have your starbucks and drink it too

from the fabulous Chris_J on Flickr

It's common to hear global health advocates try to break down the billions of dollars needed to defeat the "big three" — HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis — in terms that are easy to grasp and to perceive as "reasonable".

One of the most popular is one that Columbia University's Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, a special adviser to UN Secretary-Generals Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon, has used on more than one occasion — reminding us all how much we spend on that morning cup of Joe.

"Three dollars per year from each of us. That's all we're talking about, a cup of coffee, once per year from a Starbucks."

Did someone tell Starbucks?

From November 27 through January 2, Starbucks, through its partnership with (RED), is donating 5 cents to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for each purchase of one of three "Exclusive" coffee drinks. On December 1, World AIDS Day (tomorrow), Starbucks is expanding the program by donating 5 cents for each "hand-crafted beverage".

(RED) has been relatively successful in raising funds for and awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic by asking very little of consumers. Buy something for yourself, feel good about it, appear socially or politically conscious, and throw a few dimes to cover the cost of AIDS medication for people in Africa. It's a win win all around, even if some folks think it's a scam.

With news of the global financial crisis confronting us every day, we're all looking around to see where we can eliminate costs and, judging by Starbucks' financial performance lately, that morning latte or afternoon Frappuccino might not be making the cut.

Will the new campaign help the coffee/lifestyle company to reverse that trend? Will the guilt of paying $3 for something you could make for a quarter back at home be alleviated knowing you will be helping to save lives? Can we have that cup of coffee and still triumph over the big 3? Can you have your Starbucks and drink it too?

wonder of me x 100

Kristen knows she can get me to post when she tags me on a meme, although this time around she acknowledged that she might be pushing my aversion to "wonder of me" posts a bit too far.

Boy, did she ever.

I started this one the other night and needed to abandon it because it was just too gross. And, well, it's still pretty gross.

100 Amazing Things I've Already Done

This list is meant to be in response to those lists that are often generated about the things you want to do before you die to justify your time on the planet; the kind of list that will inevitably make you feel like sh*t as you look at your watch and realize that time is ticking and the top of Mount Everest isn't getting any closer to sea level.

So, yeah, this is a list of 100 thing that I have already done. Some are more impressive than others, some are about what has shaped me as a person, but all are things that I can pull out as story fodder ("Did I ever tell you about that time . . . ?"). There is a bit of starf*cking going on in here, so excuse me.

Enjoy. I tag everyone who feels the need for a little self affirmation. You can write the list in your notebook if you feel like it.

I have . . .

1. Surfed in Oregon
2. Won the gold medal in the National Latin Exam
3. Climbed the Acropolis in four-inch red heels
4. Salsa danced with Joan Baez and Desmond Tutu — at the same time
5. Been given ride home by Jackson Browne — from his concert
   
6. Talked to Maura Tierney in the bathroom at a movie premiere
7. Earned my master degree from Harvard
8. Driven cross-country — three times
9. Run Rock the Vote
10. Published a zine
11. Published a blog — for more than three years
12. Been a Salzburg Seminar faculty member
13. Traveled to South Africa – twice
14. Visited Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island
15. Dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean
16. Met Al Gore
17. Met Ted Kennedy
18. Taken a class from Michael Ignatieff
19. Done an independent study with Samantha Power
20. Developed the strategy for the first-ever Cabinet member blog
21. Kissed a Heartbreaker
22. Met two members of Nirvana — and kissed one of them
23. Seen a woman take her clothes off in front of the presidential palace in Prague
24. Maintained a friendship with Chris for 20 years
25. Survived and overcome
26. Been a guest on Loveline
    
27. Avoided financial ruin after a medical emergency that occurred when I did not have insurance
28. Celebrated New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh
29. Moved to London with no job and no place to live when I was 24
30. Visited the Lower 9th Ward post-Katrina
31. Written and read an original essay on NPR
32. Walked through Sherwood Forest
33. Trained young political leaders in Cambodia
34. Sat in a green room with Ted Nugent
35. Appeared on CNN as a regular political commentator
36. Contributed to fighting the global health crisis
37. Created a career out of doing “good”
38. Visited Bonnie Raitt back stage
39. Seen Badlands in a movie theater
40. Managed to avoid ever going bowling
41. Dropped out of college for a year and a half — and gone back to school
42. Moved to San Francisco (from Connecticut) on a Greyhound bus when I was 20
43. Met Bill Clinton
44. Trained youth organizers in Mexico
45. Been on the merry-go-round near the Eiffel Tower
46. Been John Hughes’ pen pal
47. Stayed in David O. Russell's guest room
    
48. Gone from growing up on AFDC/welfare to now earning more than xx percent of the population (too tacky to actually write)
49. Been offered a job by Mary Robinson
50. Spoken at my grandmother’s funeral
51. Had an essay published by the Carnegie Corporation of New York
52. Attended a presidential debate
53. Met Bono
54. Met — and been quoted by in a speech by — Sting
55. Seen Wilco in concert (at least) 10 times
56. Climbed the Wicklow mountains in Ireland
57. Gone on a road trip to the Clinton Library
58. Talked on the phone with Katherine Hepburn
59. Shaken hands with John Edwards
60. Stood outside the Cambridge City Hall at 12:01 am on May 17, 2004 to congratulate the first-ever same sex couples to be married in Massachusetts
61. Voted in every local and national election since I turned 18
62. Attended the International AIDS Conference — in Barcelona and in Toronto
63. Maintained a database of everyone I have met for 10 years
64. Watched Taylor give birth to Victoria
65. Called John McCain a “wuss” on CNN
66. Received flowers from Martin Sheen
67. Managed to convince foundations and companies to give projects I am working on tens of millions of dollars
68. Been linked to by Jeff Jarvis
69. Had one of my ads used as set dressing (Zoey's dorm room) on The West Wing
70. Had another one of my ads used as an example of ad agency star Helen Hunt’s work in What Women Want
71. Overcome my fear of cockroaches
72. Had an essay published in How to Get Stupid White Men out of Office
73. Seen Edward Norton and Catherine Keener off-Broadway
74. Seen John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman on Broadway
75. Gone to an Ozzy Osborne concert — minus adult supervision — when I was 10
76. Seen Nation of Ulysses in concert
    
77. Seen Circus Lupus in concert
78. Seen Lungfish in concert
79. Seen Beat Happening in concert
80. Advised three presidential campaigns on young voter outreach
81. Managed to have the most perfectly 80’s iconic first make out session ever: behind the Space Invaders game; at the roller skating rink; wearing sneaker skates, designer jeans, a velour Izod pullover and a turtleneck with a whale on the collar; while Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” played in the background
82. Interviewed Heather Armstrong and Robert Scoble
83. Saw Jawbox in concert in London
    
84. Worked on a diversity project that was cited by President Clinton's Initiative on Race as a “Promising Practice”
85. Had Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia ask me who she needed to f*ck to get into the VIP section
86. Exchanged emails with Pierre Omidyar
87. Met Walter Mondale
88. Gone to a rave in Southampton, England
89. Visited Angkor Wat
90. Shared "guest" status with Billy Baldwin on an ABCNews.com web chat
91. Served as an adviser on UNAIDS project
92. Attended four of five True False Film Festivals
93. Become a connoisseur of single malt scotch
    
94. Eaten dinner at a table next to Donald Rumsfeld
95. Served as a BBC political commentator on that fateful 2000 election eve
96. Worked on a documentary film project with Frances Reid
97. Organized a mayoral debate for young people in Kansas City
98. Driven the 101 from Los Angeles to San Francisco
99. Stayed at the oldest hotel in Savannah, Georgia
100. Attended one of two Dismemberment Plan reunion shows
     

del.icio.us tags: politics

In a post on TechPresident, Isaac Garcia has a great analysis about how Senator Obama's campaign is an illustration of how the Long Tail theory is coming to life in politics. Essentially, just as technology has provided the opportunity for marketers to reach the most narrow niches of consumers, it has also enabled candidates to tailor their messages and engage those who may have felt left out of the process in the past - as donors, as ambassadors and as voters.

The Kaiser Family Foundation's health08.org has pulled together an "issue spotlight" on global health and HIV/AIDS, providing an analysis of Clinton, Huckabee, McCain and Obama's positions on what they will do as President to wipe out poverty-related disease in the developing world. You may have made your decision or cast your vote already, but if this issue matters to you as much as it does to me, we still need to be prepared to hold the new administration accountable to their promises when the dust finally settles.

Update: Matthew Kavanaugh is asking a valid question at The Huffington Post about the current crop of candidates' commitment to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. In the midst of reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), where are their voices?

pipe in

I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the conversation about Product (RED).

Where are the voices of the people from the global health community?

Those are the voices that I want to hear.

Tim?

Update: Although Anastasia's -- and Nedra's -- recommendations to take it a step futher and ask more of the people they reel in are right on.

It's the babble about people writing checks to the Global Fund that makes me want to go play in traffic.

sticking to what you know

Like Nedra at Spare Change — who posted on the topic today — I am late in coming to the conversation about Product (RED) and whether or not the HIV/AIDS campaign can be deemed a "success".

But my colleague, Rohit, tagged me to pipe in and so, I will. In his post, Rohit, explains that the issue for many of RED's critics is that the companies benefiting from their affiliation with the high-profile campaign should be writing checks directly to The Global Fund instead of sinking big bucks into marketing their RED products.

For my grad school thesis (yes, John, three years ago), I wrote a strategic plan for the Global Media AIDS Initiative, a project of the Kaiser Family Foundation that aims to leverage the power of the media to educate people and raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. The Initiative — and Kaiser's Entertainment Media Partnerships program — has leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in donated air time from media companies around the world, including Kaiser's partnership with Viacom for the KNOW HIV/AIDS campaign.

In putting together the justification for the value that media companies brought to the table in the fight against HIV/AIDS, this same criticism arose -- why don't the companies just write a check?

Jen Kates, who is the Director of the Foundation's HIV Policy program and whom I interviewed for my thesis responded to the criticism in the following way:

“The value that we’re talking is in-kind value, not value that the company would ever be able to give to fight AIDS. If a media company said to me, ‘I could give you $100 million for care, treatment or prevention,’ I would say ‘Do that.’ But that’s not what they can do."

I have no idea where Jen would fall on the RED debate, but this is where I fall: it is not an either or situation. The companies that are participating in the campaign are not making the decision between spending money on an ad campaign or spending it on antiretrovirals.

The Global Business Coalition for AIDS, TB and Malaria works with companies to engage them in the fight against these three poverty-related diseases. The consistent message from the GBC is that their member companies should focus on utilizing their "core competencies" to contribute. So, in the case of the Global Media AIDS Initiative, media companies should use their power to reach a wide audience to help to educate, raise awareness and eliminate stigma — one of the greatest barriers to fighting AIDS. And, in the case of Product (RED), lifestyle companies -- companies that market "cool" products like phones and clothes and other things that we buy less out of necessity and more because we're trying to keep up with the Joneses -- should market the notion that giving a sh*t about HIV/AIDS is damn cool. Because, folks, is about more than the money being generated through individual donations. Campaigns like Product (RED) also help to create an environment in which voters support foreign aid packages that help provide funding for the Global Fund, as well as for PEPFAR, etc.

With that said, however, I heartily agree with Nedra that Product (RED) is not taking the campaign far enough. They could be engaging those consumers who — now that they are aware — could be mobilized to take further action. But I've kvetched about the campaign's missed opportunity in the past, so you'll have to click over and read what I said on the agency blog back in December.

Read what others have to say on the topic. Josh Spear, AdRants, Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog, Marketing Profs and AdAge are just some of the many who have shared their thoughts.

Anyone else I should read? What do YOU think?

Update: Now I'm annoyed. Folks, the money being spent on the marketing campaigns would not alternatively be spent on drugs, condoms and testing. It would be spend on a marketing campaign that promoted products — minus the RED.

stuffed

I caught this meme over at YPulse — but followed the trail back to Marianne Richmond at BlogHer, who pointed out that, although this meme was picking up speed, most of the respondents have been men.

Therefore, for the sisterhood . . .

Web: I subscribe to 133 feeds that I read via Google Reader with varying degrees of religious devotion. I have 5 Google Alerts set up right now, but they're all worked-related because I was getting overwhelmed trying to keep up with the personal alerts.

There are a few additional news sites that I check out from time to time as well because they don't have feeds, but that happens generally on weekends when I have more time.

I am a religious del.icio.us user and people who know this send me links via del.icio.us.

I subscribe to a few email newsletters and listservs, most of which are work-related and either have to do with global health (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS and Women's Health Policy reports, Kaiser's Global Health Reporting, Stop-TB, Af-AIDS, Break the Silence, Gender-AIDS) or marketing/PR (AdAge, Media Post, eMarketer, WOMMA, Marketing Sherpa, BlogHer and a few others I am probably forgetting right now). I also get daily updates from Idealist.org and a word of the day from Dictionary.com.

I aim to post to this blog once a day, which I achieve on occasion. I started a second blog, but that failed because I just don't know what to write about (any ideas?). I am meant to be a contributor to Do You Have One of These? but I haven't been posting lately. Finally, I post to the agency blog from time to time as well.

I recently bought an iPod with video when my other iPod died, but I have yet to become a regular podcast viewer/listener.

Communication: I check my three email accounts — work, Gmail and AOL — multiple times per day. I check Gmail and AOL only via my laptop. I stay on top of work email (or make a valiant effort to do so) via my Blackberry, laptop and desktop in the office.

Anastasia at YPulse wonders where all the social network users are -- but you won't find one here. I have an old Friendster account that I have alerts set up for and so I will check it out when someone contacts me there, but that's about it.

TV: I start every day by watching CNN's American Morning, generally turning it on when it starts at 6:00 am and turning it off when I walk out the front door (usually between 8:00 and 8:30 am).

I turn the TV on when I come home as well, primarily as background noise. I don't have many shows that I watch religiously, but my two favorite nights of television are the sitcoms on CBS on Monday night and 60 Minutes and then ABC on Sunday night (only after that annoying, cloying home improvement show is over). I also watch Grey's Anatomy when it occurs to me.

I rent TV shows from Netflix pretty religiously. In the past three months, I have rented Six Feet Under (Season 4), Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 4), Entourage (Season 2) and Homicide (Season 3).

Books: I barely ever read books, which is a sore point for me.

Newspapers: I get The Washington Post delivered seven days a week and I try to read it first thing in the morning before heading to work, although I occasionally am forced to put it off until the end of the day. I read the rest of my newspapers online (primarily via feeds): New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times and Los Angeles Times. If I find myself in New York on a Saturday or Sunday, I buy the Sunday Times and when I travel for work, I read the Times on the plane.

Movies: Despite the fact that I spent this past weekend at a film festival, I have given up on going to the movie theater. The simple explanation is that other people drive me crazy and I don't want to be stuck in a room with them for two hours and be forced to trust them to keep quiet and not annoy me. It's not going to happen.

I do, however, rent a fair amount of movies from Netflix. In the past three months, in addition to all the TV shows I rent, I have rented 11 movies: In the Heat of the Night, A Scanner Darkly, Triumph of the Will, A Prairie Home Companion, Riding the Rails, The Baxter, The Statement, Don't Come Knocking, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, I Confess and Inside Man.

I currently have 355 DVD's on my Netflix queue. Add that to the list of proof that I am insane.

Music: I listen to CD's at home because I don't have an amplification system for my iPod here. I listen to my iPod in the car, on the walk to the office and in the office. I like to listen to the radio in the car -- particularly on long car drives -- and will listen to CD's in the car if I don't have my iPod and the radio is failing me. When I travel and I have left my iPod at home, I listen to music on my laptop. I still buy CD's from time to time, but I love buying songs from iTunes. The last song I bought was Mary J. Blige's "Family Affair".

(We don't need no haters.)

Magazines: I recently let a bunch of subscriptions run out — Jane, Spin, Fast Company and something else — so the only subscription I have right now is to The New Yorker, which is an annual gift from my mother (except for my Harvard magazine). I have been a magazine junkie since I was a kid, however, and always have a stack in the house that I am usually at least three months behind on. (I was reading magazines dated December 2006 on the plane home today.) I love Us (shoot me). I also love Details (because I am secretly a gay man). The other magazines in the pile right now are Esquire, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Allure, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and InStyle.

I suddenly understand why I feel so overwhelmed.

I tag Kristen and Jim.

del.icio.us tags 01.27.07

In the world of politics . . .

• Jesse shared this great post from Blog P.I. about Senator Jim Webb's Facebook profile. What's your theory on why Webb has lost his faith?
• Hillary Clinton has taken the health care debate to Yahoo! Answers. Tell her what you think, she might just be president some day. As of this writing, 3,480 people already have.
  
• Micah Sifry at Personal Democracy Forum gives us his take on social media in the 2008 presidential campaign. The good news is that the Democrats are kicking a** and taking names if you go by the number of MySpace friends, inbound (web site and blog) links and Flickr photos they have.
• James Boyce at The Huffington Post uses Alexa to come to the same conclusion: Dems are ahead in the social media battle.
  
• Cristen Perk at EchoDitto has something to say about campaign sites as well. She admits to being a nerd due to her love for John Edwards' Mac OS X widget, but, Cristen, I think you landed in nerd-land when you used the term "blatantly Drupal" when she made reference to Dennis Kucinich's site.
• Speaking of EchoDitto, they pointed me in the direction of ThinkingBlue Search, a Google-powered vertical search engine "of all major politically progressive ideas and discussions on the web."

Digital Influence . . .

• No two ways about it, your company needs to monitor its brand. Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim speaks the gospel, "A great brand can take months, if not years, and millions of dollars to build. It should be the thing you hold most precious. It can be destroyed in hours by a blogger upset with your company." His toolbox is full.
  

More digital influence in Asia (John Bell leaves for Asia this week) . . .

• MySpace launches a version in China without any attempt to make it culturally appropriate, including leaving on a Japanese version of the user agreement. Seriously sloppy stuff.
• MySpace may be heading east, but Anastasia at YPulse says that Popteen, "the number one magazine for teen girls in Japan," is coming our way.
• China is trying to purge the Internet of all the bad stuff. Good luck.
  

Rock n' roll, hootchie coo . . .

• Coming to me to via PSFK, this post from CScout TrendBlog has an amazing list (with profiles) of music recommendation sites. So many to choose from. I've tried MOG, but it screwed up my computer. I've tried Pandora, but the recommendations didn't rock my world. I've been checking out Hype Machine lately, but I think I'm going to try out Last.fm, ILike.com and Music Favor. I'll get back to you on this one.
• Discord has a new web site. I've suggested that they equip it with an RSS feed. Let's see if they follow my suggestion.
• Speaking of Dischord, Ian MacKaye is doing his part to save all ages shows in DC. Just like the folks in Seattle did. (I wrote about it in How to Get Stupid White Men out of Office, if you're interested.)
  

And other stuff, just 'cause . . .

• Tastespotting has amazing photos for foodies. Yummy.
• My friend Tim started a blog this month called Just a Minute, featuring "occasional ramblings and rants on international health development". Tim knows how to rant (and how to make me smile), so I'll be a regular reader.
• Fellow Hampshire grad Josh Rubin over at Cool Hunting posts about Globarati, a new "luxury travel" site.
• Teachers are blogging, says David Krug at 901am. Another great example of how blogging technology can be used.
• Lee at Marketing.fm has been keeping a list since October of mobile-friendly web sites.
  
• Donald Crowdis is a 93 year old Canadian and Don to Earth is his blog. Maybe reading Donald will help me to remember to look at the tops of trees . .
  

you've come a long way, baby

Yesterday was an historic day in women's history, as Representative Nancy Pelosi became the first women ever to serve as Speaker of the House. And it just doesn't seem entirely insane to think that we could have a woman president in the near future, maybe even in a couple of years.

But, as we celebrate and pat ourselves on the back, let's hope that, with more women in positions of power, maybe women as a whole can benefit.
Don't forget:

• Only two Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs or presidents and 90 do not have ANY women as corporate officers.

• More than half of all women worldwide report being physically abused by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.

• In the United States, more than twice as many women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends as are murdered by strangers.
  

• Almost one-third of all women worldwide report being the victim of sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.

• The number of women and girls living with HIV is currently increasing in every region of the world.

• In the United States, women still only make 77 cents for every dollar our male counterparts make.

Around the world, women are being raped as a weapon of war; they are being beaten and killed in the name of honor; they are being mutilated in the name of tradition; they are being trafficked; they are being denied education, jobs and economic independence; and they are being prevented from making decisions about their bodies.

Welcome, Madame Speaker. We all have work to be done.

del.icio.us tags 12.22.06

• Tagged this article on "Caring for Your Introvert" after being sent over by Nedra at Spare Change. Everything is beginning to make sense. By the way, I'm signing up for Nedra's Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar when she is in DC in March.
• Not everyone loves Product(Red). INSPI(RE)D thinks raising awareness of AIDS in Africa is a fine goal, but they're not big fans of conspicuous consumerism. Paint your old iPod red and make a donation to an AIDS organization of your choice. They're encouraging people to send in photos of products that they have coveREd with information about the donations they have made, but it doesn't look like they're getting many takers. Maybe they're out maxing their credit cards just in time for Christmas?
• John is meant to be heading to Asia early next year to evangelize about 360 DI, but I'm relegated to tagging articles about digital influence on the continent, like this post from The Big Switch about bloggers building communities of cool or this article from Tech2.com India about Mazooki!, a new video sharing site specifically for Asian users. And, according to Paul McGregor, YPulse's resident global youth marketing expert, reports on the South Korean government's decision to clamp down on mobile technology use by young people, allowing parents to set limits on use. Will this new legislation challenge South Korea's position as the global standard bearer for media and communications?
• If you're thinking of doing any blogger outreach, read this first -- and take notes. Don't "pitch" bloggers. They (we) have very strong bullsh*t detectors and they deserve better. And while we're on the topic of ineffective social media marketing, listen to Eric over at Common Sense PR. Stop asking, "How can we get on Digg? How can I get on Oprah? How can I get my company featured in Fast Company?," says Eric. Instead, you need to be asking yourself, "What about my company would my potential customers be interested in, and how can I get that story in front of them in way that has impact?" In other words, if you have a good story, they'll listen. If you have a way to tell it that is remarkable, they'll tell their friends. And, most importantly, if you have a good product (item, service, candidate or cause), they'll buy it.
• Colin Delany over at e.politics lists some Outstanding Advocacy Web Sites. I commented on the post when I first read it, but for some reason it's not on there. I just wanted to tell him about Green My Apple.
  
• 10 Downing Street, Britain's White House, has a new web site for kids -- Number 10 -- that aims to provide young people with an insider's view on the life and work of the Prime Minister.
• TJ Mahoney at Compete has a really smart post about WalMart's tough year in PR. He looks at the launch and growth of two anti-WalMart web sites. But he also looks at the meteoric rise in traffic at WalMart's own site, Walmartfacts.com: "for every one person that reads a jab on wakeupwalmart, about 4.5 others will read a sunshine report on walmartfacts. Obviously, Mahoney is making a strong argument for brands to doing what they can to make sure that their side of the story is out there. It's crisis management 101. Don't leave a vacuum to be filled in by your opposition.
• While SMS still rules in terms of penetration, Enid Burns at ClickZ says, as more and more people are buying mobile devices with the ability to share images and video and carriers recognize how much cash they can rake in from advertisers, mobile marketing campaigns may be on the rise.
• Finally, Travelocity has a new blog. Cardinal Sean has had a blog since September. If you're looking for other Catholic Blogs, here's the site for you. If you're trying to find a new blog to add to your aggregator, check out Feeds that Matter.

Update: Colin at e.politics sent me an email to ask me to resend my comment, so I did. Thanks, Colin.

del.icio.us tags 12.11.06

I've heard a couple of challenges to Technorati's ranking of influence. Elisa Camahort from BlogHer came to the office today to speak to my colleagues about women bloggers and made a point about how inbound links are not a very good measure of mom bloggers. Why? Because moms don't necessarily make references to each other in their posts, instead waxing poetic about their lives and children and experiences. But to suggest that they are not influential is nonsense. Check out their comments. They have regular -- and many -- readers who are commenting day after day after day. Those moms are influential.

Elisa's comment is echoed by Tim Finn at eBiquity Group who says, "Influence also has to be measured with respect to the community you want to influence."

Do you want to influence moms (who have tremendous economic power)? Forget the Technorati rank (or don't worship at the altar of the Technorati rank, at least). Look at those comments. Look at who they're coming from, look at what they're saying, look at how often they're coming back (their commitment to the blogger).

I found a new blog to add to my aggregator featuring some amazing nonprofit advertising/social campaigns, Houtlust. Some terrifyingly intense HIV/AIDS ads were what led me there in the first place. I am a HUGE fan of this one in particular (not terrifying, just extremely cool).

de.icio.us tags 12.8.06

• Wikipedia has compiled a list of social networking sites around the world, including user counts.
• Joshua Levy at Personal Democracy Forum has tips for using social networking sites for politics and advocacy: it's about meeting people where they are, recognizing that community is no longer defined by geography, giving your constituents the opportunity to take ownership and looking to raise your funds elsewhere. He's with me on the value of giving people something to do -- particularly when you're talking about an issue as seemingly insurmountable as genocide or AIDS.
• Ivan Boothe, director of communications for the Genocide Intervention Network and a source for Levy's post, pipes in to expand on the topic. As far as he's concerned -- and his savviness has turned me into a regular reader -- it's not about advertising, it's about empowerment. Give them the tools they need to create change and help you to achieve your mission.
• There's a new wiki in town, enabling nonprofit folks to share Web 2.0 best practices. Comes to me via Spare Change.
• According to the Harrison Group, teens (13-18) spend 72 hours a week online, on their cell phone, watching television, listening to music or playing video games -- and they're usually doing more than one at a time. And carrying along the theme of social networking, 68 percent of the little buggers have created at least one profile on a social networking site.
• Soon to be DC Mayor Adrian Fenty is embracing social media -- sort of. Maybe creating seventeen separate blogs to get him through the transition stage before January wasn't such a good idea.
• The Compete blog lists the Top 20 web sites.
• DownloadPunk.com. Just what you think it is.
  

del.icio.us tags 12.4.06

In addition to my own post from the agency blog, here are two more tags for today:

• Mark over at Off the Mark, compares MySpace and Facebook -- and, despite the numbers, Facebook comes out the winner. Why? MySpace may have more members, but Facebook is the community site of choice for 17-25 year olds.
• Amazon's UnSpun lists include Top "Hip" Neighborhoods to Live in Washington, DC. (I don't live in any of them.) Adams Morgan tops the list, but it could hold that position a little more securely if the people that lived there could all agree on how to spell it.
  

stop whining

Apparently I can't get past my frustration with the "missed opportunity" that Product (Red) let slip through their hands, because I wrote about it on the agency blog. But this time, so as not to just be a whiner, I decided to add in a few general ideas for how they could have taken greater advantage of the traffic that came their way courtesy of the Google home page link. It's one of my recent del.icio.us tags >> over there in the sidebar.

relief

They took down the link to Product (Red). Now it's just a ribbon.

I feel so much better.

the pain

Seriously, it's killing me every time I open up Google.

Killing me.

what a waste!

Product (Red) has scored one of the hottest pieces of advertising real estate today -- World AIDS Day.

Forget Times Square. Forget the Super Bowl.

I'm talking the Google home page.

The normally pristine white space has a (logo'd) link to Product (Red)'s World AIDS Day page.

Sure, there have been cutesie pictures to commemorate the holidays, but this, this is a coup. Is there a precedent that I am not aware of?

Here's the (infuriating) bummer -- why did the folks at Product (Red) not make more of an effort to create a destination page that was more dynamic to greet the traffic they're going to get today? A lame video of Bono saying nothing much that's new and certainly nothing that's particularly empowering (the man obviously cares and he's inspired me in the past . . .) ? A pathetically brief list of things that the campaign's partners are doing today to mark the day, including "Veronica Webb will sign copies of Gap's Individuals book on Friday, from 6-8 pm at Besame Mucho in Key West, Florida".

Huh?

I have been incredibly impressed with the campaign. But someone wasn't thinking . . .

Red = not as smart as they should be on digital advocacy. Green = still so damn smart.

(If you need any ideas next year, give me a call.)

del.icio.us tags 11.26.06

• The AIDS Diary Project, an audio diary from Thembi Ngubane, a 21-year old South African woman infected with HIV.
• LovetoKnow has a collection of wiki "channels" on everything from getting a mortgage to buying bras. Read their privacy policy to see how they're making their money. (Steve Rubel pointed readers to the diet channel.)
• I managed to miss this great Washington Post article from November 5, but was saved from my oversight by my pals at EchoDitto, some of whom were colleagues of co-author Zephyr Teachout's back in the golden days of Dean for America. Some smart, some funny and some frightening ideas for politicos on how to use technology to reach voters, including better data mining (reach the "Abercrombie & Fitch Republican"), Second Life (blow up opponents without anyone getting hurt?), reaching disaffected 30-49 year old male voters via online porn, keeping tabs on elected officials via accountability software and "political affinity software".
• Coolz0r shares a great "anti- anti-" sugar campaign. It's all about moderation, folks.
• Blackberry acknowledges that it has built its business on word of mouth and ask its customers to tell them why you're so damn "passionate" about their product. They say they might use your story on their site or in their advertising, but they're also collecting email addresses for their Blackberry Connection enewsletter.
• The sincerest form of flattery is no longer imitation, it's being the topic of an "anti-fan club".
• I need to go on vacation again next month and I'm trying to decide where to go and New Orleans, thanks to my aunt, is on my short list.
  

de.icio.us tags 11.19.06

I realized yesterday that I could set up del.icio.us to automatically post my new tags to my blog every day. However, after setting it up, I decided against it. There was a reason why, but I can't remember what it is right now.

I am supposedly on vacation -- my first in a year and a half -- but I have more work to get done today than I do on an average work day, so I'm not so sure how well this is going to work out.

Anyway, before I tie myself to a chair and start working, here are my del.icio.us tags for today.

• South African languages - all eleven of 'em
• Jeff Tweedy/Sunken Treasure trailer - did you know he was made for rock n' roll?
• Condoms4Life - A campaign to encourage Catholic leaders to change their position on banning condoms in order to prevent HIV infection. Scroll through the ads.
• World AIDS Day (December 1) profile on MySpace
  

25 years

I have been trying to get a new business proposal done and I have a friend in town tonight and plans tomorrow night and the night after that (inevitably, I have nothing to do on Friday night), so it's been tough to find time to post and to have anything to say beyond, "I really wish I could get this proposal done!"

But yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the first AIDS diagnosis and we marked the anniversary with a special blog about our personal experiences and memories of the pandemic over the past quarter century. I made my contribution. It would be great if you would be willing to post something as well.

Thanks for reading.

sunday's links

ABCNews.com covers a study recently published in The Journal of Political Economy about why it pays to be a whore. If you want to read the study itself, it can be downloaded here. One theory as to why prostitutes, compared to other "unskilled" women (those broads have some skills, don't get me wrong), make a pretty penny, is that they have given up the likelihood that they are ever going to get married (sullied goods) and must be compensated.

Andrew Sullivan writes in The Sunday Times about Bush/Cheney's "personal tolerance" for gay couples and immigrants -- "legal and illegal". Sullivan manages to make the duo seem less like monsters but asks, "Does their personal tolerance make their policies less or more distasteful?" Sullivan answers his own question and I have to agree: " . . . more distasteful, since they know better." (Comes via Sullivan's blog.)

If you want to help Lee Sevilla out and you have a photo you'd like to see turned into a print/postcards, read this article about Sevilla in The Los Angeles Times, a 71-year-old woman who lives in her Dodge Neon with her dog, Sandy.

Read this week's Newsweek cover story about "AIDS at 25". Yeah, it's been 25 years since the first case of AIDS was reported in the media and things have changed: "AIDS itself changed, from a disease that killed gay men and drug addicts to a global scourge that has decimated the African continent, cut a large swath through black America and infected almost as many women as men worldwide." But the article argues that so much more has changed . . .