Dr. William Smith at "Telling Stories to Fight STIs and HIV/AIDS"

Heard any good stories about HIV or STIs lately? Told any? What makes a good story?

Dr. William Smith, Editor of Social Marketing Quarterly, asked about 20 invited participants at a May 18, 2012 workshop, “Telling Stories to Fight STIs and HIV/AIDS,” to consider the elements of a good story and then use them to create one.

Sponsored by the AIDS Institute of the New York State Department of Health, the workshop for HIV and STI service providers and AI staff was another in the Institute’s series of events to encourage better use of social media and other digital communications tools.

Public health uses stories, Dr. Smith said, but most often they are “commandment” stories based on fear or “empathy” stories based on emotion. Although these may raise awareness or give advice, they don’t offer attractive solutions with positive outcomes that prompt people to take action or change behavior.

People take action, he said, because they believe good things will happen if they do, because they perceive the action to be easier than they imagined, or because their friends are doing it or would think it’s cool. Good stories about desirable behavior have to compete against stories that make undesirable behavior look like fun, so they must be just as compelling and rewarding, or more so.

Dr. Smith made recommendations about finding good stories; interviewing and writing techniques such as vivid, engaging openings, turning points, and elements like surprise and humor; shortening stories for social media; and, especially, crafting stories that demonstrate achievable solutions.

Public health shouldn’t just offer information and behavioral rules and rely on fear to motivate positive change, Dr. Smith emphasized. Stories are powerful, memorable, and can be very persuasive catalysts.

For more information, go to http://nyconferences.org/socialmedia/ .

A note from AIDS.gov: We have also used storytelling to influence our audience to get tested for HIV. Our Director, Miguel Gomez used video podcasting to share his personal experience of the testing process in order to encourage others to do the same. What is your story and how are you telling it? Let us know as we move closer to National HIV Testing Day on June 27, 2012.

When the Internet revolution arrived in the 1990s, the U.S. Government embraced this new medium to interact with the American people.  Today, what started as basic information pages has evolved into sophisticated transactional systems that allow us to pay taxes online, download medical records, and so much more.

Like the 1990s, we are now in the midst of another important shift in how people consume and deliver information and services. In 2011, global smartphone shipments exceeded personal computer shipments for the first time in history, and more Americans will soon access the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs. The rise of mobile further compounds the challenge of providing high-quality digital services in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

That’s why President Obama issued a directive today to make important services accessible from your phone and charged me with developing a comprehensive strategy to build a 21st Century Digital Government that delivers better digital services to the American people.

Today marks the launch of that Digital Government Strategy (PDF / HTML5).

At its core, the strategy takes a coordinated, information- and customer-centric approach to changing how the government works and delivers services to the American people. Designing for openness from the start – making open data the default for government IT systems and embracing the use of web APIs – enables us to more easily deliver information and services through multiple channels, including mobile, and engage the public and America’s entrepreneurs as partners in building a better government.

Treating the government as an open platform in this way encourages innovation. Just look at how the government’s release of GPS and weather data fueled billion dollar industries. It also makes government more efficient and able to adapt to inevitable changes in technology.

Over the next 12 months, you will start to see an important shift across the Federal Government. Agencies will increasingly open up their valuable data to the public and set up Developer pages to give external developers tools to build new services. To make sure there’s no wrong door for accessing government data, we will transform Data.gov into a data and API catalog that in real time pulls directly from agency websites. Agencies will mobilize two of their priority customer-facing services, moving us closer to serving the American people anytime, anywhere, on the device of their choice. We will do all of this while reworking the Federal government’s own use of mobile – saving taxpayer dollars and providing better service by bringing consistency to the way we buy and build for an increasingly mobile workforce.

As President Obama has said, “I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives?” Through the Digital Government Strategy, we look forward to partnering with America’s innovators – government, industry, and citizen leaders – to implement the President’s vision.

Steven VanRoekel is the Federal Chief Information Officer – for more information visit www.cio.gov.

It’s estimated that 96% of Facebook users never revisit fan pages¹ once they hit the “like” button. We at AIDS.gov hope this changes with the new features of the Facebook timeline for Facebook Pages.

Three months ago, Facebook announced that Facebook Page owners had a month to update their profiles to the new timeline format . Brands could enable the new timeline at anytime, and on March 30 brand pages were automatically converted to the timeline.

Some of the Facebook timeline features include:

• a cover photo, a larger photo spanning the top of the page
• right-hand timeline navigation
• milestones and events
• featured apps and customization
• highlighted posts
• more administrative options and direct messages

With this announcement, we did a lot of planning to figure out how to best use our page given the new timeline format. Since AIDS.gov joined Facebook in November 2007, Facebook has been a successful social network for us, where we’ve seen dialogue among our 15,000 followers (and growing) blossom. Our new media team discussed the vision for our page and how to continue to engage and reach users with blog posts and other federal HIV/AIDS updates.

We started by looking at what other brands were doing with their timelines and planned what our options were for each new feature. We decided to utilize the timeline to feature not just a history of AIDS.gov, but of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. since 1981. Using the new milestone feature, we repurposed content from our 30 Years of AIDS Timeline, and added new media milestones such as the launch of the AIDS.gov blog and our first tweet. Other timeline examples in the HIV community include Chat PDX , POZ Magazine , The Well Project , Greater Than AIDS , and The Red Pump Project who are using their pages to link to external content and other social network spaces.

Since converting our Facebook page to the new timeline format at the end of March, users continue to engage on our page and our follower base continues to increase. We hope the new page offers a unique educational opportunity where users spend more time exploring and sharing feedback. We’re excited to continue engaging our audiences through highlighted/featured wall posts, especially around HIV/AIDS awareness days and AIDS 2012 this summer.

We encourage you to visit the AIDS.gov Facebook page and the fan pages of the groups listed above to get ideas for modifying your Facebook page. Check in with your users and find out what changes they would like to see. Please check out our Facebook Page to go back in time (to 1981) to explore the history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

Are you a follower? If you already are, take the time to revisit our page. If not, we encourage you to like our page if you haven’t already.

1. Jeff Widman, brandglue.com

At AIDS.gov we’ve been thinking a lot about the power of storytelling. In the HIV community, everyone has a story to bring to the table, and more people are sharing theirs with new media. Many tools are available to help to facilitate storytelling and have conversations around HIV.

One example of a tool used to share stories with social media is Storify , a website that gathers tweets, blog posts, online videos, photos, news articles, and more from around the web and places them into a single post, or “story.” It provides a space where audiences can see social media conversations from different channels happening in one place. These conversations can be curated to share multiple voices and shared via other existing networks (embedded into websites or blogs, linked to on Twitter and Facebook) to reach audiences. Storify stories archive these conversations and allow audiences to access them at any time. Check out an example from the White House highlighting a Twitter chat on the intersection of HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and gender-related health disparities. Visit Storify’s website  to learn more and take a guided tour of its features.

Another approach to tell stories is through digital storytelling. Digital storytelling features a brief, personal narrative story enhanced by sound, video, and symbolic imagery. Stories are user-generated and don’t depend on a third party to frame the experience of the storyteller.

To commemorate National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on May 19, the Banyan Tree Project launched a new community-driven, community-owned initiative that puts the power to end HIV stigma back in the hands of the community. The initiative,”Taking Root: Our Stories, Our Community” is intended to facilitate the creation of an Asian and Pacific Islander  community story about the effects of HIV.

According to the Banyan Tree Project: It’s been said that it takes a thousand voices to tell a single story. “Taking Root” is grounded in the power of the individual story, but its territory extends beyond the individual. We are a multitude of voices: there is no singular Asian American or Pacific Islander experience, and the face of HIV is as diverse as the people affected by it. Through the connections forged by these individual experiences, we are able to tell a story about the ways we are affected by HIV. Together, these stories heal and it is through the telling and witnessing of them that we learn to overcome our silence and shame.  

The Banyan Tree Project trained Asian and Pacific Islander storytellers affected by HIV to create their own digital stories.  They developed their stories during an intensive three-day workshop facilitated by the Center for Digital Storytelling . Participants were trained in the process of producing their own story, from developing their own narratives and producing voiceovers, to using audiovisual and editing equipment to create the final videos. These stories are simple yet powerful, with three-minute narratives recorded over a slideshow of photographs and text.

Earlier this month we attended the Banyan Tree Project’s flagship Asian and Pacific Islander HIV Awareness Day event in San Francisco where six digital stories were screened. Below is one of these digital stories, and you can see others on www.banyantreeproject.org .

The Banyan Tree Project plans to promote these videos nationwide at other events and via social media. Follow updates on these digital stories on Twitter with the hashtag #withoutshame .

Do you have a digital story about HIV to share? Spent some time on Storify? To find out about creating your own Taking Root story or hosting a workshop in your area, contact info@banyantreeproject.org.

More than 20,000. That’s the number of delegates that are expected to attend AIDS 2012. According to organizers, the conference received 11,715 abstracts from scientists around the world seeking to showcase their research at the conference. That is a 15% increase from the 2010 conference in Vienna, Austria. After a rigorous peer review process, the Scientific Programme Committee accepted 3,600 abstracts for presentations. Activity in the Global Village is also up; conference organizers accepted 280 program activity proposals for inclusion in this year’s Global Village, a 27% increase over 2010.

The conference organizers are committed to making the information available to as many people as possible, and one way to access it is to host a conference hub. In our blog post a few months ago, we explained that hubs are locally organized meetings or mini-conferences where stakeholders come to view videotaped sessions from AIDS 2012, happening July 22-27 in Washington, DC. Applications to host a hub are available on the conference website, and are due September 15. The application will request basic information about your plans, including your target audience, date, time, and venue. If you are attending the conference, a hub is an excellent opportunity to bring the conference home and continue the conversation. If you are unable to attend, it is a great way to bring the conference to your local area.

The benefits of hosting a hub include:

• Engagement with local stakeholders
• Free access to key conference sessions
• Strengthening of local networks through the sharing of new information and lessons learned from AIDS 2012

On May 23rd at 7:00pm EDT, AIDS 2012 staff will host a webinar to help potential organizers learn how to host an AIDS 2012 conference hub.

This session is a follow-up to the March 7th webinar, “Exploring the Possibilities and Logistics: How to Host an AIDS 2012 Conference Hub.” If you were not able to participate in the earlier webinar, you can access an event recording , PowerPoint presentation (PPT file), and Programme Example (Microsoft Word file).

For more information, including registration and additional details on the March 23rd webinar and a pre-planning application form, visit the hubs page of the AIDS 2012 website .

At AIDS.gov we continuously follow and research emerging social media tools for what may be the next big application. However, one of the big stories of 2011 wasn’t around an “emerging” tool, but one that had been with us since 2007.

Tumblr is a social blogging site that that allows individual blog posts to be taggable, searchable, followed, “liked” (or “hearted”) and reblogged.  Users can post short articles, messages, photos and links quickly and easily and tag their individual posts with hashtags for viewers to search.  When searching Tumblr, posts from various blogs and authors are pulled into the results, allowing the topic to lead the conversation and not necessarily the individual author. This feature makes blogging social as each blog post is an entry point into a topical conversation.  Viewers are led to new bloggers they may not have known about, simply because they have commented on a subject the user and blogger are mutually interested in. And it seems to be working. In 2011, Tumblr’s monthly pageviews increased from 2 million at year’s start, to 15 million by the year’s end, according to Mashable .

Part of this increase is due to the visual style and ease of use of the blogging platform. Archived posts of your favorite tumbling bloggers, such as Lady Gaga or even the President , are presented in a style similar to Pinterest, with past posts (text or photo) appearing in a visual collage for ease of searching. The site also supports up to 8 languages worldwide, which has helped it achieve more than 20 billion posts, 120 million monthly unique visitors and over 49 million individual blogs as of March 2012, according to Mashable .

And the HIV community is joining those numbers. Project K.I.S.S. of New York City is an HIV/AIDS service provider that uses Tumblr to spread the importance of counseling testing and referral services. Project K.I.S.S. provides free and confidential HIV testing, counseling, workshops, and peer outreach to youth ages 13-24 in New York City.

In anticipation of the 2012 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), the Youth Programme for the conference joined Tumblr with their site YouthAIDS2012 . The Youth Programme works to strengthen the participation of young people and profile youth issues at the conference.

We recognized the building momentum of the site, which led us to begin listening to the conversation on Tumblr.  So far, some of the opportunities we see are:

• Model transparency and extend the reach of information and activities around HIV/AIDS to a new social media audience.
• Promote and raise awareness about upcoming campaigns and events around HIV/AIDS (such as AIDS 2012 and the Facing AIDS initiative).
• Join and contribute to the HIV/AIDS forum of bloggers on Tumblr.

If you’re interested in Tumblr, go take a “tumble” yourself at Tumblr . After following the instructions to create a free account, try searching the hashtags #AIDS, #HIV, #LGBT and/or others. It’s a great resource to pull from various bloggers that may focus their blog on the subject you’re interested in or even just a single post. Tell us what you find and what you think of Tumblr in the comments section below.  We’d love your feedback.

Federal funding for HIV services is spread across multiple departments, agencies, and programs each with its own mission, priorities, and history. In order to achieve a more coordinated national response to the HIV epidemic, the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) recommends that the Federal government develop improved mechanisms to: 1) monitor, evaluate, and report on progress toward achieving NHAS goals; and 2) simplify grant administration by standardizing data collection and reducing reporting requirements for HIV services grantees.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) agencies and offices that fund HIV prevention, care and treatment services use a number of independent information processing tools to collect programmatic, fiscal, and other data from grantees. These tools tend to use different performance indicators that vary in their specifications (e.g., numerators, denominators, time frames) and other ways. As a result, they are limited in their ability to work together or function as part of an integrated system, and this impedes the DHHS-wide monitoring of HIV service delivery and adds undue reporting burden to HIV services grantees.

Accordingly, DHHS has launched a new effort to explore the feasibility of establishing a centralized, secure, data reporting tool for grantees providing HIV services. It seeks to evaluate technological solutions to:

• Improve mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on progress toward achieving NHAS goals
• Facilitate more coordinated program administration
• Reduce administrative and infrastructure costs associated with non-interoperable data systems
• Facilitate secure data sharing across Federal programs and between Federal and non-Federal partners

This undertaking is consistent with the White House Open Data Initiative and the HHS Open Data Plan, which urge efforts to streamline the collection, sharing, and processing of programmatic and fiscal data in a manner that increases transparency, participation, and collaboration.

Because we would like to hear your ideas about this project, we have published in the Federal Register a Request for Information (RFI) to invite comments on the design, deployment, operations, maintenance, and future enhancement of a centralized, secure, flexible data reporting system.

Responses to questions raised in the RFI are welcome and must be received no later than 5 p.m. EST on 5/17/2012. Electronic responses are preferred and may be sent to: HIVOpenData@hhs.gov.

Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov Director

As we move ever closer to AIDS 2012, my workload as director of AIDS.gov has increased dramatically. Given the flood of e-mail and text messages I get every day, I have felt a great temptation to look at my Blackberry and my iPhone while driving. Even my laptop—which is always nearby—can send that siren song: “Look at me RIGHT NOW!”

But I know the dangers and, as the director of a program that strongly encourages the use of mobile technology, I also appreciate the importance of setting a good example. I resist!

When I’m working and I get a call from a colleague I know is traveling, I also have to remind myself to ask: “Are you driving?” If so, we make plans to talk later.

The risk is not theoretical. One of our AIDS.gov team members was recently in an auto accident during a work-related conference call. We want to keep our own team—and others on the road—safe by setting a good example.

We are not alone in being tempted, however. In recent surveys, about two-thirds of all drivers reported using a cell phone while driving; about one-third used a cell phone routinely. Approximately one-eighth of all drivers reported texting while driving  .

Using Social Media Responsibly

Part of our core mission at AIDS.gov is to understand the benefits and uses of new media, including texting and social media. And this raises the question—what is our obligation to encourage responsible use of these tools?

We blogged last week about distracted driving (Do You Text and Drive?), and yesterday marked the end of National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. But we must carry this message throughout the year–not just in April.

Using mobile technology while driving has particular risks. Research indicates that the burden of talking on a cell phone—even if it’s hands-free—requires 37% of the energy your brain would ordinarily devote to safe driving. Because text messaging requires visual, manual, and cognitive attention from the driver, it is by far the most alarming distraction (PDF 2MB).

Government Responses

The National Transportation Safety Board is presently considering recommendations for a Federal law banning texting and cell-phone use—including hands-free devices—while driving.  In February, 2012, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray Lahood, and the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administrator, David Strickland, presented proposed guidelines to encourage automakers to develop technologies to  limit the risk of distracted driving when using communication and entertainment features built into vehicles.

You can learn more at Distraction.gov.

I want to dedicate this blog post to asserting a commitment by the AIDS.gov team to refrain from using new media in dangerous and irresponsible ways. Each of us has an obligation to remind ourselves and our colleagues, friends, and family members about the dangers of using new media in situations where it could cause physical harm. Start by sharing some of these key statistics with your friends and loved ones.

Key Statistics

• 16% of fatal crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA, PDF 374KB)
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are 4 times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Monash University, PDF 346KB)
• Text messaging creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving while not distracted. (VTTI, PDF 2MB)
• Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent-at 55 mph-of driving the length of an entire football field, blind. (VTTI, PDF 2MB)

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. At AIDS.gov we are committed to promoting the use of new media and the responsible use of new media. This month you will hear from AIDS.gov team members about the importance of this issue.

Our federal colleagues are equally committed to raising awareness about distracted driving and are using new media to make it happen. In a Department of Transportation (DOT) blog post released today, I was struck by the Bridgestone survey of drivers aged 15 to 21 that found one-third of those surveyed admit to reading text messages while driving.

Yes, there is a growing body of evidence--including today's results from Bridgestone and a survey from NHTSA--that this problem is particularly big among young drivers. But we know that our youngest drivers model what they see around them, and that includes adults who are also engaging in this dangerous behavior. Read more...

Earlier this month the DOT also highlighted traditional and new media efforts from States across the US and non-federal partners that address distracted driving.

The traffic safety community has a simple message for drivers: One Text or Call could Wreck it All. DOT has worked hard for several years to end the deadly epidemic of distracted driving.  But to kickoff this month, I want to thank the States for their efforts in this important safety fight.
Read more...

We want to recognize the Department of Transportation's use of new media (Facebook , Twitter  and Youtube ) to support this issue.  Please follow the DOT on their new media spaces to learn more.

Each of us has an obligation to remind ourselves, our friends, and our family members about the dangers of using new media while driving.  What are you doing to support this important issue?

Each year at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW), a theme or trend emerges that defines the year, a touchstone that marks an up-and-coming application or idea. Past SXSW conferences have seen platforms like Twitter and Foursquare launched, and these applications have gone on to become cornerstones of the social media landscape.

Throughout the week, many at the conference strive to be that next big thing, to lay claim to the attention of an audience comprised of designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators that can become the early adopters and influential advocates for their product or service. But an appearance at the festival is not a guarantee of success, and for every Twitter or Foursquare, there are other startups or services with unusual names that fail to capture the imagination or attention of the attendees.

Some notable apps were launched, among them Highlight received the most buzz. Time will tell if any of the apps that launched will become social media fixtures. However there were some overall themes that were touched on in keynote and breakout sessions alike that dominated many conversations throughout the conference.

In the technology and design sessions, the concept of “responsive design” was continually mentioned. Responsive design is an emerging practice in web development that allows designers and developers to adapt their content to the screen size of the device.

Considerations for the Changing Landscape

Every couple of months a new device or way of accessing the internet is released. Connected devices are no longer limited to desktop computers and laptops, and statistics show that the majority of web traffic will come from mobile devices sometime in 2013. The new device landscape includes everything from internet-capable feature phones with small screens, all the way up to wide-screen televisions with internet browsers. E-readers (e.g. Kindle, Nook), tablets, smartphones, netbooks, and laptops comprise the resolutions in between. It is impossible to predict what the next five years will bring and how many more types of devices and computers will gain access to the internet.

Targeting each of these devices is not practical, so there must be a way to adapt content and designs to each device without endlessly redeveloping web pages. Responsive design addresses this complexity and each design session focused on a different aspect of its application.

Above all, the call was to consider content before form. Website visitors expect your content to be available regardless of how they reach it, so everyone from content copy writers, to social media strategists, to designers, to engineers must work together to create, mobile-first content as a new way of creating products for the internet.

In the realm of HIV/AIDS this is especially true. Health searches on mobile focus on the “personal things” – chlamydia, bipolar disorder, smoking, herpes, and depression are some of the top mobile search terms according to Healthline . Those seeking information on HIV/AIDS are more likely to do so on a mobile device. How do those facts affect your planning or your strategy for online content?

AIDS.gov is currently planning a responsive site design, and has already released a responsive site through our Facing AIDS campaign. To learn more about responsive design, the best place to start is with the web design blog, A List Apart and the first article written on the subject by Ethan Marcotte, a web designer who has subsequently written a book on the topic.

For more information on some of the themes that were presented, please reference these presentations from the SXSW conference, which are available in audio format.

Cited presentations:
Josh Clark – “Teaching Touch: Tapworthy Touchscreen Design”
Jacob Surber – “The Page is Dead”
Stephen Woods – “Creating Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces”

Were you at SXSW or did you follow the coverage? What were the highlights for you?