investment the company (and the blogger) puts into it.

Q: What’s the best way to measure the effectiveness of a blog? A: Again, it starts with the goal of the blog. I strongly suggest that companies start with the goal, develop metrics that measure the attainment of that goal, and find ways to assign value to those metrics.

Q: But aren't blogs risky? How do you take that into account? A: We definitely take risk into account by generating scenarios that show the impact of low-likelihood but high impact events — such as a lawsuit.

Q: Our CMO/CEO/CFO won't let us have a blog until we can show him/her the definitive ROI of a blog. Help!! A: It's not an unreasonable request — they don't really understand the value of a blog and see just the potential cost and risk. By going through the exercise of defining and quantifying the benefits, costs, and risks of a blog, you'll be educating your C-level executives while also demonstrating the discipline that they expect.

Q: But this is heresy – you can't put the benefits of a blog on a spreadsheet! You've just got to believe that blogs are a good thing because they develop conversations with customers. A: At the core of my bleeding heart pumps the soul of a pragmatist. Sure, I buy into all of the positive, feel good reasons to have a blog. But when your manager asks why the company has a blog versus spending more time and resources on XYZ initiatives, it sure would be helpful to be able to show a spreadsheet of those blogging benefits in dollars and cents.

To explain. No, there is too much. Too sum up.

A few final thoughts to take away with you as you venture out into the wild world of social media ROI:

• ROI isn’t always about dollars. It's about social capital, and the goodwill and influence you're able to work with.
• The more specific you can get, the better. Make your goals and corresponding metrics direct and clear.
• Audience, audience, audience. Remember, this isn't a broadcast medium, this is a conversational medium. Find people that want to have the conversation with you.
• Ditch things that don’t work. The low cost of these tools allows you to easily abandon tactics that don't work. Don't think that this means you've failed– it just means that it's time to try the next thing.

My cousin Cheryl down in DC is writing a novel, and found it really hard to get big chunks of work done, too. She said that she used to do this with a friend of hers, and would I be interested? I'll give anything a whirl once. Here's how it works:

• We have set appointments twice a week in the morning. One of us calls the other at the appointed time.
• We each say what we're going to try and accomplish in that session, and how long we'd like to work for. (For us, it's generally an hour at a time.)
• We also offer each other suggestions or share experiences that might be helpful.
• We hang up and get to work. I use the SelfControl app for Mac to block my access to email, Facebook and Twitter during that time.
• At the end of the hour, we call each other and relate how it went, what we were able to get done and what the next steps are.

Wash, rinse, repeat!

The accountability is what's been the most helpful part of this. Sure, I can make a "meeting" with myself in my iCal to get work done, but knowing that I have to call someone, have a plan and execute itgives me that much more inspiration to get tough chunks of the book worked out. Also, working in tandem with someone who's not in the same room doesn't offer up the temptation to just sit there and chat for the whole hour.

All-in-all, a resounding Zandt Family Success Story™, and highly recommended to others.

Park officials aren't super responsive (besides saying that closed dumps on a holiday mean that the park gets trashed, oh well), and no one's sure what to do. At the very least, to start with, we can document it when we see it:

• Email or text pictures (or video!) of garbage in the park to pics@respectprospect.com
• Have a look at the Respect Prospect blog, where photos will be posted
• Follow @respectprospect on Twitter, and tag tweets about the problem with #respectprospect
• Check out the Respect Prospect Flickr stream.
• New! Download this PDF and print out little cards to hand out at the park. These print onto any biz cards using the #8371 Avery template. I used this clean-edge version from Avery, #8871.
• Questions and other inquiries can be sent to info@respectprospect.com

There's nothin' in the middle of the road except...

As it turns out, my chutzpah in asking my colleagues and friends to help support me while writing my book this summer was  a pretty good thing: to date, I've raised about $6500 through small and large donors, and even gotten $100/month in pizza from the fabulous Two Boots Pizza here in NYC. This led to Publisher's Weekly doing an article about the crowdfunding part of the project today (thanks, Wendy Werris!), and has inspired me to jot down a few thoughts about how it's been fundraising for my own book.

This was my first time doing any kind of fundraising on this scale, for one of my own projects. I'd done some arts development work back when I worked for Bowery Poetry/Bowery Arts & Science, and I'd helped out with some grant work at AlterNet.org when they were between development directors. In 2004, I worked myself into a hole of red ink, campaigning with the ABBA (Anybody But Bush Again) platform, and when I wanted to go to Ohio to do Election Protection, I was so broke I couldn't, as my pop says, pay attention. I sent an email out to all my friends, asking them to pledge money to my trip, as if it were a walk-a-thon. That was my first experience friend-raising: I raised enough money to make to Ohio and back; even more amazingly, two friends jumped in, inspired by the email, and came with me.

Fundraising is such a weird thing. On the one hand, we all understand the implications of living on the market merry-go-'round. We're set up in a culture that values projects by how much money they need or how much they'll make. Part of the reason, after talking it through with Johanna at B-K, that I ended up agreeing with their take on no-advances is that it's a bit like betting on a horse from their POV. Not to say that there aren't books that don't need large advances: there most certainly are. But when it comes to really how the market works, the larger advance, the more onus there is on the author to do something spectacular. And I mean that in the "spectacle" sense, not necessarily just the "good" sense.

Regardless, rent needs to get paid (thanks, Hightower & Phillip), and both Izzy Louise and I have to eat. Basic principles that required me to put a price tag on something that I feel passionate about. Weeeeeird and uncomfortable. On top my own expenses, I also want to be in a position to pay people who are pouring themselves into the project with me (hello, Christine! Hi-five!). I had originally intended only to approach foundations and large funders, looking for small grants along the way. But a couple of talks with Steve Katz and Don Hazen changed my mind.

As Steve put it — and I can't remember if these were his exact words, but this was the idea — it'd be pretty interesting to put my money where my mouth was. I'm specifically writing about the power of social media to shift perceptions and cultural values, and I'm constantly discussing new models for media and journalism with my peers. Could I leverage my social capital for this kind of good will? Also, how many people would I piss off in the process? Steve convinced me that the pros would outweigh the cons, and so far, I believe this to be true.

A note about the people that I did piss off: There may be more of you than I know about, more than just the two people (both musicians) that wrote a reply to my fundraising email. The main complaint was that asking for money up front would hurt the artistic integrity of the final product, and that sacrificing for the sake of purity of form/product is perhaps the most important part of the creative process. I see where this point-of-view comes from, and in some cases, I'd imagine it to be true. (I.e., I don't know that I'd crowdfund an advance for my first graphic novel or poetry book, or at least not on the scale that I'm crowdfunding now.)

However, I disagree that sacrifice is the only way to produce good work, and I feel like this is a perverse theme in Western culture that hurts artists and creative folk more than it helps them. Suffering does not, contrary to popular belief, produce sustainable, good creativity. Joy does. Does joy come from money? No. But knowing that there is space to create and momentary relief from the hustle of capitalism can help create the conditions for joy.

It's a common theme in progressive activism, too– the more you martyr yourself, the tinier your NYC hovel is, the more roommates you have to complain about, the more badges of honor you get. Is it any wonder that so many young people ditch movement work for something more sustainable to their lives? I know people who brag about the fact that they haven't had a vacation in six years. They are brilliant people, and that mode of living simply cannot endure. They will burn out, and while I've come close, I am choosing not to be a bitter burnout before I'm 40.

Anyhoo. So, there's some more of the background story about how this all came to be. Now, a few lessons that I've learned that I wanted to share with others who are thinking about doing something similar:

• As it turns out ChipIn doesn't let you add offline donations or anything else to your number, so consider that when setting your goal. After I post this, I'm going to adjust my total goal to reflect the offline donations I've gotten.
• Another resource to consider is Kickstarter. The catch there is that if you don't raise all the money by the date you set, you don't get any of it (no donations are charged until the project time limit is complete). I chose not to do this for two reasons: I seriously didn't know if my ego could handle it if it didn't work, and I also was going to need the funds before the project was complete. (My first draft is due 9/1. No pressure.)
• Things I would have changed about the email I sent out:
  • The word "investors," used once. A couple people latched on to this, that I was going to offer something in return for donations in an investment sense. I'm not. I meant "invest" in the sense of "invest in your child's future by supporting public education" or "invest in independent media by donating to this organization." People who donate over $100 do get a copy of the book, sort of PBS-fundraising style.
  • I would have been clearer about where the money is going, that there's a whole little project happening here. I don't want people to think it's all going to booze 'n' parties, heh. As I mentioned, I'm trying to pay others who are helping me, and do need some dough for random stuff like a digital recorder (I bought a mic for my iPod in the end).
• Just in case it's not been clear up to now, I don't think that this model should replace advances given to authors altogether. As I alluded to above, there are books that have way bigger overheads than just me 'n' the dog 'n' the helping hands. Those books, if not advances from publishers, will need serious help from larger institutions. Crowdfunding should be another tool available to authors, not the sole one.
• I also don't want to play like anybody can raise $5000 or whatever it is they need at the drop of a hat. I recognize that through my work in media, and the type of person that I am, I've carefully cultivated an ever-increasing network of fabulous, supportive people. What hasn't changed about fundraising is that it's still about relationships; the people that work with me know that: (a) I'm there for them whenever humanly possible, and (b) the project I'm working on will benefit our community at large.

This fundraising project has been absolutely, overwhelmingly emotional, in a way that I didn't expect. The people that have come out of the woodwork to support this effort have given me a lot of courage to plow on with the project, and have given me a tremendous amount of concrete evidence supporting in the ol' "do what you love and the money will follow" saying.

Comments, advice, theories, dissections welcome.

Presentation:

1. On foreign correspondents: John MacArthur (publisher of Harper's) made reference to the fact that they have a reporter on the ground in Iran doing some pretty intense work for Harper's, and that it costs money to keep him sustained. I'm sure that it does. However, it made me wonder a couple of things–using this case as a jumping off point, not as a target itself necessarily–namely, is the best journalism in a situation like what we're seeing in Iran produced by an American (presumably white) man? (Even if the person in question "speaks Farsi and has an Iranian wife.") Not that this would save the magazine any money, but couldn't we be thinking less about foreign correspondents and more about using local journalists/citizens to aid with not just reporting, but contextualizing the events?

2. On authority — who has it, who gives it: Mario Murillo made the point that a lot of news or information isn't valid until it appears on CNN or any of the other cable news networks. This is at least partially true for a lot of people, but I firmly believe that's shifting. We're moving into an age of shifting authority. Think about how we recommend movies to one another– we have an idea of who our friend is doing the recommending, what movies they've liked in the past, and how much we have in common, amongst a myriad of other factors. Based on those, we figure out if the awesome movie review is really going to be all that awesome for us.

There's a similar process happening for news: in an older model of news gathering and dissemination, it did require a large organization with tons of resources to say, "This is what's happening." But because of elimination of need for lots of resources when it comes to telling stories, we can know judge what's valid or true with an entirely different set of criteria. Do I trust this person or organization? Why? What kind of track record do they have?

That's not to say that social media hasn't been problematic when it comes to live reporting. Just last weekend, there was a building collapse in Brooklyn, and two false addresses were posted to Twitter before the correct one was. (and I admittedly re-tweeted false addresses, too!) We have to refrain, however, from demonizing the tools as faulty, and instead create solutions using the same or other tools. Check out what Amanda Michel says about volume as verification– when a number of people post, say, similar videos from a protest, we might then assume that the protest is happening as depicted.

3. On future models of media: At the roundtable, I suggested that trying squeeze an open framework (the Internet) into a capitalist, market-based system is misguided (much to the chagrin of MacArthur next to me, who praised Harper's use of a paywall, but spoke nothing about their overall funding model). I'm no business-side expert of publishing, and most of my media beliefs come out of an activist mindset. What I do know, though, is that it's not just silly and dismissive, but also dangerous to suggest that social media are the cause of the desperate state that many news organizations find themselves in.

Again, I ask: what are the tools we need to solve our problems here? When I'm doing work with my clients, it's easy for them to get caught up in the buzziest, shiniest new things. "We need a blog! We've got to get on Facebook! Let's start Twittering!" Of course I've totally drunk the Kool-Aid on all those services, but I don't always advocate their use for everyone. Instead, I ask folks to take a step back and look at what mission they're trying to achieve. From there, we'll find or develop tech to fit that mission.

A couple of folks are taking this approach to investigative journalism, as I mentioned in the show– David Cohn's Spot.Us always comes to mind first. Steve Katz of Mother Jones has wondered how to turn this into a larger model of sustainable journalism, and I recommend his blog for excellent musings on the subject. But please, media folk: I swear, we come in peace. Don't throw the tech out with the bathwater.

4. Decrying the end of Good Journalism™: In which I let the idealist in me speak, more than I already normally do… I don't know anyone, honestly, that gets a huge kick out of watching cable news regurgitate infotainment like they do. So, using that as a model of what we think Americans want when it comes to news reporting is not the right model. I firmly believe that good journalism–whether it's "professional" or "amateur"–will rise above the mediocre and less-than-savvy.

I think about the format change that New York Magazine made earlier this year; it now includes a more schizoid-designed front section that I presume is supposed to replicate my experience with websites. Thing is, I don't subscribe to NY Magazine for it to be like a website; I actually like the long-form articles (and the Strategist section). I also recently started subscribing to the New Yorker because I wanted more in-depth stuff around the house, trees be damned. Me, the darling of all-things-140-characters! I don't think I'm an anamoly, either. I don't have the solution (yet! muwahaha), but I know it's coming.

5. This is why media literacy education is critical. That was Simin's final point at the roundtable, and I couldn't agree more. We don't teach our kids and young adults to understand the processes of media, that they might develop a more fundamental sense of the ever-increasingly complicated landscape that they face. But there are some good projects out there; I know up in Canada, my friend Dr. Mark Lipton is running the Media Education Project. (What are the American counterparts? Maybe Bernie over at PopPolitics can tell us, poke poke.)

Lots more to explore here, for sure. I'm hoping to go more in depth into each of these areas in future posts; what would you like see addressed and discussed?