Let's face it; China needs to bolster its reputation before the Summer Olympics begin.  Otherwise, the several countries that are already considering boycotting may, in fact, do so.  In my opinion, it would be a shame if a past representation of political and economical unity were to be halted.  After all, if this one year is a bust, future Olympic games may follow in failure.

PRWeek recently ran an article in their online resource that the Chinese government was interviewing potential US and UK-based PR firms in the hopes to gain some positive pre-game press, prior to the events.  However, no PR firm has admitted to being in the bid war for this lucrative account.

(more…)

I'm sure that there are some videos on YouTube of people driving angrily, and there are probably some of people who are angry about their drive.  In fact, I'm betting that more of the later will appear on the site soon.

The cash strapped Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) — especially after the Virginia Supreme Court stripped it of the taxing authority the governor and legislature gave it — is asking residents of the Washington, DC area to make videos of their commutes and post them to its "Piece of My Commute" campaign page.

NVTA officials hope that if state legislators see how much long commutes affect quality of life in the state through videos submitted by commuters, the legislature will provide more funding to the authority to build and improve roads within the state to alleviate traffic jams.  This idea has potential since it is: (1) cheap for the NVTA to pull off, (2) got it some free media exposure, and (3) using a website that is accessible to many state residents.

I'm interested to see how this campaign performs as it can serve as a great case study on how creativity mixed with some social media savvy can help an organization cheaply accomplish a goal. 

It is very important to note that NVTA doesn't want to risk drivers' safety to get more funding as it mentions on its site: "Warning! Please Don't Use Cameras While Driving. Tripods Are Prohibited In Metro Stations.Please Use Hand-Held Cameras Only On Metro."  Further, I highly doubt that this gives us a license to do other multitasking while driving.  While you can star in your own commuting reality show on YouTube, the NVTA likely doesn't want you to eat entire meals, apply make up, conduct entire meetings, and do other such activities while driving.

Before I write the rest of this slightly snarky blog post, let me preface it by saying that I am 100% pro-environment.  After all, the environment is where I keep the majority of my stuff, such as my house, car, and cat.  I would like to keep the environment as is, and I applaud ‘green' programs that aim to protect/restore/embiggen the earth.  However, I also believe that the majority of these programs are doing so simply for PR.  Call me a cynic, but it's true.  "Going Green" makes your company seem more family friendly and nicer in an otherwise cold, dark world of business.  In an attempt to rid myself of this pessimistic view, I scoured the Internet for five examples of companies or organizations that truly seemed to harbor an honest spirit of environmentalism.  In no particular order, here is a list of them:

(more…)

"Ideas worth spreading" is the motto of a growing annual convention that is held in Monterey, California.  The Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference covers a wide range of topics, from science to the arts, and nearly everything in between.  My fraternity brother, Chris, recently made me aware of this conference, which has been conducted since 1984.

There is an annual membership fee of $6000, however, this fee not only covers attendance to the events, but also attendance for other special gatherings and DVDs of the presentations.  Since not everyone can afford to be this enlightened, the official website was created in response, providing the highlights and best speeches from the conference.

(more…)

Baseball player Roger Clemens was accused of using steroids in the Mitchell Report, which was released a few weeks ago.  Since the report came out, Clemens has been silent, letting his lawyer do his talking for him.

In a sign of the times, today Clemens spoke about the allegations for the first time in a video posted to his website and to YouTube.  Interestingly, the YouTube account he posted from was created a few days ago.  Another example of how the web allows folks to talk directly to the people without the filter of the media.

The video statement is embedded below.

PBwiki and the United Nations have partnered to integrate a wiki into the United Nationals Global Compact which was started in 2000 to serve as a forum of social actors (non-government organizations, companies, trade organizations, governments, etc.) who commit to 10 central principles concerning human rights, labor standards, the environment, and corruption.

The Communication on Progress Reviewing Project wiki has great potential. Beyond its potential of facilitating collaboration between participants on how they can better adhere to the 10 principals by, for example, sharing successful or unsuccessful strategies, it also can add more transparency to the organization. (more…)

My post about the use of Digg by Ron Paul activists attracted a strong response from Ron Paul supporters.  In comments on Digg and to my post, many folks acknowledged that they signed up for Digg specifically to submit and digg stories about Ron Paul. 

This was already pretty obvious.  If you click through on the profile of many users you'll see that all activity centers around Ron Paul.  Other users inject Paul-related content into unrelated discussion threads.  These folks are pretty clearly using Digg specifically to promote Ron Paul.

I don't think there is anything innately wrong with that.  But I don't think it is going to be effective in the long run and may in fact be counterproductive. (more…)

Over the years I’ve signed up for every online political mailing list known to man as part of my job, so it was no surprise that I got an email this morning from the Brownback campaign about his candidacy for President. But I was surprised at how poorly executed the email was.

Here is a rundown of the major issues:

(1) The “from” address of the email is brownbackforPresident@cfourstrategies.com. I have no idea what cfourstrategies.com is and half of me now thinks the email is fake. When sending this sort of official correspondence, it has to come from an email address running off the official campaign URL - brownback.com in this case. Otherwise I’m going to assume it is a scam.

(2) The request for money calls in the email link to this page, which also isn’t on brownback.com. In and of itself, that is ok. Lots of campaigns host their donation pages on third party sites. But when the email doesn’t come from the official campaign URL, alarm bells go off again. The suspicion is made worse by the fact that nowhere in the entire email is there a link to the main campaign website. That is a pretty shocking omission. And the donation form itself only has a link to the Brownback site at the very bottom of the page. At worst, this is making me think this email is fake again. At best, I’m thinking this is a campaign solely focused on getting my money (no conversation here).

(3) When you actually do visit brownback.com, you are redirected to some long URl hosted off the domain t-worx.com. The resulting site looks official, but I half think it is a fake too since it is not running from the main campaign URL - brownback.com.

When you combine all these problems together, you end up with an email/web program that seems more like a Paypal scam than official campaign correspondence.

• What the Chinese Want to Know
  Interesting list of the top search terms for 2006 on the Chinese search engine Baidu. Thankfully Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears’ don’t dominate Chinese thoughts they way they do those of Americans.
• Microsoft takes email design back years
  Outlook 2007 will handle HTML emails in a vastly different manner than previous versions of the email program. If you are sending out HTML emails, you should look at this list of what is and isn’t supported and run your emails through Microsoft downloadable email validator. This is a big deal.
• The XYZ of ABC
  Blog PI wonders if and when Republican online fundraising site ABC PAC will catch up with it’s Democrat counterpart, ActBlue. Mike Turk and Patrick Ruffini also weigh in. The biggest problem here for Republicans is that two years passed before someone took the initiative and developed a response to ActBlue.
• Huffington Post to Host Presidential Debates?
  The political blog the Huffington Post is trying convince Democrat and Republican presidential candidates to participate in online debates on the site. I don’t think it will happen. Second Life is a more likely venue.

It’s been a great year for us here at The Bivings Group. Our blog has grown immensely throughout the year, and we’ve gotten some great attention from bigger blogs and organizations. We decided to take a bit of time and highlight our Top 10 Moments from 2006 (in no particular order)

• We are the #1 public affairs blog on Technorati. No joke. Check it out here. We’re also the 17th “public relations” blog on Technorati.
• Getting mentioned on CNN’s “The Situation Room”, Buzzmachine, and Romenesko.
• Todd’s post “9 Ways to Improve Newspaper Sites“, which he entered in a contest run by ProBlogger. Not only did this post generate enormous amounts of traffic from its mention on Holovaty, but also raised interest from LA Times reporter T. Christian Miller and several online publications.
• The Nintendo Wii vs. PS3 post, which now has generated 104 comments and is the most popular post on TBR. By a stroke of luck, this post comes back as the #1 search result on Google using the terms “Nintendo Wii vs. PS3″. Thanks to Google, this post from TBR has been read by a huge amount of people. TBG has followed this up with a series of blog posts, and an Impact Watch demo that tracks media mentions of the two game systems. You can go here to sign up for a free 5-day pass to view the demo.
• Tom and Jei’s redesign of USA Today’s Homepage. While only viewed a handful of times, our designers did a great job integrating the best of Web 2.0 with a realistic newspaper design. Here is Tom’s explanation of the redesign:

“In putting this together, we included every element of the current USA Today site. We wanted to come up with something that could actually be implemented, not something so conceptual that it could never see the light of day. In other words, we didn’t take the easy way out.”

• Todd’s introduction of the TBR Wiki. Used to organize our newspaper research and comments by blog readers, The Bivings Report Wiki is a great example of how bloggers can cooperate more with their readers. The Wiki didn’t get all that much attention, but I think it was a great idea.
• Tom’s “Web Design Matters” post. All around an interesting piece. And, according to Todd, this was one of TBR’s first posts to go viral and get passed around the Web.
• Our media research studies. These studies have not only given us a way to express opinions about mainstream topics such as the print media and politics, they have allowed us to suggest ways these outlets can improve. Some studies have been popular, while others have kind of dwindled with little traffic. All in all, however, conducting this research has been a great way for us to get involved with the media, expand our site’s traffic, and generate interesting content on our blog.
• Todd’s post “Do PR Firms Blog? Not so Much”. Partially the inspiration for TBR’s wiki, this post shows off what TBG does best: online public affairs. Quoting Todd’s post:

“I think its obvious that the ability to implement a successful blogging strategy for yourself is a pretty good indication you can implement one for a client.”

Also check out “PR Firms that Blog: an Update” and “PR Firms that Blog: Who Got there First?”

• TBG wins three awards.
• The Iron Sabre Award: Impact Watch beats out Hill and Knowlton for best product in the Evaluation Category
• Best of Blogs Award: TBG wins the award for Best Corporate Blog
• TBG Recognized as a Socially Responsible Business: During the 2006 Business Philanthropy Summit, The Bivings Group was recognized as an example of a small/medium size business demonstrating outstanding service to the community for its work with Bread for the City.

Overall, it’s been a great year here at TBG, filled with lots of successes. Thanks to everybody on our team that made it possible!

Pew Internet Life released a fascinating study a few days back (PDF) that looked at voter contacts during the 2006 election.  Below is a table summarizing the key findings:

Two things jump out at me here:

(1) 56% of folks surveyed received recorded calls urging them to vote, usually from celebrities and high profile politicians.  That’s a big number.  I hate robocalls and can’t hang up fast enough.  But the calls are dirt cheap to make and clearly effective enough to justify the expense.  These things are definitely a case of campaigns using a shotgun instead of a rifle.

(2) People were more likely to have a campaign representative visit their home (16%) than to receive an email from a campaign (12%).  Basically all that means is that parties still have some work to do in developing email lists of voters.  If parties sent emails to 12% of the population, that pretty much means they have the email address of 12% of the population.

[Via CNet]

The New York Times reports today on a new study from the University of Chicago on the political bias of newspapers. The study found that newspapers are indeed politically biased, but that the slant reflects the feelings of the paper’s subscriber base. Here’s the key quote from the Times’ piece:

The authors calculated the ideal partisan slant for each paper, if all it cared about was getting readers, and they found that it looked almost precisely like the one for the actual newspaper. As Dr. Shapiro put it in an interview, “The data suggest that newspapers are targeting their political slant to their customers’ demand and choosing the amount of slant that will maximize their sales.”

Give the people what they want I guess.

[Via Buzz Machine]

Andrew and I spent a couple of hours today at a panel discussion on “Trends in Political Blogging” hosted by Edelman and the Institute for Politics, Democacy and the Internet. Here are some semi-coherent thoughts from the event:

(1) Three representatives from Wal-Mart Watch (probably GWU student volunteers) were passing out flyers at the event about the whole Wal-Mart/Edelman fake blog fiasco from a few months back. This doesn’t seem to be going away.

(2) The panel started out by summarizing some new blog stats from a survey performed by StrategyOne, the research arm of Edelman. The survey, entitled “Blog Readership in the USA,” was conducted in September (I can’t find a link). Here were the parts of the study I found interesting:

• 27% of adult Americans read blogs once a week (that is 60,193,913 people for the math majors).
• 34% of American Influentials* read blogs once a week.
• 28% of Americans that read blogs have taken a public action as a result of something they read on a blog (16,854,295 people).
• 49% of American Influentials have taken action due to something they read on a blog.
• People who read blogs are more likely to be politically active (sign petitions, attend public meeting, write a politician, etc.).

*Influentials are losely defined (by me) as the 10% of society that drive trends.

These stats confirm what anyone reading this already knows innately - that blogs can lead people to take action and that the people reading and writing blogs tend to be more influential and publicly active than those that don’t. Still, it is good to have more ammunition.

(3) The panel itself was pretty much what you would expect from one of these things (lots of good anecdotes but nothing mind blowing). Some tidbits:

• I enjoyed hearing Bill Allison from the Sunlight Foundation talk about the efforts of his organization to use the Internet to clean up government. They are doing good work.
• Jacki Schechner from CNN’s Situation Room said that CNN listens to blogs and adjusts accordingly. She said CNN had changed programming after being heavily criticized by bloggers for seemingly only covering stories about “missing white women.” She also emphasized that blogs can make news without the Mainstream Media and that in some ways her job was simply to amplify and expand on stories already reported on in the blogosphere.
• Robert Moran from StrategyOne mentioned that the rise of political blogs is good for conservative and liberal politicians but bad for moderate candidates in both parties, since swing voters are not really participating. He thinks blogs can potentially play a big role in a close Presidential primary that is largely decided by Party activists, as opposed to a general election decided a larger group of folks. A great point.

Anyway, the panel got my brainwaves moving a bit, which is all you can really expect from one of these things.

Personal Democracy is running a series this week on the role technology played in the 2006 elections and what role it will play in future elections. They asked a group of “technologists, politicos, bloggers, and journalists” to send in their take on the issue.

The best take I’ve seen so far (including my own) was from David Weinberger, a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and coauthor of the Cluetrain Manifesto.

“The old quip about AI applies: As AI succeeds, it’s no longer counted as AI. In this cycle, what was groundbreaking two years ago now seems normal. Bloggers help shape the discussion. Sites aggregate info about who’s raising money from whom. Candidates have blogs. Campaigns post YouTubes. They use the Internet to organize feet on the street. They raise money through email. And, they avoid talking about the details of their proposals by mumbling the URL of their Web site. The Internet transformation is well under way.”

You can read the first set of submissions here (mine is in this batch) and the second set here.

Xeni Jardin filed a report with Wired magazine to describe the new pressure placed on military bloggers, or "milbloggers" by the Department of Defense. Milblogs are written by active duty military personnel, with some directly reporting from the frontlines. Jardin notes that with the number of reporters in Iraq decreasing, milblogs are possibly the only way to get a firsthand account of ground operations in Iraq.

The controversy over blogging is thought to be representative of a culture clash between  Internet generation recruits and seasoned military personnel who are used to controlling information released to the public.

Currently, all milblogs are being reviewed by the Virginia National Guard for information thought to put military operations at greater risk. 

Currently, there are more than 1,500 active milbloggers. An annual convention (not affiliated with the DoD) is held in Washington, DC, to bring together military bloggers and explore blogging and compliance issues.

Check out Xeni's article here.