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Critique of Social Media Campaign

The Charter for Compassion, a website and document intended to promote compassion among people of all faiths, was born of social media and lives both in and outside this sphere.

The charter began as the wish of British author and TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) prize winner Karen Amstrong. In 2008, Armstrong won the $100,000 TED prize, given annually to an exceptional individual having “one wish to change the world.” She unveiled her wish at a TED conference that same year.

TED is, Wikipedia says, a global set of conferences curated by the American non-profit Sapling Foundation to disseminate “ideas worth spreading.” The conferences are available for free viewing online, under a Creative Commons license, through TED.com.

I see the TED website as the birthplace of The Charter for Compassion social media campaign. The TED site invites visitors to share and comment on videos with onsite interactive tools, including “embed this video”code, threaded comments, and buttons for tweeting, sharing, promoting, and bookmarking.

If you watched Armstrong’s video, you’d probably want to visit The Charter for Compassion site. That site provides prominent buttons to add your name to the charter and to join others in committing to a more compassionate way of life.

A Share link at the top of the site accesses other tools for spreading the charter’s message and for participating in community events and religious services that promote compassion. Links for joining Charter for Compassion reading groups and a charter group in Pakistan are displayed in a scrollable slide show. A graphic displaying partner logos and a link to view all partners invite visitors to learn who supports the charter and contact them (through website links) if they wish. Links to Twitter and Facebook allow visitors to easily share the site’s URL with others. An RSS link allows them to easily stay abreast of site updates. The site displays the number of people (67,768) who have affirmed the charter (by clicking the Add Your Name Now button and completing an online Affirm form) since the site launched on November 12, 2009.

I do not know how if that number represents success or failure of the charter’s social media campaign. The number seems fairly small considering the very large number of people who could have affirmed the charter, and that would indicate failure. Or the number may be large considering charter content. People may disagree with the premise that all religions share the Golden Rule as a fundamental tenet, or they may agree but be afraid to affirm their agreement.

I believe The Charter for Compassion makes good use of social media. It has attracted and retained nearly 70,000 individual supporters, as well as 100 organizations committed to promoting its message and effecting cultural change.

Incorporating Social Media into My Online Presence

Some people can’t sing. Some can’t dance, can’t throw a ball straight, can’t do calculations in their head. Some people are shy, and they have reason to be. I am one of those people. My plan for incorporating social media into my online presence is by crawling on my belly, painfully over the gravel, to the desired goal. And then I will be graceful, and thin, and rich, and beautiful.

Kidding aside, I will incorporate what I have learned in class to enhance my online presence. When I have worked out the kinks in my blog, I will post it with my LinkedIn profile as part of an online portfolio. I may also post it on CUA (Certified Usability Analyst) Central, with the objective of building relationships with fellow CUAs. I say “maybe because I am not sure that my blog topic is appropriate for that venue. I am not sure how or if I will use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or any other social media tool. I so prefer solitude.

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2011 03 10 Pamela Livingston critique social media campaign
module 5
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From pitch to presentation

Dallas walking tours

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2011 03 09 Pamela Livingston From Pitch to Proposal
module 5
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Cited argument: Sound bite method

I cannot afford to hire actor Mike McGlone to record a voiceover for my cited argument. So please turn on your television and watch for an ubiquitous ad featuring McGlone impersonating Robert Stack. Remember his penetrating look and sonorous voice. Now imagine him saying:

“Can information architecture really save you money? What, you live under a rock?”

With little time and fuss, McGlone makes a compelling case. No one who lives under a rock wants to admit to it. It follows that if you give the correct answer (no) to the second question, you will also give the correct answer (yes) to the first, because you care about appearances. McGlone asks similar questions in all ads in this ad campaign, except these require a “yes” answer. I will use a similar rhetorical technique in my cited argument below because:

  • No one wants to read or listen to a long and labored case about anything, unless it helps them become rich, beautiful, and popular. Maybe not even then.
  • No one wants to do the heavy lifting required of same. Most prefer the less strenuous method of making sound bites rather than reasoned arguments. Sound bites persuade quickly and at a visceral level. Reasoned arguments may persuade quickly and viscerally, but usually do not.

I will make my case as quickly as I can, using bullet points with references. Where no references are available, I will make a bald-faced claim. I call this the “sound-bite method.”

Arguments

  • Information architecture (IA) cuts costs and wins business. IA — the combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranet –makes web and intranet sites easy to navigate and site information easy to find. It is essential to winning and keeping online business on e-commerce sites and for cutting costs related to doing business on company intranets.
    An online search of IA return on investment (ROI) yielded no estimated or actual dollar amounts. But a print source indicates that the ROI is significant.2 It cites cost savings through increased employee productivity, reduced call center volume, reduced employee training, and reduced site redesign, construction, and maintenance. A second print source cites similar savings realized through user-centered web and application design,3 which includes IA.
  • Information architecture is related to real-world architecture. Morville and Rosenfeld make the case in their first chapter that the two are analogous.
    “Why begin a book about web sites by writing about buildings? Because the architectural analogy is a powerful tool for introducing the complex, multidimensional nature of information spaces. Like buildings, web sites have architectures that cause us to react.”4
    Wodtke and Govella also compare the two.
    “Building a house seems like an impossible task and designing an architecture for your content is similarly daunting.” 5
    The discipline has a history going back to the mid-60s, when, the Adaptive Path Blog says, “British architect Cedric Price created information architecture” or rather, architecture made of information. He designed a number of buildings that would be used to navigate information, that could learn from their users and respond to what they did.
    Ten years later, American architect Richard Saul Wurman, coined the phrase “information architecture” in response to a perceived a need for an information architecture to organize data and information. Wurman’s view predominates to this day. However, Price’s view is gaining ground.

1Information for the World Wide Web, 3rd Ed., p. 4, by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld; O’Reilly Media, Inc: Nov. 27, 2006

2Ibid, p.11

3Formula for Calculating ROI Quick Reference, Human Factors International, Inc.: 2005

4Information for the World Wide Web, 3rd Ed., p. 3, by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld; O’Reilly Media, Inc: Nov. 27, 2006

5Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, 2nd Ed., p. 65, by Christina Wodtke and Austin Govella; New Riders, Berkeley, CA: 2009

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2011 03 07 Pamela Livingston module 3
Sound Bite Method
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Pitch: Conduct paid walking tours to benefit the homeless

Dallas is home to some of the best architecture in the world. Buildings designed by award-winning architects fill the downtown skyline. It is also home to the National Historic Landmark, Fair Park, which contains the nation’s largest collection of 1930s art deco exposition-style architecture. It has a historic district and an arts district, and it has architecturally significant private homes.

Dallas also has a significant homeless population, who may enjoy the view from their home on the street, but for their health and safety would be better off living inside.

We who enjoy the view and a roof over our heads can help. Paid walking tours of the arts district, historic district, Fair Park, and homes deemed architecturally significant by the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) could be conducted to raise money for homeless shelters in Dallas. By reserving a $35 ticket, you help build a case to stakeholders that these tours are feasible and will raise sufficient money to make this enterprise worthwhile.

Summary

As of April 10, 2010, some 5,700 people were reported homeless in Dallas. The current number of Dallas homeless shelters is insufficient to provide shelter for all people who need it. Raising $X for these shelters would allow them to purchase additional space, furnishings, and provisions, and to hire additional professional staff to assist in finding jobs, training, medical care, and mental health services.

The Dallas Center for Architecture gives paid walking tours twice a month. Preservation Dallas gives free guided tours five days a week. National Geographic provides a map for self-guided tours of Fair Park. The AIA Dallas chapter hosts an annual self-guided tour of homes. Each organization could contribute staffing and other resources to assist with the fund-raising tour.

The proposed $35 ticket fee would cover light refreshments (bottled water, fruit, and chips) for walkers, who would be responsible for taking their own transportation to the tour site. All remaining proceeds ($30 per ticket) would go to Dallas-area homeless shelters. An incomplete list includes:

Tour dates and details for advertising, staffing, and provisioning are to be determined.

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2011 03 01 Pamela Livingston pitch
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Proposal for funding bytesandbricks.com

Bytesandbricks.com, a blog that explores the relationship between information architecture and real-world architecture and explains their relevance to website and urban design, is a student enterprise that requires external funding to realize its potential. Pamela Livingston, an Interactive Communications student in Quinnipiac University’s online master of science program, is sole proprietor. She seeks $X in private funding to support research necessary for continued publication.

Executive Summary

Bytesandbricks.com may be the only blog of its kind on the Internet. Still in its infancy, the blog is intended to explore the relationship of information architecture to real-world architecture and the possible effects of that relationship on the design and construction of virtual and real-world structures. In exploring these effects, it will also explore the effects that these structures have on user experience — how people feel about using a system (e.g., website or building), whether they value it, and whether it meets their needs.

Problem Statement

New and upgraded consumer technologies, such as smart phones, personal computers, personal digital assistants, and global positioning systems come to market at an ever-faster pace. Similar technologies that can enhance the function and utility of buildings and other structures are available or will be soon. Technology manufacturers need designers who understand how to design the navigation and organize the content of the devices they sell. Without these features, their products will fail in the marketplace. City and community planners need architects who not only understand and design for people’s needs and preferences, but also employ the latest technology to make built structures easy to navigate and a pleasure to use.

Free online content on these topics is in short supply. A search yielded a few websites and blogs with relevant content. But worthy as they are, none deals exclusively with this topic. ICM students and people at large who are interested in how the design of virtual and real-world structures affects them would benefit from a blog that provides this information.

Project Description

Bytesandbricks.com is a student blog created as a class assignment for ICM 501, Introduction to Interactive Communications, and continued for ICM 506, Writing for Interactive Media. ICM student blogger Pamela Livingston chose this topic because it aligns her career goals with her personal interests.

Ms. Livingston will use available online and print resources to research her topic and report her findings in her blog.

Online resources include:

Print resources include:

  • Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, 2nd Edition, by Christina Wodtke and Austin Govella(New Riders: Jan. 22., 2009)
  • Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3nd Edition, by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (O’Reilly Media: Nov. 27, 2006)
  • Interactive Cities, by Anomalie Digital Arts*
    *Depending on price

As she has done with previous posts, she will also visit new and noteworthy sites in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to learn and write about them in the context of her chosen topic.

Ms. Livingston will work on this project alone. She will measure success from the feedback given by her professor and peers in her ICM class.

About Us

Ms. Livingston is an HFI certified usability analyst and has worked in the field of usability and user experience for five years. She architected sites within an intranet portal serving a large professional services firm and organized and wrote content for help systems used by this same employer. She also worked as a technical writer and editor and briefly as a print journalist.

Ms. Livingston is a fan of architecture, HGTV, and urban history, especially from a structural point of view. She was among the first to purchase a loft space in a vacant 130-year-old factory in Nashville, and she is pleased to see the building (on the National Register of Historic Places) restored and its surrounding neighborhood thrive.

She is working toward a master’s degree in Interactive Communications and will apply what she has learned in class to the bytesandbricks.com blog.

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2011 02 28 Pamela Livingston module 4
proposal
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Thoughts on “The Sound of Your Voice”

Zinsser makes a strong case for finding your voice as a writer. I believe him when he says, “My commodity as a writer, whatever I’m writing about, is me.” That is true for writing that has a byline, but not for content that does not. That includes content for popular consumption, including news and special-interest magazines. In news magazines like Time, that sometimes, but not always, list one or more contributors to an article, articles sound as though they were written by a single writer, even though the contributors’ list shows they were not. Probably an editor packages disparate contributions for a single article to give it a single voice. And probably editorial style guides contributors to write contributions that can be seamlessly packaged with those of other writers.

Beauty and fashion magazines typically have a single voice, even when contributors have a byline. Maybe editors craft contributions to give them the magazine’s voice, or maybe contributors fit their writing to the magazine’s style. Zinsser says that readers don’t like being talked down to, but readers of magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan must. These have a “just-us-girls” voice that matches the magazine’s light content. These magazines gush trivia that captures readers’ attention, while allowing them to take a mental vacation from serious thought. They use cheap slang that Zinsser advises writers to avoid to create a persona that readers trust and emulate in thought, language, and lifestyle. Writers deliberately chose the slang terms “gorge” and “banging” in the example below. For their audience, cheap slang works.

“We’ve got lots of gorge runway photos to looks at! (Glamour, 2/18/2011)

“Despite being born with a rare and debilitating genetic disease, Lauren Ruotolo, an entertainment executive in New York City who works closely with Cosmo, busted her ass to have it all –” hot job, hotter boyfriend, and a banging shoe collection.” (Cosmopolitan, 2/18/2011)

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How to migrate content to Tridion

All websites require content management of some sort, even if management consists only of transferring image and text files to a host server for publication using a previously acquired domain name, and then publishing the transferred content so that anyone can access it on the Internet.

This technique works well for blogs and other small websites that have little or no interactivity, few pages, and few contributors. This technique does not work well for large organizations that need to publish and frequently update collaborative and/or interactive content from many departments. For large organizations, content management systems designed to accommodate interactivity and multiple contributors, pages and page types, users and user groups, work best.

One such content management system is SDL Tridion. Widely used in Europe and gaining ground in the United States, this proprietary software platform enables large, multi-departmental organizations to, Wikipedia says, “deliver an interactive and targeted customer experience, in multiple languages, across multiple websites and channels.” Tridion can be used out-of-the-box or customized to an organization’s needs.

Organizations adopting Tridion to replace the platform for their existing website must “migrate” (i.e., move) content from the old site to the new.

The steps below explain how to migrate content to a Tridion platform that has been licensed, installed, and integrated with IBM Portal.

Migrate content to “building blocks”

In Tridion, content is stored in files known as content components or building blocks. These building blocks store content in small chunks that can be used on multiple webpages. Updates to building blocks appear on all pages containing them when pages are republished.

To migrate content to Tridion, complete the steps below.

  1. Type the IP address for your licensed Tridion application in your browser.
  2. When your browser displays the Tridion homepage, navigate to Content Management (Building Blocks).
  3. Double-click Building Blocks to display the file directory, which contains folders created for your organization prior to the content migration/content creation effort.
  4. Navigate to the folder (e.g., “About Us”) that is to contain the new content component.
  5. Click the New Component icon on the menu bar. A tooltip identifying the gray box as a New Component appears on hover.
  6. Using the file-naming convention established by your organization, type the file name for the New Component in the File Name field. File-naming conventions make file names consistent to ensure that content is easy to find and is stored and published where it belongs.
  7. Click the Schema dropdown and select an appropriate schema from the list of 10 (list size varies with organizational needs) for the content you are migrating. For example, select the General schema for body text that is to appear in the center column of a three-column webpage. Or select the News Press Right schema for content that is to appear in the right column.
  8. Click the Content Component tab to display the user interface for capturing headings, body text, and hyperlinks.
  9. Click the plus (+) tab on your browser to display a blank webpage.
  10. Type the URL for the existing site in the browser or select it from the browser’s dropdown list.
  11. Navigate to the page you want to migrate.
  12. Copy the headline from that page.
  13. Use the Paste tool to paste the headline into the Headline field. (Using the Paste tool ensures that pasted content will be correctly displayed when published.)
  14. Copy body text up to the first subheading and, using the Paste tool, paste into the rich-text field.
  15. Click the Source tab to display HTML source code. Confirm that anchor tags for hyperlinks are correctly formatted and correct them if necessary. NOTE: You will have to create link components for these in a separate task. Remove unnecessary span tags and make any other corrections to HTML tags for headings, paragraphs, and lists.
  16. Click Save, but leave the content component open.
  17. Navigate to the Links folder in your selected content area.
  18. Click New Component and complete the Name and Schema fields.
  19. Click the Content Component tab to display the user interface for capturing the link name and link file path (file path to linked-to content within Tridion).
  20. Complete required fields and save and close the link component.
  21. Return to the open content component. Highlight text that is to be hyperlinked.
  22. Click the Hyperlink tool in the top menu bar to display the hyperlink dialog box.
  23. Select Component from the dropdown options list
  24. Click OK and save your changes.
  25. Click the Metadata tab and select appropriate categories and keywords. You may also type related terms in the Metadata field.
  26. Click Save & Close to save the new content component to its Tridion folder.
  27. Repeat these steps to migrate all content for each existing content area (e.g., About Us, Contact Us, Goods, and Services).

Next steps

In Tridion, building blocks are inserted in page templates that display webpages when published. Page templates reside in a “Structure Group” area of Tridion. Structure groups map to a website’s organization, and structure group names define a website’s navigation. For example, an About Us structure group, when published, would appear in the top navigation bar of a site, and all About Us sub-structure groups would appear in the left navigation and top fly-out menu.

To create pages, navigate to the structure group for the content area (e.g., About Us) that you are working in and open a new page template. Insert building blocks into the template in an order matching the organization of content on the existing site. Save the populated template, publish, and confirm your work.

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2011 02 14 Pamela Livingston CMS Content Migration Comments (5) Permalink

Pamela’s LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn

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2011 02 09 Pamela Livingston Writing for the Web Comments (6) Permalink

Thoughts on “Business Writing”

Zinsser makes his point comparing George Orwell’s version of Ecclesiastes with the Bible’s version, but having worked as a technical writer a number of years, I am certain that  Orwell’s version would get the OK from higher-ups, and the Bible’s version would not. If a business writer turned in something like the Biblical version, he or she would (a) have to rewrite it and (b) be in serious trouble.

The “flabby nouns with generalized meanings” that Zinsser cites have meaning to the business people who use them. The meaning is not a precise definition, but a shared feeling about how to communicate appropriately in a business setting. If you substituted a strong, precise term, you’d be making waves and putting a different spin on communications.

I recall that when he was vice president, Al Gore created a No Gobbledygook Award to recognize “federal employees who use plain language in creative ways.” It looks like the award is no longer given out, probably because there’s no more gobbledygook in government. 🙂

It looks like the award is no longer given out, probably because there’s no more gobbledygook in government. J
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2011 02 08 Pamela Livingston The Value of Imprecision in Business Writing
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Thoughts on “Writing About Places”

Zinsser says that writing about places — “beautiful, historically significant places that tourists spend time and money to visit” — is “very hard.” He says that written descriptions of such places are often “just plain terrible” because they rely on syrupy, subjective language and “groaning platitudes.” The descriptions are terrible because they are trite.

If it’s hard not to be trite writing about places that are not trite (but beautiful and historical), is it harder still to write about trite places like strip malls and gasoline stations? I think it’s probably as hard, and the technique is probably the same. You strive for accuracy, and if you get it right and the commonplace information you have captured is relevant, you will succeed.

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2011 02 08 Pamela Livingston The Value of Imprecision in Business Writing
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