Robert Paterson's Weblog

Twitter Lists - Emergence and hence Power!

What might be a outcome of Twitter Lists? I think it may be a step nearer to “Emergence” in some key areas.

This slide shows what happens to children’s language as they approach Emergence in the 3rd picture on the right.

I think our use of Twitter can track this trajectory. At first it was me and a few friends that I knew from my face to face or blogging life prior to Twitter.

Then in the last 3 years, I have added a few more friends from the Twitterverse. These in my case have come mainly from Pub Media and from the Bryant Park Gang that Morphed into the Planet Money Gang.

I exclude myself from the many who merely add thousands of folks indiscriminately. I have added several hundred of these but I find that only 1 or 2 have been people that I have learned to care about or interacted with in a good way. The Dunbar number is not a nice to have but a Rule!

What I have immediately seen from the new lists that are emerging around the two and related areas of my interest – the PM/BPP Gang and Pub Media – is that I have some real gaps. Those that created the lists whom I like care for and admire have people that I don’t know and who don’t know me.

But it is highly probable that we will get on – your friend is my friend!

So we move toward phase 3. When we get a critical mass of Trust – Affection – Attraction then don’t we get close to “Emergence” being possible?

Andy Carvin’s NPR News List would surely make an incredible starting point for more experiment – now add to it his Pub Camp list and you have the 300 Spartans!

This then is power.

A large, talented and also diverse group that has a large bond of trust.

Such a group can surely take on the “Persians” of our time?

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Flu - If your community has run out of masks - try this

Testing Music on TP - Autumn Leaves

Download 03 Autum Leaves

Is your organization ready for these folks?

Here is a short piece made by a client of mine – KETC in St Louis about Twitter and its chairman – a native St Louisan – Jack Dorsey

What hit me as I watched was the attitude of the young people in the film – do you ever imagine that they will feel comfortable in an organization that does not allow access to social media?

So if you don’t allow this – what’s your plan?

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

The Flu -The media challenge on PEI

Here is an important piece of breaking news on PEI - Looks like a lot of schools are going to close

So here are a list of the problems that I hope the CBC will take note of and deal with:

• There is room for 5 items in the post bank on the right. As more news arrives, this will be pushed out of sight. The Real Estate issue
• More importantly - You are a working mum with kids in one of these schools - what are you going to do???? What are your options? Who are you going to call?
• The big plan was to keep the schools open - it looks like this plan is in the dumper in the first week - so what is the stay at home plan?
• Behind this is another story - hundreds of kids are now at home sick - where is the help and advice for this?
• Looking ahead is another story - while we have all been fussing about who needs to be vaccinated - we left out one key group - the people who bring in and sell our food. PEI has about 3 days of fresh food in inventory in the stores. What if the trucks get held up or the supermarket staff have to stay home?
• Of course the CBC cannot do all of this - but so long as they see themselves as only news broadcasters they will not be able to help much.

The Guardian and the CBC are the Trusted voices of PEI - there are many out there who can help - but they are disconnected and voiceless.

You can do so much more as a Connector than as only a source of news.

Best Web Practice Pub Media for Swine Flu - A Model

If you go to most media web sites - they look like a second hand car dealer's site - masses of stuff - banners - very noisy.

One of the things we learnt at KETC was that if you were going to have any impact on the web on a topic - that it was best to create a unique piece of Web Real Estate to do that.

So we and all the stations covering the Mortgage Crisis have a unique site for that attached to our main site.

So this is what the KETC Flu site looks like:

Everything on this site is about the Flu or the path to resources.

Note also that KETC itself does not pretend to be the expert. On the right you will see the key partners. Central is the United Way's 211 call service. People can make one call 24/7 and get directed to expert help.

If you look at the video link - here - you will see that nearly all the speakers are experts in the public health arena that now have got a big voice thanks to the station. Their information is not lost as the new cycle rolls - but remains and gets added to over time. If our experience with the Mortgage Crisis is any predictor, this page may become one of the most helpful in the nation.

Note also how the videos have been titled. They answer implied questions. We know that people usually start with their own question and search. So we have learned to cut stories and to title them predictively to answer these searches.

We have learned that Mapping is very useful - the link to Vaccination Info - is all about maps and information linked to place. To act people need to know where to go. They don't need to know what is happening across town - they need to know what is happening close to home.

KETC is not a "News" station - This does not mean we can't bring people the "News" - the link to Flu News is to an aggregation of the best news that our editors can find. KETC is not restricted to its own resources here - or anywhere - our role as "Connector" is very leveraging.

Our work is to find and connect the best - in resources, in information - and help you find them.We also will be connecting you to everyone one else. For the real story here will over time be about what you did.

The only hard thing about all of this is of course that it is all counter culture to many stations and media organizations. There is no financial barrier - only culture.

And the pay off? We think that if we play a vital role in the life of our community, that our community will respond.

How to handle the "News" of the Swine Flu

Most of the headlines about the flu make people even more helpless and fearful.

Here is how KETC in St Louis is handling it with one of their key partners - the Red Cross

Good advice where ever you live.

It's all about helping people help themselves rather than just panicking them about things they have no control over.

It is about offering context so that they can look at the risks themselves.

It would be great if CBC PEI and the Guardian would get together and help mobilize the broadly based resources on PEI and offer the same kind of help to all of us here.

The Flu - No Panic - Just Help - KETC extends its community model to flu

Living With the Flu - Our Goals

By KETC on October 15, 2009, 9:04 am

H1N1. A combination of two letters and two numbers very few people knew seven or eight months ago, but now have taken on an ominous meaning for many. As we enter the 2009-2010 flu season, most in the St. Louis region—and across the country—are wondering what will happen and how they and their family can best prepare for “Living With the Flu.”

To help our community during this time, KETC is using our capabilities on-air, online and in the community as the region’s trusted public media organization to connect residents to H1N1 prevention and immunization resources through a network of trusted community agencies. Watch our broadcast for tips on how you can prevent the flu and what to do it you or someone in your family is infected. We’ll be posting information and links to resources here, and we want to hear from you if you know of resources we don’t have here.

We are all going to be living with the flu this year, but by staying informed and being prepared, we call all try and prevent the spread.

via livingwiththeflu.org

Once again the news is filled with panic headlines. It's 1918 all over again - a National Emergency - Huge line ups for vaccine - Not enough vaccine - Kids dying and so on. Just like good old Channel 7 New in Buffalo with a fire every night! Come back Irv Weinstein.

This approach to news just confuses and frightens - after all when we hear this kind of thing, we are left helpless. There is nothing that we can do.

At KETC, we decided to behave differently when the mortgage crisis struck. We are not even a "News" station. We decided to see what we could do to HELP. One of the challenges was that we didn't know what to do either.

So we did something quite novel, we went out into the community and found out about the people who did know what to do - we helped bring them together and we gave them a voice and we connected them to a lot more people than they could have been connected to on their own. It worked. worked so well that now over 70 stations are doing this in the 32 worst hit cities in America.

So this clip above is the next step. The Flu is like the economy. A TV station can shout "fire" in a crowded room or it can find help. This time we have a bit more experience - we already have relationships with a lot of community resources - we have learned how to give the community a voice and to connect people who don't even watch our channel to the help that they need.

Public TV in particular has been criticized for not really serving their local public with news. Here is a snip from a new report:

The study, posted on the Columbia Journalism Review website, can be found online through this link: 

After surveying the field for news chops and innovative thinking, Downie and Schudson conclude that too much of the money spent on pubcasting is directed to maintaining local television and radio stations and not enough to independent news reporting. “Overall . . ., local news coverage remains underfunded, understaffed and a low priority at most public radio and television stations, whose leaders have been unable to make or uninterested in making the case for investment in local news to donors and Congress,” they write.

But I think that the term "News" is too narrowly defined. Surely what people need locally is not more Irv Weinstein headlines but more context and connection?

KETC is doing this without blowing up the station. What has happened is that the work of the station is evolving into this connector role.

The really hard work was in "seeing" this role. Once we got it - the rest has happened naturally.

Disclosure - I am an adviser to KETC

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Real Food for Real Kids - Set healthy habits early = Health

Home About Us Our Mission

Our mission is to...

Change the way children eat and understand food.

Provide children with delicious, healthy, all-natural meals and snacks.

Reconnect children and families to real food.

Inspire future generations to make healthier choices, every day.

Support local farmers and producers who are as committed to responsible and sustainable business practices as we are.

via rfrk.com

In the face of an obesity epidemic, officials tell us to eat better. But busy families feel that they don't have the time or the budget. A tsunami of ad dollars influence our kids to reach for the crap. Our schools are full of it. Jamie Oliver found out how hard it is to change these habits and to stand up to these powerful forces.

But there is hope. In Toronto a few pioneers got together in 2005 and had a crazy idea. Why not source good local food, cook it from scratch every day, educate daycares and parents about it and deliver it to day cares and kindergartens.

5 years later, RFRK is the largest buyer of local food in Toronto and supplies nearly 10,000 young children every week day.

What they are doing of course is changing the palate and eating habits of thousands of families. What they are doing is driving a wedge into Big Food at the right time in life - EARLY.

What was David and Lulu Farnell and their first employee, Hope my daughter's mad idea where they did everything - is now a major enterprise.

What gives me hope is that this no longer seems like a way out idea.

Like UFIT - this is an idea that addresses part of the core of our modern health problems at source.

Additionally, not only does it offer the kids a great start in life - but also may do for the locavore people what Ray Kroc did for Coke and the French fry guys - offer a massive market pull. What an irony!

Additionally as we have seen in Wisconsin schools where a similar program has been working for years - we see a revolution in learning and in behaviour too.
http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2009/10/the-the-whole-truth-revisited.html

Isn't this an approach that all schools should take?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

We would rather die than change - Why UFIT works

We all know that we should eat better and take more exercise. I don't need to be told this anymore - nor do I need more evidence. So why is eating better and taking more exercise a simple act of doing the right thing?

We all buy exercise machines, join health clubs, go on diets, join Weight Watchers - but most of us give up and fail to do what we know we should do. Why?

Even threats of death do not work - 98% of heart patients after a while fail to follow their doctors' orders. Why

For years politicians, health leaders, school officials have stressed the importance of eating better and taking more exercise - but we don't do it. Why?

The answer is that how we eat and live is part of our identity. As is smoking. To change something this fundamental requires for most of us more than an act of will or even the threat of death.

As my friend Alan Deutschmann tells it we would rather Die than Change our identity. Knowing what to do - being told what to do - will not work in most cases.

We need a process that is specifically designed to get us through this barrier. We do know what this is.

To make this kind of change usually requires that we start the change in a safe place surrounded by like minded people that we know will not judge us. It requires that we are able to start with baby steps at our own pace. It requires that we then move from this beginner phase to a place where we too see that others look to us. Where we can actually make a difference to others. In short we we stop being helpess and start to see that we can help others.

Sounds a tall order. Sounds Utopian. No this is what UFIT has done. Who and what is UFIT?

Here is a series of links that may answer that question. In the interim - here is a recent news item on the CBC that will tell you a lot in just over 3 minutes.

The UFIT story is I think more than a good local story about a couple who have done well.

I think that this is a story about the future of health care and education.

Most of what ails us today are "social diseases" such as diabetes, heart disease. Even many cancers will have social factors. When we feel helpless and isolated, this drives a huge stress load that eats away at our immune system.

The healthcare system can help with the symptoms but not the causes. UFIT offers a model that shows how we can help with the causes.

• Very low barriers to entry - it costs very little ($5) and it takes place at your local school not a swanky gym.
• Very low emotional barriers to entry - lots of people there who are just like you - lots of support
• Very low technical barriers - all start at their own pace - its a group but you are also you
• Very fast positive feed back - you start feeling better right away both physically and emotionally
• Very fast move from outsider to insider and then to leader and status
• A whole world of social support that extends beyond the classes to doing stuff with each other that helps others

I think that such a model can be applied to a wide range of health issues.

I think that most of our modern disease is derived from social separation and that designs that help us find our way home to being part of something good will make a huge difference.

More on this later but in closing today - if you have any doubts about how powerful this process can be please watch this. I defy you not to be startled.

Disclosure - I am a long term friend and advisor to Eireann and Gord