Social Media Camp Victoria BC

As the summer winds down thoughts turn to planning out the fall season, which for myself includes managing the campaign for Barry Hobbis in the upcoming City of Victoria council by-election, advising Keith Martin MP on communication platforms and strategy, and shifting the Johnson Street Bridge campaign to a ‘NO’ vote in the referendum. The Victoria council by-election and Blue Bridge referendum will be held together on November 20th, making for an interesting juxtaposition.

I am also delighted to be speaking at the first ever Social Media Camp in Victoria – set for October 3rd at the Victoria Conference Centre. The camp is an off-shoot of Victoria’s Social Media Club, co-produced by Paul Holmes and Chris Burdge with a host of partners and speakers, and should prove to be one of the more interesting conferences of the year.

During a recent week long holiday (first time the family has gone camping, and yes, we are now hooked on BC’s great outdoors), there was time to reflect on my topic – ‘Social Media and Campaigns’, a speaking slot shared with Russ Lolacher ‘Political Communications’. In fact I have made the topic more specific “Influence?” Will Social Media Define Elections? How we got disengaged from parties; re-engaged with issues and our community.

Immersed in an active campaign instinct tends to trump deeper thought and analysis. They are intense experiences where every moment is taken trying to stay ahead of the competition and enthusing voters to your issue or candidate. Being able to tune out for a short time allowed me to step back and think how campaigns have radically changed as social media platforms have begun to dominate the web. It raises a number of interesting questions – and please, your thoughts and feedback are welcome.

• Can any modern campaign be successful without comprehensive use of social media?
• Is social media leveling  the field between voter and candidate?
• Will political parties continue to reign, or will social media allow for more independents and niche parties?
• What are best practices for maximum impact using social media in campaigns

These questions, and others, I will be fleshing out for the presentation.

Tickets for Social Media Camp Victoria are $125 and can be purchased online.

Arts & Music at Glendale

Now in its 16th year, this wonderful event brings over 60 artists, artisans and musicians to the gardens – a sensory overload of ceramics, painting, jewelry, woodwork, art for the garden, glass, textiles and more, all in the incredible setting of Glendale.

The Wright Result is pleased to once again sponsor an artist for the 2010 Arts & Music at Glendale – Justin Taylor hails from Mayne Island and you can see his work at booth #21 in the Takata Garden. All the artists, and biographies, are listed on the Glendale website.

This is an important fundraiser for Glendale Gardens which relies on memberships, donations and dedicated volunteers. The proceeds from tickets, plant sales and raffles from this years event will help ensure the gardens thrive into 2011.

Gates are open from 11 am to 5 pm on Saturday August 7th and Sunday August 8th, with live music and children’s entertainment throughout the gardens.

Tickets (price includes HST, tickets provide all weekend access)

$12 regular admission at the gate, $9 for seniors – under 16 Free

Advanced Online Purchase – $11 for Adults and $8 for Seniors and Students

So, book your calendar, tell your friends through the Facebook page, bring your family to Arts and Music at Glendale Gardens

Open Data

Open Data comes before Public Engagement – at least in my opinion. Any level of government that is seeking public input to a decision process must start by providing ALL information on the subject, and then [openly] seeking answers to questions provided through that feedback: something discussed in a previous blog post. These are Gov 2.0 principles, and being dutifully ignored by the City of Victoria staff (and yes – I will take the hit for that comment). Bring it on gang -

Where the City of Victoria is going through a public engagement process, without an open information policy, and going forward with an Official Community Plan, the future of the Johnson Street Bridge, public safety and street issues – along with the city and region dealing with sewage – compare that with Toronto. The ‘Big Smoke’ is way beyond the simple principle of open info – they are into ensuring the Open Info provision is sustainable.

This quote is definative…

“[Open data] can’t be a one-time thing, or it starts to have a ‘legacy’ mindset. It isn’t like that, it’s an ongoing process…you have to build it in because the public now expects it.”

The problem for the City of Victoria on issues like the Johnson Street Bridge, the Official Community Plan, Sewage – or frankly, Victoria’s website, is that they do not connect on a common policy for public engagement, and within a single municipal government.

The final quote from the article…

“Open data shouldn’t be a giant make-work project, but part of what you do everyday. We’re excited to continue it forward.”

I would like to see to City of Victoria have a poster plastered all over town with that…

Also good to remember – online access is not ‘free’. Consumers pay for cable/broadband lines into their homes; and a computer with software. Adding secondary costs for what is essentially open news from many other sources is simply not sustainable. Professionals can, and will, subscribe to specialized, narrow focus, niche services that provide unique insight – lawyers use Lexis/Nexis as an example, but the average web user seeking basic online news will not pay, and never will.

Information?

Enter the comparison to vegetables. On a shopping trip at our local supermarket the selection, quality and price of lettuce caught my eye. Now, this is early summer, and while the weather has been pathetic, more local and imported varieties should be available, and probably cheaper than winter – right? Not so for this high end chain. There were two types of lettuce – a pile of limp, dried out romaine, and equally horrific iceberg, that had a note ‘may contain herbicides’. The price was also diabolic. Well, I thought no salad tonight, but driving home we passed a neighbourhood farmers market where four local producers had (combined) eight varieties of lettuce – fresh, organic, with pedigree, served with a smile and far cheaper. Arriving at home, a neighbour had dropped off two heads of lettuce from her garden with a note “can’t leave it for the slugs, enjoy”. Seeking lettuce from a high end source was a disappointment. The journey ended up being better, and free.

Which is why the Guardian UK is enjoying the debacle – and good for them. They are only one of thousands, (what number to assign?) of general news websites that can offer coverage of headlines, and go further in-depth. Don’t like their slant, try CNN, BBC, CBC etc – you get the picture.

A warm welcome to guardian.co.uk for all former readers of the Times

Been booted out by the Times paywall? Allow us to introduce you to the Guardian’s website. Come on in – the more the merrier!

And a very warm welcome to all our readers from The Times. We’re very sorry you awoke to find you could no longer read your newspaper online without a credit card and we feel your pain.

We couldn’t get into the Times site either last week when it was supposed to still be free as the registration system had crashed. But we can help you through this trauma. Call it a belief in an open internet or care in the community if you like, but here at the Guardian we can offer everything you ever wanted from the Times – and more – for nothing.

Finland

communication and commerce and should be a legal right, not simply a privilege. Finland has become the first country in the world to declare that not only is basic internet access a legal right – but every Finn should receive a minimum of  1Mbps (1 megabyte per second) broadband connection. That is far higher than most commercial operations currently provide in many countries, and while the Finnish Government is not stating access should be tax payer subsidized (or free to low income users), it has set a basic standard which will have resonance around the European Union, and the world.

BBC News – Speaking to the BBC, Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden explained the thinking behind the legislation: “We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment.

Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access,” she said.

It is believed up to 96% of the population are already online.

In the UK internet penetration stands at 73%.

The British government has agreed to provide everyone with a minimum 2Mbps broadband connection by 2012 but it is a commitment rather than a legally binding ruling.

“The UK has a universal service obligation which means virtually all communities will have broadband,” said a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Making broadband a legal right could have implications for countries that plan tough action on illegal file-sharing.

Both the UK and France have said they may cut off or limit the internet connections of people who persistently download music or films for free.

The Finnish government has adopted a more gentle approach.

“We will have a policy where operators will send letters to illegal file-sharers but we are not planning on cutting off access,” said Ms Linden.

So, where is Canada? A good question and one that should be put to all political parties, municipal, provincial and federal – each of which have a policy making role in how internet services are provided through business licenses, bandwidth provisions, copyright law, spectrum allocation, pricing – to name a few. Finland has recognized the internet, and the World Wide Web, is the primary communication system for personal, commercial and government interaction. It is beyond email and social media, but is fundamental to the economy – government operations, stock markets, banking, all rely on the same infrastructure, hubs and connected nameservers which supply households with internet access.

Say Goodbye

If you trend towards a conservative slant your first point of call for news in the US would be Fox, and in Canada The National Post – the point being there is a wealth of both accredited mainstream news online for free, and that like many people whose main news source is online, most users are not stuck in silos that somehow legitimize a certain world view. Online media users flip all over the place and read multiple sources on the same story.

Which is why the Times UK sticking to its plan of introducing a content paywall is perplexing. There is little in their main story sections that are unique, better sourced or written, than other publications (BBC, Guardian, ITV as other UK sources) – and special sections such as travel, business, sports, lifestyle (although I will miss Heston’s recipe and cooking column) are matched or bettered by other publications.

There is also a trend I note in my own media sourcing, and in clients and friends – that is clicking on news links shared by ‘friends’ within social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Those currently follow two trends – breaking news, and deep insight (investigative journalism) and often lead to new (to me) media sources which, if good, are bookmarked to a titled “News’ folder. That folder now contains over 100 media sources and publications, of which I hit around 40 per day, and each one at least once per week.

So what happens with the viral sharing potential of The Times UK as it goes behind a paywall? It dies. Someone with a subscription who shares a news story, photograph or video will simply lead people to a ‘pay-to-see’ page, or worse, half the story and pay to see the complete version. My bet is the current journalists and columnists for The Times – the ones with a reader base – will quickly find their viewership dropping, and they will be ripe for a move. See you in a year!

Bye Bye Times UK – you are off my bookmark list

Bangkok Protests - AP / David Longstreath

There are two news sources for the recent events in Bangkok, and Thailand – The Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon, and Twitter (#bangkok #thailand #redshirts) and Mark’s own Twitter stream

Mark’s background articles; timely, extremely well written and insightful daily stream of news from the battleground in Thailand’s capitol should win awards. His latest – for Saturday’s Globe and Mail “Twitter’s role in Bangkok conflict unprecedented” – notes how Twitter has fostered the Red Shirts, maybe was a tool that lead to the escalation – and also may have saved lives.

Never before has a social media website played the kind of role in a conflict that Twitter has played in Thailand’s nine-week-old anti-government uprising, keeping people informed even as it amplified the hate on both sides of the country’s divide. Some say Twitter – or rather its users – may have even saved lives as fighting consumed the streets of Bangkok.

More clearly, it was used by propagandists on both sides to get their message out, and by ordinary Thais to express their frustrations at the situation and to warn each other about which areas of Bangkok to avoid as the city descended into urban warfare. With many websites censored and Thailand’s traditional media deeply divided into pro- and anti-government camps, it arguably became the only forum where you could get a clear picture of what was really going on.

“Twitter is the only place where we can say things freely,” said Poomjit Sirawongprasert, an Internet freedom activist who sometimes updates her Twitter feed a dozen times an hour and became one of the go-to sources for information about what was happening in whatever neighbourhood of Bangkok she happened to be in. “The propaganda is not good, but because of the speed, people can check and cross-check. If you put something out there that’s untrue, within 30 minutes the truth will come out because people will show evidence, photos and videos.”

Bangkok Protests - AP / David Longstreath

Of course, Mark may have forgotten about the protests and violence in Iran, which was largely only reported through Twitter (and other social media platforms like Youtube) to the world due to restrictions on journalists, but certainly within Thailand it is unprecedented.

His story on being trapped with wounded and dying Thais and international journalists is moving, and notable for a real life example of how a platform like Twitter may have helped save lives…

With my colleague Andrew Buncombe unable to move after being shot Wednesday night inside the temple – and other injured people dying around us from lack of medical care – I first telephoned embassies, hospitals and the International Committee for the Red Cross. Then I put out an all-call on Twitter, hoping my “followers” in Bangkok would use their own contacts to help us.

“Please RT,” I wrote, using the shorthand for “retweet,” or spread the word. “People around me are dying because they can’t get to hospital across the road because of fighting.” I attached a picture I had taken with my BlackBerry of three wounded men beside me, one of whom appeared near death after being shot in the back.

“More people will die inside Wat Patum unless we get ceasefire to get to hospital across the road,” I added a few minutes later, as my desperation grew.

Within minutes, my pleas had indeed been retweeted hundreds, maybe thousands of times, in English, Thai and other languages. They were posted on the websites of Britain’s The Guardian newspaper and other international media. People I knew only through Twitter started calling me to check on our situation. More helpfully, others started calling embassies, hospitals and the Thai government.

Eighty minutes later, I was carrying stretchers out to a row of waiting ambulances. “Twitter may just have done this,” was my next update.

Twitter is fast becoming the news source of choice – for journalists and consumers. The online communication revolution continues, and it is fascinating.

Social Action Circle

While the print, and to some extent TV, media have been lamenting in editorials and articles their hardships, they have been lax in reporting a real shift in community based activism, of which the base is social media. Hence some surprise and delight in reading the head editorial in the May 19th Times Colonist – People Power in Social Media – yes, our local Victoria record has noted what many grass roots organization knew since the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

The internet was heralded as the ultimate tool for democracy. In the nearly twenty years, for those old enough to be semi-coherent in the late ’80′s and early 90′s, the dream was worldwide open access to ideas (mainly Western) which would foster revolutions against dictatorships, and entrenched interests. Largely that has not occurred, but the fear is prevalent – hence the continuing censorship and online access restrictions in China, Iran et al. (more on the internet and society from the Berkman Center) That fear should be reflected back at western governments, where the rise of social media and largely free CMS platforms, like WordPress, are creating actionable grass roots movements – and, yes, the US Tea parties (disconcerting, sometimes racist, often ill informed) are an example. Locally – Victoria and BC, social media have provided organizational and media platforms for a wide variety of issue groups in the past year, and governments should be aware what this implies.

As the Times Colonist editorial notes:

There is more. Not that many months ago, the notion that we couldn’t fight city hall still seemed to hold true. Regardless, the forces opposed to the replacement of the Johnson Street Bridge pushed ahead with a document known as a counter-petition, even though eight similar drives had failed in the previous nine years.

The result? The group collected almost 50 per cent more names than it needed. Council’s plan to tear down the Blue Bridge has been halted, pending a referendum.

We are witnessing a dramatic shift in the balance of power — a shift that is based on communication.

The balance of power has always supposed to have been in the hands of the voters. Now the tools to make the voice of the voters paramount are available, and being used. Single issue campaigns – BC HST (Facebook 136.000 members), Johnson Street Bridge, Sewage are notable in that they have all started from social media (interested people connecting), and quickly organized using not only the same platforms, but the same model – ie: provide the tools, the information and the support – and allow others to act. (especially in the anti-HST lobby)

The real shift is not the online organizations – it is those groups of disparate individuals and groups coming together in meetings and rallies. There is still a reality to action: 1500 people showing up in Victoria to protest proroguing Parliament is an indication, same is true of 15.4% of Victoria residents signing a petition against the plans for the Johnson Street Bridge; the over 300 000 who have signed a petition against the HST. (for those reading from outside Victoria or BC going ‘what’? – think of a local issue, and how your neighbours are organizing)

The ultimate shift will be future elections. Candidates who embrace social media, understand the potentials and pitfalls, and who do not view the online world as a secondary media game to get elected.

The Times Colonist has the final word…

Today, individuals have a tremendous amount of power, and politicians and businesses who ignore this power do so at their own peril. Politicians who are not good at communicating their ideas — such as the provincial ones with the HST, or the municipal ones with the bridge — need to catch up, and fast.

The provincial government cannot simply ignore the 500,000 names on the anti-HST petition. If it does, it will open the door to recall campaigns in the fall.

There have been 20 recall attempts so far; 19 failed and the 20th was ended when the MLA resigned. But that was back in the stone age, effectively.

Voters are mad. The volunteers are ready to go — and social networking would surely bring more out to the fight.

The rules have changed permanently, and every elected B.C. Liberal needs to acknowledge the pressure he or she faces as a result.

British Columbia has the highest rate by province at 85% (tied with Alberta) while Victoria has one of highest urban internet use at 86% (Calgary and Saskatoon were at 89%). With Victoria noted has having a greater proportion of older/retired residents, the following statistics reveal that internet use among those age 45+ is the fastest growing segment, illustrating that the adage ‘online’ is a young persons game no longer applies. The digital divide by age is a myth I have been trying to dispel in seminars, and now the numbers are proving anecdotal observations.

On the basis of age, Internet use increased among all groups but at different rates. In 2009, 98% of people aged 16 to 24 went online, up slightly from 96% two years earlier. Of those aged 45 or older, two-thirds (66%) went online during 2009, up from 56% in 2007. This age group, traditionally slower to adopt and use the Internet, accounted for 60% of all new Internet users since 2007.

A similar proportion of men (81%) and women (80%) used the Internet in 2009.

Internet use by Province

Of the prevalent online activities, email once again comes out top with 93%. The list of activities range from seeking health information, shopping, downloading music to communicating with government (27%) and contributing content (also 27%)

The last note is interesting – when drilled down to age groups the percentage of internet users who contribute content increases to 45% for those under 30. The parameters which define contributing content includes blogs and social media. That number coincides with Facebook stats for Canada, which shows the rise of social media as a primary tool for all internet users is growing at a faster rate than any other use.

Canadian Online Activities

From PowerShift Media

As the main interest of this post is the older demographic, the Canadian Facebook stats on the +45 age group are appropriate:

45-54 year olds
62% Female
38% Male
Each has an average of 49 friends
75% are parents
They make up 9% of the Facebook population.
They represent 74.8% of all online 45-54 year olds†
How are they using Facebook?
65% use it more than email
60% use it more than cell phones
49% use it more than any other communication tool

45-54 year old Facebook behavior (in the past week):
55% add/use an application
28% become a fan of a page
64% upload/view/share a photo
29% RSVP to an event
50% share/post/watch a video
58% read their news feed
31% send a gift
55+ year olds
59% Female
41% Male
Each has an average of 51 friends
81% are parents
They make up 6% of the Facebook population.
They represent 61% of all online 55+ year olds†
How are they using Facebook?
60% use it more than email
69% use it more than cell phones
40% use it more than any other communication tool
55+ year old Facebook behavior (in the past week):
51% add/use an application
25% become a fan of a page
51% upload/view/share a photo
30% RSVP to an event
46% share/post/watch a video
51% read their news feed
30% send a gift
†Statistics are  from Comscore July 2009

Free Data

aspects: public engagement and the bureaucratic lack of insight into their own expertise, each of which could largely be solved through open data streams. Providing data sets to the public would mitigate much of the angst which is now apparent (see the anti-HST petition, or johnsonstreetbridge.ORG as ongoing British Columbia and Victoria examples), and internal data sets would offer efficiencies. Important, but I digress, what interests me is information culture…watch the video, then think about some following points.

Three Information Cultures – All at War

The Voting Public – are the prime users of government services, it is our taxes which provide those services, prioritized supposedly through some sort of consensus, and the salaries of those who manage the social contract. We are the great unwashed who now roam social media, make networks, programs, apps – our demand for information is growing, and we can do amazing things with data sets. Make our information available (and it is our information – hell, we pay for it) and look for interactive traffic maps that predict congestion, plots of difficult driveways for garbage pickup (like in snow storms), the best spots for community recycling stations, what fire hydrants are most popular with dogs…

The Elected -  preach accountability and transparency, but where is it? Federal, Provincial to Municipal the staff who advise you are gathering more and more information, and releasing less. The lack-of-trust issue becomes more apparent when we (the great unwashed, remember us?) have to wait weeks, sometimes months (sometimes forever), for minutes of meetings we never knew you attended. You use social media and online marketing to promote your platforms, and get elected, yet quiver at the thought of those same platforms transacting accountability.

The Bureaucracy – work in an environment of top down management. The elected offer the direction, you provide the options and enact the results; and take the heat from the public as much as those who define your role. You spend time on the front line dealing with public information requests and are often stymied by a lack of systems and platforms to facilitate not only sharing, but effective community engagement.

What all three have in common is information culture – the need and want to access, privacy issues; sharing for understanding and collaboration. Yet they do not work together – all are at war.

Your thoughts?