Wired on Wednesdays

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Hands on science at Discovery Days at AT&T Park.

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speciesoftheday:

The Saiga antelope, Saiga tatarica, may be one of the oddest looking mammals on the planet. Distinct in appearance, the species has a unique enlarged nose similar to a shortened elephant trunk. It is thought that the enlarged nose helps to filter out dust particles in the dry summer...

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Tour of the USS Carl Vinson

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Fleet Week 2011 Parade of Ships

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Britney, Liz & Me

Last Sunday, March 27, San Francisco’s Castro district was in full celebrity onslaught: Britney Spears came to visit. She didn’t fail to deliver on her mega-watt status. For weeks, the blogosphere and social media universe had been abuzz about Britney’s new album, Femme Fatale, and the album’s launch via a special appearance on Good Morning America.  The GMA spot was to be taped in advance – a mini concert to take place in front of San Francisco’s iconic Castro Theatre: a perfect way to introduce Britney to a new generation of gay fans. Fearing an outdoor concert would be rained out (the weather had been precarious all week), the organizers moved the performance indoors. What was Castro to do? Never fear – former Supervisor Bevan Dufty and current Castro supervisor Scott Wiener arranged for a post-concert tour for Britney of the epicenter of the LGBT Universe: 94114 A lot was made over the past few days about whether or not Britney’s new-found affinity for the LGBT community was genuine. It’s an interesting and valid discussion. From my point of view: I have no idea. However, what I do know – having organized more than my fair share of celebrity ‘drive bys’ for PR purposes – is that her 15 minute post-concert visit to the Castro generated more social media attention, more news coverage and more visibility (all positive) for at least three of our community institutions than a year’s worth of press releases. I’m glad she came. Dufty and Wiener were beaming, rightfully proud, as Britney came – sans publicity – to her first stop: Castro’s GLBT History Museum (http://www.glbthistory.org/), the only such collection in the United States and one of only two in the world. Then, she scooted over to Under One Roof (www.underoneroof.org) -- the world’s first retail outlet for AIDS / HIV relief – where a figure of Britney, courtesy of the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf (www.waxmuseum.com) had been drawing attention all week. By this time, cellphone coverage was scant in the gay ‘hood as hundreds of people starting ‘tweeting’ and ‘Facebooking’ about Britney’s unannounced drop-in. I had known of the visit for several hours, hoping to get Britney to Under One Roof, an organization of which I was one of the founders in 1990. Spying Bevan at the concert I coyly asked: Perry:  “Any chance of Britney visting Under One Roof?” Dufty: “Trust me…” Perry:  “So, trusting you – what time should I leave the concert to make sure I don’t miss anything.” Dufty: “I said nothing, but if word of this leaks, it won’t happen.” Perry: “I understand.” It was like a gay “Checkpoint Charlie” moment. I understood perfectly. Britney’s security people were already hyperbolic – and with good reason. Does anyone doubt the danger of celebrity in 2011? There are lots of crazy people out there. So, mum was the word. I texted Bevan from Under One Roof (having slipped out early to get there in time for a staged photo) and reported back: “All quiet in Castro. No one know’s she coming.”  “Good,” was Bevan’s one word reply. Ten minutes later – all Britney broke loose. Fifteen minutes after that, videos, photos and texts of Britney’s visit to the Castro were winging around the world. Kvelling over a post-Britney blood mary with my husband, Alfredo Casuso, colleague Michael Micael (a major Britney fan who was almost catatonic having had the opportunity to photograph her up close) and dear friend Martha, it made me think about how celebrity is now marketed, repackaged and instantly available in a way it never was before, and now is expected to be. As we walked along the now post frenzied street  – celebrity drained like a suddenly opened sink stopper, I looked across to the corner of 18th & Castro, and a simple, hand-written sign, garlanded with flowers: a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor who had died just three days previous to Britney’s visit. Elizabeth Taylor – the last true star. Elizabeth Taylor – the first personality to make AIDS/HIV awareness a truly personal cause.  Elizabeth Taylor – the first celebrity to embrace the LGBT community, before it was LGBT-chic. I met Elizabeth Taylor – kinda – in 1987, right before the Third International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC. I was recently graduated from college, and making ends meet by catering for the oh-so-swanky catering firm “Glorious Food.” That night’s assignment: the AIDS Conference pre-party high atop one of DC’s toniest condo developments overlooking the Potomac. Everyone was there: C.Everett Koop (he dripped cocktail sauce on the carpet as I served him), a gaggle of congressmen, a senator or two, pundits and closeted White House staffers by the fistful. Finally, when the party seemed it could not take another security clearance, in SHE walked: Elizabeth Taylor. Being comprised 95% of gay men, the entire catering crew abandoned their bars and serving trays to crowd the doorway looking into the cavernous entry hall eight stories above Georgetown, just to get a glimpse of her.  She was stunning: in the midst of one of her perennial “I’m gorgeous again” moments between husbands and weight-gains. She was Cleopatra in pink Chanel, pink high heels, and pink sparkly things in her hair. The only things not pink were here daughter – Liza Todd – on one side, and the very tan (not pink) George Hamilton on the other. Oh yes – two other things were not pink: those Liz Taylor eyes of which everyone in the room had heard and spied in magazined. They were truly violet.  Everyone applauded. The catering director swished us back to work. As I re-grabbed my tray of party shrimp, someone grasped my arm: “Excuse me,” someone looking like a cross between the innocence that was National Velvet and the steamy sexuality of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof queried me – Liza Todd. “My mother is looking for a comb. Do you have one?” For once in my life, I was without one. I shrugged, helpless, and Liza – a mini of her famous mom, thanked me politely and went in search of a comb.  After the party cleared out, one of the waiters squealed with delight, having found a comb with a lock of Taylor’s hair in its teeth. He carried it around to show us like a Bishop holding the host before communion. As I recall, I few of us did bow. Then, about a dozen of us (me included) went downstairs to stand outside the AIDS conference and protest what we had heard the President was going to do: give a lukewarm and compassionless talk on AIDS calling for abstinence and mandatory testing. We never made it inside the Conference ourselves, but we later say the TV coverage: Liz looked angry. Later, I saw an interview she gave in which she said (and I paraphrase): “That was the first and last time I ever let the President of the United States get by with saying something like that.” And it was. By the time “La Liz” discovered AIDS, the heyday of her movie stardom was over. She knew it. The world knew it. So did one of her best friends and legendary costars know it: Rock Hudson. Liz was not someone who wore “AIDS Awareness” like a fashionable red ribbon to the Oscars, or to shore up a sagging marketing campaign. Liz Taylor was an actress who had worked with gay men all her life. When one of those gay men, Rock Hudson – a screen Giant equal to her – was dying from AIDS, she went to war. For the remaining 25 years of her life – almost a third of her entire existence, Liz Taylor was the celebrity face of AIDS. When she became that face, no one wanted to “court” the gay community – in this country the ravaged face of AIDS before Liz took up the cause. Now, Hollywood starlets, starnots and celebrity bloggers hasten down the road that Harvey Milk built. Are they sincere? Are they homophobic? Are they just being overly-PRed? I don’t know. But, I do know this: the LGBT community in 2011 will not be ignored. So, I say “welcome Britney” (and anyone else who realize they ignore us at their retail peril). So, on Sunday, March 27, I happily welcomed Britney to the Castro and said “hello.” But, as her motorcade sped away, I looked to the spontaneous and homespun tribute to Liz Taylor at the crossroads of America gay culture that is San Francisco’s 18th & Castro and quietly said “Goodbye.”

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Wired Too Far

I am thankful that Facebook, Twitter & YouTube were not yet invented on September 11, 2001. Or, for that matter on August 6, 1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima…or on April 15, 1912 when the Titanic sank; July 3, 1863 when scores of Americans – the Blue and the Gray – lay bullet ridden across the farm land of Gettysburg.

 I have felt guilty since late last Thursday night – laying in my bed watching the almost apocalyptic images from Japan – about using any of those tools which have become so much a part of my daily life (Facebook, Twitter & YouTube) for anything so casual as “check this article on our client” or “wow, what a great new idea from so-and-so” or “don’t miss movie whatever.” I posted photos from a road trip we took this weekend and it almost made me feel dirty: playful photos wedged between stories of Japanese devastation.

For the last week, because of people just like me – wired to a degree inconceivable on September 11, 2001, or August 6, 1945, April 15, 1912 or July 3, 1863 – I was able to see catastrophe up close and instantaneous.

 December 26, 2004: The Indonesian earthquake and tsunami. It killed 230,000 people in fourteen countries. It, too, was witnessed to a large degree via social media. Why, then, does Japan seem different? Why my guilt? As I watch – again and again and again – the increasingly horrific and depressingly futile images from Japan I can only answer: because these people seem just like me: professional, first-world, ordinary, wired.  The tsunami in the Indian ocean leveled entire populations and changed the rotation of the earth. The earthquake in Haiti destroyed a city and killed over 100,000. Japan: 10,000 or more dead, certainly, when the rubble (if ever) is finally cleared from cities and towns with houses, and boats and cars and televisions just like the ones I have; my friends have.

It seems different, and for that I feel guilty, or at least uncomfortable.

The Loma Prieta Earthquake. The death of Princess Diana. September 11th. The Indian Ocean Tsunami. The Haitian Earthquake – those are the turning points of my news-oriented life. These are the things that make me say “I remember exactly where I was when.” For my grandmother it was Pearl Harbor, V-E and V-J Day, the assassination of JFK. My first “TV memory” was watching, live, the assassination of Robert Kennedy. At six years old I could still tell, looking over my shoulder at my grandmother and aunt Helen, that I had seen something “bad” on TV as I kept hearing people scream from the screen: “is there a doctor in the house?”

For each of those non-social media-covered events, the media of the day was there: informing us, educating us, shocking us, making us part of the event. Sometimes, like this past week, I wonder: is it all too much?

I am thankful that Facebook, Twitter & YouTube were not yet invented on September 11, 2001. The images and emotion of that day were covered – endlessly—by TV (which now lives forever on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube) but imagine if there had been the ability to “tweet” from the World Trade Center or post images from Flight 93? It was already “too much.” How much is “too” too much?

The news from Japan has been delivered by citizens now capable of being both victim and journalist. It is not a good thing, nor a bad thing. It is the world in which we live. And, while those citizens, living in what has been promoted as the country most prepared for a natural disaster, pick themselves up from the aftershocks of nature’s wrath, they await the nuclear winds of man’s.

Several times this week, I have turned to my husband and asked: “Is the world worse now that it was in times past” to which, his wise answer has been: “No. Now, we just hear about it quicker.”

I know he is correct, and I like to stay informed. However, this week (and let’s not forget about the bloodshed in Libya or a 100 other spots around the globe or even down the street where someone may be suffering a violent crime), it has been almost too, too much.

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Thumbs Up

My grandmother had a green thumb. Everything she touched flourished: roses, tomatoes, butterbeans, family. And the fertilizer she used with that last item was wisdom -- sprinkled liberally around the kitchen or garden where she spent most of her time. "Son, when you get sick it's your body telling you to take a rest," and she'd promptly steer her cold gripped grandson, griping, to his bed with a rejoinder: "No TV - REST and when you wake up, you can read." Some 40 (or so) years later I lie here in my bed -- cold gripped -- remembering my grandmothers rule of thumb and wonder: would Grandma have allowed me an iPhone? Would that be considered TV or reading? Or -- is it really just a way to avoid the lesson my Grandma said was forcefully delivered by the flu and its minions: "Son, when you get sick it's your body telling you to take a rest." I rarely get sick -- like this: flat on my back, coughing, moping, sniffling, aching and drinking enough liquids (I'm a firm believer as was my grandmother in 'drowning a cold') to power the Hoover Hydroelectric Grid. The last time I was forced to the horizontal was April 2008, right after handling PR for the running of the Olympic Torch in San Francisco on its way to the Beijing Olympics. For six months we planned, working with a dozen agencies: Mayor's Office, Olympic Committee, Homeland Security, Police, Chinese Consulate and Ambassador (you get the picture). The day of the Torch run -- everything changed due to security issues. We had to pivot on a dime and thumb our noses at months of planning. I found myself, suddenly, on international TV around the world giving background and information on a breaking news story.  It was the most exciting, gratifying and nerve-wracking day of my professional life. Two days later: I lost my voice and took to my bed with the grandmother of all colds/flus. "Son, when you get sick it's your body telling you to take a rest." So, not quite three years "post torch" I'm flat on my back again, surrounded by the familiar grandmaternal weapons of juice, tea, bed-rest and Vicks Vapor Rub plus a "book" by whose technology she would have been stunned; my iPhone. "I'm all thumbs," my Grandma would laugh as she dropped a spool of thread or a roll slipped off the baking sheet as it came, piping out, out of the oven. "I'm just as clumsy as I can be!" Now, her grandson (who truly is as clumsy as he can be) writes this blog -- cold-gripped and in the dark --- using all, actually ONE of his, thumbs. Someone else who understands the importance of thumbs is author and internationally-acclaimed financial advisor Rachel Minard. In her new book, "Speaking in Thumbs: the Handbook of Empathy" (www.speakinginthumbs.com) Rachel develops the concept of "personal currency" and  shares her theory on how to recognize the personal currency of others. It's all part of her main treatise:  how empathy plays an important role in building relationships and relating to others on a human level. I have to admit, every three years, I enjoy having a really bad cold. It gives me a chance to sit on my thumbs and take my grandmother's advice to heart. "Son, when you get sick it's your body telling you to take a rest." With one thumb for reading Rachel's visionary new book (my husband's iPad is wonderful but it takes two hands) on my iPhone and the other free to grab a cup of tea in my Grandma's mug, I'm thumbing my very stuffed nose at the office for a couple of days. I've got everything I need right here: thumbs down.

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Its Flaw? It's Your Computer's Fault

Computers may win at Jeopardy but they're lousy spellers.

To whit: in the last week alone I have seen several expensive paid advertisements in print, online and on TV which mis-use "its" -- not to mention being invited to scholarly seminars which also have garbled "its", "it's" and generally slaughtered the humble apostrophe with consistent mis-use. Don't even get me started about "they're, their & there."

The criminal attitude toward "your" vs. "you're" is also right up there.   I'm on a campaign (and have been since the invention of "spell check" which, un-checked is wreaking havoc on the English language). How can I make this clear: anyone paid to use English should know how to use it. Plus, they should learn now -- if they've not already done so: don't trust "spell check." The Apple iphone is an especially egregious example. Every time I type "its" -- correctly used -- it INSISTS on adding an apostrophe. "Watson, come quick, I need you!"  It's almost as annoying as that animated paper-clip that used to roar up on a digi-cycle when I turned on my computer. Please -- enough help already from technology: just give me a dictionary.  

So -- a reminder to all those that venture into writing, blogging (micro and otherwise): don't trust "spell check" and remember (and practice) these:

"It's" has one use only -- now, then, forever and for all eternity: "it's" = short for "it is." The possessive NEVER uses the apostrophe: Its place is secure as long as it's remembered and practiced correctly.

The trilogy of "there" vs. "they're" vs. "their" is diabolical to those for whom English is not a language of birth. But, really, if you can spell Facebook you can learn how to use these three properly.

You're on your own when it comes to "your" and "you're." Practice makes perfect.

Lest one think I'm a copy cat (in addition to being on a roll), I wrote this column before the New York Times got on its high horse about this exact same issue. Great minds think alike, or....(should you find a typo in this blog) our motto is: "All the news that fits, we print."  

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Social Media Hygiene by David Perry

Wednesdays is the best day for me, work-wise: Monday has been survived, and Friday seems approachable. Even in this age of 24/7 availability, it's important to set (and honor) some parameters. Or, as someone at the Princeton Alum Networking Group  asked last night after I gave a talk on best social media practices*: "What is your online hygiene?" It made me think. So, here it is, my "online day" and how I manage the (welcome) barrage of content every day and weekly.

6am: awake, climb for coffee

6:15am - 7am: back in bed, where I scroll through email (still the killer app as far as work is concerned) and "triage" it. It's important, I feel, to respond to EVERY legit email I receive. However, sometimes the email is just a quick personal (not auto responder) note which says, 'thanks: I'll get back to you in a few days unless this is time sensitive" and then I "triage" the email to a folder I've created with the week's date (ie 02.14.11 Emails). At the end of the week, I check and see what aging correspondence I have on which I need to followup.

7am: Scroll through "Facebook" for interesting articles and post the links to my wall and "Twitter" feed. Also, I "tweet" about any of my clients (especially restaurant and performing arts clients) that have events / specials / etc. going on that day.

7:30am: gym with my oldest friend, who since he is 22 years my senior, I have a hard time rejecting at this early work-out hour. :-) On the stairmaster, I scroll through various news sites and watch whatever "CNN" is telling me about the world

9am: at my home office desk, actually "work:" Studies show that it takes at least 15 minutes of "doing nothing" to start the creative process. Often in an office with the distractions of phones and fellow workers, 15 un-interrupted minutes are hard to find. For me, I find an hour or two in the morning at my laptop is the most creative part of my day: I don't answer the phone and I (try) to ignore all social media so I can actually write and be 'pro-active' vs. 'reaactive.'

11am onward: meetings and whatever the day throws at me. Between meetings, I check in briefly to "Facebook" and my email.

5pm: While we all seem to work way before 9am and way after 5pm, I feel that boundaries are important. Our office phone goes to voicemail at 5pm on the dot. Journalists and other important calls have my cellphone number. But, even then, I often let calls go to voicemail. Miss Manners (a wonderful columnist with whom I first fell in love during her early "Washington Post" days) said that voicemail and answering machines are "the modern butler: just because someone calls doesn't mean you are READY to take the call." Here here: the same is true for good media relations. Better to hear a reporter's question and take a few minutes (sometimes a very few minutes) to respond in a way that is professional and focused.

Weekends: we all need them. So, at 5pm on Fridays, I "officially" stop work. And, while I may choose to write or DRAFT emails / correspondence, etc. over the weekend, I don't return business calls or send business emails until Monday AM. DRAFT is a wonderful tool on email. Be creative, but don't pester reporters or colleagues (unless they've asked to) on weekends. Ditto for clients. I love my clients. I NEED my clients. However, with rare exceptions do I accept calls or emails from them on the weekend.   Response to another question from last night: "What trends do I see in social media?" The answer: personalize it. Thankfully I type fast, but we all have time to say 'please' when asking someone to join our networks, and 'thank you' when they do. My grandmother born in 1898 said that 'please' and 'thank you' are the magic words. She was right.   Until next week, Ahoy   * note: I'm not a Princeton alum, but I was honored to be asked to speak to their group.